How far things have come!

SpeckleD · 30 Apr 2015 at 15:20

I was sat marvelling at the amazing visuals we take for granted these days in our games whilst playing Crysis 3 last night, I then sent myself back in time when I saw my first PC game, x-wing on my mates PC...I had to have one to play this game I told myself! I promptly went out to my local Byte PC superstore and forked out £1000 for a 486SX 25 with 4 Gb of ram 14" monitor with no sound card...what a bargain! I then had to go and purchase a Gravis Ultrasound soundcard and I was all set! I was soon flying around space blasting Tie Fighters.

I remember saying to my mate whilst watching a cut scene, god wouldn't it be amazing to play games that looked like that! well some years later here we are, spending thousands of pounds on hardware on a never ending quest for faster better visuals and I think to myself how amazing things will be in another 20 years, I will be in my mid 60's and still gaming I hope

IC3 · 30 Apr 2015 at 15:25

lol, I bought my PC for £680 over 3 years ago and still going strong. I can play most titles on high/ultra, no need to spend thousands of pounds on hardware.

The VR is what's I would spend thousands on, hopefully it will get to the point where you're in that virtual reality. People who watch anime, e.g. SAO will know what I mean

SpeckleD · 30 Apr 2015 at 15:41

With all respect, I think you miss the point here, peeps spend what they want to achieve the desired results, I can bet your 3 year old PC wont run Crysis 3 with everything cranked to the max at 1440p? others are happy with 1080p and we have hard core spenders who want 4k the point is how amazing things look now not what we want to spend\have to spend.

implosiveturnip · 30 Apr 2015 at 17:57

I get you speckle. I remember when I was quite young, I got home from school one day and my old man had brought home an Amiga 500 plus. Me and my sister were amazed when he fired up this Space Shuttle launch simulator thingy. It was the first "3d" thing I'd ever seen and was enthralled.

It literally took hours to setup and get your shuttle launched, which we never did successfully! But it was fun to see it crash so I didn't care! It came with a massive poster size sheet of all the switches and cockpit controls and what they did, and I remember thinking that if we could have things like that now, what would it be like in the future? Could we live in computers or something?

Thankfully, the Matrix only appeared as a film (thus far), but I too am still constantly amazed by what we can achieve, and the immersion we can get. Though I think (visually) progress has slowed/been hampered by lazy "AAA" companies, the real fun starts now with the interfaces we will (hopefully) be getting in the near future.

It's been a great time to be an enthusiast the last 2/3 decades

Jinxter · 30 Apr 2015 at 21:41

It is quite amazing how the gaming scene has evolved from bedroom programmers in the days of the speccy and C64, getting every last bit of power out of those comparatively primitive machines and now the amazing visuals we have today.

My first, first person 3D game was actually back in 1986 when I played Driller on the C64. We're talking monochromatic graphics here at around 2fps but it was quite amazing for its day.

Those bedroom progammers are probably the same people heading up the many software houses and the multi-million pound titles we've grown used to. But I agree in some respects many of these games are now churned out ten to the dozen and we're also reliant on ever more powerful machines for a playable experience. Unfortunately greed and deadlines can result in some sloppy ports from time to time. Far removed from the days when programmers tried to cram every ounce of power from those humble machines.

However with PC's we have everything we could ever want to get our hands on be it the big blockbuster titles down to the small developers who continue to impress with their homegrown titles, showing the same passion and innovation we got back in the 80's.

It's a great time to be a PC enthusiast!

implosiveturnip · 1 May 2015 at 10:24

Jinxter said:
However with PC's we have everything we could ever want to get our hands on be it the big blockbuster titles down to the small developers who continue to impress with their homegrown titles, showing the same passion and innovation we got back in the 80's.

It's a great time to be a PC enthusiast!

Here here!

tres_kun · 1 May 2015 at 10:39

My poor 2003 PC unable to play 1080P content
And at present a 3 year old phone will do it no problem
So yes i agree

lude1962 · 1 May 2015 at 12:07

...but back in the 80's you had to know how things worked (dip switches irq's config.sys etc)
now its electronic lego , plug it in load driver, job done

dacads · 1 May 2015 at 12:10

The only thing really moving is graphics, of course CPUs are getting smaller and more power efficient which is great for mobile computing. I think the bigger growth as has been recently will be in the mobile sector, it will keep growing as will virtual reality which will become massive for sure.

IC3 · 1 May 2015 at 13:57

SpeckleD said:
With all respect, I think you miss the point here, peeps spend what they want to achieve the desired results, I can bet your 3 year old PC wont run Crysis 3 with everything cranked to the max at 1440p? others are happy with 1080p and we have hard core spenders who want 4k the point is how amazing things look now not what we want to spend\have to spend.

I'm just saying that I can still enjoy similar graphics to you for less, When I fire up a game I compare settings when they are on and off. Some really aren't doing much and they put heavy load on your machine... I don't like bigger screens than 24inch, so 1440p could probably fit. But 4k atm is not worth it, I would wait another year or 2 before it gets better support.

Overall this is an enthusiast forum and I enjoy following some build logs on which some people spent loads of money on. I personally think that for £1000 you can build a really beasty PC, for £1500 you can have an overkill for most games. Overall this is just my opinion, I'm the kind of person who puts higher priority to gameplay and storyline than graphics, I mean its a nice add-on. But that's about it....

dacads said:
The only thing really moving is graphics, of course CPUs are getting smaller and more power efficient which is great for mobile computing. I think the bigger growth as has been recently will be in the mobile sector, it will keep growing as will virtual reality which will become massive for sure.

Hopefully somewhere in the future we will have a hybrid between helmet and glasses which will be able to receive our brain waves, so if you were to move your hand it would move in VR. Obviously this kind of device would have sensors which would monitor your heart rate, pulse and other stats to make sure your health is not in danger. But that will probably take another 25-30 years

dacads · 1 May 2015 at 14:03

IC3 said:
I'm just saying that I can still enjoy similar graphics to you for less, When I fire up a game I compare settings when they are on and off. Some really aren't doing much and they put heavy load on your machine... I don't like bigger screens than 24inch, so 1440p could probably fit. But 4k atm is not worth it, I would wait another year or 2 before it gets better support.

Overall this is an enthusiast forum and I enjoy following some build logs on which some people spent loads of money on. I personally think that for £1000 you can build a really beasty PC, for £1500 you can have an overkill for most games. Overall this is just my opinion, I'm the kind of person who puts higher priority to gameplay and storyline than graphics, I mean its a nice add-on. But that's about it....

Hopefully somewhere in the future we will have a hybrid between helmet and glasses which will be able to receive our brain waves, so if you were to move your hand it would move in VR. Obviously this kind of device would have sensors which would monitor your heart rate, pulse and other stats to make sure your health is not in danger. But that will probably take another 25-30 years

I can agree with the 4k comment, it's the same with other new technologies such as G-Sync. It's always best to wait a few years till the technology has been revised and made more efficient.

IC3 said:
Hopefully somewhere in the future we will have a hybrid between helmet and glasses which will be able to receive our brain waves, so if you were to move your hand it would move in VR. Obviously this kind of device would have sensors which would monitor your heart rate, pulse and other stats to make sure your health is not in danger. But that will probably take another 25-30 years

Or you could just get something like Google Glass, which didn't take off very well by the looks of it :S It's a similar concept with being able to network online, take pictures etc all while seeing actual reality not just virtual reality. Personally I'm not too sure about being covered up completely and turned into a robot

IC3 · 1 May 2015 at 14:16

dacads said:
Or you could just get something like Google Glass, which didn't take off very well by the looks of it :S It's a similar concept with being able to network online, take pictures etc all while seeing actual reality not just virtual reality. Personally I'm not too sure about being covered up completely and turned into a robot

But I mean something along the lines of 'lucid dream', I know it could be dangerous at first. But can you imagine flying like a bird and feeling as if it was real? Imagine how this would help with many diseases such as depression or muscle atrophy where a lot of people loose hope...

It could also be used for sportsman to train, a lot of race drivers memorize the circuit and go over it in their mind. What if they could actually do it in VR and have 99% of realism of the real thing? That's why I'm hyped a bit by VR, I'm still young so there's a chance of it being developed before I die.

dacads · 1 May 2015 at 14:38

IC3 said:
But I mean something along the lines of 'lucid dream', I know it could be dangerous at first. But can you imagine flying like a bird and feeling as if it was real? Imagine how this would help with many diseases such as depression or muscle atrophy where a lot of people loose hope...

It could also be used for sportsman to train, a lot of race drivers memorize the circuit and go over it in their mind. What if they could actually do it in VR and have 99% of realism of the real thing? That's why I'm hyped a bit by VR, I'm still young so there's a chance of it being developed before I die.

I agree there is great value to it not only in terms of entertainment but also education. It will certainly be interesting to see how it developers over the coming years.

Don't forget you having racing simulators too. But I agree quite a lot of it also goes on in the mind.

Still there is an element of concern about it that you cannot deny. That's my opinion anyway.

subbytna · 1 May 2015 at 14:54

RM Nimbus was my mums work pc and she brought it home. Loved the "3d" graphics on it