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I don't think this is a good example. Zelda: Link's Awakening, while ground breaking, can be, and has been improved upon. Using those resources to create a be

by enkid 5y ago

I don't think this is a good example. Zelda: Link's Awakening, while ground breaking, can be, and has been improved upon. Using those resources to create a better user experience is not inefficiency. That's the entire point of a video game - a good user experience.

dijit 5y ago
I think you're not disagreeing with the parent. You can have an exceptional experience with a game in less than the storage and processing power it takes to run Hello World today; To that end you can make things better and nicer than Links Awakening with modern resources. But can you make something 500-3000x better? (that's the order of magnitude we're talking about, with Slack vs Zelda)
- dale_glass 5y ago
  No, because improvements don't scale that way. 320x200 was more or less where graphics started. 640x480 was much better. 720p was a lot better than broadcast TV. 1080p was a very nice improvement for a lot of uses. 4K is visibly better, but mostly eye candy. 8K is pointless for a desktop monitor. The steps give you 4X the number of pixels. At 320x200 you're severely constrained in detail. You'd have a hard time for instance accurately simulating an aircraft's cockpit -- you don't have enough pixels to work with. 1080p to 4K is in most cases not the same kind of difference. There's little for which 1080p is actually constrained in some way and require sacrificing something or working around the lack of pixels. This isn't because modern software design is bloated and sucks, but simply because improvements diminish. Our needs, abilities and physical senses are finite.
  - dangus 5y ago
    While I agree that returns diminish, I’ll be the first to disagree that those enhancements are unnecessary. If I do text work on a 1440p 27” monitor I can see the pixels. Anything less than 4K is unacceptable to me. I could see an 8K monitor being a worthy upgrade if I could afford it and my computer could drive it, especially if it meant that I could make the screen larger or wider and still avoid seeing pixels. Also, we might consider that digital tech is arguably still catching up in some aspects to our best analog technology like 70mm film.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      What's wrong with "seeing pixels" when all you're doing is basic text work? Bitmap fonts - or properly-hinted TrueType/OpenType fonts, now that the relevant patents have expired - can be pixel-perfect and are far from unreadable.
      - dangus 5y ago
        Because I have to look at it all day and I’d like it to look smooth. Also, I can read smaller text when the resolution is higher. When it comes to technology and innovation I believe that asking “why do I need this?” can often be the wrong question. It feels like a bias toward complacency. Why drive a car when you’ve already got a horse?
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    For VR to ever begin to approach something close to reality, and to really prevent people from getting sick wearing the headsets, it needs to be nearly 90Hz per eye and very high definition in a very small, lightweight package. While you're focused on the rectangular screens, the market is figuring out other ways to use this technology.
    - dale_glass 5y ago
      Yes, VR goes much higher need-wise, but it has a similar curve. The DK1 was a proof of concept. The DK2 was barely usable for most uses, and not at all for others. The CV1 was about the minimum needed for viable commercial use -- earlier ones needed huge fonts, so many games' UI wouldn't translate well. By Quest 2 the resolution is okay. It could be better still, but it's no longer horribly limiting for most purposes.
  - coretx 5y ago
    You are technically correct but it might be wise not to omit that 8k on a desktop monitor may attribute to the presented gamut. ( Despite the (sub) pixels not being visible by the human eye. )

by enkid 5y ago

dijit 5y ago

I think you're not disagreeing with the parent. You can have an exceptional experience with a game in less than the storage and processing power it takes to run Hello World today; To that end you can make things better and nicer than Links Awakening with modern resources. But can you make something 500-3000x better? (that's the order of magnitude we're talking about, with Slack vs Zelda)

dale_glass 5y ago
No, because improvements don't scale that way. 320x200 was more or less where graphics started. 640x480 was much better. 720p was a lot better than broadcast TV. 1080p was a very nice improvement for a lot of uses. 4K is visibly better, but mostly eye candy. 8K is pointless for a desktop monitor. The steps give you 4X the number of pixels. At 320x200 you're severely constrained in detail. You'd have a hard time for instance accurately simulating an aircraft's cockpit -- you don't have enough pixels to work with. 1080p to 4K is in most cases not the same kind of difference. There's little for which 1080p is actually constrained in some way and require sacrificing something or working around the lack of pixels. This isn't because modern software design is bloated and sucks, but simply because improvements diminish. Our needs, abilities and physical senses are finite.
- dangus 5y ago
  While I agree that returns diminish, I’ll be the first to disagree that those enhancements are unnecessary. If I do text work on a 1440p 27” monitor I can see the pixels. Anything less than 4K is unacceptable to me. I could see an 8K monitor being a worthy upgrade if I could afford it and my computer could drive it, especially if it meant that I could make the screen larger or wider and still avoid seeing pixels. Also, we might consider that digital tech is arguably still catching up in some aspects to our best analog technology like 70mm film.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    What's wrong with "seeing pixels" when all you're doing is basic text work? Bitmap fonts - or properly-hinted TrueType/OpenType fonts, now that the relevant patents have expired - can be pixel-perfect and are far from unreadable.
    - dangus 5y ago
      Because I have to look at it all day and I’d like it to look smooth. Also, I can read smaller text when the resolution is higher. When it comes to technology and innovation I believe that asking “why do I need this?” can often be the wrong question. It feels like a bias toward complacency. Why drive a car when you’ve already got a horse?
- chrisco255 5y ago
  For VR to ever begin to approach something close to reality, and to really prevent people from getting sick wearing the headsets, it needs to be nearly 90Hz per eye and very high definition in a very small, lightweight package. While you're focused on the rectangular screens, the market is figuring out other ways to use this technology.
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    Yes, VR goes much higher need-wise, but it has a similar curve. The DK1 was a proof of concept. The DK2 was barely usable for most uses, and not at all for others. The CV1 was about the minimum needed for viable commercial use -- earlier ones needed huge fonts, so many games' UI wouldn't translate well. By Quest 2 the resolution is okay. It could be better still, but it's no longer horribly limiting for most purposes.
- coretx 5y ago
  You are technically correct but it might be wise not to omit that 8k on a desktop monitor may attribute to the presented gamut. ( Despite the (sub) pixels not being visible by the human eye. )