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> Look what was achieved despite those limits. We've basically had the same desktop and productivity software for 30 years. Look at games like Doom or Tyrian, o

by anyfoo 3y ago

> Look what was achieved despite those limits. We've basically had the same desktop and productivity software for 30 years. Look at games like Doom or Tyrian, or what was happening on consoles and think about how crappy that hardware was. I agree with the rest, but games are a comparatively bad example, almost a counterexample. A lot of them are basically the exception of what you're saying. Because the visual fidelity of games has overall steadily improved since the inception of computer games, with some astonishing milestones along the way. So games are a category of software that did (and continues to do) make efficient use of ever-improving computer hardware. Not all of them, not in every aspect, but the overall progress is obvious. Office software on the other hand...

oliwarner 3y ago
Compared to productivity software, sure, but cycle-for-cycle, the 90s gaming was driven by developers like John Carmack and spiritual forebears who didn't just have to invent their gameplay metaphors, they had to find ways to trick hardware into doing things faster (a lot of mathematical shortcuts, but also working in the terms the hardware worked). Again, I agree that gaming has come further, but I actually think the comparison works well because gaming is reaching that Windows 2k/XP plateau. We're waist-deep into diminishing returns now. Cyberpunk is the Windows Vista of gamedev. Gosh it's pretty at times but at an almighty cost, we're shovelling gold into our PCs to make generic compute modules work out how light interacts with virtual surfaces. Doesn't sound like gaming to me. The software continues to get flabbier, demands more and more, and we have to keep up of we can't load Office in under 10 seconds, or play games at the native resolutions. It just feels wasteful.
- anyfoo 3y ago
  > Compared to productivity software, sure, but cycle-for-cycle, [...] they had to find ways to trick That's true, but I think the idea was more that other software has not only been mostly stagnant (that, too), but often actually regressing in performance. Games on the other hand have been steadily improving. Maybe not keeping up the full pace, as the mathematical and hardware tricks became unnecessary and were traded in for ease of development, but game developers at least overall did make use of the better hardware. They stopped doing the super clever stuff when it was just not necessary anymore while still providing better fidelity. > Doesn't sound like gaming to me. Eh, it's part of it. And it's not like other aspects did not profit from the better hardware as well. Later Civilization titles are pretty compute-intensive between turns, for more complex gameplay. Earlier chess programs had to "think" a very long time for not that great chess performance...

by anyfoo 3y ago

oliwarner 3y ago

Compared to productivity software, sure, but cycle-for-cycle, the 90s gaming was driven by developers like John Carmack and spiritual forebears who didn't just have to invent their gameplay metaphors, they had to find ways to trick hardware into doing things faster (a lot of mathematical shortcuts, but also working in the terms the hardware worked). Again, I agree that gaming has come further, but I actually think the comparison works well because gaming is reaching that Windows 2k/XP plateau. We're waist-deep into diminishing returns now. Cyberpunk is the Windows Vista of gamedev. Gosh it's pretty at times but at an almighty cost, we're shovelling gold into our PCs to make generic compute modules work out how light interacts with virtual surfaces. Doesn't sound like gaming to me. The software continues to get flabbier, demands more and more, and we have to keep up of we can't load Office in under 10 seconds, or play games at the native resolutions. It just feels wasteful.

anyfoo 3y ago
> Compared to productivity software, sure, but cycle-for-cycle, [...] they had to find ways to trick That's true, but I think the idea was more that other software has not only been mostly stagnant (that, too), but often actually regressing in performance. Games on the other hand have been steadily improving. Maybe not keeping up the full pace, as the mathematical and hardware tricks became unnecessary and were traded in for ease of development, but game developers at least overall did make use of the better hardware. They stopped doing the super clever stuff when it was just not necessary anymore while still providing better fidelity. > Doesn't sound like gaming to me. Eh, it's part of it. And it's not like other aspects did not profit from the better hardware as well. Later Civilization titles are pretty compute-intensive between turns, for more complex gameplay. Earlier chess programs had to "think" a very long time for not that great chess performance...