Comment on Why do low framerates *feel* so much worse on modern video games?
over_clox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My favorite game of all time is Descent, PC version to be specific, I didn’t have a PlayStation when I first played it.
The first time I tried it, I had a 386sx 20MHz, and Descent, with the graphics configured at absolute lowest size and quality, would run at a whopping 3 frames per second!
I knew it was basically unplayable on my home PC, but did that stop me? Fuck no, I took the 3 floppy disks installer to school and installed it on their 486dx 66MHz computers!
I knew it would just be a matter of time before I got a chance to upgrade my own computer at home.
I still enjoy playing the game even to this day, and have even successfully cross compiled the source code to run natively on Linux.
But yeah I feel you on a variety of levels regarding the framerate thing. Descent at 3 frames per second is absolutely unplayable, but 20 frames per second is acceptable. But in the world of Descent, especially with modern upgraded ports, the more frames the better 👍
Descent broke my brain. I’m pretty good at navigating in FPS’, but Descent’s 4 axis of movement just didn’t click for me. I kept getting lost, recently I tried it again after many years, I just can’t wrap my head around it.
Same with space sims. I’m dog awful in dog fights.
Indeed, it’s not quite a game for everyone, especially if you’re prone to motion sickness. Initially it only took me about a half hour to get a feel for the game, but configuring the controls can still be a headache.
Every time I set the game up on a new or different system, I tend to usually go for loosely the same sort of controls, but each new setup I might change up the controls a bit, like an endless guessing and testing game to see what controls might be ideal, at least for me.
By the way, Descent is considered a 6 Degrees Of Freedom game, not 4. But hey, at least they have a map feature, I’d go insane without the map sometimes…
I meant 6, not sure why I typed 4.
Descent is pretty fun. Not as big of a fan as you are, but I definitely dig it.
Kvoth@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Great games. Free space was almost mind blowing when I first played it as well
over_clox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I haven’t actually played Free Space before, but I did manage to get a copy and archive it a few years ago.
I also got a copy of Overload and briefly tried that, but on my current hardware it only runs at about 3 frames per second…
The Descent developers were really ahead of their time and pushing gaming to the extreme!
Kvoth@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Definitely give it a shot. It’s obviously different, but I loved it. My mom actually banned me from playing descent 3: vertigo, because she had vertigo and it made her sick
over_clox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Vertigo was actually an expansion on Descent 2, I made the NoCD patch for it via a carefully hex edited mod based on another NoCD patch for the original Descent 2.
Any which way, yeah, anyone with vertigo wouldn’t be comfortable or oriented in any way if they’re watching or playing the game.