Modern Gaming/Classic Gaming..... where's the dividing line?

[Zaxxon]

now, zaxxon, I will give you that classic and modern can be further sub-divided. You could say early classic and late classic. Or pre-crash and post-crash or, most accurately, pre-bitmap and post-bitmap (I had not til now considered that pre-crash/post-crash coincides almost perfectly with pre-bitmap/post-bitmap. That's ironic. but it's also just coincidence, cause it's the technological revolution and not the poitico-social revolution that makes the difference, truely.

 

I'm not a hardware expert but I don't think that seems like a good way to distinguish. I read Opcode say the 5200/A8 CAN do bitmaps, and I don't know that the CV can't, it's just that these systems can do char graphics much faster.

[Atari_Worshipper]

to call NES/SNES modern is rediculous. Plain and simple.

 

Odyssey was 1972 so that makes the 1974-78 thing sound totally wrong.

 

As far as arcades being better in the 80's than in the 90's, I'd agree to a point, but they weren't sad shells til the DC. They still had merit and value and interest in the gaming world til then. Console systems still depended on them til then...that's the real proof of it's contiuned life... and the stop of that is the real proof of it's demise, quality of the arcade is completely and totally immaterial in this context.

 

 

The DC is not part of the PS1 N64 generation, but is the same generation as the PS2, that's why it's so similar. Comparing the DC to the PS2 is like comparing the SNES to the Genesis, and comparing the DC to the PS1 is like comparing the Genesis to the NES...so comparing the DC to the PS2 in the context you did makes no sense whatsoever.

 

The NES heralded in the true 2nd Generation of video games, 3DO heralded in the 3rd and DC heralded in the 4th. The divinding line between classic and modern is so much more complex then "Anything newer than 1st gen is not classic" and "anything older than the newest generation is not modern." Both of those arguments have ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INTELLECTUAL VALUE ONLY. They are Barney answers.

[Zaxxon]

to call NES/SNES modern is rediculous. Plain and simple.

 

You're right. I never said anywhere that they were modern. I said they weren't classic.

 

Odyssey was 1972 so that makes the 1974-78 thing sound totally wrong.

 

Where did you get 1974-1978 from? The 1972 Odyssey was a glorified Pong machine.

 

The DC is not part of the PS1 N64 generation, but is the same generation as the PS2, that's why it's so similar. Comparing the DC to the PS2 is like comparing the SNES to the Genesis, and comparing the DC to the PS1 is like comparing the Genesis to the NES...so comparing the DC to the PS2 in the context you did makes no sense whatsoever.

 

It makes perfect sense, if you understood what I wrote. Retail and consumers discarded the DC in favor of the supposedly far superior PS2. It was really unnecessary and gamers didn't really gain anything IMO. It is the same gen as PS2 and it could still hang with the PS2, as it does in JPN.

 

The NES heralded in the true 2nd Generation of video games, 3DO heralded in the 3rd and DC heralded in the 4th. The divinding line between classic and modern is so much more complex then "Anything newer than 1st gen is not classic" and "anything older than the newest generation is not modern." Both of those arguments have ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INTELLECTUAL VALUE ONLY. They are Barney answers.

 

I'm not dividing systems into just classic/modern. You're saying I am though. I like a slightly tweaked version of tyranthraxus's descriptions.

 

72-77 Pong

77-84 Classic

85-93 Golden Age

93-?? modern 3D

06-09 Holodeck

10-?? Brainstorm consoles

[Atari_Worshipper]

I do apologize, Zaxxon, if what I said sounded a little gruff. I thought to change it after I posted it, but had to leave and didn't have time to change it.

 

I don't know that either one of us will persuade the other one, but it seems from the thread that the bulk of the people agree with where I place the dividing line between classic and modern. But I think that you're feeling it's too simple to classify video games simply by classic and modern. There has to be subcatagories as well, lets go by your scale.

 

72-77 pong

77-84 classic

85-93 golden age

 

those would all be sub-catagories of classic. The rest (though I realize some are facecious) would be sub-catagories of modern. I don't think you should go by year though... I suppose it's okay to mark the year that an era began, but the beginning of a new era and the ending of the previous era are not necessarily in the same year. An example. 3DO started the 3D revolution, the SNES brought the 2D revolution to a close. The 3DO came out in 93 and the SNES died in 98. so there's bleed over and cross over between all the eras... you should look at it by events..

 

*****The Classic Era*****

Early Classic-The birth of home video games. (started by Odyssey in 1972)

 

Middle Classic-Cartridge based gaming. Systems before this primarily used built in ROM chips. (started by Atari2600 in 1977)

 

Late Classic-Bitmapped based games and world mission games. Before this game graphics were almost entirely text based and were mostly one-room games. (Started by NES in 1985)

 

 

*****The Modern Era*****

Early Modern-The Birth of 3D. Before this, the games were primarily 2D and were on systems not really spec'd for 3D. (started by 3DO in 1993)

 

Current-Arcade Killer/Psuedo-Online games/ Before this, systems could not compete with the arcade hardware and they depended on and fed off the arcade (a lot of big named games would come out on the arcade first and would then come to the home systems) This era surpassed the arcade in terms of performance and lost it's dependency on it. Thus negating the purpose of the arcade and effectively killing it. It also was the first era to make any serious attempt at online and may well be a clear indication for better or worse of the future of video games. (started by Dreamcast in 1999)

 

But this is actually a valid debate based on the context of the original post. As, we weren't supposed to debate sub-divisions, we were supposed to debate which two subdivisions form the separation point of classic and modern and it seems that most people on the forum agree with the general vicinity of where I place the dividing line. If you have a better place to put the dividing line between classic and modern then state your case. Don't just say you disagree and then give me a breakdown of eras, say why and state your case why the dividing line should be placed differently, and make a case of it. Or, you could argue the case that the concepts of modern and classic are altogether flawed and should be abolished and we should consider games only by the subcatagories (which we'd call eras if modern and classic are invalid terms) and we can discuss that....

 

But the way I see it in this debate, Zaxxon is you have 4 and only 4 options. 1)state your case as to why the dividing line of classic/modern should be relocated 2) argue that the concepts of classic/modern should be alltogether thrown out and look at it in terms of eras 3) aquiesque to my correctness on where I place the dividing lines or 4) remove yourself from the equation.

 

 

Only on a video game forum can we so fight over the semantics of video games.... that's okay, I started it.

[Atari_Worshipper]

I'm not a hardware expert but I don't think that seems like a good way to distinguish. I read Opcode say the 5200/A8 CAN do bitmaps, and I don't know that the CV can't, it's just that these systems can do char graphics much faster.

 

The 5200 could do some basic bitmaps, and I believe the CV could as well, but they primarily were text based. It's all about what the system's manifest purpose was... the 5200 did ocassionally spruce up it's games with a splash of bitmap but it was basically a text based system. There were 3D games on the SNES but it was basically a 2D system, there were some 2D games on the Saturn but it was basically a 3D system and on and on and on...

 

But there's the whole concept of crossover periods. The 5200 was capable of very limited bitmapping but was still text based. The Atari 7800 was designed primarily for bitmapping, but in it's bid for backwards compatability (it's best feature) it performed poorly with bitmaps and so it still used some text based stuff even in 7800 mode. They constituted the crossover. Atari 2600: used only text, Atari 5200: text based with limited bitmap capabilities (mostly bitmapped backgrounds and text based characters) Atari 7800: Bitmap based but used a lot of text to make up for deficiencies. NES: used only bitmap.

 

That's an excellent example of crossover

[ApolloBoy]

I'm not a hardware expert but I don't think that seems like a good way to distinguish. I read Opcode say the 5200/A8 CAN do bitmaps, and I don't know that the CV can't, it's just that these systems can do char graphics much faster.

 

The 5200 could do some basic bitmaps, and I believe the CV could as well, but they primarily were text based. It's all about what the system's manifest purpose was... the 5200 did ocassionally spruce up it's games with a splash of bitmap but it was basically a text based system. There were 3D games on the SNES but it was basically a 2D system, there were some 2D games on the Saturn but it was basically a 3D system and on and on and on...

 

But there's the whole concept of crossover periods. The 5200 was capable of very limited bitmapping but was still text based. The Atari 7800 was designed primarily for bitmapping, but in it's bid for backwards compatability (it's best feature) it performed poorly with bitmaps and so it still used some text based stuff even in 7800 mode. They constituted the crossover. Atari 2600: used only text, Atari 5200: text based with limited bitmap capabilities (mostly bitmapped backgrounds and text based characters) Atari 7800: Bitmap based but used a lot of text to make up for deficiencies. NES: used only bitmap.

 

That's an excellent example of crossover

 

Uh, what do you mean by "text based"?

[CPUWIZ]

He means character based.

[ApolloBoy]

He means character based.  

 

Oh. I think he should've cleared that up...

[Atari_Worshipper]

Look at my avatar, it's mario from the 2600 version of the original mario bros. He looks so much different from the arcade or NES, or even 7800 version because he's text based.

 

A good way to think about it is a bitmapped character is created by basically creating a special font and then typing in the different letters and numbers to get different frames of animation. Imagine that since mario has about 3 different frames of animation in his walk, that frame one is the letter B, frame two is C, frame three is D. So from a programming sense, what's going on behind the scenes is as mario is running is the computer is displaying BCDCBCDCBCDCBCDCB in that particular font.

 

If a text based character is a glorified font then a bitmapped character is a series of digitized drawings. Each frame is a drawing, either drawn by hand then converted or digitally created using what would be a more sophisticated version of MS Paint... of course, a bitmap could also be a photograph converted to digital (I.e. Mortal Kombat characters). So the animation would be more complex. It'd be pict 1, pict 2, pict 3, pict 4, pict 5, pict 4, pict 3, pict 2, pict 1. The character might be a .gif instead of a .bmp and the background might be a .jpg instead of a .bmp, but the only real diff between those formats as far as I can tell is the way they're used by the computer and their size limitations, they look the same anyway.

 

Now, I've never done programming before, so if anybody has and finds a glaring error in what I've just typed, feel free to correct me, but that's my understanding of how it works..

 

But that's another reason that bitmapping was such a major revolution, because instead of basically having a bunch of wierd writing all over the screen that makes characters, and limited backgrounds, you have several independently moving pictures all over the screen. And that's a format with a much higher capacity for depth and realism.... that's why I place that dividing line where I do.

[tyranthraxus]

I don't really mourn the death of arcades now. For me, arcades died a long, long time ago. The death of the arcade can be traced back to the release of Dragon's Lair, causing all game prices to be doubled and the debut of Karate Champ, the first of the endless onslaught of shitty fighting games polluting arcades and driving out all other genres except racers and light gun games. Arcades have sucked sinced the mid-80's with very few exceptions, mostly pinball machines.

 

Dem dere are fighting words pardner

 

Yeah up to 84 where more exciting for developments, but at that time

video games were still pretty new, there was a lot of room to grow.

But after the crash there was a great stream of arcade games -

Rampart, Tertris, TMNT, Hang On, Ikari Warriors, Double Dragon, Klax,

Mortal Kombat, Space Harrier, Smash TV, Arkanoid, Rampage,

Ghosts & Goblins, Altered Beast, Marble Madness, Golden Axe & Gauntlet.

 

While I'll admit there ain't anything that can compete with Tempest or

Pac Man other than the Tetris style puzzle games of the time. But there

was still great variety. Sound, graphics & colour that couldn't be beat.

[BigFairy321]

For me the death of arcades was the release of crappy NEO-GEO fighting games which were not only barely playable but were extreme money suckers as well in the 90's.

 

 

To this day i still hate SF2 and all its clones. MAME is so full of em that its a no wonder that the arcades suffered a major crash in the 90's.

 

Go into tha arcade and all u would see is fighting games...crap

[Atari_Worshipper]

some were crap, some were gold. Yeah, they took one on one fighting too far, but they've taken EVERYTHING too far. The old stuff and the new stuff alike.

 

The ambience of the arcade and, admittedly, some of the popularity of the arcade, and nearly all the mistique of the arcades were lost after the crash. The new arcade that came out of the ashes was a much brighter, cheerier place. A place that had skee-ball and prize tickets and whatnot. I think I would prefer the older arcade for it's ambience and it's craziness. Almost like a kid's saloon. But when we're talking about the video games, the arcade anything but died in 84, it exploded! Miriad of world changing games sprung up after that and genres that had gone uncultivated if not altogether uncharted exemplified by such as street fighter 2 and virtual fighter 1/ virtual racing.

 

The Neo Geo didn't kill the arcade! It sat off in it's little corner in both the arcade and in the home (it's market was especially niche in the home cause of the price) while the world went on with or without it. The end didn't come til the home systems could do what the arcades could do, cause by then most new games were over fitty cent and the home versions looked as good at first and then better than the arcade versions (the home version of Soul Caliber on DC beat the arcade version) and so what was the point? There wasn't much of an ambience, and there wasn't the performance superiority that there was til the DC. (the computer gaming world reached that point even sooner) So that's when the arcade died. Did the arcade remain unchanged? No. Did the arcade's popularity stayed the same? No, it wavered. But the stream of new, advanced (if not revolutionary) games stayed strong til the PC and console gaming systems outclassed them.... and it took them almost 30 years to do it, but they did it.

 

And hell, even now, for those who want to relive the legacy of the arcade's brilliance and magic, there's always nickle arcades (I don't know if loco joes is only local or if it's heard of outside my area) but for a cover fee of like 2 bucks, they let you in and then every game has been marked down. For every quarter it would've taken to play it, it now takes a nickle. Now, granted, some of the games are in varrying states of disrepair, and it's a cheap attempt at the nostalgic goodness, but at least it's something... it gets you one foot in the door to your blissful childhood past anyway.

[Shannon]

The NES heralded in the true 2nd Generation of video games, 3DO heralded in the 3rd and DC heralded in the 4th. The divinding line between classic and modern is so much more complex then "Anything newer than 1st gen is not classic" and "anything older than the newest generation is not modern." Both of those arguments have ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INTELLECTUAL VALUE ONLY. They are Barney answers.

 

I think atari_worshipper said what I've been meaning to say.

 

To me the switch to 3d started around the Jaguar, 32x, 3DO, saturn, and PSX.

 

The 2nd gen of (3D graphics) pretty much started with the dreamcast.

 

The N64 was close in capabilities, maybe kinda halfway between the saturn/psx and dreamcast.

 

But really.. I do consider the cube, xbox, and PS2 above the earlier systems. Sure they still may show some similarities to the dreamcast, but I think the biggest problem with dreamcast (and N64 and PSX) was framerate. Alot of programmers seemed to have trouble getting a handle on this.

 

Something that is less obvious with the newer machines. They are able to push more without taking as big a hit in the framerate. The PS2's biggest problem with not looking better was/is lack of anti-aliasing.

 

Just my two cents.

[Shannon]

FWIW the 2600 was not text based, the images are drawn by the program on the fly.

 

The 5200, 7800, colecovision, and intellivision on the other hand were more text based.

 

However a more accurate description would be tile based. Since computers had less memory (video memory) they would divide the screen up into tiles.

 

So if you had a 320x192 resolution with 8x8 tiles (aka fonts) you would only need 192 bytes of RAM to tell the computer what "tiles" to display.

 

The tiles would be defined in a character table. Most computers/consoles let the programmer modify this character table. The character table takes up a little bit more memory (approx 2048 bytes) to describe 256 characters (or tiles).

 

These computers/consoles were more effecient at displaying tile based graphics quickly, although the disadvantage is if you wanted to smoothly animate a character and have it passing in front/behind other objects it became rather tedious.

 

Bitmap is a little different. The actual graphics are represented in memory and drawn pixel by pixel. So a 320x192 screen with 4 colors would take 122,880 bytes to display (hope I did my math right). But by then computers/consoles had more memory and speed to be able to display these graphics.

 

Most 2d machines had hardware sprites that could be displayed independant of the main playfield. So most characters (like mario) were displayed as sprites. I wont even get into multi-layer bitmaps, etc. But that is the basic gist of it.

 

FWIW The NES was not bitmapped based. It used a tile system just like the previous consoles. So the NES was still very similar in design, just more capable. It's architect is just more accomodating to large multi-screened games.

 

The SNES and the Genesis really bumped up the ante in terms of graphics/hardware sophistication. But that's a whole nother topic.

 

As for era's, what is wrong with say actually having some overlap in the year based list? Nobody said there had to be a cutoff point. If overlap is a concern, then just list the starting year and not the ending year.

[Atari_Worshipper]

but the 2600 was text based. Look again at my avatar, particularly the head. That is not a drawing, but a letter. See how there is no depth to it.. it's basically a modified G. And the body is the same... they were fonts created specifically to be that character.

[desiv]

but the 2600 was text based. Look again at my avatar, particularly the head. That is not a drawing, but a letter. See how there is no depth to it.. it's basically a modified G. And the body is the same... they were fonts created specifically to be that character.

 

Looks like it, huh?

 

But the 2600 wasn't font/character/tile based.

 

The graphics powerhouse was the TIA. Here's a blurb:

------------------------------------------------

The TIA is a custom IC designed to create the TV picture

and sound from the instructions sent to it by the

microprocessor. It converts the 8 bit parallel data from

the microprocessor into signals that are sent to video

modulation circuits which combine and shape those signals

to be compatible with ordinary TV reception. A playfield

and 5 moveable objects can be created and manipulated by

software.

------------------------------------------------

From here: http://www.io.com/%7Enickb/atari/doc/stella.txt

 

From what I gather, there's only 5 objects. To get more on screen at once, you redraw them elsewhere on the screen really fast!! :-)

 

desiv

[Atari_Worshipper]

that doesn't mean that the objects that are moving across the screen weren't designed by the font making programs of the time. ergo, test based.

[desiv]

Font making programs of the time???

 

This was 1977!! The font making programs we used were graph paper and a pencil. :-)

 

(Don't laugh, I created my own smaller character set for the Tandy Model 100 using graph paper and a pencil. Got almost 60 characters across that way! :-)

 

This is no tile based engine.. This is the VCS!!!

 

You should read the article I linked. It's explains programming the VCS pretty well...

 

desiv

[Shannon]

that doesn't mean that the objects that are moving across the screen weren't designed by the font making programs of the time. ergo, test based.

 

Sorry Atari_Worshipper I could drag every single 2600 programmer over from the dev area and every single one of them would tell you the same thing.

 

In fact creating text on the 2600 was difficult and usually ended up in the "venetian blind" technique because of it. There is not a single font set built into the 2600. It does not even have an ASCII character set like the other consoles did.

 

That is what made programming the 2600 so tough because you only had a certain number of cpu cycles to draw your image and if you exceeded that, the image would be screwed. A console needs video memory to even be able to be "tile based" and the 2600 had none, nada, zero.

 

Probably one of the reason why the colecovision and intellivision were more powerful because they were "tile based" as well.

 

Tile based is a much more accurate term anyways. Besides anyone inclined could create a "FONT" on any system using the current tools of the time, bitmapped or otherwise.

[Atari_Worshipper]

well, I did tell programmers to call me on the carpet if I was talking out my ass. So the 2600 wasn't text based, but it has the general graphical appearance as similar systems that used "tile-based" programming. I may have been wrong in my assessment of the 2600's programming/display methods, but I still feel right though in my original point that the NES was the start point for the era of video games after the era that the 2600 belonged to which would include the CV and 5200.

[Shannon]

Hehe... don't get me wrong, although the NES architecture was very similar, I still consider it a different beast.

 

But.... I've been doing some thinking and if one included the atari 8-bit computers and the C64 in the equation it's a different story. Personally I think the atari 8-bit computers and C64 should be considered since I believe that people mostly got these for the games. Anyways there are several multi-screen games (not including scrollers) that came out for the C64 and 8-bit pooters. I was thinking of starting a thread where people could list them. Especially since I'm only familar with the Atari side of the coin.

 

Regardless I do believe the NES ushered in a new era, so to speak.

[DracIsBack]

Retail and consumers discarded the DC in favor of the supposedly far superior PS2

 

I must confess that I don't remember the "technical" card being played much by people I know or stores I went to. The DC had some sharp games like Shenmue, Crazy Taxi and (particularly) Soul Calibur that made a lot of people look as the PS2 and go "so what?". Not a slam on the PS2, but I don't remember anyone going, "oh wow - these is leagues away from the Dreamcast!".

 

What I do remember at the time the DC was dying was that the PS2 brought consumers other things:

 

1. The backing of Sony

2. The stability of Sony

3. The PS1 compatability of Sony

4. The third aprt support of Sony

5. The general industry position of Sony

 

Maybe it was just around here, but I don't remember anyone really touting technical superiority as opposed to the five points above. Around here, most respected the DC but knew Sega couldn't afford to compete for the long haul.

[Atari_Worshipper]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Video RAM on the DC is 8meg while the Video RAM on the PS2 is only 4meg..... granted, the total system memory is higher on the PS2 and over the past 3 1/2 yrs they've been able to work around that, but in the beginning, the games actually looked better on the Dreamcast... and what a lot of people don't realize is that were you to put a game on the DC and put it also on the X-Box, then the two really wouldn't look all that much different...there's less of a performance difference between the systems in this generation than there has been in any previous generation. There would be less of a noticable difference between say, and X-Box version and a Game Cube version than between an NES version or Mastersystem version or an Intellivision version and a 2600 version. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I haven't decided.

[Shannon]

There is a noticeable difference... just not noticeable to the untrained eye. :wink:

 

Heck... I don't even notice half the stuff, although I do notice framerate drops a problem the dreamcast and N64 always had.

 

As for the PS2. Sony made the same mistake nintendo did. Their texture buffer was too small. Also there was some weird quirk in the design that made the PS2 less efficient than it could be when it came to moving graphics data around. I forget all the details.

 

The dreamcast was probably perfect, xcept for maybe it coulda used a faster cpu. Other than that the architecture is about as nice as you could get.

[IronMongeR]

I simply consider anything that's not part of the current console generation to be classic/old. Trying to define specific dates & times when things became considered something other than current seems pretty pointless.