this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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[–] CthulhuDreamer@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago

Just go to itch.io or newgrounds.com

[–] UnsavoryMollusk@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago

All of this seems like management/higer up decision to me

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 6 points 19 hours ago

just play indie

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 52 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

The minimum requirements one is a bit of a weird one, as those were definitely a thing back then. Gaming pushed computer technology a lot and personally many of my computer upgrades were motivated to play the latest games.

I remember upgrading my PC for Duke3D from 4MB to 8MB, it cost me my entire paycheck.

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 10 points 14 hours ago

Back then strict requirements made sense. Doubling anything made a huge difference. Not so much anymore. Today's AAA games do look marginally better than the AAA games of 5 years ago, but only marginally, and these slight improvements in fidelity have massive computational cost which directly results in worse performance.

diminishing returns

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 6 points 15 hours ago

I remember very specifically not being able to play a game I was gifted because it needed at least 256mb of ram and the family computer only had 128mb.

I was extremely sad, then after months tried to push my parents to her a new computer. They say that the computer is supposed to have 256mb of ram.

After a while we realized that one of the ram sticks was not properly plugged in.

When games like Half-Life were released im pretty sure most people didnt have a 3d capable GPU

[–] t_berium@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

Yeah, imagine the games we could have if this had not stopped because of consoles.

Not saying it was a good development. Just saying it rapidly developed game graphics and systems.

[–] mriswith@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah, Quake 2 recommended a Pentium 133, and that was released two years earlier(the AMD equivalent was released only a year and a half before the game). It required a Pentium 90 which was three years old, but it didn't run smooth from what I remember.

That sort of requirement for a major component today would be considered self-sabotage for most non-vr pc games.

[–] Toes@ani.social 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The last one grinds my gears the most.

Trying to bring microtransactions into MY single player experience is absurd. I feel no shame in taking a debugger to it and ripping that out.

[–] Zwiebel@feddit.org 72 points 1 day ago

Game publishers*

[–] LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe 63 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wouldn’t put most of that on devs.

[–] Impleader@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just the one about Larry and his breast milk fetish

[–] DickFiasco@lemm.ee 53 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Game devs back then were also the company owners and CEOs.

[–] riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

well good thing thats not the case anymore!

imagine how bad video games would be if these imbecils had any more power smh

/s :<

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 31 points 1 day ago

Regarding the always online for singleplayer: https://stopkillinggames.com/

[–] scops@reddthat.com 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That first one doesn't make any sense. Every processor has its own assembly language. The game would run on YOUR machine and any others running the same processors, but you'd have to build a custom version for any other processor you want to support.

That said, it could potentially be insanely well optimized for that platform if everything was hand coded.

[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That one is about Chris Sawyer. He'll remind people that there was a bit of C in there, but 99% x86 assembly / machine code in his words.

[–] paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 18 hours ago

For anyone interested in why, C was new and didn't yet optimize to the same level that a clever and experienced human could optimize Assembly. IIRC, by the time he was developing Roller Coaster Tycoon, C compiler optimization was on par with human Assembly optimization, so it was the last notable game written entirely in Assembly for optimization purposes.

I think this was the video I watched where I learned this: https://youtu.be/0JouTsMQsEA

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think he only used C to build the installer. The rest was coded in x86 assembly.

Building anything in x86 assembly is a gargantuan effort, but then Chris Sawyer built a game on the same level of scale as RollerCoaster Tycoon...

[–] mriswith@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There is some C in the game as well:

It's 99% written in x86 assembler/machine code (yes, really!), with a small amount of C code used to interface to MS Windows and DirectX.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201108105209/http://www.chrissawyergames.com/faq3.htm

[–] lovelily@lemmy.today 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

ya have to consider that game development back then was a hobby/new business venture and the corporations hadnt gotten its capitalist, profit-maximizing ray all over the process yet

just look at indies vs the usual story of how upper management gets in the way of development

[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Exaclty. I can find you an indie game in the last couple years for each top-line category. Well, except coding the entire game in assembly. I mean, it's a flex, but we just don't live in that world of necessity anymore.

[–] criss_cross@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Imma need some context on that breastmilk one.

[–] VolumetricShitCompressor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm in love with the amount of different wojaks that are there these days.

[–] cactus_head@programming.dev 2 points 18 hours ago

There are like two at best

[–] Xkdrxodrixkr@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

🎶its uncompressed asset time🎶

[–] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Big if true.

[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

100% that. They are essentially selling a broken product, it is ridiculous.

[–] WanderingThoughts 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How the games back then looked:

[–] GusTheBard@midwest.social 12 points 1 day ago

Except that they are talking explicitly about games like Rollercoaster Tycoon and Doom. Full colored games with animations, soundtracks, the whole thing (and aged pretty well too, imo)