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> The gist of it is I think the 90s really were a special time in computer gaming, and it's not just nostalgia you're feeling. I don't think it'd be exaggerati
by taneq 6y ago
> The gist of it is I think the 90s really were a special time in computer gaming, and it's not just nostalgia you're feeling.
I don't think it'd be exaggerating to say that the 90s were, for 3D gaming, the equivalent of 1900-1910 for aircraft. The decade started with a few barely-functional attempts and ended with relatively polished and widely available products.
- torginus 6y agoI'm not super familiar with the history of aviation, but by the end of the 90s, 3D accelerators became widespread. This meant that 3D became available to the masses, but the only way you could render graphics was the DirectX/OpenGL way, with triangles,Z-Buffers,vertex/pixel shaders. Unfortunately this meant that other techniques, like voxel raycasting, spline surfaces and other weird techniques couldn't be accelerated, and became much less prominent. So yeah, the analogy stands that 3D transitioned from a period of whimsical experimentation to a "this-is-how-we-do-things" mindset in the timeframe, while a number of otherwise interesting solutions fell by the wayside.