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Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

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Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#11

Post by rbanffy »

geocrasher wrote: post #2

I've been playing MSFS since Flight Simulator 4, on a 286. The latest incarnation is nothing short of incredible, especially compared to how good early versions were for their time. What they've done with the latest version blows me away every time I play.

My first one was Sublogic's FS3 (same software, but Microsoft sold it for PCs and Sublogic sold it to other platforms). When I realized I could use Sublogic's Jet with the FS3 disk for scenario, I quit the little Cessna and started to fly an F-18 all over the place.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#12

Post by tverbeure »

tstrimple wrote: post #9

Interestingly I've always thought that Elite was the first game with 3d graphics, but the timeline doesn't seem to agree. Elite was developed in 1982 (published in 1984), while MSFS was developed in 1976. I wonder why Elite is still considered by many to be the first game with 3d graphics. https://www.frontier.co.uk/our-games/our-gameography/elite > "Elite set many firsts, and was the first genuine 3D game on home co…

I don't think I've spent more hours on a single game than Elite on a Commodore 64. Back in the day, it wasn't clear what were the requirements to level up your rank. I never made it past Deadly, which IIRC was the last level before Elite.

I later played it on a 286-based PC, and made Elite level in a few days, which was a huge disappointment. It was supposed to be an incredibly achievement to make it that far!

Turns out that leveling up was based entirely on the number of ships you shot down. They probably just dialed it down for the PC?

Either way, it was a fantastic game.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#13

Post by bitL »

geff82 wrote: post #5
geocrasher wrote: post #2

I've been playing MSFS since Flight Simulator 4, on a 286. The latest incarnation is nothing short of incredible, especially compared to how good early versions were for their time. What they've done with the latest version blows me away every time I play.

I have only one grief with (all) PC Flight Simulators: the feeling on landing. As a private pilot, I find that takeoff and flight is actually quite well simulated, but not the landing. In a real small plane, the controls begin to feel wobbly, you feel the floating on the cushion of air, you feel the wind: all totally different in the simulation. I wonder how they could get it right.

For some reason when using VR I feel like MSFS 2020 landing is realistic that I get the ground effect keeping me afloat longer; wind sometimes pushes me to a side as well. I used to fly sailplanes which were extremely sensitive to these things and that feeling is there again in VR.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#14

Post by bitL »

alex_sf wrote: post #7
bitwize wrote: post #3

It's typical Gatesian tackiness to compare the first heavier-than-air flight to the Web. Much as the Web has changed things, flight was a much more profound change. It made the world more physically connected, completely upended warfare, and fulfilled a dream held by humans for millennia.

All three of your examples also apply to the internet.

Since the VC-backed beginning of "social", Internet became a shared cesspool with gamed interactions. Not really a fulfillment of a dream of the majority of humanity.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#15

Post by hummus_bae »

doctor_eval wrote: post #6

I used to play the first version of subLogic’s T80-FS1 flight sim on my TRS-80 clone. That is all I came here to say.

I always wondered how it worked. It seems to me that with its limited hardware, it can only display ground features, not whole 3D surroundings. Am I completely wrong? Is it something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umZYSY1fSQk

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#16

Post by krmblg »

I just realized that "3D graphics/flight sim" was kind of a hardware/tech benchmark back then (prior to the (PC) demo scene).

Iirc my first MSFS was either 1.0 or 2.0 (?) and I played a lot of subsequent titles that featured some more or less sophisticated 3D tech (Lightspeed, Microprose titles like e.g. F-117A etc, Gunship 2000, Strike Commander, Falcon (3.0?), Wing Commander, Comanche ("whoa, Voxels!")..

It was sure enough to save up for a CH Flightstick Pro and/or that Thrustmaster Stick "with the coolie hat".

But the first title that felt truly immersive in terms of 3D (albeit confusing at times) was Descent.

So I'd also assume this type of games caused some niche industries to flourish (both hardware and "consumer-grade military sim" software companies.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#17

Post by alex_sf »

bitL wrote: post #14
alex_sf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All three of your examples also apply to the internet.

Since the VC-backed beginning of "social", Internet became a shared cesspool with gamed interactions. Not really a fulfillment of a dream of the majority of humanity.

That's not fair at all. Unless you're prepared to say that, given the opportunity, you would turn the internet off, this is just rhetoric.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#18

Post by bitL »

alex_sf wrote: post #17
bitL wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the VC-backed beginning of "social", Internet became a shared cesspool with gamed interactions. Not really a fulfillment of a dream of the majority of humanity.

That's not fair at all. Unless you're prepared to say that, given the opportunity, you would turn the internet off, this is just rhetoric.

Dunno, I remember early Internet; I think we will see it getting in a much worse shape with ChatGPT/Stable diffusion-like tech deployed at scale. Pointless interaction with bots all the time on bot-generated websites with viewers being gamified to spend as much money/attention as possible, original human-made content disappearing everywhere.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#19

Post by flohofwoe »

reactordev wrote: post #4

I played MSFS on System 7 Apple Mac Performa back in 1992 or so. It was the first game I ever played with 3D graphics that I can remember so I’m keen to agree with the article. Wolfenstein 3D was actually 2.5D but both of them were probably equally responsible for 3D real-time graphics today. I say real-time because Pixar has been doing 3D since the 80s with SGI and there was a wireframe 3D game called Elite that was…

IMHO the '3D craze' only really started with Doom (even thought that isn't 3D either - but it fools the player well enough). Watching a 5 fps 'slide show' is only so impressive, even when it's fully 3D rendered, but playing Doom fullscreen, 'per-pixel textured' at 35fps was a frigging psychedelic experience at the time.

...my first 3D games were actually on the Amiga, Damocles, Tower of Babel, Falcon, Flight of the Intruder(!), Birds of Prey, Gunship, all great games, but nothing compared to Doom.

Re: Flight Simulator gave birth to 3D video-game graphics

#20

Post by flohofwoe »

tstrimple wrote: post #9

Interestingly I've always thought that Elite was the first game with 3d graphics, but the timeline doesn't seem to agree. Elite was developed in 1982 (published in 1984), while MSFS was developed in 1976. I wonder why Elite is still considered by many to be the first game with 3d graphics. https://www.frontier.co.uk/our-games/our-gameography/elite > "Elite set many firsts, and was the first genuine 3D game on home co…

Probably because home computers like the C64 were a lot more popular (and cheaper) than boring "office PCs" in the 80's (at least in Europe, don't know how it was in the US).
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