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well this even gets juicier because I just realized one of these guys said that pc gaming in the 80s was amazing.
Thread: 13 Ways To End Lousy PC Ports in 2023 - Digital Foundry
I mean you could choose a Tandy monitor in a choice of 4 neon display colours. That's the only amazing thing I can see. That person probably had a waterbed, also amazing.
Sean Mirrsen
Member
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And as a result of gaming through the 90s, I know more about how to fix my PC when it's not working than 90% of "PC repair experts" that offer their services nowadays.
It's like owning a Russian car. It's a pain to drive and a pain to fix, but you learn to do both and you're that much better off for it.
Or you get a mac that lasts ten years and consoles to play on. How's your popov indicator on your Lada?
I kind of get where @Snes nes is coming from as an outsider looking in, but as someone who gamed on PC in the late 80's and early 90's, when you had no frame of reference to an alternative, the steep learning curve and knowlrdge required to get games running, up to and including having to program a game yourself into your computer, from code printed in a bloody magazine in the early days, there was a steady progress of things just getting easier and easier, and at the time it felt like every new bit of hardware made gaming a breeze compared to what came before.
By the late 90's it was still a pain in the arse compared to a console, but they were such different ecosystems with such divergent gaming priorities, that you'd not notice those issues being anything other than normal, because it was very much like the difference between TV shows and movies. You just flat out had different expectations going in.
By the late 90's it was still a pain in the arse compared to a console, but they were such different ecosystems with such divergent gaming priorities, that you'd not notice those issues being anything other than normal, because it was very much like the difference between TV shows and movies. You just flat out had different expectations going in.
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Honestly that was the best thing about it. It pays off knowing that stuff for sure.
I owe my current career with its massive salary to the fact that early computers used games to lure you into learning how they work and as @DonDonDonPata mentions above sometimes even coding them yourself (age 7 I was spotting and fixing errors in magazine printouts of code).
On the games themselves - pc gaming was the next step from the Amiga and ST which were steps on from C64, Spectrum, etc. They all had a different character because the medium shapes the message. We had different input to consoles and different hardware capabilities so the games evolved differently. The convergence that came with ports took away something of the unique character of PC gaming.
Edited for autocorrect.
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You're*
The arrogance of youth is someone that wasn't even alive presuming they can match the lived experience of the people that were there. A bit of testing and YouTube isn't lived experience of an era. You should be respecting your elders and asking questions, young man/lady.
Trust me, in 10-20 years you're going to have some kid try to tell you your consoles were shit because they weren't a SonySoft XStation 7, and you're going to think he will never realise why he isn't qualified to comment because there was more to it.
PC wouldn't be half as popular had there been massive advancements in convenience, that's never been in question. The fact that you can plug in a console's controller and have it work is a wonderful thing, even if Xinput only accounts for MS's own controller. Compatibility and convenience is better across the board now. Steam alone dragged PC into modernity by itself, and without the convenience it introduced PC would be all over the place still. But that aspect of it isn't everything. If you're making something a big deal that wasn't such an issue for the people that were there, despite being told, then you're always going to be commenting on something you don't fully understand
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- Platforms
You're*
The arrogance of youth is someone that wasn't even alive presuming they can match the lived experience of the people that were there. A bit of testing and YouTube isn't lived experience of an era. You should be respecting your elders and asking questions, young man/lady.
Trust me, in 10-20 years you're going to have some kid try to tell you your consoles were shit because they weren't a SonySoft XStation 7, and you're going to think he will never realise why he isn't qualified to comment because there was more to it.
PC wouldn't be half as popular had there been massive advancements in convenience, that's never been in question. The fact that you can plug in a console's controller and have it work is a wonderful thing, even if Xinput only accounts for MS's own controller. Compatibility and convenience is better across the board now. Steam alone dragged PC into modernity by itself, and without the convenience it introduced PC would be all over the place still. But that aspect of it isn't everything. If you're making something a big deal that wasn't such an issue for the people that were there, despite being told, then you're always going to be commenting on something you don't fully understand
I think were both misunderstanding one another. I'm not trying to be a soyboy zoomer blob thing thing complaining about old technology. I like old technology it really does interest me and I don't give much of a crap about graphics or framerate a game is a game. I could care less. If I were to try win98 or dos (which I have and it does work fine for the most part mind you) I'd be more than happy to put up with those problems as I have done in virtualbox. I mean for the most part they work fine but the original commentor seemed like he was trying to say everything was way better in the 90s and 80s. Regarding the games to me thats a nobrainer but the issues with dealing with the os's were a huge detriment and yes it was cool to be able to use a gui and have those features for the first time. I'm not trying to gloss over that nor am I trying to hate on anything and as you said. The innovation that was win95 was awesome. The networking capabilities in 98 were awesome you could finally browse the web play games online through dial up etc. I mean it was a great time for gaming as well you had a ton of cool games like doom, quake, aoe starcraft, etc. It was a great time. I like a lot of those games as well and win98 does have a lot of things I do like about it such as its simple interface.
Also I really get the people crapping on old stuff is annoying I'm sorry for coming off as that one idiot thats just hating on old technology that grates my nerves when I see people crap on old games because "muh bad framerate" or whatever bs their saying. I see this even here on this forum it seems to be trendy to hate on old video games now. The other day I saw this video of this idiot talking about mario kart 64 getting some hd models and was spending 10 minutes crapping on the game. That kind of stuff is annoying and I came across as that one guy. My apologies.
I've had gaming PCs since the 90s. I honestly don't recall having major issues playing games. The sound card issues rings a bell, though.
Pfft, consoles are for babies and manchildren. I kid, I kid - that said, I still wouldn't use a mac.
I have to use a Mac for work. I despise the fucking thing.
I don't remember ever buying a PC game disc on a store, getting home and it not working. In the time periods where I had an old ass PC, even as a kid it was pretty easy to understand that some game required better hardware.
In my experience modern games are a lot more prone to technical issues regardless of your hardware.
Polished AAA games are already pretty rare to find, even more so ones that also have a good port/PC version.
In my experience modern games are a lot more prone to technical issues regardless of your hardware.
Polished AAA games are already pretty rare to find, even more so ones that also have a good port/PC version.
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No need to apologise, you haven't offended anyone! I only wanted to impart a bit of perspective, that's all. People know you respect the old stuff, it's not like you only play Fortnite and Call of Duty.
I agree with you more than you might realise, too. Personally, I find the convenience of today's technology, software, and markets to be a game change from back then thanks to efforts to preserve compatibility with older software. You get the best of both worlds now if you want them, and the advantages of playing on older hardware are lessened as time goes on. Except CRT, of course. The current market is different, but a beauty of PC is the back catalogue so you don't have to live in the present.
Sean Mirrsen
Member
- Platforms
Another nice way to improve the quality of PC ports: forget that the two latest generations of PC hardware exist.
A lot of problems may be solved if developers stop thinking they have overhead to work with.
A lot of problems may be solved if developers stop thinking they have overhead to work with.
Many years from now nobody is going to care or remember how convinient/cheap/acessible playing a certain game of today was. PC was great because the games were great, that's it. If what it took to play something was setting up a LAN that's what we did.
PC isn't Windows. Windows always sucked and probably always will, PC is much bigger than just the OS. Your timeline of events is all weird as well, tying Windows versions and giving credit to them for functionalities that existed way before they were released.
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l was apologizing for coming off rude and I think I rubbed a few people the wrong way with my wording.. And yeah I like that we don't have to live in the present we get everything on pc and thats whats great about it. I can play a ps1 game via emulation or a old computer game on a modern operating system depending on how the windows compatibility will work or the condition of the rom image.
I've got to hand it to Valve, they've wanted to expand Linux gaming for years but never found the way in until Proton and using it on Steam Deck. I don't think anyone is under any illusions as to how Linux could possibly get, but having extra options can only ever be a benefit and the more people that take it up the better it will be.
The progress on the Linux front is just absurd, I completely made the switch to Linux and I'm not looking back (that's before the Steam Deck even becomes available in my country).
I see MS as very vulnerable with W11 given how terrible it is and Sony/Nintendo/Xbox should also be paying attention to what Valve is doing and how they make their moves thinking about the long term. What happens when Valve shows up with a Steam Deck like console that is even more refined than the Deck already is? Just as simple to set up and operate, no paid online, cheaper games, bigger library, newer hardware, no bullshit.
Sony as of right now doesn't even have a decent solution for people to play most of their own PS1/PS2/PS3/PSP/PSV games, have no portable solution and are publishing their games on Steam.
Valve was able to completely fend off against Epic antics without even engaging with them and pretty much all third-party publishers ended up coming back to Steam (even MS, Activision and EA). I would not be surprised if Valve has even more ambitious plans to protect their business against aggressive moves that are being made, specially by MS.
The Deck shows how things can come together rather quickly (even if in reality Valve was working on making gaming on Linux a thing for a long ass time).
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