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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

#21

Post by layer8 »

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…

Your quote says “on home computers”. IBM PCs, on which MSFS ran on, were not considered home computers [0]. In the 1990s, home computers were finally displaced by the PC (and by consoles) for gaming, and the PC effectively took over the role that home computers used to serve. But the term “home computer” wasn’t used any more, at least partly because PCs were always also business computers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_computer

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

#22

Post by tomduncalf »

krmblg wrote: post #16

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 sur…

Wow, yeah Descent was super impressive at the time

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

#23

Post by pjmlp »

layer8 wrote: post #21
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…

Your quote says “on home computers”. IBM PCs, on which MSFS ran on, were not considered home computers [0]. In the 1990s, home computers were finally displaced by the PC (and by consoles) for gaming, and the PC effectively took over the role that home computers used to serve. But the term “home computer” wasn’t used any more, at least partly because PCs were always also business computers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.or…

I am quite sure that on my part of the globe Amiga and Atari ST ruled alongside the PC with almost zero presence from game consoles.

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

#25

Post by pjmlp »

flohofwoe wrote: post #20
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).

The Iberian Peninsula shared UK's love for the speccy.

Followed by Amigas and PCs afterwards, with some occasional Atari STs here and there.

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

#26

Post by solarmist »

krmblg wrote: post #16

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 sur…

It still is a benchmark. The latest and greatest sims are getting pretty realistic but will still bring any machine I've seen to its knees with everything cranked up.

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

#27

Post by filoleg »

smoldesu wrote: post #8
geff82 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

BeamNG has some interesting ideas for future simulators to take note of: https://youtu.be/ZBwGK2zuNOk It's a "worst case scenario" idea for driving simulation, where each piece can be deformed and tracked to implement various features. As a result, the driving feels more like a collection of pieces rather than one mesh with consistent acceleration. It's subtle during regular gameplay, but emerges excellently in high-…

> Hopefully the next frontier in simulation titles is distilling these simulation ideas into mechanics that are both fun and accurate.

I think the real reason is that the compute power required for this is not quite there yet.

I remember about 15 years ago, people were floating around the idea that in the future (once we get more compute power) videogames will not be using hard-coded animations for basic actions in games (like shooting in an FPS). Instead, people speculated that we will have enough compute power to just actually simulate the physics of those actions, and create the animations for those actions dynamically on the fly, with each one of them being unique. I believe there are some videogames that already do that (no example at the moment though, will add in a comment reply if I find a few good ones).

The next barrier is obviously full physics simulation for everything present on screen. However, it feels like that would be magnitudes more compute-intense than making just some basic animations physics-similated (instead of hard-coded), definitely beyond what we can do now (possible AI-assisted magic aside, as I cannot say much about it; DLSS still blows my mind). I expect we will see increasingly more physics simulation mechanics trickling into videogames in the future, but not sure how much. After all, it has to serve the gameplay, and often it is just not a good match for the envisioned mechanics.

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

#28

Post by thereisnospork »

filoleg wrote: post #27
smoldesu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BeamNG has some interesting ideas for future simulators to take note of: https://youtu.be/ZBwGK2zuNOk It's a "worst case scenario" idea for driving simulation, where each piece can be deformed and tracked to implement various features. As a result, the driving feels more like a collection of pieces rather than one mesh with consistent acceleration. It's subtle during regular gameplay, but emerges excellently in high-…

> Hopefully the next frontier in simulation titles is distilling these simulation ideas into mechanics that are both fun and accurate. I think the real reason is that the compute power required for this is not quite there yet. I remember about 15 years ago, people were floating around the idea that in the future (once we get more compute power) videogames will not be using hard-coded animations for basic actions in g…

The closest I've seen to that ideal is Noita - every pixel if its (2d) world has full chemical/physics simulation. Overall its quite reminiscent, and certainly inspired by the 'falling sand' flash game from the 90's. Of course it doesn't quite qualify as a realistic simulation but still quite impressive.

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

#29

Post by anthk »

pjmlp wrote: post #25
flohofwoe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The Iberian Peninsula shared UK's love for the speccy. Followed by Amigas and PCs afterwards, with some occasional Atari STs here and there.

This, and maybe some Master Systems in late 80's. Early 90's were the place of cheap Chinese NES clones, with testimonial SNES presence. Later eveyone got into the Play Station. The Game Boy was far more ubiquitous on the Pokémon era.

On IBM PC computers, these in early-mid 90's were a thing for uni students and white collar workers. Maybe for writers, technicians, engineers and press people. Not a thing for the common folk. In early 00's everyone got a PC.

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

#30

Post by krmblg »

solarmist wrote: post #26
krmblg wrote: post #16

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 sur…

It still is a benchmark. The latest and greatest sims are getting pretty realistic but will still bring any machine I've seen to its knees with everything cranked up.

Right, the latest FS graphical features can be cranked up quite good.

There probably were also a lot of sims that really went for the most realism possible.

However, after the era I referred to it was (is?) mostly FPS games that held this benchmark category (Unreal was the first title where my peers would buy dedicated or at least supporting graphics hardware for, like 3dfx voodoo) and soon after titles like Crysis were "the benchmark".

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