VOGONS


First post, by SodaSuccubus

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Title. I'm trying put together the "best of" (I guess?) 1996-1997 era rig and was curious about resolutions people used for gaming around the time.

Usually I run Windows at 800x600 for the screen space, but game at 640x480 to preserve a high framerate. Iv noticed some 3D cards of the time like a Voodoo 1 seem to struggle maintaining 30FPS with demanding titles like Quake at 640x480, but often will or achieve higher at resolutions like 512x384.

Infact some benchmark guides and games will even recommend 512x384!

So was 640x480 a Voodoo 2 era onwards thing? Or did multiplayer savy gamers allways sacrifice visual quality for higher frames. Kinds like today! 😁

Reply 1 of 10, by Warlord

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800x600, 640x480 was poor mans resolution.

Reply 2 of 10, by subhuman@xgtx

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320x200, 512x384, 640x400, 640x480.

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Reply 3 of 10, by douglar

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640x480 for 2d games (diablo, warcraft, starcraft, earth worm jim )

320x200 for dos 3d games (doom, quake)

I think I played interstate 76 at 640x480

Reply 4 of 10, by kjliew

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If I were to replay those games, then I want them in high-resolution on my 2K desktop panel or FHD laptop, such as 1280x960 or 1400x1050.
For eg. Warcraft II BNE, Starcraft 1, Diablo 1 & 2 etc.

Reply 5 of 10, by The Serpent Rider

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512x384-640x480 was a thing in 97-98, because mere mortals had cards like Voodoo 1, Intel i740, Rage Pro and Riva 128.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 6 of 10, by Putas

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-12-14, 04:26:

512x384-640x480 was a thing in 97-98, because mere mortals had cards like Voodoo 1, Intel i740, Rage Pro and Riva 128.

And those were the luckier ones. Therefore 400x300 should have been a thing for 3D.

Reply 7 of 10, by vetz

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I played 3D games at 640x480 in 1997 when I got my Voodoo Graphics card. Never played with 512x384. Before that 320x200 was the norm, SVGA in DOS games were unobtanium with 3D with playable framerates.

Only moved to 800x600 when I upgraded to Voodoo2, but not all games supported more than 640x480 back then.

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 8 of 10, by Cyberdyne

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Well if you had a sub 17" CRT monitor then anything over 640x480 was just overkill. And with lower resolutions, you got higher frequencies so it was better for your eyes.
So everytime more is not better.

I am aroused about any X86 motherboard that has full functional ISA slot. I think i have problem. Not really into that original (Turbo) XT,286,386 and CGA/EGA stuff. So just a DOS nut.
PS. If I upload RAR, it is a 16-bit DOS RAR Version 2.50.

Reply 9 of 10, by kjliew

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Cyberdyne wrote on 2020-12-14, 09:19:

Well if you had a sub 17" CRT monitor then anything over 640x480 was just overkill. And with lower resolutions, you got higher frequencies so it was better for your eyes.
So everytime more is not better.

Most PCs sold in 1996-1997 did not come with good CRT monitors, unless one specifically looked for one. Most of them came with 14~15" CRT that can only do 640x480 60Hz, 800x600 56Hz and 1024x786 43Hz interlaced. None of those were considered healthy for eye vision ergonomics and few were aware of VESA 75Hz recommendation at the time (later upgraded to 85Hz). A good quality 15" CRT that can do 640x480 75Hz, 800x600 75Hz, 1024x768 75Hz and 1280x1024 60Hz would easily add 25%~40% to the price of the package. For people living in small towns where only a couple of local PC stores were available, it was not even an option or would pay for an even heftier price to get one.

I had seen engineers working at 1280x1024 60Hz and 1600x1200 60Hz on their 17"-19" good quality CRTs simply because those were factory preset timings at the time and not many graphics cards can do 75Hz or 85Hz at high resolution. Few could really afford Matrox Millennium class and for some who were lucky to have both good CRTs and graphics cards, they did not twiddle display driver settings for optimum refresh rates.

Last edited by kjliew on 2020-12-24, 21:55. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 10 of 10, by lost77

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1996:

With my Pentium 133 I played 2D games at SVGA if they supported it like 640x480 for Warcraft II or 640x400 for Red Alert.

Duke Nukem 3D I played at 400x300, Quake was some weirder res but around the same amount of pixels.

1997:

This year I had a Pentium 200 and a Voodoo card. 3D Games were played at 640x480, I did not mind the 25-30fps (back then) being used to more like 15-20fps the year before.