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General discussionPC gaming in the 90s(135 posts)(135 posts)
(135 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 15, 2015
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the.kuribo: One thing maybe often overlooked that I remember very distinctly was my first exposure to an add-on soundcard in the very early 90's. The difference between the beeps and boops of an internal PC speaker vs what came out of a Sound Blaster/AdLib/Covox blew my mind.
This. My first sound card was a Sound Blaster 16, and one of the first games I tried out with it was Warcraft 2. I distinctly remember clicking on a building that was on fire and being amazed at the crystal clear sound of a raging fire. I too had my mind blown!
Posted December 15, 2015
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Matewis: One thing I definitely don't miss is using these damn things to try and set up a LAN network:
Those things are what Connects My foxtel (Foxbox) to my wall up to the satellite dish on my house! yep those things a Satelite cable connectors Fuck Australia Must be still in the DARK AGES because we still use those for Cable internet over here!
Posted December 15, 2015
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Matewis: One thing I definitely don't miss is using these damn things to try and set up a LAN network:
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fr33kSh0w2012: Those things are what Connects My foxtel (Foxbox) to my wall up to the satellite dish on my house! yep those things a Satelite cable connectors Fuck Australia Must be still in the DARK AGES because we still use those for Cable internet over here!
You think Satellite is better? I get 15 gb for a whole month.
Posted December 15, 2015
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jsidhu762: With console gaming in the 90s, there was this environmentalist theme going on. Not all games had it, but it was a noticeable trend: games like Sonic, Vectorman, Awesome Possum...is this something that spilled onto PC territory?
Some, at least I recall Eco Quest (1 and 2) from Sierra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS6MYror8UM

Naturally it has dolphins, whales, complaints what problems the crap we throw to seas causes to animals, how human waste and toxins cause some animals to become evil and so on...

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the.kuribo: One thing maybe often overlooked that I remember very distinctly was my first exposure to an add-on soundcard in the very early 90's. The difference between the beeps and boops of an internal PC speaker vs what came out of a Sound Blaster/AdLib/Covox blew my mind.
For some of us who came from Amiga to PC, unfortunately the Adlib/Soundblaster sounded quite tinny. I wasn't happy with its music at all, even though it was better than nothing.

Hence, I had to get a Roland LAPC-1 (later changed it to an external CM-32L), and later SCC-1, even though they were insanely expensive for sound cards that could't even produce digitized sounds, hence you still needed the Soundblaster beside them. I loved how they enhanced the music in most games.

Quite many former Amiga gamers seemed to like also Gravis Ultrasound as it was closer to what kind of tracker-type music Amiga produced (surpassing it even), but GUS native mode never got that much support, beyond some Epic Megagames games and a few others. Most publishers which supported Gravis Ultrasound, supported it only as a generic General MIDI sound card. I guess that was better than nothing.
Post edited December 15, 2015 by timppu
Posted December 15, 2015
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CMOT70: Forget the games, they were just driven by the tech of the day. And that's what PC gaming was about in the 90's...real technology advances that made real differences to games. And games were still small enough and fast enough to develop that they could actually come out fast enough to use the new current tech, unlike today.
Every 6 months something was coming out that allowed the resolution to double and so we bought a bigger monitors.
I started playing Descent 2 at 640*480 using software rendering and finished playing it using Glide hardware acceleration and the difference was the single biggest upgrade i've ever seen in one tech jump.

These days, that type of jump never happens...so much so that people are just not upgrading their machines like they used to. In the 90's the "average" (that's an important word) PC gamers were rarely more than 2 years off the current cutting edge with their PC and they saw the direct benefits. By the early 00's the average PC was 3 years off the cutting edge. Now it's closer to 5 years off or more- the prices haven't changed much- it's because the returns have diminished. And games are developed to suit the average PC not the 5% on the bleeding edge. Now you can pay big dollars for SLI GPU's and a 4K monitor...which is still 28"...and at normal view distance looks barely different to a 28" monitor at 1920*1200. It is not revolutionary like the jumps were in the 90's.

Then there are the gamers. The 90's gamers were young and adaptive and tried new things just for fun. We were already social outcasts so we didn't care much about appearances. We played PC games using joysticks and gamepads as well as keyboard and mouse and we thought nothing of it. Now the species known as the "PC Gamer" has regressed into something that refuses to use anything other than mouse and keyboard just in case they catch "consolitis" or get accused of the worst slur in gaming...being "casual". I never heard that word casual used in the 90's, now it's thrown around like a racial slur. They are like those homophobes that are afraid to be near a gay person in case the gayness might rub off on them.
Those gamers of the 90's have now grown up and turned into crusty old dinosaurs, bitter and twisted and angry at the world for not staying stuck in 1995, they no longer seem to have fun. The sooner the Dinosaurs die out the better, in my opinion- the 90's were great times for gaming and should be remembered and honoured- but the Dinosaurs need to die as they are holding things back.
Kid, Seriously How old are you? I'm guessing 5 years old maybe 8 Games were GREAT in 1995 at least you could EXPLORE! and by the way if it wasn't for us adult gamers or adults in general you wouldn't even have the QUALITY GAMES you have today! there would be no call of duty, no half life 2, no doom 3, no quake IV there would be NOVELS and MUSIC how much fun is that NOT! I dare you to get MONSTER BASH

Watch this I mean REALLY watch this gameplay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahFdNB2X7H8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J-rRcTht9I
Post edited December 15, 2015 by fr33kSh0w2012
Posted December 15, 2015
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CMOT70: Forget the games, they were just driven by the tech of the day. And that's what PC gaming was about in the 90's...real technology advances that made real differences to games. And games were still small enough and fast enough to develop that they could actually come out fast enough to use the new current tech, unlike today.
Every 6 months something was coming out that allowed the resolution to double and so we bought a bigger monitors.
I started playing Descent 2 at 640*480 using software rendering and finished playing it using Glide hardware acceleration and the difference was the single biggest upgrade i've ever seen in one tech jump.

These days, that type of jump never happens...so much so that people are just not upgrading their machines like they used to. In the 90's the "average" (that's an important word) PC gamers were rarely more than 2 years off the current cutting edge with their PC and they saw the direct benefits. By the early 00's the average PC was 3 years off the cutting edge. Now it's closer to 5 years off or more- the prices haven't changed much- it's because the returns have diminished. And games are developed to suit the average PC not the 5% on the bleeding edge. Now you can pay big dollars for SLI GPU's and a 4K monitor...which is still 28"...and at normal view distance looks barely different to a 28" monitor at 1920*1200. It is not revolutionary like the jumps were in the 90's.

Then there are the gamers. The 90's gamers were young and adaptive and tried new things just for fun. We were already social outcasts so we didn't care much about appearances. We played PC games using joysticks and gamepads as well as keyboard and mouse and we thought nothing of it. Now the species known as the "PC Gamer" has regressed into something that refuses to use anything other than mouse and keyboard just in case they catch "consolitis" or get accused of the worst slur in gaming...being "casual". I never heard that word casual used in the 90's, now it's thrown around like a racial slur. They are like those homophobes that are afraid to be near a gay person in case the gayness might rub off on them.
Those gamers of the 90's have now grown up and turned into crusty old dinosaurs, bitter and twisted and angry at the world for not staying stuck in 1995, they no longer seem to have fun. The sooner the Dinosaurs die out the better, in my opinion- the 90's were great times for gaming and should be remembered and honoured- but the Dinosaurs need to die as they are holding things back.
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fr33kSh0w2012: Kid, Seriously How old are you? I'm guessing 5 years old maybe 8 Games were GREAT in 1995 at least you could EXPLORE! and by the way if it wasn't for us adult gamers or adults in general you wouldn't even have the QUALITY GAMES you have today! there would be no call of duty, no half life 2, no doom 3, no quake IV there would be NOVELS and MUSIC how much fun is that NOT! I dare you to get MONSTER BASH

Watch this I mean REALLY watch this gameplay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahFdNB2X7H8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J-rRcTht9I
Not that he needs me to defend him, did you actually read his post? It's quite clear he isn't a "kid" (usually the people who call people "kids" on the internet are the kids). He clearly explains playing descent 2 on crappy hardware at the time. I think what he was trying to get at with his post was not attacking the people who grew up in the 90's and played those games but rather his opinion on the state of the industry and what it means to be a PC gamer today--very different than what it meant in the 90s.

But on topic, I'll never forget my dad bringing home the newest shareware releases at the time. Loading up Blake Stone and seeing that mature content warning hoping my parents would still let me play it, or playing Commander Keen and Duke Nukem. Apogee was a HUGE part of my childhood and I have very fond memories of the time.
Post edited December 15, 2015 by b1inky
Posted December 15, 2015
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b1inky: ...
But on topic, I'll never forget my dad bringing home the newest shareware releases at the time. Loading up Blake Stone and seeing that mature content warning hoping my parents would still let me play it, or playing Commander Keen and Duke Nukem. Apogee was a HUGE part of my childhood and I have very fond memories of the time.
Blake Stone was awesome! However, a good 50% of my gametime consisted of running along walls while methodically tapping spacebar :P
Posted December 15, 2015
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b1inky: ...
But on topic, I'll never forget my dad bringing home the newest shareware releases at the time. Loading up Blake Stone and seeing that mature content warning hoping my parents would still let me play it, or playing Commander Keen and Duke Nukem. Apogee was a HUGE part of my childhood and I have very fond memories of the time.
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Matewis: Blake Stone was awesome! However, a good 50% of my gametime consisted of running along walls while methodically tapping spacebar :P
Yeah I recently bought the 3D Realms/Apogee collection off Srteam as as part of a $4.99 bundle and have spent much time romping through my memories of Duke Nukem and Blake Stone plu other trips down memory lane.
Posted December 15, 2015
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Matewis: Blake Stone was awesome! However, a good 50% of my gametime consisted of running along walls while methodically tapping spacebar :P
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RogueXanter: Yeah I recently bought the 3D Realms/Apogee collection off Srteam as as part of a $4.99 bundle and have spent much time romping through my memories of Duke Nukem and Blake Stone plu other trips down memory lane.
I prefer to use D-fend reloaded I just copy the Game folder over GUS support is awesome
Posted December 15, 2015
I only remember my first Pc game was A-Train in the '90something.
First i had a Commodore 64 and a Sega something but i was too busy playing football and doing other stuff.
Thinking of all this i realize i'm getting old...
Posted December 16, 2015
Before the internet, remember shelling out like 9 -12 bucks for a magazine that had a demo disc in it?

The shit we had to do.
Posted December 16, 2015
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andysheets1975: The main thing I remember about PC gaming in the 80s and 90s, aside from the big releases and stuff, was that there was always this anxiety about getting your new games to run at home. You'd put the disk in and then have to screw around with config files and IRQ settings and crap before you got to enjoy what you'd bought. And sometimes it still didn't work because your system was so weird. Oh, and you still had to read manuals back then, too. In-game tutorials weren't entirely a thing at that point.
So true, games were often finicky. Most ran fine but other times you would have to fiddle, you had to know your sound card's settings or the game would be mute, etc. And technology was advancing so quickly that two years after buying a computer you would not be able to play every new game without an expensive upgrade. Another year or two and you would not be able to play any new game. That was pretty awful.

I think the lack of tutorials was great, though. You could just jump in a new game and be playing it immediately, rather than having to sit through long cutscenes and play a boring mission with a voiceover holding your hand the entire time. And no way to skip any of it on subsequent playthroughs.
Posted December 16, 2015
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ScotchMonkey: Before the internet, remember shelling out like 9 -12 bucks for a magazine that had a demo disc in it?

The shit we had to do.
Some people I knew would *allegedly* pull the discs from the mags on the rack and walk out without buying the magazines. That is neither confirmed or denied.

Back in the day a treasure hunt for software meant actually going somewhere and searching for a physical object. Now a treasure hunt usually just means finding a hidden promo code on a website. Eh, not exactly the same thing.
Posted December 16, 2015
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ScotchMonkey: Before the internet, remember shelling out like 9 -12 bucks for a magazine that had a demo disc in it?

The shit we had to do.
Yes, I remember .. Still got a few of them (old magazines) around here someplace .. lol.

GOCG .. Good Old Computer Groups .. I was a member of one. We used to get together and trade software. :)
Post edited December 16, 2015 by NoAGood
Posted December 16, 2015
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ScotchMonkey: Before the internet, remember shelling out like 9 -12 bucks for a magazine that had a demo disc in it?

The shit we had to do.
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NoAGood: Yes, I remember .. Still got a few them around someplace .. lol.
I got one that had the infamous Bonzi Buddy on it. My 11 year old self learned a powerfull lesson then.

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ScotchMonkey: Before the internet, remember shelling out like 9 -12 bucks for a magazine that had a demo disc in it?

The shit we had to do.
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Emob78: Some people I knew would *allegedly* pull the discs from the mags on the rack and walk out without buying the magazines. That is neither confirmed or denied.
Thats why they all started putting the magazine racks up front. Couldn't get away with the porno mag in the newspaper trick.
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andysheets1975: was that there was always this anxiety about getting your new games to run at home.
But when you got it to run, Oh Man it felt good!
Post edited December 16, 2015 by ScotchMonkey
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionPC gaming in the 90s(135 posts)(135 posts)
(135 posts)