/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10270130
Not until the eighth generation of consoles. 360 and PS3 both got lots of games that ever came to PC. Rockstar still prioritizes consoles over PC.

late 7th gen. early 7th gen still had lots of console exclusives but after around 2010 everything was multiplat.

>>10270130
If you’re going by pure complexity, PC has obviously always been the home to niche simulation and role playing games that don’t generally have impressive graphics.

>>10270130
Since the beginning. PCs were always ahead, full stop. Consoles were filled with cost cuts and very narrow purpose built components, all the way to 6 gen. By 6th gen gaming systems were flat out becoming low end PCs, really nothing unique about them.

>>10270228
This isn’t really true. Nothing on PC could match Mario 64 in 1996 for example. Affordable consumer level 3D accelerators didn’t come along for another year or two.

>>10270230
Nice caveat you put in there. Except there were quite a few 3d accelerators prior to 96' on x86 alone. Not including Amiga. Also we both know n64s core is a drastically reduced SGI workstation design.

>>10270130
Yet for all the CPU power PCs had in 92 compared to a SNES, the games were limited to 256 colors, supported only 4 button gamepads, and were limited to FM/MIDI with FM patches most of the time. Consoles and PCs were differently abled til the 7th gen. Even up to PS2/GC there were much more powerful PCs that could render further out at much higher resolutions, but certain effects and scenes were hard to replicate. It was common for ports from
>>10270145
but those games could have been ported to PC perfectly. Console video hardware wasn't alien shit like it was on 6th gen and prior. They used AMD/Nvidia GPU and any difference in CPU arch efficiency could have been brute forced.

>>10270243
Yes, anon, I’m aware that 3D accelerators existed prior to 1996. That doesn’t change the fact that Windows gaming from that era was still primitive compared to Mario 64 until Voodoo and Nvidia cards came to the market allowing PC 3D graphics to jump ahead of fifth gen consoles starting around 97/98.

>>10270243
Not that anon but name your '96 PC or Amiga game with 3D acceleration on Mario 64's level, I gotta know what flop-ass pre-Voodoo piece of shit and what literally who game had its graphical features and fidelity.

>>10270130
>by 1992 there was VGA, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster.
Good luck getting all of that for reasonable price in 1992.
Standard Amigas didn't have all that, and common PCs were faring even worse with floppies, CGA/EGA cards and PC Speaker / Hercules beeps.

>>10270250
*ports from PS2 to PC to cut effects out entirely.

>>10270254
He can’t and that’s why PC fanatics on this board are so irritating.

>>10270250
Sorry, Cirrus GD5422 was common in 92. and it was 16bit color. Game pads weren't very popular because there are native peripherals, keyboard and mouse that outclass gamepads. Of course, midi joysticks by CH and the like were what PC gamers were clamoring for when they wanted to play XWing vs Tie Fighter or Need For Speed.

>>10270228
You're clearly a zoomer so I'm going to forgive you for thinking PCs were ahead in the NES era.

>>10270130
>depth and complexity
That depends entirely on what that means in your head. And then what you actually meant when that doesn't give you the results you were hoping for.
The obviously correct answer is whatever year you believe consoles began. There are many "definitive" answers, hot takes, and autistic spins on that, so it's again up to your imagination to fill in the details. But whatever the year, know that computer gaming was far ahead in every way, except possibly being cheap toy jank.

>>10270262
That was more of a desktop/production mode, silly-ass. 99.9% of DOS games were 256 color.

>>10270267
*or less

>>10270262
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=930148
even in this DOS dork thread people have to scramble and hum and haw over games that used such a mode. It was far from standard. All the 'big' 3D DOS games were 256 color. Duke. Doom. Quake. System Shock. Descent. It was exceedingly rare for a non-graphically accelerated DOS game, let alone one from '92, to use 16bit color. Most if not all the examples are much newer.

>>10270130
Good question, and if you take non-Wintel platforms into account, then it's hard to say. If you're looking purely at IBM PC compatibles though, then those were dogshit for handling fast action games until at least the early 90s. Hell, it took a few years for most people to own machines that could handle Doom properly.

by the time the xbox 360 was getting pc ports it evened out. sure a lot of ports were broken, but games in general were starting to be made for consoles and pcs. they werent very different from each other. there was a leveling off of quality around then.

>>10270272
16bit color wasn't a common thing at all on DOS. Even Windows games ran in 256 colors most of the time until 3D accelerators were commonplace.

>>10270272
So how many of those big dos games with their graphical inferiority were ported to console without a completely new cpu added to the console.

>>10270267
And... 16bit color pallet wasn't used for games. Consoles were not displaying 65k colors either. It seems that lower color count is more fitting for videogame processing of the era. But each system had their compromise. Even the Amiga 1200 ran fewer colors for games. Of course, every Amiga could trounce whatever 2d feature in a punty console.

>>10270230
> Nothing on PC could match Mario 64 in 1996 for example.
Nah. Quake and Duke Nukem 3D were pretty good 3D games on PC in '96. Plus all those 3D 90s RTS games.

>>10270130
While there were quite a few genres that PCs overall did better in than consoles did, such as strategy, simulation and adventure, I'd say Doom was the PC's first truly killer app. It was from about that point on that PCs got games that not only were best experienced on PC, but made non-PC gamers salivate at experiencing them the same way PC gamers were.

>>10270230
Not that anon and I know it's a 1995 game but still

>>10270264
'kay

>>10270230
Come to the real world anytime you want.

>>10270130
The whole concept of a PC is quite muddled. PC98, Amiga, IBM comparables and the many related spawns from that series all called themselves PCs. Referring to the Macintosh Personal Computer as a PC might get you in hot water in some message boards. The ZX Spectrum and various Commodores were Home Computers, is a Home Computer a PC?

While the Nintendo Family Computer, Super Family Computer and the NEC PC Engine were what? Perhaps ambitious, mislabeled or a flat out marketing lie?

It is all semantics. They are all computers at their core. Some are for a narrower purpose than others. They are all purpose built but they all have different compromises.

>>10270264
Promise not to use google for this question. Finish the following phrase.

>Sticks and stones.

>>10270364
I like when Sony bundled the PS2 with a demo disc featuring the YaBASIC program in an effort to class it as a home computer, not a games console, for tax purposes.
The European Commission told those sneaky cunts to fuck off and pay up.

>>10270364
There is no way to escape this. OPs premise is backwards, ill informed and retarded. Typing in this thread will only cost you dignity and intelligence.

>>10270372
>>10270372
All consoles literally are computers. A calculator is a computer. When people say computer in colloquial terms, what they're really saying is "desktop keyboard machine". So home computers are computers in this conversation.

>>10270328
> Plus all those 3D 90s RTS games.
Like what? Warzone 2100 is the only one I can think of.

>>10270372
A computer with a keyboard attached has had a halo of innocence since it's inception. The truth is people will buy a tool that has powerful, valuable and enriching functions and find a way to fuck all with it. Hence why I am here.

>>10270372
Is there an NTSC version of that? I wanna try it on my modded console. I'll settle for emulating the PAL version if that's my only option though.

>>10270379
>All consoles literally are computers. A calculator is a computer.
What matters is their intended use.

A PC is multi-purpose machine.

A Playstation is quite clearly marketed as a games console. Bundling it with a demo disc about programming won't change that.

>>10270359
There were a few home computer platforms that mopped the floor with the IBM PC in the 80s. It really wasn't until the early 90s that the PC caught up with everything else.

>>10270380
"3D RTS" doesn't even matter. What that guy was saying misses the point. 90s consoles didn't have the CPU or resolution to run any of the mainstream FPS in a convincing way.

>>10270390
*RTS (but FPS too. RTS can also extent to management games, Diablo, etc, too)

>>10270297
I'd like to see a shootout between the Amiga 500 and the Genesis (or Megadrive if we're comparing Euro games, since that was the Amiga's main market.) Would be interesting to see since they're both 68k machines with similar capabilities.

>>10270387
I would argue mid 90s. But that is the point. There was a large amount of diversity among Personal Computers. IBM compatibles were not leading in graphics or sound. There were several other PCs that were.

Atari ST 85' was considered a leader for MIDI sequencing, people still use it professionally today.

Amiga 1000 was the first consumer grade PC that could do non linear video editing. Not to mention all the LightWave stuff and 3d enhancement cards. There is still an active fanbase out there.

>>10270405
Yeah, mid 90s is probably a better estimate. I was a literal toddler in the 90s, so my knowledge of this stuff is secondhand.

>>10270390
Goldeneye was more impressive than any pc fps that came out in 97

>>10270130
>1992
Well, short and sweet version is, home computers were always better than consoles. So, yeah... There was never a point in history where a console did more than computers could. Just that computers that were not fucking amstrad or speccy tier were expensive and not focused on gaming. Msx was already out when nes dropped, c64 and nes were just about on par and then the Amiga could have been a nintendo killer if they focused more on gameplay than graphics

>>10270386
Sony launched a licensed version of Linux for the PS2 along with keyboard and mouse, so it's technically a computer. Early releases of the PS3 also had official support for Linux and FreeBSD.

The only time in history console were technology better than computers was the start of the 5th gen, and it only lasted a couple years until GPU on PC became the norm

>>10270852
Only in regard to its innovative single-player design elements that made it a decent licensed adaptation. Beyond that it was too limited, and in comparison to the PC scene its gameplay and performance were a joke.

>>10270284
I'm saying they were differently abled from each other. The SNES obviously couldn't do a lot of shit a PC could with that CPU, but it could throw high color 2D graphics around with high quality sound (all comparatively) like a motherfucker. Duke Nukem II (1993) looked and sounded like a low-tier early Genesis game, let alone something that maxed SNES out.

>>10270360
>no texture filtering or any hardware accelerated SGI surface effects
While obviously it looks muddy now, a texture that wasn't blocked out up close looked space age. It was a whole new look.

>>10270254
It’s just Auster you are replying to. The resident tard

>>10270228
>PCs were always ahead,
Agree. Consoles initially less expensive because design simplification, but the variety and catalog of computer games can't be topped.
Additionally, online gaming become popular on computers long before consoles

>>10270852
Blood and Shadow Warrior had far more scripting and interactivity. Quake 2 had far bigger more intricate maps.

>>10271213
1993 is also when Doom came out, and that put EVERYTHING else to shame. The issue with DOS gaming at the time was the fact that not everyone was on the same hardware. There were lots of people still using 286 machines, some with EGA graphics, so many DOS games were made catering to that lowest common denominator and not fully taking advantage of the power that was now available in stronger machines with 486 or Pentium processors and VGA and SVGA graphics, which were prohibitively expensive and thus niche.

>>10271432
DOS, Doom, and VLB graphics on a 486.
Multiplayer so popular that it brought office LANs to their knees and produced a dip in US productivity.
Console owners lusted but it just wasn't possible on the Genesis or SNES.
Yes, eventually ported but far from the same and no way of loading custom WADs.

>>10271526
Indeed. Doom is the game that really and truly made the PC shine as a premium gaming platform, with experiences that other platforms could only imitate or straight-up were unsuited for. It sure took a while, though. It was already more than capable of delivering great experiences by the 386/VGA era, but it seems like it was hampered by developers casting the widest possible net. For instance, and perhaps Apogee is not a good example of this, but they were releasing CGA games playable on a fucking 8088 as late as 1991 and EGA games playable on 286 rigs as late as 1993.

>>10271768
Only when it comes to action games. Civilization and Sim City were already out

>>10271221
You're telling me that in the PC era before hardware graphics accelerators existed we didn't have hardware accelerated graphics effects?!

>>10270359
Didn't the X68000 cost the equivalent of $8000 in today's US dollars? The NES cost the equivalent of less than $600 in today's money.
You're comparing a $8000 system to a $600 one. Of course you could have crazy shit if you paid the price of an arcade machine

>>10272160
Yeah, you just needed an expensive Intel CPU to brute force it (along with the digital audio mixing). The ISA bus was dogshit for anything more elaborate than some memory to hold the framebuffer and a DAC, and remained like that until PCI came onto the scene.

>>10270228
>PCs were always ahead
Untrue. John Carmack had to come up with a special algorithm to make a sidescrolling game on PC. Something the NES was already capable of without optimization.

>>10271247
>variety and catalog of computer games can't be topped
Up until the late 2000's PC was mostly relegated to FPS, strategy, point n click, dungeon crawlers, MMOs and porn games.

>>10272292
PC98, MSX, Amiga isn't a PC? pro tip they are.

>>10272259
This is the most poignant argument. It isn't fair to compare personal computers to game consoles. Because PCs are OP.

>>10272292
Meanwhile in 1987:
https://youtu.be/eEpQCCA7S1g?t=78
And that's on a C64 too. Look, Carmack deserves a shitton of praise and Master of Doom is a great book but it did get some facts mixed up and now they're just repeated ad nauseam despite being obviously and provably wrong.

>Something the NES was already capable of without optimization.
Yeah but the NES's PPU chip was specifically designed for smooth scrolling. It's essentially doing it via hardware not software. This is a massive oversimplification but if you look at the PPU viewer on the left you've got 2 pattern tables: top is your sprite table, bottom is your background table. These 2 tables are designed to move independently of one another hence why the nes is capable of smooth scrolling (there's more to it than that - I'm just doing the simple version.)

Also meanwhile on a PC platform in 1986:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvW6okgy4wA
No smooth scrolling backgrounds but it does kinda shit on what was possible on the NES at the time (graphically at least - Defender of the Crown's gameplay's arguably a bit shit)

>>10272403
>if you look at the PPU viewer
Sorry, CHR viewer but same difference. The PPU's the actual chip in the NES, the CHR rom is the actual chip in the cartridge

>>10270130
I think Doom was really the turning point. Really showed what PC could do if done right. Every console port had to have some kind of compromise to run it. The biggest console (SNES) at the time could barely handle it

>>10272425
Again, you also have to remember that a PC that could run doom at an acceptable framerate(so something with a 486) would cost literally 4 times the price of an SNES. I think it's unfair to just ignore the price. Of course you get more if you pay more

>>10272259
Of course. That's why home computers were ahead in the NES era.

>>10272367
>fair
It's the basis of the thread. Tell that to dolts actually arguing against it

>>10270228
DOS games contemporary with systems like the Sega Mark III and the NES, all the way up into the 4th gen with the SNES and the Genesis, couldn't even do scrolling

>>10272403
It is really difficult to explain to people who were wowed by tiles moving right to left, that there were scripted games with branching paths, open world games and massively multiplayer games that existed, there were games with more than 1.5 dimensions. Because they were certain that watching sprites scroll from right to left was the most impressive thing they have ever seen.

>>10272491
Disk Operating System is one of many OSes on a couple of many vastly different PCs.

>>10272471
I think his point is that prior to Doom, even considering how much a PC cost, the games coming out for it were at best on par with what you could get on on other platforms. Of course, if you were into genres like simulation and adventure games, you probably weren't complaining much, as that's where PCs excelled from the beginning.

>>10272493
Things have never changed. The majority of people always preferred visual spectacles that don't require too much thinking. Not saying those games are worthless, but there's a reason why Doom is the first PC game that reached such a high level of popularity. It easy to play and the graphics were mind blowing in 93. Those PC RPGs looked lame to the average normie compared to something like Contra, Castlevania, SMB3. Even if the games have a lot of depth to them. The average normie wants spectacle, always did

I know it's better but I can't be bothered dealing with crashes, awful secondary ports, drivers, bluetooth this and that, having the mouse or having the controller but disabling steam input with a restart required, etc.

You deal with that your whole adolescence and you just think we should be above that kind of experience by now. With switch at least, the thing just fucking works. This is why switch 2 will win out over your adin odyn whatevers.

>
Hey buddy I think you got the wrong board. /v/ is two blocks down.

>>10270130
One thing people neglect to realize is that arcade machines were embedded computers configured for one purpose and they always outperformed consumer hardware. At least until arcade manufacturers started basing their arcade hardware on consoles with improvements or straight up turning the console into arcade format.

But the argument here is clearly targeted between desktops and consoles. Once 3D accelerators became commercially available around the mid to late 90's, consoles stopped being better than PCs. Sadly, consoles are much more marketable than PCs so developers prioritized making games for consoles while hiring teams to port some games to PC like little afterthoughts. BUT, games that were made for PC had to be greatly downgraded just to run on consoles. Quite the dilemma.

>>10272515
you are the target demographic for consoles. those console to PC ports are almost always of games that weren't worthwhile in the first place. PC has more important games to enjoy anyway.

>>10272531
>Sadly, consoles are much more marketable than PCs
It's simple: Consoles are cheaper. Always have been and still are. Even today an entire modern console like a PS5 is cheaper than literally just a GeForce RTX 4070. Normies don't think about everything a PC brings that consoles simply can't do. They just see decent graphics at low price and they buy.
I'm a PC guy because for me PC is freedom and I love how I can do so many different things with it, but the average person doesn't give a shit about that

>>10272510
I wouldn't even say that. Elite is something you couldn't see on a home console, yes there was a NES port with a special video processor but it was a joke. Oregon Trail a fun and simple numbers game by MECC, once again is a shadow of the AppleII version, NES just couldn't crunch the numbers. Later console gamers are going on about SMB3 while IBM compatible PC gamers are playing Wing Commander and Mechwarrior. Not to mention the Sim games, Theme games, Tycoon games. Usually stripped naked ports several years later with none of the functions that made the game great.

>>10270130
The concept of building a ‘gaming rig' didn’t even exist until the late 90s.

>>10270335
>>10270360
I expected these types of replies because you guys do the same thing in every single one of these threads. Super Mario 64 features an onscreen fully polygonal character in a 3D world. Earlier polygonal 3D games on PC are all first person because that’s way easier to do and a lot of them still heavily used sprites so Duke doesn’t count.

>>10272493
Yeah but one of my examples: Defender of the Crown is more-or-less just eye candy designed to sell you on your Amiga. Look I think the actual problems descend from the nature of the PC market in the 80s. Let's look at some of the big players:

>Apple II
Amazing machine but originally came out in 1977 and had no on board, specialized graphics hardware to speak of. Everything had to be done in software. Still fucking amazing for a 1977 machine and it's in-built expansion slots meant that it survived for over a decade as one of the most popular machines on the market. But Apple's failure to successfully follow it up (they really should've positioned the Apple IIGS as the successor, no the Macintosh) meant that games originally programmed for it were gonna be subject to a bunch of limitations because it's a PC from 1977.

>IBM PC and its clones running MS-DOS
Crap for most of the 80s. Was designed as a buisness machine first and foremost, had terrible graphics and sound and most multiplat games on it were usually the worst versions. And the 640k barrier basically fucked anyone who really wanted to test the limits of the machine. Now the whole open design standard meant that by the late 80s you could expand the machine and it eventually became a great games machine but even then the 640k barrier was still an issue and every other dev had their own workaround

>C64
Great. On-par with the NES but with the added benefit of actually having some memory and working like a computer. Only problem? SLOW as fuck loading times. You can see why the nes ended up beating the C64 in the popularity contest in the end (honestly C64 is the only one I'd actually put next to the NES in a one-on-one competition, like people are doing in this retarded thread despite having little idea about PC games - honestly the C64 does some stuff the NES cannot but I'd honestly probably give this one to the NES overall)

>>10272580
Wrong, prior to 3d accelerators. People were building many types of rigs. Usually it meant maxing out the CPU, RAM, Network Card and HDD speed often with Raid 0 striping. What types of games were they playing? Doom, C&C, loads of flight sims. Some people were building rigs just to enjoy simple pleasures like Wing Commander.

>>10272603
>Super Mario 64 features an onscreen fully polygonal character in a 3D world.
So does MechWarrior 2 if you switch to 3rd person.

>>10272609
Yes, but I doubt those were built specifically with gaming in mind. The rise of consumer level 3D accelerator cards in the late 90s led to modern PC gaming, and by "PC" I mean 99% Windows gaming as we know it now.

>>10272614
Forgot pic

>>10272614
Yeah, definitely the same thing, anon.

>>10272618
It's funny how the original version of MechWarrior 2 looks better aesthetically than the later fully textured and 3D accelerated versions

>>10272616
Yes, people were into their PC games and there were lan parties where people talked about what they did to get an edge in the game. This is why I mentioned the whole buying a raid card, which was a big deal in the late 80s early 90s. Raid 0 with a few pricy HDDs just to be the king of speed at a LAN was a real thing that IBM PC gamers were doing.

>>10272608
Continued:
>Amiga/Atari ST
Great fucking machines. Way better and more capable than anything on the console market at the time. But thanks to shit marketing they sold like shit in the USA. In Europe they were successful but it meant that barely anyone played the games on them in the key American market, instead they would be playing heavily downgraded ports on their Apple II, IBM PC or C64 and that's IF it got a port at all.

That's just a quick rundown of the major platforms in the 80s. It really wasn't until Microsoft essentially started taking over that it all got consolidated into a single PC market. All these machines had something going for them but there were different standards and different hardware making PC games a weird, fractured market up until the early 90s.

Not to mention the issue of ports. If you made an Apple II game and ported it to something better, like the Amiga, it might look quite a bit better but it's still gonna be an Apple II game at it's core with the same limitations imposed on the original design. Meanwhile something like an Amiga game might end up getting downported to MS-DOS and be a way, way shittier version - except that's the version most people (in America at least) played and the one that's most readily available on places like Abandonware sites.

>>10272628
Okay fine, but modern PC gaming started with Windows 95, simple as.

>>10272620
It literally is. It's a fully animated, fully on-screen polygonal character. In 1995 no less. You're just wrong.

>>10272635
Uh huh. And how does it look and control in motion?

>>10272618
Talk about soul. The thing console gamers fail to recognize is the entire underpinning of the popular FASA RPG by the numbers is there in real time 3D while you play. Heat, heatsinks, armor everything interconnected, there is enemy AI and RNG running... I don't think anyone can say that about Mario 64.

>>10272637
Marios stats are represented by a pie cut in 6 pieces... Sorry, but that is a total fail.

>>10272637
That's not what you said. You said:
>Super Mario 64 features an onscreen fully polygonal character in a 3D world. Earlier polygonal 3D games on PC are all first person because that’s way easier to do and a lot of them still heavily used sprites
MechWarrior 2 features an onscreen fully polygonal character in a 3D world. Also doesn't use sprites. You're currently coping by acting like you didn't say that, what you meant was something else.

>>10272639
You guys are the same people that bring up Alone in the Dark coming before Resident Evil. Mechwarrior and AitD look like primitive shit by comparison. Fifth gen consoles were a huge leap in 3D graphics and PC gaming only took like a year or two to catch up, so give credit where credit is due.

>>10272639
Mario simply captures the attention more easily. Every sound and visual effect in a Nintendo game is like a loud cartoon that keeps the attention of ADHD children

>>10270130
Since the beginning?
Having no keyboard (and initially no writable mass media) put some pretty strict limits on just how complex console games could be. That's an inherent feature of the format. The whole point, like with the arcade machines, was dumbing down computer games for a less sophisticated audience.
Elite (1984) didn't even show up on a console before 1991.

>>10272654
Mech games are extremely autistic so I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

>>10272656
>PC gaming is for hardcore autismos

That’s beside the point, really. Consoles excelled at more fast-paced genres while computer gaming has always been the home for nerdy simulation stuff.

>>10272637
Look up Ghostbear and Mercenaries. Both came out before Mario 64. Both have more detailed textures, detailed rigging on the models, game stats, AI, branching path stories, undeniably better sound. In 96.

>>10272653
Ok look up Mechwarrior 2 Ghostbear. Game came out in 95'. Reminder, we are talking full set FASA RPG stats, AI, branching path story telling, FMV also multiplayer over LAN. Sorry, Sony, Sega and Nintendo weren't doing that, they simply couldn't they didn't have the processing power, the ram, or the HDD to handle a game like that.

>>10272683
Yeah…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=zDIhvYilCWU&pp=ygUZTWVjaCB3YXJyaW9yIDIgZ2hvc3QgYmVhcg%3D%3D

>>10272661
Finish the phrase without using google.

>sticks and stones

>>10272695
It is a PC game you can turn off all the graphical details. People do this to get an edge. I agree turning off all the LOD and looking at flat polygons or worse vertices makes the game awful. The game has textures, fog, lighting effects and particle effects most obviously snow flurries.

>>10272695
Yes! Finally you see!

>>10272719
Mmhmm.

>>10272698
Uh... How appropriate, you fight like a cow!

>>10272719
Well, with MechWarrior 2 it's an odd case because it came out right around the time of 3D acceleration became a thing but it was a bit wild west and there were no agreed-upon standards. So Activision made different versions for different graphic cards (this was almost all during 96 btw) with different graphical features in each one to take advantage of what that card could do, some had textures, some had a better draw distance etc. They even bundled it with the graphics cards, made a killing profit-wise. It was the killer app for PCs for a bit right before Quake hit and before Windows 95 fully took over and standardized everything.

Anyway this guy: >>10272695
seems to be playing the earlier MS-DOS version that doesn't have the same texture quality of some of the other versions. Watch this other anon, it's a good breakdown of the graphics quality between different versions (all of which were released between 95-97):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWzWdwj9NvU

>>10272728
Your YouTube example definitely looks better, but still about on par with early N64 games. The anons claiming this is superior are delusional.

>>10272735
Yes. It came out in 95. The better versions look about on-par with Mario 64. And that's just looks wise. If we're talking about "depth and complexity" (y'know what OP's question was) then, yes, MechWarrior 2 smokes Mario 64.

And to be clear Mario 64's a good game. Really good game actually, it fucking nailed 3D, third person movement. Just this thread, and that other anon who keeps claiming that nothing on PC could match Mario 64 in 1996, is delusional.

>>10272740
Fair enough. Thank you for being sensible.

>>10272735
Pretending a pie with 6peices is comparable to to the 20+ stats MW2 is keeping track of. Pretending King Bombom slowly trodding towards you is comparable to a half a dozen mechs with AI and stats ambushing you. Pretending "itsa me mario" is comparable to FMV with narration and in game play scripted banter. Pretending that beating the same Bowser the 3rd time is comparable to branched path story telling... Lets talk about delusions.

>>10272746
I’d like to note that the N64 launched at only $199.99 in the U.S. The 3D performance at that price point in 1996 is pretty incredible to think about.

>>10270925
>Beyond that it was too limited
Compared to what? To this day we still don't have more games with the combination of light gun style aim at bodyparts to stun them gameplay combined with tactical stealth and open ended objectives. Other devs just didn't do that, not did they move on to offering customizable AI or counter OP modes etc.

>>10272761
PC gamers on this board really need to stop acting like Quake was this amazing advancement in 3D gaming. GoldenEye is easily more advanced when it comes to gameplay. Quake II is the id game that coincided with Voodoo and early Nvidia graphics cards coming to the market.

>>10272758
That could be said of anything. It is notable that I got amusement from a $15 Tiger handled. It didn't knock my socks off and I didn't convince myself that this $15 expenditure meant I had the best gaming machine for the time.

>>10272772
Nope, this post is pure bullshit. At best, your MechWarrior 2 example looks about as good as an early N64 game from 1996/1997. You really wowed me.

>>10272781
Cry more. Defend Nintendo. IDC. The cards have been laid down. Graphically: inferior, story: weak, game depth: shallow. I get it you enjoyed it as a kid. I enjoyed it as a young adult but it wasn't to the depth of any of the PC games of the era.

>>10272758
Sir, this is a thread about "depth and complexity," not about which one was the better "value-for-money." And besides, that's literally the entire business model of consoles. They're sold at a loss, they're called "loss leaders." The profit margins are actually in software and in fairly hefty licensing fees for 3rd party developers. I believe it's called the "walled garden" approach or something like that.

>>10272781
Am I supposed to compare Donkey Kong 64 to Tribes?

>>10272795
There’s no clear cut answer when it comes to retro stuff. Multiple posters itt have already stated that computer gaming has always been the place for simulators and grand strategy and such, while consoles excelled at more fast paced, arcadey gameplay.

>>10272761
>light gun style aim at bodyparts to stun them gameplay combined with tactical stealth and open ended objectives
All impressive single-player design elements for the time, which the post addressed.
However compared to other FPS games in '97 it performed worse, controlled worse, was limited to 4-player max splitscreen, and had a limited pool of maps and gametypes

>>10272801
...yes? Correct. What are we arguing about here?

>>10272792
I truly do not believe that you and by you I mean you yourself anon, can play MechWarrior 2 right now and find it enjoyable.

>>10272801
No, Arcades were where Arcade games were at. Arcade to console ports existed but were compromised and delayed as were Arcade to PC ports unless you are talking about some of the 68k based PCs in Japan.

>>10272781
Not to interupt you guys but he didn't post MechWarrior 2, I did. This is me: >>10270335
I'm the sensible guy. This one: >>10272740
Anyway feel free to carry on arguing. Just wanted to make that clear

>>10272807
We’re arguing about everyone’s personal definition of depth and complexity. Dwarf Fortress is extremely complex but doesn’t come with complex graphics.

>>10272817
Yes, and the fifth gen was when consoles began to catch up with arcade graphics and single player games got more complex.

>>10272767
It's funny you say this but Goldeneye has so many corner cutting optimizations just so the the enemies appear smart and even then the game barely had good performance. Quake was the first true fully 3D shooter which was limited by the hardware of the time but it's official source ports like WinQuake and GLQuake were scalable to run even better on any compatible architectures. It's still widely played today in it's QuakeWorld iteration as well with smaller mods still being developed for it. Meanwhile, the highly regarded console games only serve as nostalgia fuel to remember the days before developers and console manufacturers made you buy a new console to play the new game.

>>10272813
Other anon here, the sensible one. MechWarrior 2's still pretty good! You should try it out. I think it's fun. Only real complaint is that Terra Nova came out a little bit later and was the better Mech combat game in a lot of ways. Less impressive graphics (still used rotational sprites for enemies but on the other hand the draw distance was fucking insane especially for 96) but honestly better, deeper gameplay in a lot of respects. Fuck, actually go play Terra Nova too anon.

>>10272827
I get what you’re saying and I agree that Quake’s multiplayer holds up better. Single player however is very basic compared to GoldenEye.

>>10272835
The single player is another one of Quake's strengths though. It has more intricate level design that was not hindered by cinematics or railroaded content. There is a reason why Half-Life took after Quake's and Quake II's design philosophy of allowing the player to experience the game through their own perspective rather than using the "show and tell" approach.

>>10272840
That’s a pretty big stretch. Half-Life single player is far more cinematic and more akin to GoldenEye than Quake’s primitive Doom-style gameplay.

>>10272801
This is true. I feel like something I see with a lot of self professed 'PC gamers' is that they don't really appreciate just how refined console games at their best are. Like, then you pick up a controller an move Mario around in Mario 64, you are moving around something created to move like an analogue of a person with positional and rotational inertia in 3D space, who will stop and move in the opposite direction in a convincing and 'natural' way if you flick your stick in the other direction, and who will collide with and bounce off physical objects in ways that give a strong impression of physical presence. You can take a due who walks across the ground most of the time, launch him out of a canon and have his whole body move at high velocity, rotate and animate in a way that wouldn't otherwise happen except for this, and then transition from this back into walking on the ground from this or flying, and it all feels 'correct'.

You can downplay this all as "bing bing wahoo" as much as you want, but the way its all designed is very deliberately well thought out and the way it gives the impression of controlling something solid in 3D space through gameplay is quite sophisticated. In contrast no many PC games have you just fly through the air and let you rotate your character almost at random by moving your mouse in a way that feels incredibly sloppy in comparison, and I don't feel that this is a shallow thing to note.

>>10272846
The only stretch I see is you thinking the first quarter of Half-Life even remotely being comparable to Goldeneye. At no point are you locked in a forced perspective and are therefore given some agency to sandbox within the constraints of the engine and immediate location.

>>10272849
Agreed. Mario 64 as a total package was amazing for 1996.

>>10272854
>At no point are you locked in a forced perspective and are therefore given some agency to sandbox within the constraints of the engine and immediate location.

Nonsensical word salad.

>>10272801
>while consoles excelled at more fast paced, arcadey gameplay.
Except arcade hardware was an embedded computer with a dedicated purpose that excelled at this function than consoles. I'm just gonna laugh if someone dares bring up the NeoGeo AES.

>>10272858
I was waiting for someone to mention the AES.

>>10272858
Well, the fifth gen was when consoles began to outpace arcades and mainstream 3D acceleration came to Windows computers, so that’s the era I’ve been focusing on for discussion.

>>10272861
>Well, the fifth gen was when consoles began to outpace arcades
Except for the fact that arcade manufacturers did indeed base their hardware on consoles, they were usually enhanced versions in the case of some PlayStation and N64 arcade hardware. Sega did their own thing and made their own compromises for the consumer hardware.

>>10272849
But that's just software design philosophy though. It's irrelevant to the hardware platform.

>>10272867
Not so fast. PC games from that era were designed around rigid keyboard and mouse controls while Nintendo built Mario 64 around full analog movement, which is hardware related.

>>10272870
PC was fully capable of full 3D movement as is evident by the numerous simulation game oriented peripherals; eg Saitek, Logitech, Wingman stuff, etc.

what's your point again? interfaces?

>>10272865
Yep, but console game developers used that hardware to create much more complex single player experiences compared to previous generations. Simply having arcade accurate ports was no longer enough.

>>10272867
It is interesting that it is boiling down to I like Mechwarrior 2 vs I like Mario 64. No one wants to talk about poly processing, mips, lighting, particle effects, texturing etc...

>>10272878
Sidewinder

>>10272878
Nope, perspective. Experiencing Mario’s fluid analog movement for the first time in 1996 was a true game changer compared to any 3D simulation game on PC at the time.

>>10272870
Not so fast! Joysticks/flightsticks were all the rage throughout the 80s and most of the 90s. Did you just never play Freespace?

>>10272887
>>10272886

>>10272882
It comes down to this >>10272819 really.

>>10272867
You could not have done Mario 64 on a PC with a standard keyboard and mouse. Even Sony immediately recognized what an advantage Nintendo had with their stick based controls and how limited they were with a d-pad alone. Consoles allowed for and encouraged a certain physical design mentality that could be achieved to a highly refined level, you just didn't see things like fighting games designed for the PC; that didn't happen until console/arcade style peripherals and high speed internet became normal for PCs.

PCs have always had huge advantages for things like simulation and strategy games etc. but 'sophisticated action games' have always been primarily a console thing that took decades for the PC to catch up to.

>>10272886
Mario, Mario, N64, Mario, N64, N64, N64, Mario, Mario, N64. Frankly you were born in 1990 and are still stuck on your childhood obsession.

>>10272891
That's not fair, we posted at nearly the same time. Besides, this guy: >>10272870 who said:
>PC games from that era were designed around rigid keyboard and mouse controls
Is just wrong. I don't have much of a dog in this fight, I guess I prefer PC games overall but I appreciate good console games and the relative ease-of-use of most retro consoles but people just keep saying wrong shit in this thread that exposes that they have no idea what they're talking about. And it bugs me.

>>10272898
You’re not helping your case by being a hater instead of being rational.

So are you dweebs just having a slapfight over PC and console games when both are good?

>>10272903
I’m the anon that posted that. Is it really wrong to say that most PC games from that era were designed around KB+M? Sure you had flight simulator joysticks, but that’s not really the same thing as controlling Mario in a fully 3D, third person environment.

>>10272903
Everyone knows keyboard and mouse are FTW in competitive gaming, which is why they are banned in some competitive games. There is no point in arguing with someone who has saturated the thread talking about Mario 64, which isn't the gold standard for gen5 console gaming.

>>10272914
Mario 64 absolutely was the gold standard for third person perspective movement in gaming at the time, which is an important distinction to make when comparing it to 3D PC games from around the same time.

>>10272904
People rationalize things but they are not rational. It is a pointless statement. You are simply obsessive.

>>10272915
Obsessed and poorly cultured. You are so young you know nothing about the time you speak of.

>>10272916
Nope, I’m merely giving credit where it’s due. Mario 64 was a huge advancement in the way 3D games are made and I was a PlayStation kid. I think the N64 is okay but I prefer GameCube.

>>10272918
Mmhmm.

>>10272896
>primarily a console thing that took decades for the PC to catch up to.
The only thing PC needed to catch up with was mainstream relevance. As a PC gamer who started in 2010 when I was a Sega and Sony fanboy before that, I made the switch to the PC when building a PC became ridiculously cheap with Pentium 4 and 9800's dunking in price. Humble Bundle and Steam were having ridiculous fucking sales they were begging people to buy games for pennies on the dollar. One thing is inevitable though, consoles still dominate the mainstream market despite clearly having no technical advantage beyond perceived convenience. PC gaming has it's own demographic that is being taken care of despite having the most open platform where you can choose how to play your games.

I lost sight of what this thread is even about. Consoles were always about catering to the consumer demographic. Of course, it also tried to bring cutting edge tech at an affordable price which is admirable. N64, Saturn, and PlayStation are console that pioneered but also cemented a lot of bad industry standards that wouldn't be apparent until 6th gen and later.

>>10272920
You weren't there. Sure you watched alot of youtube videos and did alot of google and wikipedia searches. If you were you would have had some awareness what was going on, not just Mario N64.

>>10272923
So tell me about a non nintendo PC product of 1998?

>>10272898
How about we talk about Zelda then? Or, hell, what about something more 'minor' like Spyro or Banjo? There were no PC games that played like these at the time, and these styles of games weren't even improved upon by anything as time went on.

>>10272927
Okay, name a single 3D PC game from before Mario 64 that has even remotely similar character movement. I’ll wait. Your clunky mech games certainly don’t qualify.

>>10272929
I’m >>10272920, moron. I was born in 1987. You’re probably also in your 30s.

>>10272930
I dunno maybe Elder Scrolls Adventure is something from the time. But it was kinda considered less by most PC gamers because it is hard cut linear like Zelda 64. But yes if you wanted something simple like Zelda 64 without too many RPG elements and liner gameplay Elder Scrolls Adventure is probably what you are looking for.

>>10272910
>>10272914
Nah if you look at a lot of early 90s games they were actually somewhat optimized around joystick controls. Have you ever played Doom with the original mouse controls? Not the keyboard only version, the original drag-and-drop mouse controls. It's quite fluid but a bit werid and that's because it's actually optimized for joysticks. It wasn't until the late 90s that keyboard and mouse became the only way to play games.

>>10272878
>Saitek, Logitech, Wingman stuff, etc.

And who does that? Nobody because these are shit ways of controlling a character who you'd want to change direction of motion on a dime (as opposed to the slow and smooth way that is natural to a simulator), but that was what the PC offered at the time, even if it was built for something fundamentally different.

>>10272945
Also here's one more John Romero ad for shits and giggles

>>10272945
Yeah, but again, 3D PC gaming in the early to mid-90s really didn’t have much in the way of third person perspective games. Joysticks work fine for flight simulators and such. Maybe FPS games too I guess, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

>>10272954
I have examples for you but now I'm just worried you're fishing for spoonfed answers for your next YouTube video. And yes, if you were there, you would know which games I'm about to namedrop. (some are currently on GOG).

>>10272954
Why in the realm of competitive console gaming are keyboards and mouses banned?

>>10272940
>hard cut linear like Zelda 64
Are you seriously going to go down this line or argument? Do you really want to waste your time arguing with me about something you are just factually wrong about on multiple levels and that isn't remotely hard to show is false straight up, given how creatively open the 64 Zelda games are?

>>10272959
>I have examples for you

No you don’t.

>>10272954
>Maybe FPS games too I guess, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.
Again before wasd + mouselook became standard it actually made a lot of sense. Honestly Doom's great on a joystick with the original configuration.
>Yeah, but again, 3D PC gaming in the early to mid-90s really didn’t have much in the way of third person perspective games.
So? The argument wasn't about having 3rd person games. I swear you lot are just moving goalposts left and right.

>>10272963
My argument with Mario 64 has certainly been about how influential it was on 3D gaming. I’ve mentioned it numerous times in previous posts. The way Mario moved in a third person environment was a massive advancement and something that PC gaming hadn’t conquered at the time.

>>10272960
If you played Quake III Arena on Sega.net, there was a mix of controller and mkb players. Use your judgement there. Microsoft also performed a test between the most average mkb players versus the most competent controller players. tje average mkb players had a higher score ratio that the competent controller players. CoD is one of the newest games that has let mkb and controller players play together. Since the gameplay doesn't revolve around open spaces and instead opts for corridors and doorway access, aim assist will usually help you kill PC players, but not by much since console players always follow some cookie cutter habit pattern.

>>10272961
Sorry, I hurt your zelda. But this is what people were saying about Elder Scrolls Adventure. They said it is like Elder Scrolls without the complexity, depth and open game play, is this really really what the PC needs? A linear PC game that plays like something for Playstation.

>>10272970
I'm not sure if you're even trying to make an argument. Did your brain just melt or something? I seriously don't understand what you are even attempting to do.

>>10272965
No, instead you usually control 3rd person characters with wasd + mouse in PC games. Something that the Quake community were more-or-less inventing at the time. And that includes 3rd person games btw. You don't use analog controls in PC games usually? What are you talking about? And again, I think Mario 64's pretty good.

>>10272981
You are the one that doesn't realize this is a straight line.

Branches end at a point.

>>10272985
See >>10272931. Again, I’ll wait. In fact, name a single PC game from 1996 or earlier that used WASD + mouse controls for third person perspective gameplay. I’m calling bullshit.

>>10272981
Yeah, I hate to agree with the other anon (cause he's a bit of a dick) but yeah that's nearly a straight line. I like Ocarina though. I honestly liked Majora's Mask more though, felt more complete and weird.

>>10272989
>Branches end at a point.

The game doesn't lock you out of x because you did y. That doesn't change that it has a complex system of dependencies instead of being straight linear or open world.

>>10272991
Why? Can you name me a single 1996 game that had dual analog controls where the left stick controls your character and the right stick control the camera? Your clunky C-button mapping certainly doesn't qualify.

And what does this have to do with anything? You're moving goalposts again and again to try to prove yourself right. What does this have to do with anything? And besides, you haven't played MechWarrior 2. How do you know it's clunky? I've played both Mario 64 and MechWarrior 2. They're both good.

>>10273014
I’ve never once wavered in my argument and I’ve never moved the goalposts. So your answer is no, you cannot name any such game on PC.

>>10273006
Absolutely does. If the game is A>B>C>D then it is linear. Just because there are a few optional distractions doesn't change the linearity. Just because there are so e tricks to make it A>C>B>D doesn't change its linearity. Just because it is a Nintendo game and you really like the Big N polish doesn't change the linearity. My intent wasn't to hurt your feelings. But the fact of the matter seems to be that you really haven't explored PC gaming of the era. I had a N64 and PCs and borrowed PS1. I was also an adult during this era so I was far past being a fanboy of anything.

>>10273023
I’ve never heard of Elder Scrolls Adventure Redguard before this thread, but it honestly looks like a better game than the massive open world ones from the 90s.

>>10273016
Bullshit you have. We've gone from:
>Nothing on PC in 96 can compare to Mario 64
>What about MechWarrior 2
>Doesn't count because you don't have a fully polygonal model and it's not in 3rd person (and I don't know the difference between it and Duke Nukem)
>It does have a 3rd person camera and it does have a fully 3D polygonal model
>WELL... IT DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE THE ANIMATION ISN'T AS GOOD
>That's not what we were arguing about?

>Several hours later

>MECHWARRIOR 2 DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE WASD + MOUSELOOK AND IT'S ALSO A MECH SIM SO IT'S NOT ANYTHING LIKE MARIO 64
>Well then, I guess you're right. Well done anon. Want a hug?

>>10273025
It looks good. Bethesda was trying to go for the cinematic, console like, gameplay. They made a bad choice with the controls issues. The game has been dusted off and is on GOG I belive but I don't think they fixed the control issues.

>>10273028
When I said nothing on PC at the time compared to Mario 64, how did you interpret it? The game is world famous for changing the way 3D games control regardless of the platform. So yes, I am correct and always was. There was absolutely nothing even close to it on PC in 1996 despite the fact that you can control a mech in third person if you want as you pointed out.

>>10273028
see
>>10273034
see
>>10272898

This Mario 64 guy has a problem. He can't see past his nose. Everyone played Mario 64, it was ok. He feels a need to defend Mario 64. He has few experiences outside of Mario 64.

>>10273039
Mario 64 was objectively groundbreaking for 3D gaming and the PC gaming scene had nothing like it at the time, end of story. You can hate console gaming all you want but it’s true.

>>10273034
Well okay, for one: >>10270230
>This isn’t really true. Nothing on PC could match Mario 64 in 1996 for example. Affordable consumer level 3D accelerators didn’t come along for another year or two.
I interpreted it as being to do with affordable
I assumed you were talking about affordable consumer level 3D accelerators, things which MechWarrior 2 was usually a pack-in game for during 1996
>>10272603
>I expected these types of replies because you guys do the same thing in every single one of these threads. Super Mario 64 features an onscreen fully polygonal character in a 3D world. Earlier polygonal 3D games on PC are all first person because that’s way easier to do and a lot of them still heavily used sprites so Duke doesn’t count.
Then I assumed you were talking about how Mario 64 features an onscreen fully polygonal character in a 3D world and that earlier polygonal 3D games on PC are all first person because that’s way easier to do and a lot of them still heavily used sprites so Duke Nukem 3D (a game unrelated to MechWarrior 2 for the record) apparently doesn’t count. And again, MechWarrior 2 has a 3rd person mode with a fully 3D polygonal character model so I thought your logic was a wee bit flawed there

Should I go on? And again, both points have nothing to do with wasd + mouselook controls yet. I apologize if I've misread your intentions so far, I just have this nasty habit of responding to the actual words people say rather than the things they say later that they apparently were actually meaning to say all along. And for the record, I like Mario 64.

>>10273023
If you admit that you just mean that a game is *only* 'non-linear' if it actively locks you out of things because you did something else, instead of allowing multiple approaches, lets you skip things if you want etc. then we agree, but I just don't understand why you'd place so much value on this, especially given Majora's Mask lets you complete quests in multiple ways, with different consequences to how you do this, but just lets you experiment with multiple ways of doing this on a given play-through through time travel.

>>10272992
>Yeah, I hate to agree with the other anon (cause he's a bit of a dick) but yeah that's nearly a straight line.

It looks straight because of the format of the image, but if you pay attention to the structure of the graph, then you'd notice there are things near the bottom of the graph that barely depend on things higher up. For instance, you can fully complete the Fire Temple without ever entering the other temples at all, but it's just placed below other things because that's a place that makes sense to put it in the image given all the possible way to access it that exist.

>>10273046
Whoops. Left one line in, ignore:
>I interpreted it as being to do with affordable

>>10273046
Assuming this is you >>10272985 you’re the one that brought up WASD + mouse controls in relation to third person games and I called you out. None of what you’ve said anyway ultimately matters because >>10273045.

>>10273051
Yeah but I've just shown how you've moved the goalposts over and over and over again. Your entire argument now boils down to: Mario massively innovated on analog control (which by the way was not your original argument.) Which I agree with, the movement in that game's sick. But barely any PC games use that these days. It's almost always wasd + mouselook. It's still used on consoles though, there's a bit of Mario 64's DNA in nearly every console game that uses... well analog sticks really. But PC already had their own config, no analog stick required. And there were 3D games on PC well before Mario 64

>>10273059
Very few if ANY PC games from 1996 or earlier used WASD + mouse at all, let alone third person perspective games, which were very rare on PC in that era so why did you bring that up? I’ve never moved the goalposts. As a total package, nothing on PC from that time was on Mario 64’s level. Controls, graphics, level design and all.

>>10273059
It's strange how you miss the point. Mario 64 has a uniquely refined system of movement that "was made possible" through the N64 analog stick.

Games "made for PC" (but not console) tend to not have movement like that because they aren't made for sticks, and don't take advantage of what that enables. So, whatever you say, there was a level of refinement that was made possible through games designed for this specific control scheme for consoles, that made for PC games don't do. WASD + mouselook games can have interesting physics of their own, but they are seldom as solid as what you get from games derived form Mario 64.

>>10273045
But there was no barrier to it being done on PC, which is the point of the thread.
The potential for it to be done, and even done better, was there. Consoles have never outpaced home computers.
80s >>10270359
90s >>10270360
and beyond >>>/v/
It all comes down to what software designers applied to the platform. Just because it didn't happen, doesn't mean it couldn't.

>muh analog stick
You couldn't point and shoot at a screen with an NES gamepad, so Nintendo sold the Zapper. A peripheral is not an issue on a platform with non-standard hardware like a home computer.

>>10273070
So? PC games nowadays don't use analog control like in Mario 64. What's your point? You're trying to prove yourself right at this point
>I’ve never moved the goalposts. As a total package, nothing on PC from that time was on Mario 64’s level. Controls, graphics, level design and all.
He says while moving the goalposts again. Wasn't this about 3D acceleration a while back? What about having a fully polygonal 3D model of your character? And again, I like Mario 64.

>>10273073
There's Quake actually. Best movement in an old-school FPS. Refined as shit as well. When did that one come out again? And again, I like Mario 64. I just think the two of you don't know a thing about what was going on on PC at the same time.

>>10273079
And yet it was done on a console first and PC gaming had no answer. Please post a webm of what most PC gamers in 1996 actually saw when they played Quake. It was in software mode.

>>10273080
>Wasn't this about 3D acceleration a while back? What about having a fully polygonal 3D model of your character?

Yep, Mario 64 had all of those things in 1996. PC gaming didn’t.

>>10273083
I know exactly what was possible with Quake at the time, I specifically addressed that here: >>10272849

It still didn't offer the same level of 'refinement of movement' that Mario 64 did, and I'm trying to make it clear that sheer freedom of movement and refinement are not really the same (rotational inertia is a significant aspect of Mario 64 that is not present in the same way in Quake).

>>10273084
PC gaming isn't a software developer.
Nintendo didn't do it because they were making their money on their own limited platform and from licensing. Other companies didn't do it because they were making their own shit, not "answering" other companies.
So again, because apparently you skimmed my post
>Just because it didn't happen, doesn't mean it couldn't.

>>10273094
Now who’s moving the goalposts? (It’s you)

>>10273095
What goal posts, you fucking retard?
The op is when did computer gaming out pace consoles. The answer is never in the history of home gaming.
If Nintendo wanted to, they could have made Mario 64 for computer platforms, but they didn't.

>>10273102
All things considered the N64 was briefly the best 3D gaming machine on the planet. To answer OP’s question: PC gaming only caught up to consoles in the Windows 95/98 era.

>>10273113
>PC gaming only caught up to consoles in the Windows 95/98 era
after surpassing them in the 80s >>10270359

>>10273130
The big difference of course is that everyone gets the same experience on a console. Most people playing Quake in 1996 didn’t have high end specs and a 3D accelerator to make it look its best.

>>10272496
Yeah, no shit, but nobody was writing games for CP/M and nothing else was a home computing standard. BASIC games are shit. Commodore, Apple and Atari had a handful of decent titles, however, the best games on PC didn't really show up until the DOS era

>>10273135
That's right, and at its best it outpaced the consoles of the time.
QED

>>10273152
For a first person shooter, yeah. Quake’s gameplay was nothing special, especially single player.

>>10273154
aaaaaaand we're back around to software design quibbles.
Pack of retards itt.

>>10273159
But I’m arguing that Quake’s gameplay lacked depth and complexity despite having good graphics. OP wasn’t necessarily talking about graphics alone.

>>10273161
>Quake’s gameplay lacked depth and complexity
Take it up with Id.
This thread is about consoles and computer gaming, and it was that software's team design philosophy that led them down that road, not a hardware restriction.

>>10273159
You're not going to get around the fact that people were able to make games for console that they didn't for PC, and as a direct result on the different hardware and resulting 'cultures' that existed that resulted in these different styles of games.

Like, we could easily flip this around and say "if it was common to connect keyboards and mouses to consoles (which existed) and put them on desks, then consoles could have had games work just like they did on PC", but it's an argument that doesn't need to be made and would make the whole debate pointless.

PC gaming was never "just like consoles but more advanced and betterer" it offered different things but would not do the equivalent of the state of the art of console gaming of the time in a given era.

>>10273170
Actually that’s debatable. PC game design is limited by having to make games for a wide variety of specs and builds.

>>10272887
>Joysticks
Man. Sticks are perfect for flight sims but I'll never get over how retarded it was when they told people to play everything with sticks on PC.
They literally told people to play first person shooters with sticks like these when mice existed

>>10273183
When the hell was the first "made for PC gamepad with stick". I feel like it was incredibly late when anything like this was offered at all, and this was seemingly why things like PC indie platforms took so long to be popular/viable.

>>10273189
>When the hell was the first "made for PC gamepad with stick"
The first gamepad with analog sticks that genuinely got true mass adoption on PC was the Xbox 360 controller. Yes I know other controllers have been sorta successful before but the 360 controller was the first time so many PC gamers regularly used a controller

>>10272160
My point is that N64 got to the home market first, affordably, and with more games. PC closed that gap quickly but adoption was slow. Nothing fucking looked like GoldenEye on PC for a good little bit there.

>>10273141
Time to learn, expand your horizons. Look at the diversity of Personal Computers out there in the 80s and 90s. Yes, the IBM compatibles ate their lunch in the mid 90s and the only Personal Computer that survived that isn't from the IBM compatible lineage is the Apple Mac. But there were many other Personal Computers aside from the IBM compatible in the 80s and 90s and they thrived. Sorry, you weren't able to experience this.

>>10273453
Yes, Nintendos N64 games had more polygons, larger texture maps, better lighting and particle effects, better sound, more depth, more complexity, the most players in a game, the most complex AI in a game, the largest game maps and the most games and the greatest diversity of games in 1996... Anon, I am not sure if I should be inspired by your implacability or pity your choice to remain ignorant.

>>10273517
God you dense motherfucker. YES PCS HAD MORE CPU STRENGTH, MEMORY, AND WRITEABLE DATA. However, hardware accelerated and texture filtered visuals were a rarity nigh upon non-existent in 96. The thread is about parity/matching capabilities, and the fact is that consoles were wildly differently abled til about the 7th gen. The architecture was stupidly different between machines for a long time and this presented in different effects, scope, and even types of games on different machines.

>>10273536
Good point 3dfx Voodoo had hardly any sales and Mystique, ViRGE and RAGE. Practically didn't exist nor did the few dozen titles that took advantage of these cards in 96...

>>10273550
Extremely slow adoption and not mainstream in 96 at all. GLQuake was '97, after Mario64/N64, and you'd need $2000+ and the knowhow to get it running, if you were even aware it was a thing. I think it's safe to say that '98 was when accelerated visuals left the alpha state on PC. Meanwhile normies had Voodoo tier visuals for a year or two @ 200bux. Even then GoldenEye was out and was more of a 'modern' game than polygonal Doom. I love PC. I didn't even own an N64 at the time, don't get me wrong, but the N64 had a window of being graphically special. I'm not even going to dignify any of the non-Voodoo non-starter cards and the handful of games that half-assedly supported them.

>>10273559
OpenGL cards existed in 93. Voodoo was proprietary Glide. Do some internet sluthing. Some IBM comparable games were released OGL some Glide. 3DFX did play shenanigans to encourage Glide in 96 so games in 96-97 were often Glide then OGL, later. But as other anons mentioned many 3d games were packins with a card. There were very few cards that didn't come with a packin.

>>10273595
Show me this 1993 PC game with N64 visuals. Filtered textures, fully polygonal, assets at Turok/Mario64/GoldenEye level.

>>10273595
>whatabouting with pre-alpha tier, basically non-adopted shit in a handful of games
OGL wasn't fucking used in games in 93, and just about every pre-Voodoo game had its own API or games were just flat out made for that card, and certainly weren't doing N64 level shit. All those cards with said packin games were quickly abandoned. Christ, you win the argument, okay? Accelerated/filtered graphics were TOTALLY the norm in 96 prior. Anything to escape your natal, 10th-baked examples. Accept my concession, please. I'll just let you rewrite history. Fuck it.

>>10273595
PC users TOTALLY weren't using software mode 99% of the time up to '97. Yes yes. Gang gang.

>>10273595
>There were very few cards that didn't come with a packin.

Yes, in 1997/98. 3D accelerator cards were nowhere near reaching mainstream adoption in 1995/96. I’d argue that 3Dfx didn’t truly hit it big until the Voodoo2 in 1998. Nvidia also released the RIVA TNT that year.

>>10273601
That anon is completely full of shit. There were zero 3D accelerated games available for PC that could match up with the N64’s graphical capabilities until sometime in 1997 or so, and that includes Quake.

>>10270130
Going as far back as the early 80's with Ultima 1 or Wizardry (which no contemporary console at the time could handle the complexity of, the NES could but that wasn't for a few more years), PC's always had niche advantages over consoles, though they couldn't achieve scrolling 2D graphics very well until the 486 started proliferating in the early 90's.

>>10273608
So it didn't exist vs it hardly existed. Are you starting to realize that on PC cad/cam accelerators were professional tools that eventually were used for graphical amusements like demos, interactive demos etc... Then come 95' a consumer grade card targeting videogames came out. By 1996 there were 4 consumer 3d graphics accelerators. One of them used a purpose built proprietary library for games, glide. OGL wasn't built for games, it was built for graphics, initially CAD/CAM.

I get it in 93' there were no N64 games on PC, but in 93' there were no N64 games on N64. Same can be said about 94' and 95'. If you were an adult in 96' none of this was a surprise, you saw it magazines, tv, arcade, movies, in the electronics stores, and at your LAN party.

I get it to a child that never saw any of this outside of their parents allowance they were shocked and they were bought and sold by the hype. Being told that this was a gradual process getting from there to here and it was very evident on PC. So yes once again bilinear filtering, volumetric fog, lighting, particle effects were all there on IBM comparables in 96.

>>10273863
>So yes once again bilinear filtering, volumetric fog, lighting, particle effects were all there on IBM comparables in 96.

In which games?

>>10273872
Games released in 96 with Glide, not OGL, that would be another list.

Archimedean Dynasty, Descent II, Hind, MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries, NASCAR Racing 2, Quake, San Fransisco Rush, Star Fighter, Tomb Raider

>>10273872
Warning don't ask for the 97 list, it won't help your argument. Same with the OGL list. There becomes a tipping point in 97 when glide starts to plateau and OLG starts to surpass. I am sure you are aware of that.

>>10273902
Actually it does help my argument because I’ve been saying that the N64’s 3D capabilities blew PC out of the water until sometime in 1997.

OP Here. I'm sorry I even asked this question but here is my summary of reading the thread

1. Console Fanboy: Console > PC
2. PC Fanboy: PC > Console
3. FPS player: PC > Console aronud 1997
4. RPG player: PC > Console

so which was better for gmaing? It is purely subjective

SAGE

>>10273915
Amusements is a term people keep forgetting.

>>10273890
Don't forget dozens of flight sims, most of which beat anything that came on the N64/PSX, and even some PS2-era games.

>>10273915
The problem OP is that you asked the wrong question:
>What year did computer gaming out pace consoles in depth and complexity?
Not only are people here arguing about completely different versions of "depth and complexity" the way you phrased your question implies that there was a time when computer gaming was outpaced by consoles in terms of "depth and complexity" which is debatable since clearly everyone here's arguing about completely different versions of the terms "depth" and "complexity."

Basically this shitshow is your fault.

>>10273952
That was a glide 96 release list, no OGL, no software rendering, that's all. Of course next year there were many more glide games.

Im a big believer in "if its so good why didnt they bother trying it themselves" so games like Killzone 2 would come out who's closest equivalent would be Crysis and for 10 years we still dont have anything as layered as either on both systems (not counting crysis ports or killzone emulation). Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer vs....five polygons in pc racers at the time, BUT THE TEXTURES WERE FILTERED so I guess that lets pc gaming win for that? Seems like whenever theres a need to prove a new console is good, theres a 5:1 ratio of effort put into making a console game look good and run at the very least 20-30fps, while on PC if your game has 5 extra menus and a very high settings option its GOTY without needing to talk about why starfield still looks like garbage compared to older ps3/4 games. Its a never ending push-pull but it seems like now its a matter of if devs give a shit to try to compete with PC or just sit back and "but this can do 4k60...if your pc can handle our poorly optimized game". 4k60 is cool, bumps up the oldest games, but that doesnt make project cars look as pleasing to the eyes as PGR4 running on 8-16x less powerful hardware.

>>10270130
>by 1992 there was VGA, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster.
By 1989 the PC Engine had CD-ROM and CD audio. And you could get more colors than VGA.

The mid 90s is when PCs started to actually outpace consoles in remotely the same price bracket.

>>10272334
>PC was mostly relegated to FPS, strategy, point n click, dungeon crawlers, MMOs and porn games.
The gaming 'Total DOS Collection' for 1994 is 20 gigs zipped, 1995 is 36. There's probably more than a few of every possible genre in there.
Note these sizes exclude CD based games.

>>10270130
the dreamcast is the only console that outperformed pcs from that era

>>10270130
>What year?
About 1982, when a friend and I realized that cassette based games were easy to copy by using two standard recorders.
We later expanded on this by taping the microphone to a telephone handset and staying quiet while the tape played. Transfer over a phone line without a modem.
In 40+ years of gaming exactly zero dollars have been spent on game purchases.

>>10274873
>In 40+ years of gaming exactly zero dollars have been spent on game purchases
Tons of online multiplayer games are impossible to play without paying unless you play on some shitty ass Russian server with 200 ping. There's no way you've never bought at least one these games

>>10274783
The N64 did as well for the first year it was on the market.

>>10274873
lmao at all those grownups who paid for games and modems instead of just larping

>>10275297
the n64 was shit and didn't have vga

>>10270230
>Deep, complex games
>Mario 64
I would mock you, but I don't need to

>>10275880
>PCtard too bereft of mind to comprehend the depth of Mario 64
Oh boy

>>10276230
not him but mario 64 has no depth whatsoever

>>10276250
b-b-but it's literally the first 3d game evar. Nintendo even had to invent the analog controller so you could play in 3d.

It's always been at top of depth and complexity. Ultima vs mario. The pc genres are complex things like flight stick games, computer rpg, civilization. Console is action games were you control 1dude and rpgs for children.

>>10275303
>instead of just larping
We were dumb kids who thought acoustic modems were just microphones and speakers that fed raw audio into the computer. Sadly found out that it wouldn't work when calling BBSes and had to save for the snail slow modem that worked with the vic-20.

>>10270130
>by 1992 there was VGA, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster.

by 1987 you had the Amiga 500 that did up to 4000 colors, four channel fully digitized sound, 512k memory, and a fully multitasking operating system. If anything, PCs were playing catch up to that. There... wasn't really any time when consoles were ahead, or if they were, only for a few months/a year at most.

>>10270251
Same with X68k and FM Towns

>>10277557
>flight stick games
explain this retard, yes its analog and works with light sensors

>>10277898
>consolefags are STILL playing 240p games in 1998

>consolefags are STILL playing 240p games in 1998

>>10277986
>pcfags are STILL playing 256 color games in 1997

>>10270130
never cared really

>>10270130
PCs are for work. Consoles are for games. Once you grow up and get a job you'll understand this.

>>10272940
>hmph, consolebabbies think OoT was hot shit? bitches haven't heard about Elder Scrolls Adventure!
This is why PCfags are fucking insufferable. They fundamentally do not understand good game design. It's like trying to have a conversation about music with someone who's tone deaf. The part of their brain that would be able to understand and appreciate good design just doesn't work.