So this CRAP* poll is ever-so-slightly less random and pointless this
time. I mean, not /much/ less; it's just enough less CRAP that I'm not
going to be giving you the usual silly options. Yup, this time you
can't just pick from A, B or C; you gotta WRITE out your response. You
might even have to think about it first!
(Obviously, I expect many fewer responses this time** ;-)
Anyway, here's the question for this month's poll. It's about tech in
video games. Specifically:
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
And by 'tech', I mean anything from graphics, physics, world-size, AI;
stuff like that. The underlying software and hardware that powers our
games. When you load up a new game, is any of that still making you
go, 'Wow! I didn't know PCs could do that" or "Hey, that's really
neat"? If so, which games? If not, can you remember the last time that happened?
So this CRAP* poll is ever-so-slightly less random and pointless this
time. I mean, not /much/ less; it's just enough less CRAP that I'm not
going to be giving you the usual silly options. Yup, this time you
can't just pick from A, B or C; you gotta WRITE out your response. You
might even have to think about it first!
(Obviously, I expect many fewer responses this time** ;-)
Anyway, here's the question for this month's poll. It's about tech in
video games. Specifically:
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
And by 'tech', I mean anything from graphics, physics, world-size, AI;
stuff like that. The underlying software and hardware that powers our
games. When you load up a new game, is any of that still making you
go, 'Wow! I didn't know PCs could do that" or "Hey, that's really
neat"? If so, which games? If not, can you remember the last time that happened?
As for me...
Many of you probably know that I've been gaming almost since the
inception of the hobby and for the longest time, I was almost
continually in a state of amazement at all the new things video game developers were coming up with. As hard as it may be to imagine, even
"PONG" felt like something out of an impossible future; I just wiggle
these paddles and the bar on the TV screen moves in response to my
commands? It was fucking incredible! Games like "PacMan" brought color
into this world***. "Zork" had a text parser that could understand the English language. "Might & Magic" had huge open worlds. "Wolfenstein
3D" had smooth-scrolling 3D. Not every game brought innovation to the
hobby --and some of those 'innovations' were little more than
improvements to existing ideas; GTA3's open world was incredible, but
was it really more novel than "Might & Magic"?-- but they still
impressed me.
But it occurred to me that aspect of gaming has largely been missing
from modern gaming. There's very little modern games do these days
that make wow me, at least from a technical front. Sure, developers --especially the Indies-- still impress me with their artistic chops
or new game-play mechanics, but the underlying tech? It's all so
ordinary. Maybe the graphics are a little bit sharper, the framerate a
little bit smoother; perhaps the gameworlds are slightly larger and
the AI a little bit less brain-dead. But nothing that sets me aback
the way it used to.
VR didn't really impress me except as a gimmick; I struggle to see the difference that raycasting adds to the visuals, and developers keep
playing the same tricks with physics engines. Maybe new large-language
model "AI" will change things up with games, but so far I've yet to
see anything progress past gimmick stage.
The last game I can recall that made me go, "Shit, that's awesome" was
"Star Wars Battlefront II" for its lush photogrammetric forests... and
that came out in 2017, almost seven years ago!
Again, that's not to say I get no enjoyment from games, or even that I
don't see things that impress me, but these are often despite the
underlying tech, not because of it. Unity --which many games use-- is
never going to be considered cutting-edge, but a good artist can make
use of its limited capabilities to render gorgeous scenes, and a good
game designer can come up with new mechanics that will keep me
enthralled for weeks even if it doesn't require a 24-core CPU.
So does the tech impress me anymore? Sadly not. Maybe this is a good
thing; maybe it means game designers will have to depend on quality
design to sell their games now. But I sort of miss the thrill of
firing up a new game and seeing some new wonder I hadn't even imagined possible a few years before. Like a game with completely destructible terrain, or a world-map millions of kilometers across, or being able
to kick out the legs of a bad guy and having him tumble realistically
to the floor. For the longest time, this thrill was an integral part
of the hobby, and now that it's gone, I miss it.
What about you? Does the tech still impress? Did it ever? And do you
care?
So this CRAP* poll is ever-so-slightly less random and pointless this
time. I mean, not /much/ less; it's just enough less CRAP that I'm not
going to be giving you the usual silly options. Yup, this time you
can't just pick from A, B or C; you gotta WRITE out your response. You
might even have to think about it first!
(Obviously, I expect many fewer responses this time** ;-)
Anyway, here's the question for this month's poll. It's about tech in
video games. Specifically:
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
And by 'tech', I mean anything from graphics, physics, world-size, AI;
stuff like that. The underlying software and hardware that powers our
games. When you load up a new game, is any of that still making you
go, 'Wow! I didn't know PCs could do that" or "Hey, that's really
neat"? If so, which games? If not, can you remember the last time that happened?
As for me...
Many of you probably know that I've been gaming almost since the
inception of the hobby and for the longest time, I was almost
continually in a state of amazement at all the new things video game developers were coming up with. As hard as it may be to imagine, even
"PONG" felt like something out of an impossible future; I just wiggle
these paddles and the bar on the TV screen moves in response to my
commands? It was fucking incredible! Games like "PacMan" brought color
into this world***. "Zork" had a text parser that could understand the English language. "Might & Magic" had huge open worlds. "Wolfenstein
3D" had smooth-scrolling 3D. Not every game brought innovation to the
hobby --and some of those 'innovations' were little more than
improvements to existing ideas; GTA3's open world was incredible, but
was it really more novel than "Might & Magic"?-- but they still
impressed me.
But it occurred to me that aspect of gaming has largely been missing
from modern gaming. There's very little modern games do these days
that make wow me, at least from a technical front. Sure, developers --especially the Indies-- still impress me with their artistic chops
or new game-play mechanics, but the underlying tech? It's all so
ordinary. Maybe the graphics are a little bit sharper, the framerate a
little bit smoother; perhaps the gameworlds are slightly larger and
the AI a little bit less brain-dead. But nothing that sets me aback
the way it used to.
VR didn't really impress me except as a gimmick; I struggle to see the difference that raycasting adds to the visuals, and developers keep
playing the same tricks with physics engines. Maybe new large-language
model "AI" will change things up with games, but so far I've yet to
see anything progress past gimmick stage.
The last game I can recall that made me go, "Shit, that's awesome" was
"Star Wars Battlefront II" for its lush photogrammetric forests... and
that came out in 2017, almost seven years ago!
Again, that's not to say I get no enjoyment from games, or even that I
don't see things that impress me, but these are often despite the
underlying tech, not because of it. Unity --which many games use-- is
never going to be considered cutting-edge, but a good artist can make
use of its limited capabilities to render gorgeous scenes, and a good
game designer can come up with new mechanics that will keep me
enthralled for weeks even if it doesn't require a 24-core CPU.
So does the tech impress me anymore? Sadly not. Maybe this is a good
thing; maybe it means game designers will have to depend on quality
design to sell their games now. But I sort of miss the thrill of
firing up a new game and seeing some new wonder I hadn't even imagined possible a few years before. Like a game with completely destructible terrain, or a world-map millions of kilometers across, or being able
to kick out the legs of a bad guy and having him tumble realistically
to the floor. For the longest time, this thrill was an integral part
of the hobby, and now that it's gone, I miss it.
What about you? Does the tech still impress? Did it ever? And do you
care?
-----------
* Completely Random And Pointless, true believers. Nuff said!
** But if you ARE one of the respondents, that obviously means you are
more thoughtful and less lazy than your peers who sat this one out.
You know, if that's the sort of thing that motivates you to press the
REPLY button. ;-)
*** Yes, I know PacMan wasn't the first color video game. But it was
early enough to benefit from the switchover.
But it occurred to me that aspect of gaming has largely been missing
from modern gaming. There's very little modern games do these days
that make wow me, at least from a technical front. Sure, developers --especially the Indies-- still impress me with their artistic chops
or new game-play mechanics, but the underlying tech? It's all so
ordinary. Maybe the graphics are a little bit sharper, the framerate a
little bit smoother; perhaps the gameworlds are slightly larger and
the AI a little bit less brain-dead. But nothing that sets me aback
the way it used to.
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
What about you? Does the tech still impress? Did it ever? And do you
care?
I've been asking myself the same thing quite a bit lately. However, I
do have an example that impressed me. Recently Ubisoft remastered and >re-released Heroes of Might and Magic III.
On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:09:24 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
What about you? Does the tech still impress? Did it ever? And do you
care?
The last game tech that impressed me was in Ultima Underworld for
obvious reasons. No game since that one has impressed me tech wise.
On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:09:24 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
What about you? Does the tech still impress? Did it ever? And do you
care?
The last game tech that impressed me was in Ultima Underworld for
obvious reasons. No game since that one has impressed me tech wise.
On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:09:24 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
By and large, it hasn't impressed me in a long time, because in
general technology matured (by that I mean a number of factors seemed
to plateau, such as GPU speeds, 3D modeling technology, game design creativity etc) compared to the rapid progress being made in the 90's
for example.
One standout title that is impressive visually (graphics/physics) and
in many ways does feel "next level" is a game called Bodycam. A
tactical multiplayer shooter based on Unreal Engine 5 where the
players view is from the perspective of a body cam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-YGXZHNDOo
But it does feel 50% tech demo and 50% actual game.
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
So this CRAP* poll is ever-so-slightly less random and pointless this
time. I mean, not /much/ less; it's just enough less CRAP that I'm not
going to be giving you the usual silly options. Yup, this time you
can't just pick from A, B or C; you gotta WRITE out your response. You
might even have to think about it first!
(Obviously, I expect many fewer responses this time** ;-)
Anyway, here's the question for this month's poll. It's about tech in
video games. Specifically:
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
And by 'tech', I mean anything from graphics, physics, world-size, AI;
stuff like that. The underlying software and hardware that powers our
games. When you load up a new game, is any of that still making you
go, 'Wow! I didn't know PCs could do that" or "Hey, that's really
neat"? If so, which games? If not, can you remember the last time that
happened?
I've been asking myself the same thing quite a bit lately. However, I
do have an example that impressed me. Recently Ubisoft remastered and re-released Heroes of Might and Magic III. It's one of my favorite
games and only recently did developers begin taking remastering
seriously. That's not what impressed me. I switched over from that to Heroes of Might and Magic V and took a good look at the game. The
graphics are beautiful. The music is high quality too. No longer
taking Heroes V for granted. Set the camera to classic view and
pincushion the enemy as Marksmen...
What I think is missing from games today is the cartoon feel. All those
high resolution monsters with fuzzy and often erroneous graphics.
They're rough like a hooker without makeup. Not my cup of tea. They
seem cultish and anathemic.
Rin Stowleigh <rstowleigh@x-nospam-x.com> wrote at 10:16 this Monday (GMT):
On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:09:24 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson >><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
By and large, it hasn't impressed me in a long time, because in
general technology matured (by that I mean a number of factors seemed
to plateau, such as GPU speeds, 3D modeling technology, game design
creativity etc) compared to the rapid progress being made in the 90's
for example.
One standout title that is impressive visually (graphics/physics) and
in many ways does feel "next level" is a game called Bodycam. A
tactical multiplayer shooter based on Unreal Engine 5 where the
players view is from the perspective of a body cam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-YGXZHNDOo
But it does feel 50% tech demo and 50% actual game.
That sounds like it would give me a headache.
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
Oh, I've never heard of that.
What about you? Does the tech still impress? Did it ever? And do youI think the last computer which really impressed me, speaking of
care?
On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 06:20:03 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Oh, I've never heard of that.
Ultima Underworld came out over 30 years ago.
On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:09:24 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
What about you? Does the tech still impress? Did it ever? And do you
care?
The last game tech that impressed me was in Ultima Underworld for
obvious reasons. No game since that one has impressed me tech wise.
Does the technology in games impress you anymore?
Aww, there's still a romantic amidst us who hasn't been soured byImpossible in the long term...
years of Usenetting. Stay pure, Zag! 😉
...AND WE LIKED IT!
Jeez man. ;^)
I think the last computer which really impressed me, speaking of
computers only was the NeXT Cube.
Stay pure, Zag! ;-)
On Wed, 26 Jun 2024 14:47:39 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Stay pure, Zag! ;-)
I am 100% pure, uncut, pharmaceutical grade Zag, and always will be.
Werner P. <werpu@gmx.at> wrote:
I think the last computer which really impressed me, speaking of
computers only was the NeXT Cube.
I wasn't really all that impressed with the NeXTcube. It wasn't all that different from existing Unix workstations, including being very expensive.
I found the BeBox, released a few years later, more impressive as it had
dual CPUs and a much more affordable price. While not really aimed at consumers it was as close as we'd see to a dual-CPU home computer until
a decade later when the first dual core AMD and Intel CPUs came out.
Plus those "Blinkenlights", the two LED strips on the front of the case showing CPU load on the two processors, was really cool.
Ross Ridge <rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote at 14:31 this Friday (GMT):
Werner P. <werpu@gmx.at> wrote:
I think the last computer which really impressed me, speaking of >>computers only was the NeXT Cube.
I wasn't really all that impressed with the NeXTcube. It wasn't all that different from existing Unix workstations, including being very expensive. I found the BeBox, released a few years later, more impressive as it had dual CPUs and a much more affordable price. While not really aimed at consumers it was as close as we'd see to a dual-CPU home computer until
a decade later when the first dual core AMD and Intel CPUs came out.
Plus those "Blinkenlights", the two LED strips on the front of the case showing CPU load on the two processors, was really cool.
I got to mess with one once and it was really cool :D
candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
Ross Ridge <rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote at 14:31 this Friday (GMT):
Werner P. <werpu@gmx.at> wrote:
I think the last computer which really impressed me, speaking of
computers only was the NeXT Cube.
I wasn't really all that impressed with the NeXTcube. It wasn't all that >> > different from existing Unix workstations, including being very expensive. >> > I found the BeBox, released a few years later, more impressive as it had >> > dual CPUs and a much more affordable price. While not really aimed at
consumers it was as close as we'd see to a dual-CPU home computer until
a decade later when the first dual core AMD and Intel CPUs came out.
Plus those "Blinkenlights", the two LED strips on the front of the case
showing CPU load on the two processors, was really cool.
I got to mess with one once and it was really cool :D
Where can we get this? Do they exist for laptop/notebooks too?
Where can we get this? Do they exist for laptop/notebooks too?
Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote:
Where can we get this? Do they exist for laptop/notebooks too?
The Blinkenlights of the BeBox were custom hardware built into the case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bebox_CPU_LEDs.jpg
With a desktop PC you might be able to make something like it using programmable LED strips that are meant to be used inside cases, but you'd still need your own custom software to drive them. For a laptop you'd
pretty much have to have it built in by the manufacturer of the laptop, though I suppose you could make a crude implementation of Blinkenlights
with custom USB hardware.
You also run into the problem that modern computers have way more than
just two CPU cores.
Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote:
Where can we get this? Do they exist for laptop/notebooks too?
The Blinkenlights of the BeBox were custom hardware built into the case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bebox_CPU_LEDs.jpg
With a desktop PC you might be able to make something like it using programmable LED strips that are meant to be used inside cases, but you'd still need your own custom software to drive them. For a laptop you'd
pretty much have to have it built in by the manufacturer of the laptop, though I suppose you could make a crude implementation of Blinkenlights
with custom USB hardware.
You also run into the problem that modern computers have way more than
just two CPU cores.
There's things like this maybe?
https://www.amazon.com/Screen-Monitor-Computer-Temperature-Display/dp/B09TTHZYSH?th=1
Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com> wrote:
There's things like this maybe?
https://www.amazon.com/Screen-Monitor-Computer-Temperature-Display/dp/B09TTHZYSH?th=1
Yah, there's a bunch of solutions that can add a small LCD screen to your computer to display things like CPU load. (For some reason small LCD
screens on CPU coolers are particularly popular.) They're not really blinking lights though. Not like the strip of LEDs on the BeBox were.
Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com> wrote:
There's things like this maybe?
https://www.amazon.com/Screen-Monitor-Computer-Temperature-Display/dp/B09TTHZYSH?th=1
Yah, there's a bunch of solutions that can add a small LCD screen to your computer to display things like CPU load. (For some reason small LCD
screens on CPU coolers are particularly popular.) They're not really blinking lights though. Not like the strip of LEDs on the BeBox were.
Ross Ridge <rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com> wrote:
There's things like this maybe?
https://www.amazon.com/Screen-Monitor-Computer-Temperature-Display/dp/B09TTHZYSH?th=1
Yah, there's a bunch of solutions that can add a small LCD screen to your
computer to display things like CPU load. (For some reason small LCD
screens on CPU coolers are particularly popular.) They're not really
blinking lights though. Not like the strip of LEDs on the BeBox were.
Are they OS dependences? Like can I use macOS, WIndows, Linux, etc.?
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