What games showcased and/or what time period were the "turning points" to when PC games started to look better than console games?
>>3218983
PC games have always looked better than console games.
>>3218983
I guess the late 90's or early 00's
PC games have always "looked better".
If you mean surpassed consoles completely then in the 2000s with 6th generation. Prior consoles had an edge in some form or another. Scrolling, launch hardware capability to present PC hardware, etc.
>>3218987
This. What kind of idiot made this thread?
>mfw
PC is for fps, rts, and sim games
Consoles for platformers, beat em ups, rpgs.
Everybody knows that
>graphics
Fuck you
>>3219027
Modern gamers buy consoles for walking sims, QTE/cinematic games, and FPSes now.
PC is pretty an indie box.
What kind of PC and what kind of games?
Try comparing Atari VCS and Apple ][. The main advantage the VCS had was that it cost one tenth of the price.
>>3219032
"Modern gamers" buy consoles out of technical ineptidity and convenience.
Not because they prefer a specific genre.
>>3219021
Salty current gen console peasants. IMO though PCs only "fully" (Hardware accelerated 3D, Hardware T&L, shaders, proper audio support, etc.) caught up to console hardware in the 2000's.
>>3219052
What are you basing that on? I love console games too, but come on there's no contest at all.
>>3219071
>3 fps
>>3219045
Wrong. See the top selling games.
Though you can say they buy it for streaming also.
>>3219084
It's much better than that, but even if it was it's still more impressive than consoles could pull off at the time. Go look at Ultima IV on PC vs NES.
>>3219105
Okay now you go look at Mega Man on NES vs PC
>PC gaming
>>3219109
One or two bad ports doesn't make your point. If you want to believe consoles were always on par or superior to PCs then that's your shit. But you're just plain wrong and I have better things to do than discuss it with you.
>>3219119
>one or two
unfortunately, PC was plagued by bad ports from arcade/console games.
Thank companies like U.S. Gold.
>>3219071
Sure, most PCs are versatile, but they tended to require a fast and expensive CPU since most things (like side-scrolling, 3D, advanced multi-channel audio, T&L, etc.) had to be brute-forced with a CPU since PCs lacked the hardware necessary pull it off.
>>3219119
The difference is the TYPE of games, Moron.
Throughout and well beyond the /vr/ era, PC displays were capable of higher resolutions than the TVs that console games were designed for which not only made their games "look" better, but allowed for more readable text. Also, disk storage was much cheaper than ROM storage so PC games could be considerably deeper.
On the other hand, consoles were designed specifically to run games at 60fps with dedicated game related hardware for sprite rendering, scaling, sound which were all far better than on corresponding PCs. They were also more profitable leading to way more development being packed into them.
If you only play slow strategy and RPG games then sure they're better on PC but if you play action and arcade games they're better on PC it's comparing apples and oranges.
>>3218983
To answer your question, it was the invention of the EGA graphic standard that led to PC games looking as good or better than console games and it was the creation of 3DFX that led to them looking as goodor better in motion.
>>3219149
Read the thread. OP isn't talking about gameplay. Obviously PC and console games were different. OP is asking about when PC games looked better, which has always been the case.
Gameplay wise I prefer console games overall, but that's not what this is about.
>>3219149
>To answer your question, it was the invention of the EGA graphic standard that led to PC games looking as good or better than console games
You mean VGA. EGA is still an eyesore and it's also awful if you tried to program it.
Why do emulators and modern computers have such a hard time running 3D consoles from the 90s?
Shouldnt N64 be perfectly emulated by now?
>>3219204
N64 is hard to emulate because its architecture is a horrible spaghetti mess and a lot of stuff was not documented that well especially microcodes.
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/03/13-things-you-were-doing-on-the-computer-in-1997/
Guys, I know what I was doing on a PC in the late 90s; I don't need your crummy website to tell me.
>>3219186
I really haven't explored any Sierra adventures outside KQ.
>>3219186
There are plenty NES action games from 1989 that look better in motion than your picture book with autistic colors and character design.
>>3219204
Feel free to reverse-engineer any console for free. People are waiting for your contribution.
>>3219071
>4 colors
Meanwhile, on consoles...
>>3219247
>autistic colors
This seriously is how /vr/ tries to make a point now. Yeesh this place just gets worse and worse.
>>3219268
That's the VGA version though, not the Day Glo EGA original.
>>3219247
Shit most European computer games like Turrican and Creatures look far better than Murrifat CGA rubbish.
>>3219252
Meanwhile on PC. Full 3D. This really is no contest. It's stupid you're trying to turn it into a debate.
>>3219274
It's still a PC game looking way better than any console game of the same era. Space Quest 3 does as well, even with it's limited color palette.
it's funny seeing PCfags conveniently ignore amiga, which offered the best of computer and console
>>3219287
Yeh but 90% of arcadey Amiga titles were Yuropoors making a shit-tastic copy of Jap console games.
>>3219284
PCs have bitmap graphics; you have no limit on color/pixel placement unlike consoles. On the other hand, all attempts at doing side scrollers on a PC until Jazz Jackrabbit were...embarrassing.
>>3219310
Again, not a thread about gameplay.
>>3219280
Meanwhile on arcade. Did I mention this was released in 1983?
>>3219316
And arcade cabinets are basically highly-specialized PCs.
>>3219209
>N64 is hard to emulate because its architecture is a horrible spaghetti mess
This meme needs to end. N64 emulation is shit because the developers are shit.
>>3219320
>I read a couple pages about the N64 on Wikipedia and I'm now highly qualified on the matter
fuck off dipshit
>>3219321
Virtually everything you know about the N64 is based on memes so I'm not sure you should be calling anybody out.
>>3219313
That's because the advantage of a PC is the controls, resolution, and storage capability. When it comes to moving objects around a screen, they fall short compared with a console.
>>3219280
Not even as good as the Amiga version.
>>3219316
Arcades are dedicated machines. Of course they will blow both out of the water.
>>3218983
Playstation and N64 were objectively better at 3D than PCs at their respective launches, but that didn't last very long.
I'd argue the release of GeForce 256 in 1999 is really the start of the point where consoles never caught up. Once PCs had hardware T&L (vertex units specialized at calculating 3D) that was it for consoles.
>>3219320
Congrats, you posted a block diagram, which says nothing about the actual architecture of the processors, microcode, and processor customizations.
This is like saying the GB/C uses a z80.
It DOES use one, but it has several custom instructions, a few standard instructions removed, and an additional circuit for sound generation.
>>3219338
N64 and Saturn are both an architectural nightmare which is why the emulation for them is less-than perfect.
>>3219338
>which says nothing about the actual architecture of the processors
Uh yeah it does. The CPU is literally an off-the-shelf MIPS R4300i, one of the most well understood RISC architectures of all time. The block diagram didn't designate it as custom made like the GB's Z80 because it wasn't custom made.
And the RAM is literally off-the-shelf base RDRAM.
The GPU is the most complex part of the N64 and even that is literally based on the MIPS R4300i too but it's extremely heavily modified. But that's just one chip. You can't say the architecture of the system is complicated when the only thing that even remotely poses a challenge is one chip.
A 20 year old chip.
>>3219353
It's a mess because of how all the chips interact with each other and also because Nintendo's documentation was shit. The microcodes in particular; some of them weren't documented at all because Nintendo didn't want third parties using them. More advanced games like Conker had to really brute-force the hardware which is why only simplistic stuff like SM64 is accurately emulated.
>>3219348
That's my point.
>>3219353
That one chip IS the reason why n64 emulation is shit.
Nintendo made that puppy a real power house with tons of programability, which means that there are loads of features to get working properly.
Furthermore, that one chip is really what makes the n64 the n64. Everything graphical is done by that chip and alot of it's innovations and changes aren't as well documented as they should be.
>>3219370
>It's a mess because of how all the chips interact with each other
They interact with each other in a limited way (no DMA etc). So that's the opposite of difficult to emulate.
>and also because Nintendo's documentation was shit.
But plenty of N64 documents have been leaked onto the internet and it's clear the documentation wasn't shit at all. The addendum here includes a manual on how to use the included microcodes.
http://n64squid.com/Nintendo Ultra64 Programming Manual+Addendums.pdf
The only thing that is missing is the how-to-make-your-own-microcode documentation. So the only things that should emulate poorly are games that use custom microcode.
And yet plenty of games that don't use custom microcode have shitty emulation regardless.
>>3219284
>Space Quest 3 does as well, even with it's limited color palette.
That's only because Sierra were an elite-level developer and had real artists drawing the graphics instead of the programmer doing it himself.
>>3219307
at least amiga was able to run those games faithfully
at the same time you were lucky if your pc could render at 16 colors, if any at all
>>3219280
>Meanwhile on PC.
>Meanwhile
That's not 1986 tho.
They might have looked better in still shots but most were horrible CGA graphics mode with 15hz framerate.
It wasn't until the 256 color era that things turned around.
>>3219459
Yeah, it's 2 years later. But NES still looked the same while PCs continued to plow forward.
Doom says hi. Look how amazing that game was when they finally got the power of a console behind it!
>>3219497
>SNES
>power
pick one
>>3219497
Reality is that most commercially available pcs at the time had to run doom in a tiny window to maintain 15 fps, no mouse and no external speakers.
>>3219524
Oh yeah, in low detail mode.
>>3219086
People own consoles therefor they buy games for them more than they buy games for pcs.
>>3219524
>most
Who cares what plebs were stuck with? PCs were clearly more powerful.
>>3219510
>consoles
>power
pick one
>>3219510
Super Power
>>3219556
Plenty of consoles have been more powerful (at gaming) than PCs at their launch.
SNES was not one of them.
>>3219551
true patricians had neogeo
>>3219551
Was the reality we were stuck with, graphics way below SNES quality. I'm not American btw so what I'm saying might not apply to your childhood.
>>3219741
One other thing, in computing, emulating another architecture typically takes an order of magnitude more power than the system being emulated.
We have that now for the n64, and up to the wii, if you have a good computer. For this reason good PC emulation can take several years, waiting for the PC's power to be great enough to emulate the console.
At least, that was true for a while. Now consoles just use off the shelf pc parts.
>>3219524
In 1995? A 33Mhz 486 was entry level shit at that point, and Doom flew on that.
>>3219287
What is it with the Amiga and angry fanboys?
You guys are worse than Applefags.
>>3219468
This. Pc fags in this thread acting like early 80s computers looking and playing better than consoles of the time are full of shit. I'd say around early 90s was when graphics on PCs started surpassing the consoles of the day.
>>3220468
That's because most of them are underage Steamfags who only got into PC gaming recently and always assumed that the mustard race meme has always been true. They never experienced all those shitty PC ports of Japanese arcade games and cheap knockoffs of console games that populated PC platforms back in the 90s.
There was definitely some advancements with PC gaming during the late 90s though, but I would the PC/console divide wasn't truly bridged until the introduction of the Xbox in the 2000s.
Doom and Myst, Wolf3D was "almost there" but its limitations were still very obvious while Doom brought it up to a level that was difficult for any console to reproduce when it was released; same story with Myst and the point-and-click games that came before it with a cartoony art style, usually with slightly better resolution or sound than you'd get on a console (think KQ6) but nothing that would make you go "there's no way they could do that" until that point
It is amazing seeing how far people are missing the mark with wild guesses here
The Amiga and benchmark games like Shadow of the Beast.
I'd really like to play it on Mega Drive/Master System since I don't own an amiga but I'm not sure are they worth my time.
>>3220468
How is the Atari 5200 anything but a gimped Atari 400? Or the Colecovision a less capable Coleco Adam.
>>3220468
>This. Pc fags in this thread acting like early 80s computers looking and playing better than consoles of the time are full of shit
If you're talking early 80s (as in pre-1985) this was actually true; home computers of that time were easily better than the Atari 2600 or Colecovision, but if you mean NES era then yes, they come up short at arcade-style games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f8Oc1ANHAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cehaqXFCGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twSBuZNTDeQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fUYD8KKV9M
Lemme show you a few examples of how fantastic PC consoles/arcade ports were once upon a time.
>>3219448
A lot of Amiga arcade ports were garbage as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1i8SpE6cIc
>>3219468
I've never heard anyone except nostalgiafags think CK was actually "good".
>>3219105
Reminder that if you're going to make a statement about Ultima 4 on consoles you should look at the superior Master System port and not the NES port. But that would undermine your argument, right?
>>3220721
Is there a system without bad ports? Maybe x68k and Towns because they were powerful, irrelevant and didn't have developers trying to rebuild a game based on their limited experience at the arcade.
It's not that computer ports of arcade games couldn't have potentially been good, it's that most of them were banged out in a couple of weeks by some neckbeard in his den as opposed to console ports made by the original dev with professional coders and musicians who had an entire year to work on it.
The MSX had some quite good Konami ports because they coded the things themselves.
"I felt Atari were making a mistake with their 'Bringing the arcade experience home' philosophy when the consoles weren't good enough to properly recreate arcade games. They should have instead concentrated on making great original games."
-- David Crane
>>3220762
>>3219730
>SNES
>256x224 resolution
>PCs already had SVGA by this time
>>3220771
People didn't want original games. They wanted the home arcade experience.
>>3220805
Newsflash: The market isn't always right. Sometimes you have to give people what they need instead of what they think they need.
>>3220803
But not hardware-accelerated. People ITT forget that a PC just had dumb frame buffer graphics; the CPU had to move everything by brute force. It took a 100Mhz Pentium CPU to do games that were done on the Mega Drive with an 8Mhz CPU.
>>3220808
What people think they need is what they buy. This is the basis of marketing.
>>3220805
Activision sold a ton of games and made $$$, so they can't have been all wrong.
You ought to try the console version of SimCity or Civ2 to see what happens when you put a PC game on a console.
PC compatibles fell short at just about everything but Sierra adventures until about 1993.
>>3220823
And even then, the Amiga could have actually done them better except that Sierra didn't care about it and just made phoned-in Amiga ports with bleepy sound.
>>3219252
Now look for a picture of the game you replied to over composite and see the magic
Amiga wasn't relevant in North America anyway after 1990 and we really didn't get anything but the A500.
>>3220849
They had Pole Position on the PC. Same old CGA rubbish.
>>3220850
Poor Burgers didn't know what they missed.
>>3220849
I don't think the IBM port of Arctic Fox actually supports the CGA composite output. You can use it and get some colors, but they'll probably be pretty fucked up.
>>3220506
>underage
/vr/'s favorite bullshit word to throw around when they don't have anything worthwhile to say. Is this one guy doing it all the time?
>>3221126
A $1500 computer that's crushed by a $99 Sega Genesis?
>>3221219
It's really the board's downfall.
Even if they're correct that that person is underage, is it really any better, having another fagot scream underage or not retro?Honestly, I don't care if the gba becomes allowed or not, I just want the shitpsting to stop.
>>3221230
You do know the Amiga 500 is three years older than the Mega Drive. Actually you'd need one of the 32-bit models to have Mega Drive-level games but those were just niche machines with hardly any software support.
>>3221230
Can I do word processing or create art or music on a MD? Can I program my own games? Can I go online with it? No but an Amiga could do all those things.
>>3221235
Yes. You would need a 32-bit Amiga to even come close to the Genesis. Sad.
Yeh but a Genesis can't do the company payroll as good as a hulking 386 PC so...
>>3221237
No you can't do those things on a Sega Genesis. So unless your Dad needed to use some sorta obscure euro software for work I'd consider it a poor choice for a gaming machine.
>>3221305
Why is that a surprise though? The 32-bit Amigas are more of the Mega Drive's contemporary than the A500 which is a NES-era machine.
>>3221315
I can't tell if you are arguing with me or agreeing with me. I was heavily implying that these expensive home computers were a waste of money for gaming compared to consoles of their respective generations.
>>3221328
The point I was making is that you're acting surprised and shocked that you need an A3000/4000 to do Mega Drive kinds of games when those machines were from the same era as the MD while the A500 is a NES-era machine.
> I was heavily implying that these expensive home computers were a waste of money for gaming compared to consoles of their respective generations
A computer though can do many more things than gaming, also it can do certain game genres (especially sims and adventure games) better than consoles.
No idea about the Amiga, but a typical consumer PC clone from 1988-91 (Genesis era) would have struggled doing games like Strider or Streets of Rage.
>>3218983
>What games showcased and/or what time period were the "turning points" to when PC games started to look better than console games?
All the top selling ones, really.
Just note that IBM PCs only caught up from the early 90s and solidified their position once 3d accelerators got out. Before that, they were business machines with the occasional game - if you want 80s computers that looked better than consoles, look at the Amigas.
>>3221349
If you mean some 386SX shitbox, yeah that couldn't do Genesis types of games at all. You'd need some $6000 workstation to brute force it in software because PC video cards were just dumb frame buffers.
>>3219316
I Robot was an extremely high end machine that had severe maintenance issues due to complexity, and not many of them were made.
Did I mention that it was also a huge commercial flop?
>>3221358
It's a graphics issue. Even a 286 could have done that shit if there had been a video card with hardware sprite/scrolling support (remember that the Genny had an 8Mhz 68000). When the CPU has to do all the work...
>>3219348
>N64 and Saturn are both an architectural nightmare which is why the emulation for them is less-than perfect.
No, emulation for them is imperfect because they either have no exclusive games worth playing, or because a D3D wrapper can make 90% of the library playable.
>>3221361
Probably more like a 386 because the 286 is a weaker CPU than the 68000 with only the advantage of an on-chip MMU. Considering that it's also two years newer than the 68000, Intel done fucked up.
>>3221349
They did have Strider on the PC and it sucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGw12XCTnM
>>3221231
Exactly. They're frequently wrong when they call underage, but that's not even the point. Even in the times they happen to be right that the person they disagree with is younger, they're still not making a real argument. "I'm older than you so believe what I tell you" is pathetic any way you slice it.
>>3221390
Millenial shitbabby detected.
>>3221378
That's kind of an asspull because the game is designed to run on a CGA/EGA 8086 PC. If you did it for a VGA-equipped 386, that would be another story but in 1989 that would have cost you like $5000 and who wants to pay that much to game.
>>3221410
Actually there were two big things that caused the price of 386 hardware to drop.
1. Intel began licensing clone manufacturers whereas they had been the sole source of 386 chips prior to 1990
2. The 386SX chip came out which allowed the use of cheaper 16-bit components
>>3221402
0/10
Pilot wings had bedder grafix than ne thing on pc by far and it went 60 fps. Nothing on pc was 60 fps and 3d. Commander keen was shit and was released around the same time as mario world.
>>3221458
MS Flight Simulator 4?
Consoles couldn't into 70 Hz.
>>3221458
Then again, CK is still 16-bit EGA shit. It's not taking advantage of then-current 32-bit VGA hardware.
>>3221473
ID/Apogee games were just poorfag crap for people with outdated PCs and little kids who got hand-me-downs.
>>3218983
If you want a CONCRETE example of when the divide became prominent, I'd say the original Doom/Wolfenstien/X-Wing games are a good starting point. Heck, here's Wing Commander from 1990:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlokYOPAa0o
A significant number of PC games from the early 90's exhibit graphical/processing fidelity that was ahead of console tech at the time.
Also, keep in mind that building PCs in the 90's was a bit harder than it is now. Things were generally less user-friendly.
>>3221473
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCI5q1XbdBw
It's not bad for what it it is, but this came out in 1991 and looks more like 1986-87.
Crysis
>>3221516
Also while the framerate is pretty good compared to most EGA games, I bet you still need a 386 to get more than like 10 fps. If you ran CK on an 8086, it's sure not gonna run that smoothly.
>>3221510
Evidence > anecdotal hear-say
>>3218987
Lol, compare Commander Keen to an NES side scroller. Not even close.
>>3221521
But it came out in the early 90s when new PCs were all 386/486s so IDK why that was a concern.
>>3221527
>compare Commander Keen to an NES side scroller
It's about comparable to one of the earlier NES games like Ninja Kid. But all this proves is that they were making 1986's game in 1991.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxR6U8KP99s
>>3219313
That's directly related to hardware and you know it, hombre.
>>3221538
So NES-era hardware. In 1991. Proving nothing.
>>3221538
NES did it better at the time is all I'm saying. Obviously PCs have surpassed consoles for like the past 2 decades, but there was no contest between the launch of the Famicom and the release of DOOM.
>>3221504
Here's Comanche: Maximumum Overkill, from 1992
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1u3EoN-6V0
Makes the 16 bit consoles look like jokes.
>>3221551
Then again, this is designed for a VGA 386. As pointed out earlier ITT, that hardware existed as far back as 1987, but would have cost a couple thousand bucks.
The PC port of Cool Spot looks like trash compared to the Genesis even thought it's also using VGA/386 hardware.
>>3221552
That's because Commander Keen is an ugly game with ugly graphics. This isn't about cherry picking a few specific examples, it's about graphics overall. PCs were simply ahead of consoles.
>>3221601
>That's because Commander Keen is an ugly game with ugly graphics
It's not any worse than the typical Famicom game which isn't much to look at either.
>>3221598
While true, it was developed by Virgin Games who weren't all that great of a developer to begin with and they probably half-assed it. If you compare PC games made by quality devs like Sierra, Microprose, and LucasArts, they easily hung with the best console titles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssXYwAW7Lp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k6ok5_1y2c
The PC port of Garfield Caught In The Act is as good as the Genesis port graphically and it has better music because CD audio.
>>3221592
So? By 1992 cost a couple hundred bucks.
>>3221629
>couple hundred
This is how I know you're under 20. Our 486 in 1995 was roughly a mid-range model and it cost about $2000.
>>3221615
Which is part of why side scrollers are a bad example to use, because a lot of it just comes down to the art.
But when NES was still stuck running games like Pole Position and Rad Racer, PCs were blowing them out of the water.
>>3221626
Ok but looking at the specs for that game...
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/garfield-caught-in-the-act/techinfo
...reveals that it needs a 486 minimum to run. All that proves is that it took a 33Mhz 32-bit $1600-2000 computer to do the same stuff as a $200 console with an 8Mhz CPU.
>>3221634
They're now trying to change the discussion. Once it was shown unquestionably that PCs were more graphically advanced than consoles, they still want to be right. So they are trying to re-frame the question by talking about cheap computers. It's all kind of surreal.
>>3221637
>All that proves is that it took a 33Mhz 32-bit $1600-2000 computer to do the same stuff as a $200 console with an 8Mhz CPU.
All of that is completely beside the point.
>>3219335
quake 2 on a voodoo 2 already looked better than its console counterparts
>>3221635
They never had Pole Position on the NES, but putting that aside, Indy 500 came out two years after Rad Racer. On the other hand, here's Chase HQ which is from the same year and it looks way cruder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6efo4xJy12c
If you go back to the Atari era, most of the home computer ports of Donkey Kong looked and played fairly nice and had all four screens.
For example, this is the TI-99/4A port.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6tDebgmxBQ
Now look at the completely embarrassing Atari 2600 port.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzI1RBdK2_g
>>3221661
Then explain this, PeeCeefag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPYJsxeQOMc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cehaqXFCGE
The PC port is a complete trainwreck compared to the NES version which is running on a goddamn 1Mhz 8-bit CPU.
>>3221661
That's cheap as fuck considering the Texas Instruments is a 16-bit computer and also newer hardware than the Atari 2600.
>>3221653
>quake 2 on a voodoo 2 already looked better than its console counterparts
Although not by every metric. It was only 16 bit color on Voodoo 2 while N64 was 24 bit color with Expansion Pak. Of course the Voodoo 2 version was superior overall, but the point was that it took until 1999 for PC to be better in every department (hardware T&L in particular).
Conker on N64 has better lighting effects than any PC game before 1999. Yes, it's a game released in 2001 but it's still made for the same old 1996 console hardware. Without a dedicated T&L processor it's very difficult to do that level of lighting in software. Once the GeForce 256 came along in 1999, PC was given T&L and could easily do high quality lighting like consoles.
>>3221674
Ok, if you want to argue that, here's the Apple II port of DK. The Apple II came out the same year as the Atari 2600 (1977) and it has weaker sound, no sprites, and less color yet its DK still runs rings around the 2600 port.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU8T9jvZH_s
>>3221687
You know that that was designed to run on an Apple II+ with 48k of RAM whereas the Atari 2600 had like 4k of cartridge ROM and 128 bytes of RAM.
>>3221685
>Yes, it's a game released in 2001 but it's still made for the same old 1996 console hardware. Without a dedicated T&L processor it's very difficult to do that level of lighting in software. Once the GeForce 256 came along in 1999, PC was given T&L and could easily do high quality lighting like consoles.
This is an asspull because Conker came out (as you said) in 2001 after PCs had T&L processors. A 2001 PC was more than capable of doing a game made in 2001.
Meanwhile, if you looked at N64 games from 1996, they were primitive shit like SM64 that looked nowhere near at the level of Conker.
>>3221701
But we're talking about hardware. A game like Conker could have been theoretically made in 1996 if the developers had the know how.
But you couldn't have developed it for PC in 1996 without compromising on the lighting effects. It would have been impossible.
>>3221708
>But you couldn't have developed it for PC in 1996 without compromising on the lighting effects. It would have been impossible.
You definitely could have done it in 96, but it would have required super-expensive hardware way out of the reach of consumers.
If you compare an actual 1996 game like SM64, an average PC of that time should have been able to do that fairly easily.
>>3221714
>You definitely could have done it in 96, but it would have required super-expensive hardware way out of the reach of consumers.
Yes, you would need an SGI workstation basically. But it's interesting because even the most basic SGI workstation is like an N64 times ten, so it just shows how far PC was from specialized hardware in those days.
>If you compare an actual 1996 game like SM64, a PC of that time should have been able to do that fairly easily.
Without a 3D accelerator card (and let's face it, in 1996, before 3dfx, they were all garbage) it wouldn't be possible without compromising on the image quality. So no perspective correct, no texture filtering, z-buffer, no shiny metal mario, etc.
Of course once 3dfx came into play it wasn't a problem. The UltraHLE emulator, the first N64 emulator, was capable of emulating Mario 64 rather decently with a baseline of high-end 1997 PC hardware.
>>3221717
Then why did Bad Dudes and most late 80s arcade ports on the PC look awful compared with NES games of the time?
>>3221725
>Without a 3D accelerator card (and let's face it, in 1996, before 3dfx, they were all garbage) it wouldn't be possible without compromising on the image quality
SM64 is, what, 320x200 resolution? PC games at that time were usually 640x480. The original Tomb Raider came out in 96 and it's not worse than any console platformer out that year.
>>3221729
How about the Amiga Bad Dudes? This looks a lot more arcade-accurate than the NES and it also gets in the two player mode which the NES doesn't have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIEtzqIt-sg
>>3221735
>PC games at that time were usually 640x480.
You're not going to be playing complex 3D games in software mode on 1996 hardware anywhere near 640x480. High resolutions hit CPUs extremely hard in software mode.
You want 640x480 you need a 3dfx Voodoo.
>>3221735
That's because the console version of Tomb Raider was developed first, although to be fair it plays more like a cinematic platformer ala Prince of Persia than a character based collectathon platformer.
>>3221725
>it wouldn't be possible without compromising on the image quality. So no perspective correct, no texture filtering, z-buffer, no shiny metal mario, etc
The typical PC in 1996 was a 100-166Mhz Pentium. This is broadly comparable to the N64's CPU which is 93Mhz and the fact that the latter is also 64-bit can be ignored since no games actually used 64-bit code anyway.
While most of the N64's advanced features like perspective correcting would have been tough to pull off in software, the early games from 96-97 didn't really use them anyway. The late stuff like Indy and the Infernal Machine did, but that was in 2001 by which time you had 700-800Mhz PCs.
>>3221738
To be fair, you're not going to be doing them on a N64 either given that almost all its games use 320x200 because 640x480 mode was extremely resource-demanding.
It's all good then. If you did a PC port of SM64 in VGA Mode 13 (thus giving you the same approximate resolution as the N64), that should have been a cakewalk for a mid-90s Pentium box.
>>3221750
>The typical PC in 1996 was a 100-166Mhz Pentium. This is broadly comparable to the N64's CPU which is 93Mhz
That's besides the point. The only processor inside of a typical 1996 PC was the CPU. It had to do absolutely all of the 3D processing.
The N64 also has RSP (hardware T&L chip) and RDP (3D drawing accelerator). These are specialist chips that take huge amounts of load off the N64's CPU, and are much more efficient per clock at their 3D specific tasks than a PC CPU (which is a general purpose processor).
PC evened the odds with the 3dfx Voodoo, finally giving PC a competent 3D drawing accelerator. T&L continued to be handled by the CPU so PC users at the time needed constant upgrades since CPUs were getting hit very hard by increasing graphical demands.
>While most of the N64's advanced features like perspective correcting would have been tough to pull off in software, the early games from 96-97 didn't really use them anyway
They didn't use them on PC because developers didn't want the games running at 5 fps. But Mario 64 *as is* could not have run on a 1996 PC without compromises. No matter how good the port.
On a 200mhz Pentium backed by a 3dfx Voodoo? Yes for Mario 64.
For Conker? That wouldn't have been enough.
>>3221739
Tomb Raider does run in 640x480 though and it has no problem getting a decent framerate on an original Pentium.
>>3221772
>On a 200mhz Pentium backed by a 3dfx Voodoo? Yes for Mario 64.
>For Conker? That wouldn't have been enough.
Except Conker was out in 2001 which was when you had 800-900Mhz PCs. 200Mhz was 1997 stuff.
>>3221708
>But you couldn't have developed it for PC in 1996 without compromising on the lighting effects. It would have been impossible.
If you kept it running at 240x160 or so like how Conker did, then you definitely could have it done in 1996.
>>3221782
>Except Conker was out in 2001 which was when you had 800-900Mhz PCs. 200Mhz was 1997 stuff.
But Conker is still running on 1996 era hardware. The console hardware doesn't magically change because year has changed.
Obviously 1996 hardware is going to be old hat 5 years later.
Running 2001 era PC games on a 1996 PC will yield much uglier results than Conker I can assure you :^)
>>3221738
>You're not going to be playing complex 3D games in software mode on 1996 hardware anywhere near 640x480.
Duke3d could run in 640x480 iirc. Blood supported 800x600, but granted that was much later.
>>3221772
>But Mario 64 *as is* could not have run on a 1996 PC without compromises. No matter how good the port.
>On a 200mhz Pentium backed by a 3dfx Voodoo? Yes for Mario 64.
Keeping in mind that because a PC has to brute force everything in software, you need a CPU 2x faster than the one in a console. Since the N64's CPU is 93Mhz, the gap between it and an average 1996 PC is fairly small. I had a Pentium box made that year which was 133Mhz so only about 15% faster than the N64. A 200Mhz Pentium matches that 2x faster spec so that's enough to replicate Mario 64.
If you wanted to compare PS1 games, then that thing is only 33Mhz and has much simpler 3D hardware so a Pentium PC could easily do that.
>>3221789
>If you kept it running at 240x160 or so like how Conker did, then you definitely could have it done in 1996.
This would only be the case if T&L didn't exist.
The T&L load is irrespective of resolution. If you run the game at 1080p or 240p it still has to do the same amount of T&L. Conker is a HARDCORE T&L game. T&L is very slow on a general purpose CPU like a Pentium. Instead you want a vector unit. Vector units have something like 8 times the performance per clock at T&L than a CPU.
It's the 3D drawing acceleration that is hit by resolution increases.
>>3221790
The difference is that for Conker, they spent 4 years optimizing for a single piece of hardware.
If you took 1 PC from 1996 and optimized the hell out of it direct to metal, then it could've done a lot of insane shit. But then it would've only run on that one configuration.
Cross compatibility is the price that PCs have to pay, but in return they can get 1 piece of software running in billions of configurations decades later.
>>3221790
The hardware doesn't magically change on a console, but PC hardware was continuously evolving along with games. Say, the NES came out originally in 1983. You're definitely not going to do Kirby's Adventure on a 1983 IBM XT, but the game came out an entire decade after that when you had 486 PCs that could more than easily handle a port of it.
>>3221794
Read this post more carefully >>3221772
Specifically this line
>The N64 also has RSP (hardware T&L chip) and RDP (3D drawing accelerator). These are specialist chips that take huge amounts of load off the N64's CPU, and are much more efficient per clock at their 3D specific tasks than a PC CPU (which is a general purpose processor).
I should also mention the N64's CPU is a MIPS RISC processor which has better integer performance per clock than a CISC processor like the original Pentium (although not being super-scalar it is a lot slower at floating point - but it doesn't need to be fast at 3D maths since that's what the RSP vector unit is for).
It's very very dangerous to try and determine the performance of a processor by looking at the clock speed. As mentioned here >>3221802
Vector units are ridiculously faster than CPUs per clock at vector maths. A 50mhz vector unit might outperform a 400mhz CPU at vector maths.
>>3221685
I thought conker didn't need the expansion pak? What does it change?
>>3221810
>It's very very dangerous to try and determine the performance of a processor by looking at the clock speed
Actually I mentioned earlier ITT that a 286 was a weaker CPU than the 68000 despite similar clock speeds as the 68000 has 32-bit registers and flat memory instead of segment/protected mode fuckery.
>>3221806
>If you took 1 PC from 1996 and optimized the hell out of it direct to metal, then it could've done a lot of insane shit.
But that's not possible. There's nothing to optimize. Your 1996 PC just has a Pentium CPU and that's it. No "direct to metal" components exist. You're not going to get performance out of it that can compete with a vector unit and 3D drawing accelerator while also doing the general processing at the same time.
>>3221807
Yes, hence the original point being that the release of GeForce 256 in 1999 heralded the complete and permanent end of console superiority in ANY technical area.
>>3221794
200Mhz in 1996 was middle of the road, we already had 300Mhz processors by then.
>>3221810
>although not being super-scalar it is a lot slower at floating point - but it doesn't need to be fast at 3D maths since that's what the RSP vector unit is for)
Besides, a game console doesn't need to be able to run Excel or AutoCAD while a PC very much did have to be able to run them.
>>3218987
aren't you a little young for this board?
>>3221829
>we already had 300Mhz processors by then.
The first 300mhz Pentium came out in 1997. Fastest CPU of 1996 was the Pentium Pro 200 and it cost a gorrilion dollars.
>>3221829
I'm pretty sure in 96 that low-end consumer PCs were in the 90Mhz range and that 166Mhz was high end. I don't think you would have found 200Mhz CPUs on anything but an SGI workstation.
>>3221821
>No "direct to metal" components exist.
Yeah, I think you should just stop arguing here if you think that bypassing the entire HAL enforced by Windows would not give you a huge performance boost. There's a reason why it sucked hard for games until DirectX was introduced around 1996 - and even that only gave you a generic way to do more graphic intensive tasks that Windows needed.
This is a stupid argument anyway: PCs were office machines, so obviously they could not hold up to a stock SGI accelerator based console at the time. But if you get a proper SGI workstation (the thing that was meant to do rendering at the time), then the N64 suddenly looks like cheap toy performance wise.
Arguing that a 1996 PC can't run Conker is like arguing that a typewriter can't do Tetris.
>>3221821
>But that's not possible. There's nothing to optimize. Your 1996 PC just has a Pentium CPU and that's it. No "direct to metal" components exist. You're not going to get performance out of it that can compete with a vector unit and 3D drawing accelerator while also doing the general processing at the same time.
Sure, if you had an SGI workstation you could do Indy and the Infernal Machine in 1996, but who wants to pay $10,000 to play a video game?
>>3221842
>Arguing that a 1996 PC can't run Conker is like arguing that a typewriter can't do Tetris
In theory yes since the CPUs in PCs of that time are at or above the performance level of the VR4300 in the N64, but the actual 3D hardware needed to pull it off was way too expensive for a PC gamer.
>>3221842
Obviously Windows was holding the Pentium back in terms of performance, but there are physical limits to what you can get out of it.
The biggest "code to the metal" trick that you could do on them was take advantage of super-scalar twin pipeline to do free perspective divides. Quake did it which is why the textures don't warp on walls. But even so, it's very economic perspective correct (something like one divide per 16 pixels interpolated) while SGI machines like the N64 do perspective correct per every pixel.
Although for all we know, Conker's microcode might have been modified to reduce the accuracy too for better performance I suppose.
>>3221853
>Obviously Windows was holding the Pentium back in terms of performance, but there are physical limits to what you can get out of it.
>The biggest "code to the metal" trick that you could do on them was take advantage of super-scalar twin pipeline to do free perspective divides. Quake did it which is why the textures don't warp on walls. But even so, it's very economic perspective correct (something like one divide per 16 pixels interpolated) while SGI machines like the N64 do perspective correct per every pixel.
Obviously when the CPU has to brute force everything because you have dumb frame buffer graphics, you're limited in what you can do with that.
I mean, come on. The Mac 128 and Genesis have the same CPU, yet the difference in supporting hardware is night and day.
>>3221867
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU7GUkCbmqs
For example, let's see a Mac Plus or SE do this. It's no different than the PC/N64 comparison - when the CPU has to do all the work by itself...
>>3221810
The N64 hardware is also specifically optimized for gaming while the PC is not.
>>3219378
please, go and make a decent n64 emulator, oh wise one
>>3221842
And the whole time, people have systematically ignored the fact that 90% of N64 games are only 320x200 resolution and only a few late titles use 640x480 while that was the norm for late 90s PC games.
>>3221897
Like I said, it probably would not have been that hard to pull off SM64 on an original Pentium if you limited it to 320x200 which is low calorie enough that you can probably brute force everything in software.
>>3221914
I'm not gonna argue that, however it wouldn't have looked too good to have PC games running in 320x200 resolution in the late 90s since the market at that time demanded 640x480. Consoles could get away with it in part because they had various hardware features to mask blur, plus a CRT TV provides free anti-aliasing. A RGB PC monitor at 320x200 looks jagged af. That would have been very unacceptable in 1997.
>>3221885
And that's the debate: when did the average general purpose pc overtake dedicated gaming machines.
Personaly, belive it to be around the advent of the 3dfx Voodoo.
>>3221926
Yeh but then again like I said, you're not gonna do decent 3D on a 100Mhz CPU with no hardware acceleration that way. Even the consoles at the time avoided 640x480 because it was too resource-intensive. Unless you wanted 5 fps, it was not a good idea to have N64 games use that.
>>3221932
>>3221926
While it's true that 640x480 would have been too much for 3D platformers, I assume they probably didn't worry much about it because most late 90s PC games were CRPGs, adventures, or simulations that had strictly 2D graphics and relatively minimal animation.
For example, here's Sanitarium. The game doesn't do much except have 1-2 characters moving around so despite the 640x480 resolution, it's putting only a very light load on the PC. Whereas a game like Mario Kart has a lot of stuff moving around on top of having to render/perform 3D calculations.
>>3221853
>Obviously Windows was holding the Pentium back in terms of performance
One reason why PC arcade ports in the NES era sucked was because most of the time, they had to go through the slow DOS/BIOS calls while C64 and Amiga games mostly just write to the bare metal.
>>3221964
But that's only an issue when setting video modes or loading disk files. Actual graphics code was just writing to the VRAM buffer.
>>3221976
It's also an issue when interfacing with the keyboard since you have to go through the slow af BIOS. Joysticks on a PC don't have to go through the BIOS, but there was no standardized setup for them like on a console and there's a lot of variance with different sticks, CPU speeds, and game port adapters.
![Halflife_ingame[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/HxS8vQ9.jpg "Halflife_ingame[1].jpg")
>>3218983
Depends on what type of PC you are talking about.
Sharp X6800 was released in 1987 and had better looking games than the SNES and Genesis. The Neo-Geo could probably beat it.
More mainstream games, maybe around 1997 or 1998 when 3d add-in cards become very popular with PC gamers and you had games like Quake II and Half-Life out that looked distinctly better (in terms of polygons and lighting) than the console games.
However IMO a lot of PC games still looked shitty up into the 2000s. Too brown and dirty looking.
>>3219497
If Carmack himself had done those ports you know they would have been amazing. The man was a wizard.
>>3221794
Yeah, the hype that the N64 was the most powerful gaming machine ever built at that point was not completely false. It would have take an real strong PC (and vastly more expensive) to equal it.
>>3218983
PC's have always had their strengths compared to consoles (and their weaknesses).
Through the 90s I was often taken aback by the clarity of computer games compared to consoles because I was looking a 640x480 or 800x600 screen with an RGB connection. You could see every little pixel.
>>3221930
>a pc with a $450 3dfx voodoo card in it was general purpose
Really you're right though that's when PCs became truly superior gaming hardware than consoles however the price disparity led to the best games still being console focused until much later. It's only been in the last few years that game capable PCs became price competitive and enjoyed similar installation bases to consoles.Now the only things saving consoles are artificial contract-exclusive titles and we're rightly seeing the impending death of the game console
Nonetheless, I'm still fairly convinced that SM64 was doable on a 1996 PC if you limited it to 320x200 resolution.
>>3222006
>impying
>>3222179
you could of found a better screenshot of unreal than that
>>3221634
I'm 29.
Unless my family were secretly rich at the time, there's no titty fucking way my dad spent 2 grand on either our 386, or the 486 that replaced it.
I should point out, he built them all from parts. No prebuilt shit.
>>3222217
What year were those systems built? 1996-1999?
>>3221687
You could improve the sound with extra cards, unlike certain other computers with little to no expandability.
![13363116327233[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Bl4VLda.jpg "13363116327233[1].jpg")
>>3222179
I am suspicious of that screenshot's authenticity for 1998. However, it was a very nice looking game. Certainly better looking than Turok.
>>3222217
I'm 31. We got a surplus 386 from a local college and it still cost $100 in 1999.
486's were still in use here and there and would have cost double that. In 1999.
A real Pentium or better desktop PC? No less than $500.
Prices dropped like a rock a few years later, so it's understandable if you don't believe this on first reading.
>>3222179
The game's title was fitting. It was like the Metroid Prime of the PC (or rather the other way around), a game that was way ahead of its time in graphics.
>>3219043
Who the fuck cares about Crapple and Atari? Fuck off, yank.
>>3220803
We're talking about Doom here. No doom engine games even ran at 360x280 modeX, let alone SVGA.
>>3222120
What a load of shit, for my voodoo card, I paid a minute fraction of the cost of my PC, and the graphics quality soared.
>>3222015
That would be an idiotic waste. If he did the ports for later CD based systems, at least they would have had a cross compatible engine to license.
>>3220809
Oh, you think?
>>3222801
I know, I'm just saying the SNES had the power for a better Doom port if it was optimized for it. The SNES ought to be able to play anything that will run on a 386.
>>3222791
A Voodoo isn't a complete graphical package because your CPU has to do T&L as well.
So for good gaming performance you also had to spend more money on a beefier CPU.
>>3222791
Voodoo cards retailed at about $300, well above the cost of a video game console at the time.
>>3222912
By V2 they did offload more stuff to the card. Voodoo2 is less processor dependent that the original, since it incorporates full triangle setup, relieving the processor of those duties.
>>3222997
That's a step forward, but triangle setup is the least intensive part of T&L (if it can even be broadly included in that category). Even the Rendition Verite did triangle setup.
>>3222850
No, for starters, the SNES ought to play nothing that requires a joystick or steering wheel. To be fair, a gamepad was quite good for doom, especially with shoulder buttons... but they already pushed it with all those add on chips slipped into the system. And I don't see 386es running barely any games made for SNES, or even 486es. How about just one final fantasy title?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRicpWfML8Y
And I happen to have played doom on a cyrix "486", the kind that used a 386 board and just had the 486 instruction set. It was lousy.
>>3222912
No games prior to 2000 supported hardware T&L so it doesn’t matter if the Voodoo cant do it.
>>3222912
Screw that properly beefy CPU, back then, the MMX snakeoil was getting paraded out. Followed up by 3dnow. Fat load of good those gimmicks did.
Also depends what you mean by good performance, are you expecting 640x480 for everything? 512x384 looked quite nice by the standards back then.
>>3222952
Saturn costed more than that, and voodoo cards dropped in pricing quite well and had some great game bundles.
>>3222217
It was a prebuilt, actually a Micron.
>>3222518
Who the fuck cares about Sinclair and BBC Micro? Fuck off, Yurosemen.
>>3222518
With Japanese systems you get a similar picture. PC-8801 from Shouwa 56 vs a Epoch Cassette Vision from Shouwa 56 for instance.
>>3222295
That's nice for the 3-4 games that actually could use the Mockingboard.
>>3223229
And the one that lets you use two.
>>3221552
That's an asspull though because those games both use the MMC3 mapper to do some things that the base NES hardware can't.
>>3220803
During the SNES era, 90% of PC games used VGA Mode 13. Only business software actually took advantage of SVGA resolutions.
>>3221738
I ran Total Annihilation on an original Pentium. It would slow to like 2 fps when there was a lot of stuff going on.
>>3223132
>And I don't see 386es running barely any games made for SNES, or even 486es
You saying a 386-486 PC couldn't handle SNES games?
>>3223252
I bet you're not gonna do DKC or Starfox on them.
>>3223257
Those games use Super FX chips though; you'd need a Pentium to pull them off. An unexpanded SNES shouldn't be all that difficult for a 486 to emulate; the CPU is only 4Mhz and general rule is that to brute force stuff in software, you need a CPU 2-3 faster.
>>3223242
Does Settlers 1 count as business software?
