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[pixlexic]

You also have to understand that most games even into the dream cast era ran solely on cpu clock cycles. So you would get slowdown. The game would draw the same frames draw not atcthe same speed.

 

[RM8]

The more things change

This is the most fascinating read ever. Holy cow, people bash the 3DS using the exact same analogies as back then with the GameBoy (or "LameBoy", lol, this is awesome) - with the expensive car vs cheap car analogies and hyperbolic statements about graphics.

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

Not with the technical phrases ... But yeah even as kids we called it "broken" at ... Well below 20fps. Then again ... I played on PC in the early 90s. So thats basically a normal thing since the dawn of times.

I remember when my PC was barely able to play Doom 1. It once caused my entire PC to lock up, lol.

 

[Herne]

Over here it was home computers - consoles were few and far between. And it was all about the C64, the Spectrum and the Amstrad. I remember people laughing at the Spectrum's colour clash, the Amstrad's blocky graphics, and how slow the C64 was (it ran at under 1MHz, after all). The Spectrum could do reasonable wireframe 3D, the Amstrad had a lot of colours at it's disposal and the C64 had the mighty SID chip.

There was no Internet though, so arguments were relegated to the school ground, really, which is where they should've stayed.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

I vividly remember my dad - who doesn't even play many games besides adventure games - trying my N64 one day and commenting how he preferred how much "smoother" he could play computer games.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

New? Polygon gaming has been around for like half of the industry's age. 30fps was also the standard in Gen 5, still remember the awful frame rate in Tomb Raider.

For many people, gen 5 is considered new. Even if it's half the industry's age, it's still the newer half .

But yeah, back then all games were 60fps and either had some slowdown or would have flickering sprites to deal with it, like famously shitty ports as Pacman for Atari.

 

[Rapstah]

You also have to understand that most games even into the dream cast era ran solely on cpu clock cycles. So you would get slowdown. The game would draw the same frames draw not atcthe same speed.

I think "most games even into the dream cast era" is overstating it. Multiplatform games on PS1/N64 ran too poorly to have logic completely tied to framerate.

 

[III-V]

NES era chiming in. Yes, graphics were a thing, a big thing. It sold consoles. Gameplay (which I consider controls and response) as well. I never had a Sega b/c I remember (not that my parents would have bought me a second console) on some games although graphics may have looked better, it was super janky.

 

[Neff]

Not even a little true. We all read egm and gamepro reviews and got mad when the game we rented or picked out for xmas turned out to be shit. Fuck licensed games and overhyped previews.

Genesis vs Snes on the playground was a thing, people from all over the usa can confirm.

Are we talking about technical deficiencies or games that are actually bad here? Because things like "this should have more layers of parallax scrolling", or "the character sprite is only 64 pixels high, not buying" weren't so commonplace compared to today's legion of vocal frame counters and texture scouts. True, we didn't have outlets for debate quite as focused as the internet back then, but the excitement and enthusiasm towards gaming during the 8/16/32bit eras was absolutely more palpable when stacked against the relative indifference and cynicism bred from a several decades-old industry which at this point has mostly been there and done that in some form or other.

My point is, we didn't really care about the imperfections and shortcomings 30 or even 20 years ago, because so much was fresh and new. Such shortcomings aren't overlooked as often now, because there's very little that's fresh and new anymore, particularly in a market saturated with a handful of dominant genres. We've become bored into nitpicking.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

No internet means probably not.

Came in here to mention this. During NES I was a little kid though, letting people ride my bicycle in hopes they would let me borrow one of their games. Everyone traded games around SNES and no game was really a bad game to kids. Cool Spot, Ultra Man, Harvey's Humongous Adventure, Home Alone games, Chester Chetta, and so on were all games I liked because I had them. Kids could make anything fun with a little imagination. Slowdown in Mario World was a cool random thing, slow motion! I wondered how I could make it happen again, it was friggin cool.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

The more things change

Oh my goodness. We're in a never ending cycle aren't we?

Edit: Ah crap double post.

 

[AtomicShroom]

Well back then it was more about the number of colors and sprites on screen at once, slowdown, and flickering, but yeah schoolyard was ripe with debates and we made sure to point out to each other which games suffered too much from these types of issues.

 

[KittenMaster]

Did arcade games commonly have slowdown? I might be remembering wrong but it always seemed like arcade games were able to handle not only superior visuals but also many more things happening on screen without as many slowdown issues as console games.

As for Atari 2600, I think a lot of the goal for that system was just getting the game screen to be drawn at all.

 

[Manmademan]

I wasn't old enough to experience the Atari consoles or old enough to go through the NES life cycle, but was there any discussions like on GAF that led into framerate and graphics issues?

Ex. Ninja Gaiden has severe slowdown, including with music, when there are multiple enemies on screen.

Zelda 1 and 2 both had those same issues as well.

I'm curious if there was any AOL discussion forums for it.

eh, back in that era it was more about comparisons to the arcade versions rather than any bitching about FPS or whatever.

Sprite flicker and slowdown were just part of the deal. people might have complained when it happened (or sometimes not..slowdown could save your ass in some games) but there wasn't the gratuitous nitpicking there is now..probably because there wasn't really a forum for it.

 

[Refreshment.01]

There were discussions, but in those days it was called "Slowdown". Other hot points of contention in those days were "Color depth", how many colors on screen and flickering due to a system reaching the limit on how much sprite on screen it could handle.

As unbelievable as it may sound people in those days behaved like... people. Exactly the same as in the present and in the near future XD

 

[SmokedMeat]

Never.

I couldn't imagine how shitty this hobby would've turned out if today's gamers were around back then pissing and moaning about everything.

 

[SeventhSon]

Did arcade games commonly have slowdown? I might be remembering wrong but it always seemed like arcade games were able to handle not only superior visuals but also many more things happening on screen without as many slowdown issues as console games.

Coin-op kits were much more powerful than home systems, and often the hardware was custom made for the game, so those types of technical issues were non-existent.

 

[LCGeek]

Graphics yes but fps wasn't part of the discussion as it really wasn't an issue it has become in the post 3d era.

 

[3rdamention]

How would we discuss them? Just in the living room? I'm a 38 year old and never remember having those discussions..


I do remember them in the SNES vs Genesis days though..

 

[More Fun To Compute]

8-bit home systems had severe limitations so it was seen as a great thing to get something that approximated the arcade experience at home. But for arcade machines 60fps would be expected for quality fast paced games. People were maybe not so tech aware but with the types of games in arcades the less smooth animation was more obvious and machines were literally side by side.

 

[lmbotiva]

me and my friends used to call the frame rate drops cool slowdown effects lol, until we grew up and learned what's up

 

[B_Spooky13]

Yeah it was mostly ad's and commercials taking jabs at each other. But man those recess time arguments between SNES and Genisis.

 

[Zee-Row]

I always used to think my copy of Super Mario Bros 3 was messed up because of the way the screen scrolled to the right. It had that wierd glitchy way it rendered the screen on NES.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

I would assume not OP, but I was young as hell during the NES era so I don't really know. I just assume that during the early era of gaming complaints of that didn't exist. Similar to how when moving pictures were being made not many complained that they had no idea why the spooky black and white train was coming at the screen.

 

[IDKAboutThat]

They didn't just acknowledge that some consoles were technologically superior back then, they wouldn't shut the fuck up about it! The 16 to 32 bit transition was vicious, man. I want those ads back.
Lights up on a bored kid typing an essay on his computer. "Microsoft sure can make a word processor. TOO BAD THEIR CONSOLES CAN'T EVEN BREAK 1000 PIXELS! *flashing lights and sound effects reveal a bright red PS4* THE NEXT EVOLUTION IN VIDEO GAMES IS HERE! PLAYSTATION: 1080 REASONS TO PLAY!

 

[Mr. PlayStation]

I wasn't old enough to experience the Atari consoles or old enough to go through the NES life cycle, but was there any discussions like on GAF that led into framerate and graphics issues?

Ex. Ninja Gaiden has severe slowdown, including with music, when there are multiple enemies on screen.

Zelda 1 and 2 both had those same issues as well.

I'm curious if there was any AOL discussion forums for it.

I remember facing frame rate/screen tearing issues with SNES games back in early 90's, but back then I didn't know xyz problem is called frame rate slow down or screen tearing since I was 4

 

[MattKeil]

The more things change

And people wonder why us old guys just sort of smile and shake our heads at the console wars these days. 25 years of the same awkward car metaphors take their toll on a person.

 

[uncredited male]

Our arguments about platform superiority were much more nuanced and evolved than that of today.

For example, if someone I knew mistakenly bought a Sega Genesis I would politely remind them of their choice of a inferior product through Socratic induction.

"Hey Genesis user! Where are your 32,000 colors at?"

 

[LDAF]

Lights up on a bored kid typing an essay on his computer. "Microsoft sure can make a word processor. TOO BAD THEIR CONSOLES CAN'T EVEN BREAK 1000 PIXELS! *flashing lights and sound effects reveal a bright red PS4* THE NEXT EVOLUTION IN VIDEO GAMES IS HERE! PLAYSTATION: 1080 REASONS TO PLAY!

I didn't know I needed this in my life until this moment.

 

[DoktorEvil]

The more things change

Something something time is a flat circle something.

This has been my favorite old thread so far:

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/?fromgroups#!topic/rec.games.video/Qz8mht7rCAU

 

[beercr8te]

I had a C64 at the time, I never cared about slowdown, seen it in the arcades too, thats how things were. Nowadays we are spoiled, most games don't suffer from slowdown/dropped frames.

 

[Zabka]

I remember facing frame rate/screen tearing issues with SNES games back in early 90's, but back then I didn't know xyz problem is called frame rate slow down or screen tearing since I was 4

I'm pretty sure the original John Madden Football on the SNES ran at a severely reduced framerate compared to the Genesis. It was fixed the following year.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Yes!

"Genesis sucks! Sound chip sucked and it has muddy colors"

"Snes sucks the cpu is slow!"

"Game x is a shitty arcade port"

"Wtf snes r-type has slow down ???"

 

[ReBurn]

I remember facing frame rate/screen tearing issues with SNES games back in early 90's, but back then I didn't know xyz problem is called frame rate slow down or screen tearing since I was 4

Final Fight on SNES. One of my most anticipated games. But they cut out Guy and had horrible slowdown. I was sad.

 

[lazygecko]

Those Neo Geo Master Race people sure are uppity, aren't they?

 

[Shin-Ra]

The more things change

RRV (and early PS2 in general) was rough coming from Dreamcast. Jaggies, interlace flicker, lack of fullscreen NTSC 60Hz options for PAL users, shitty ass textures and Orphen: Scion of Sorcery.

It was pretty clear early on that it had a polygon, particle and lighting advantage though. SSX was pretty rad.

 

[Skux]

Of course they were. There just wasn't a big forum to talk about it.

If GAF existed during the NES era, we'd be melting down left and right over framerate drops and see Zelda II's save slots as the greatest megaton in the industry.

 

[TwiztidElf]

PAL/NTSC was a HUGE deal in Europe and Australia.
17% decrease in speed.
Importers knew what was up.

 

[Oneself]

The number of colors on screen, slowdown, flickering, processor speed, number of "bits"... It all mattered back then.

 

[Shin-Ra]

For some reason I remember Rez and Klonoa 2 being the first PS2 demos I tried that convinced me the system wasn't doomed to terrible image quality and 50Hz.

 

[Ricerocket]

Flickering and slow motion was HUGE then but not really any place to talk about it and I don't think anyone cared.

 

[MrCunningham]

Genesis vs Snes on the playground was a thing, people from all over the usa can confirm.

Genesis: 64 onscreen colours
SNES: 256 onscreen colours

Genesis: Less slowdown, less flicker, faster CPU
SNES: Transparencies and Mode 7

Genesis: Higher resolution graphics
SNES Better sound

alt.video.games.*

EmCeeGramr presents: : The more things change: Usenet posts from rec.games.video Hid thread has online console war debates going all the way back to 1981.

 

[BouncyFrag]

Back then slow downs usually meant all sorts of shit was going down and was usually epic.

 

[fluffydelusions]

I don't remember me or any of my friends discussing FPS back in the 80s but we all thought SMB3 looked amazing when first shown during the movie the wizard.

 

[Beerman462]

I got a letter in the mail back during the SNES/Genesis days that compared the two systems. It was heavily weighted in the SNES's favor. It listed amount of total colors/colors present on screen and really every aspect of the hardware. I was subbed to Nintendo Power at the time, so I'm assuming it came from them.
Don't remember anything from the NES era.

 

[fluffydelusions]

I got a letter in the mail back during the SNES/Genesis days that compared the two systems. It was heavily weighted in the SNES's favor. It listed amount of total colors/colors present on screen and really every aspect of the hardware. I was subbed to Nintendo Power at the time, so I'm assuming it came from them.
Don't remember anything from the NES era.

Yeah for SNES/Genesis it was mostly about colors/sounds. FPS wasn't really a thing

 

[DoktorEvil]

Yeah for SNES/Genesis it was mostly about colors/sounds. FPS wasn't really a thing

I don't recall any Nintendo Power, Gamepro, or EGM discussing frame rates or measuring them out.

 

[MrCunningham]

Don't remember anything from the NES era.

Yeah, this was much less of a thing in the NES era, (at least in North America, not sure about Europe and other parts of the globe), but that was also because Nintendo had a monopoly on the market and they had no competitors. Sure granted, Sega had their Master System, but for every 20 kids I knew in grade school only one of them had a SMS.

I don't recall any Nintendo Power, Gamepro, or EGM discussing frame rates or measuring them out.

There was lots of debate on slowdown (which is framerate related) but no actual discussion on frame rates. Yeah, game mags weren't counting frames. The whole framerate thing really started with the 32bit era, when 3D games were becoming more common. Though also PC mags loved to compare framerates in games, especially when 3D accelerators were becoming more commonplace. But they also loved to compare resolution too.

 

[Purest 78]

I knew things slowed down with alot of action on screen. I had know clue what a framerate was thought.

 

[Daingurse]

Sonic 3K definitely had slowdown on the ol' Genesis, and TMNT Tournament Fighters. As a kid, I just accepted it. I wonder if I even noticed at that age. My tolerance for that was extremely high back then though. I believe I played Sonic R on PC at like 15fps avg I bet, good lord.