Memory Lane... The Good Old Days of Graphics

[tincart]

I remember getting a TNT2 Ultra from Creative Labs way back when I did news for long-dead Riva3d.com.

Sweet, sweet glory.

 

[Desin]

I had a Riva TNT2 and a couple of 8MB Monster 3d II's. The visual quality difference in quake2 was crazy. The pass through and whatever else 3dfx had going on made things look like shit compared to the Nvidia card. TNT2 also had higher resolution without having to use both cards.

 

[Gothgar]

Heres a list i found on wiki of all the defunct graphics chip companies:

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

bring back some memories

 

[Ben90]

Real time ray tracing kind of sucks, rather in a huge way. Ray tracing does reflections very nicely, everything else it is *terrible* at. All your shadows will be razor sharp, good bye dust/smoke/haze. There is a reason we don't do real time ray tracing, mainly because it's dumb. A hybrid engine that utilizes rasterization for most elements and only uses ray tracing for reflections is a smarter way to go(although, it still is going to have a massive performance hit for a relatively tiny improvement in overall graphic fidelity).

The only big disadvantage of ray tracing is performance. Carmack estimates you need about 12 rays per pixel to get stuff like shadows decent.

 

[BTA]

I remember wanting Matrox to get a good 3D card on the market for so long.

Their 2D picture quality was amazing compared to anything else out there, and their 3D on products like the G200 had great quality but very sluggish.

Rendition was a big player at first too, but they couldn't keep up once Nvidia broke on the scene.

I kinda wish I kept my 2 12mb Voodoo2's also.

Tribes played so wonderfully on the 3dfx cards in glide.

 

[sandorski]

People are still pissed at Creative for buying Aureal . . . and shelving their entire product line and tech.

Indeed. :thumbsdown:

 

[sandorski]

Please don't remind me. I had a Vortex card back in the late 90s. Playing Unreal with headphones in surround sound was godlike. Fast forward to today and there's virtually nothing that can do 3D audio with two sources. F'kin Creative and their business model of selling overpriced 5.1 speaker systems.

I was just thinking about this the other day. I remember sitting in awe when first trying out my SQ2500 in Unreal Tournament, I almost could feel the Rocket flying by my ear with the 2 bookshelf speaker setup I was using then. In a UT CS-Clone(TacOps IIRC), I could hear footsteps behind a wall and turn to look right at where they were coming from. These days there is still 3D sound, but it just doesn't seem to be nearly as precise, but that might just be me being used to it.

Someone with the resources(Hardware mainly) really should do a thorough comparison of the SQ2500 and current day Audio solutions. It would be tricky because they would have to use different Games, OS's, Speaker/Headphone setups, and would be rather subjective, but I think it would be an interesting comparison.

 

[exar333]

I was just thinking about this the other day. I remember sitting in awe when first trying out my SQ2500 in Unreal Tournament, I almost could feel the Rocket flying by my ear with the 2 bookshelf speaker setup I was using then. In a UT CS-Clone(TacOps IIRC), I could hear footsteps behind a wall and turn to look right at where they were coming from. These days there is still 3D sound, but it just doesn't seem to be nearly as precise, but that might just be me being used to it.

Someone with the resources(Hardware mainly) really should do a thorough comparison of the SQ2500 and current day Audio solutions. It would be tricky because they would have to use different Games, OS's, Speaker/Headphone setups, and would be rather subjective, but I think it would be an interesting comparison.

I would love to read a review like that. Agree 100%.

 

[Googer]

I remember wanting Matrox to get a good 3D card on the market for so long.

Their 2D picture quality was amazing compared to anything else out there,

I second that, I used to have a Matrox card before I went NVIDIA and eventually an ATi 9700 Pro.

 

[blackened23]

I was just thinking about this the other day. I remember sitting in awe when first trying out my SQ2500 in Unreal Tournament, I almost could feel the Rocket flying by my ear with the 2 bookshelf speaker setup I was using then. In a UT CS-Clone(TacOps IIRC), I could hear footsteps behind a wall and turn to look right at where they were coming from. These days there is still 3D sound, but it just doesn't seem to be nearly as precise, but that might just be me being used to it.

Someone with the resources(Hardware mainly) really should do a thorough comparison of the SQ2500 and current day Audio solutions. It would be tricky because they would have to use different Games, OS's, Speaker/Headphone setups, and would be rather subjective, but I think it would be an interesting comparison.

The first half life had A3D as well IIRC. Was amazing at the time. RIP aureal.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

[Any strong points are my views alone and are non-factual].
I've only properly used computers since '07 [owned one myself]. The integrated GPU was some VIA based graphics on a P4M900 based board. Although those weren't my good days.
The good days for me were when I first got into PC gaming - I think that was late '08, maybe early '09.
Although I still didn't have powerful hardware [got a 2600XT - my first dedicated GPU](and it wasn't long ago for most of you here), I remember that PC feel. Although I think I arrived late to the party, just as PC games were starting to become ports more often than true versions developed for the PC were.
Nowadays, GPU manufacturers seem to be lacking in producing producing products that'll put a smile on your face - also paying developers to make games run worse on the competition's HW. This ruins the main point of gaming in the first place - the effect of GPU manufacturers doing this has taken away the aspect of gaming completely and has instead resorted to petty business fights.
GPUs used to be really hyped up and highly awaited with big surprises. I only feel that business has taken over the initial 'love' for what the companies were producing - much like sport has just become a thing of business and it isn't about the customer. '07/'08 games seemed to be great.
Things that start small always seem to destroy themselves from the inside - that's with most things in the world; not just businesses.

 

[Googer]

The first half life had A3D as well IIRC. Was amazing at the time. RIP aureal.

Anyone else remember that great hardware accelerated onboard audio nVIDIA produced and to everyone's dismay, discontinued?

 

[Googer]

[Any strong points are my views alone and are non-factual].
I've only properly used computers since '07 [owned one myself]. The integrated GPU was some VIA based graphics on a P4M900 based board. Although those weren't my good days.
The good days for me were when I first got into PC gaming - I think that was late '08, maybe early '09.
Although I still didn't have powerful hardware [got a 2600XT - my first dedicated GPU](and it wasn't long ago for most of you here), I remember that PC feel.
Nowadays, GPU manufacturers seem to be lacking in producing producing products that'll put a smile on your face - also paying developers to make games run worse on the competition's HW. This ruins the main point of gaming in the first place - the effect of GPU manufacturers doing this has taken away the aspect of gaming completely and has instead resorted to petty business fights.
GPUs used to be really hyped up and highly awaited with big surprises. I only feel that business has taken over the initial 'love' for what the companies were producing - much like sport has just become a thing of business and it isn't about the customer. '07/'08 games seemed to be great.
Things that start small always seem to destroy themselves from the inside - that's with most things in the world; not just businesses.

The Golden Era of PC Gaming for me was late 80's to mid to late 90s, back when Sierra made the most legendary games like Police Quest, Kings Quest, Fantasmagoria (massive production effort in 1995, 8 CD-ROMS, at time when HDDs were less than 500MB-1GB in size), and companies like ID were coming up with novel innovations like First Person Shooters, and Interplay was making some of the most Amusing games out there like Earthworm Jim, Redneck Rampage, and many more.

 

[superjim]

My first video card was a 32MB TNT2 followed by the sleeper hit Kyro II from STMicroelectronics. Fond memories of Quake 3 Arena marathon sessions in college on that thing. Next step up was the legendary Radeon 9500 Pro. It was like going from a Mazda Miata (Kyro II) to a Ferrari (9500). Everything after that is hazy, too many upgrades to remember.