PC Gaming in the Early '90s

[JumpingRyle]

Not really, the difference is that with 500€ today I can get a better PC than an Xbox One.

Yeah. My current PC is 2+ years old and I spend about $1300 on it at the time and it is still more powerful than an Xbox One.

[tomaitheous]

Sure, I agree that to run new games you needed a new, powerful PC. That's still true today. But when comparing PC to PS4, nobody says that you have to use a 5 year old "average" PC in your comparison. You use the high-end, current one. Because you are comparing the capabilities of the platform, not the "average".

Here's an ad from the June 29, 1993 edition of PC Mag:



A generic brand 486dx2, state of the art at the time, could be had for $1750 in 1993, and even cheaper if you built it yourself. While expensive, that's not so much more than a modern gaming PC would cost.

How do you know that it's "start of the art" at the time? It clear states no level 2 cache (the 8k is level 1/on chip). You have no idea if the video card is VLB or 16bit ISA. It says 'windows accelerator', but that doesn't mean anything. You don't even know how fast the vram is. Hell, you don't even know how fast the system ram is.

All these games are still using software blitting. That means transferring data to the video card memory. If the bus is only 16bits, that's half the bandwidth. The DX2-66 still ran a 33mhz data bus. If the system ram was slow (cheap), it took more wait states and thus your memory bandwidth went down (again, soft blitting is directly hindered by memory performance). EDO and SDRAM didn't come out until later.

You can't just say '486' and all things are equal. Same for 386. They made 386 boards with VLB slots. I've seen a 386 DX-40mhz setup (AMD chip), run just as fast (if not better) than a crippled 486DX-33mhz setup.

Super cheap 486 systems (Packard Bell, 16bit ISA slow video cards, slow ram, etc) and higher end 386 systems were still the norm in even 1994, let alone 1993. I did repairs for lots of people during the time; even the upper middle class bought cheaper PCs (which still weren't exactly cheap in price).

[JumpingRyle]

How do you know that it's "start of the art" at the time? It clear states no level 2 cache (the 8k is level 1/on chip). You have no idea if the video card is VLB or 16bit ISA. It says 'windows accelerator', but that doesn't mean anything. You don't even know how fast the vram is. Hell, you don't even know how fast the system ram is.

All these games are still using software blitting. That means transferring data to the video card memory. If the bus is only 16bits, that's half the bandwidth. The DX2-66 still ran a 33mhz data bus. If the system ram was slow (cheap), it took more wait states and thus your memory bandwidth went down (again, soft blitting is directly hindered by memory performance). EDO and SDRAM didn't come out until later.

You can't just say '486' and all things are equal. Same for 386. They made 386 boards with VLB slots. I've seen a 386 DX-40mhz setup (AMD chip), run just as fast (if not better) than a crippled 486DX-33mhz setup.

Super cheap 486 systems (Packard Bell, 16bit ISA slow video cards, slow ram, etc) and higher end 386 systems were still the norm in even 1994, let alone 1993. I did repairs for lots of people during the time; even the upper middle class bought cheaper PCs (which still weren't exactly cheap in price).

I was referring to the 486-dx2 (the CPU itself) as being "state of the art", as it was released shortly before then and was the newest 486 chip at that time. L2 cache wasn't implemented on CPUs until the Pentium Pro (edit: sorry, I misread what you said. Yes, the ad does appear to indicate there's no external cache). I also noticed the Windows Accelerator thing and thought wtf? You're reading too much into a quick ad I found to show the rough cost of a high-end PC in 1993. Yes, you should add several hundred for a good sound card and monitor, too.

Anyway, I don't think anybody said "'486' and all things are equal", did they? I just wanted to show that in 1993, 486-dx2s were not relegated to some NASA research labs or anything, but were available at decent prices (relatively speaking) for home use.

Edit 2: I do appreciate your post as it was quite informative

[A Black Falcon]

Yep. It wasn't until 1995 that PCs could pull off smooth platformers with console quality graphics. While I'm not too familiar with the game, the Rayman port to PC looks like it's no slouch.



The port of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure for Windows 95 was advertised to run just like the Genesis version.



Note that both games needed at least a 60 Mhz Pentium CPU, which cost a hefty chunk of cash back then.

To illustrate what a difference a single year can make, here's Jazz Jackrabbit from 1994, which kinda looks like a souped-up Amiga game from 1991 (I've always hated the colors and art in this game).

That isn't the difference of a year. That is the difference between a high-budget console/PC retail title, and an "indie" shareware game.

For instance, sure, there were no smooth-scrolling platfomers on the PC before 1990's Commander Keen, but otherwise the game doesn't really look as good as bigger-budget retail PC games from 1990 do, as you'd expect from a shareware game. The problem with platformers is that as a console-centric genre, there have never been many full, retail, larger-budget PC-focused platformers; the genre on PC is almost exclusively indie (late '80s to mid '90s shareware games and late '00s and beyond indie download games). Virtually the only exceptions to this rule that I can think of are Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and Claw, both from the late '90s. There are a few more (perhaps Alien Rampage, for example), but not all that many.

I can't think of a single PC game with smooth parallax scrolling that ran adequately on a 386. It took a 486 to make the PC 100% better than the genesis.

Shareware games in the early '90s were mostly trying to get their games to run on even early '80s PCs, and virtually all platformers were shareware, so this really is no surprise. Look at games like the mentioned examples Blackthorne or Flashback to see what a PC could do.


However, to address both of the above posts, it is true that in the mid '90s you start seeing more platformers with more budget, thanks mostly to a wave of good console ports. 1995 saw not only Rayman and Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, but also Earthworm Jim for Windows 95, Mega Man X, and Comix Zone. All five are good to great ports. '96 saw more, including Sonic CD, Ecco the Dolphin (unless it released in '95), Bug!, and probably some more. As good as the PC market was in the early '90s, somehow you just didn't see games like those earlier on; Pentium processors made games on that level run much better.

Ok, let's be more specific then. Only by 1995 could an affordable PC compete with a Sega Genesis.
Of course you had games before that with better graphics, but the hardware required was insane. Jazz Jackrabbit needed 4 megs of ram and a 386DX and it couldn't even do parallax scrolling.

While this is probably true, you're moving the goalposts. Games like Blackthorne or Jim Power show that the PC could indeed do good platforms before 1995, you just needed the cash to be able to buy a good computer. I imagine that the wave of quality ports I mentioned above in '95 was probably partially because of Pentiums making games like those run better, as I said, and also partially because, as you say, the comparatively lower prices made getting a more powerful computer much more feasible than it had been several years earlier. But when you're talking about the capabilities of the platform, price concerns like those are not very important; what the games actually could do, and did, is what matters.

OK... but we were talking about the capabilities of the platform.

Also, I feel sorry for anybody that still had a 386 in 1995. A good 486dx2 @ 66MHz system could be had for less than $1500 then.

I did, but fortunately only for the first month or so of the year; we'd gotten a 386 back in early '92 because computers were expensive, but for barely more money, in early '95 we upgraded to a P90. Now THAT was a massive power increase, 20Mhz 386SX to 90Mhz Pentium... I don't think I've seen that big of an increase ever again since. Plus of course going from PC Speaker audio and floppy disks to CDs and a Soundblaster 16 at the same time...

Not really, the difference is that with 500€ today I can get a better PC than an Xbox One.

Computer prices on the low end have gone down dramatically over time, yes. Againm are you new to PC-computer comparisons?

[JumpingRyle]

The problem with platformers is that as a console-centric genre, there have never been many full, retail, larger-budget PC-focused platformers; the genre on PC is almost exclusively indie (late '80s to mid '90s shareware games and late '00s and beyond indie download games). Virtually the only exceptions to this rule that I can think of are Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and Claw, both from the late '90s. There are a few more (perhaps Alien Rampage, for example), but not all that many.

There is another good one: 1996's Hunter Hunted by Sierra.



Maybe the most polished platformer exclusive to the PC in the 90s.

[A Black Falcon]

There is another good one: 1996's Hunter Hunted by Sierra.



Maybe the most polished platformer exclusive to the PC in the 90s.

Good one! Yeah, that game's good.

On the note of Sierra, it's not quite a platformer, but Hunter/Hunted reminds me that Sierra also published several other sidescrollers, including Thexder '95 in 1995 (decent to good, though it certainly doesn't match Hunter/Hunted's graphics). Sierra also published Lode Runner: The Legend Returns in 1994, which is more basic visually, but it plays well and is a platformer. The game later got console ports, but was PC first. GT also published Lode Runner 2, but that one's an isometric puzzle game more than it is a platformer, really.

On another note, I said "bigger-budget" basically in order to exclude super cheap shareware-level retail efforts like the PC Mega Man 1 and 3 games. Those games ARE retail games, but clearly had no budget, and were made by a couple of guys. In the early '90s though ('92 to '92 particularly), platformers outside of shareware just were not popular enough yet to get serious efforts, as those games show... but by '95 that clearly changed.

[parallaxscroll]

One of the best examples of a 3D game for PC in the early 90s to use polygons, gouraud shading and even texture-mapping, all done through software, without any 3D acceleration was ORIGIN System's STRIKE COMMANDER.



Was originally meant to be released in 1991, then in 1992, but came out in 1993 after much delay. That's still the early 90s though, since I would not consider the mid 90s to be any earlier than '94, and still before the very earliest PC 3D cards came out (1995) which pre-dated 3DFX Voodoo Graphics (1996). Not to mention Saturn and PS1 in Japan in late '94.

Minimum CPU to run Strike Commander was going to be an Intel 386, but by the time it finally shipped it required at least a 486 33 MHz to even run. Strike Commander was much better with a 486 DX2 66 MHz and at its very best with a Pentium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strike_Commander

Strike Commander is a combat flight simulator video game designed by Chris Roberts and released by Origin Systems for the PC DOS in 1993. Its 3D graphics-engine used both gouraud shading and texture-mapping on both aircraft-models and terrain, an impressive feat at the time. Significant plot elements were presented through in-game cut-scene animations, a hallmark storytelling vehicle from Chris Robert's previous Wing Commander games.

Strike Commander was a HUGE leap in PC graphics over games like Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon 3.0 from 1991, which (in software) could only do flat-shaded polygons at a much lower frame rate, and yet, 486 was released in 1989, PCs were shipping with it in 1990, and by 1991 486 PCs were becoming commonplace.

[Blades]

That's not really true, the 3DO Blaster doesn't 3d accelerate PC games. It just runs 3DO games in a window on a PC.

Precisely. In 1993/1994, there was simply no computer setup that could run 3DO level graphics without stuffing a whole 3DO board onto an expansion card, yes?

[JumpingRyle]

Precisely. In 1993/1994, there was simply no computer setup that could run 3DO level graphics without stuffing a whole 3DO board onto an expansion card, yes?

Can this question be easily answered? I'm no expert on the 3DO, but it seems like a lot of the better games in its library were ports of PC games. That doesn't mean that they were pushing the system to its limit, of course. I'd be surprised if the 3DO couldn't outperform a PC in 1993, though.

[A Black Falcon]

Precisely. In 1993/1994, there was simply no computer setup that could run 3DO level graphics without stuffing a whole 3DO board onto an expansion card, yes?

I think the 3DO Blaster was released in '94, not '93, yes? But yes, because the PC did not have dedicated 3d cards yet, the 3DO probably was better at polygonal games. For other stuff, like the 3DO games that are PC ports, 1993-1994 PCs could probably do just fine, provided that you had a good enough computer of course. But for polygons, sure, the 3DO had the edge. I doubt that explains why the 3DO Blaster was made, though... it's just a weird version of a 3DO on an ISA card, it's not really a computer accessory.

[Obviously]

One of the best examples of a 3D game for PC in the early 90s to use polygons, gouraud shading and even texture-mapping, all done through software, without any 3D acceleration was ORIGIN System's STRIKE COMMANDER.

Strike Commander was amazing. I may be a bit of a fanboy but nobody made the PC sing in the early 90's like Chris Roberts and Origin.

Wing Commander was originally going to be 3D as well but that idea was scrapped because most PCs of the time wouldn't have handled the type of arcade-action gameplay he wanted if it was done in polygons. Even with the scaling sprites the original Wing Commander started to choke on most machines when there were too many objects on screen.

[maxi]

I'll never forgive Distinctive Software for not port Stunts for any home console at that time, it's almost an earlier San Francisco Rush with track creation. So much fun making the cars crash in high velocity:

[Blades]

But for polygons, sure, the 3DO had the edge.

Than that begs the question as to why all the Doom ports had simplified graphics, borders and framerate issues against the PC version? The only port that ran relatively well, the PSX port, had simplified maps also.

The 3DO port sucked.

However, the Arch-vile monster from Doom II is not present; according to one of the game's designers, Harry Teasley, this was because he had twice as many frames as any other monster, and the team felt that they "just couldn't do him justice" on the PlayStation."

[A Black Falcon]

Than that begs the question as to why all the Doom ports had simplified graphics, borders and framerate issues against the PC version? The only port that ran relatively well, the PSX port, had simplified maps also.

The 3DO port sucked.

Doom does not use polygons. It fakes 3d.

[JumpingRyle]

Because they're ports. There's a big difference in designing a game for a specific platform and trying to adapt a game to another.

But Doom is a particularly good example of a bad port. Wasn't the 3DO version of Doom a port of the Jaguar version? So it was a port of a port, just like the 32X version.