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I remember buying a new GPU everytime a new edition of Quake came out. Those were the days...

• virgil_disgr4ce 9y ago
  Has anything changed, other than the particular game?
  • klodolph 9y ago
    Yes. Quake 2 was December 1997, Quake 3 was December 1999. In that span, the game went from "use a GPU and you'll get colored lights and a higher resolution" to "use a GPU or else you don't get to play the game at all". GPU power seems to be increasing as fast as it always was, but the things we can do with that extra power are less impressive. So if you're playing games, it's not so big a deal any more if your graphics card is five years old.
    • seabee 9y ago
      Up to a point; obsolescence happens by games requiring graphics APIs that didn't exist 5 years ago.
      • klodolph 9y ago
        There aren't many games that fall into that category. For example, look at Direct3D 12. You can count on your fingers the number of games that require D3D 12, and it's supported by graphics cards made in 2011 (although not all of them). Just look at the new API features we've been getting, they aren't really the kind of things you'd rewrite your engine for, with the exception of Vulkan / D3D 12 / Metal / etc. But Vulkan / D3D 12 are really just API changes that don't reflect underlying hardware changes. On top of that, a large percentage of games are made on top of engine middleware with good support for mediocre hardware (like Unreal and Unity, both of which run on phones if you want).
        • theandrewbailey 9y ago
          Not to mention that lots of neat effects can be produced by modern shaders, and do not need further API support.
    • Retric 9y ago
      Things have actually greatly slowed down. GTX 1080TI is March 2017 11.3 TFLOPs going back five years you find a GTX 680 from March 2012 is 3.1 TFLOPS. So less than 4x gains in 5 years. Around 1997 you where seeing nearly 2x gains per year.