| SvennoJ said: I was a high end PC gamer during the best times to have a PC, late 80's to early noughties. |
I wouldn't call that the best time for PC gaming. In the late '80s most PC games still had EGA graphics with bad scrolling and bad Adlib sound (or even worse: PC speaker sound)... a much cheaper Amiga made more sense for gaming back then.
In the early '90s PC gaming improved a lot with more and more games supporting 256-color-VGA (many VGA-cards still had problems with 2d-scrolling) + Soundblaster/Roland soundcards, but the showcases were still rare (Wing Commander 1 + 2, Ultima 6 + 7, Civilization, Wolfenstein 3D, Monkey Island 2, Indy 4, Links 386).
IMHO the "golden age of PC gaming" began in 1993, when games could be improved in many different ways):
- SVGA-resolution (640x480 instead of 320x200), a big improvement for "slow" games, f.e. Sim City 2000, Railroad Tycoon Deluxe, Civilization 2, Pirates! Gold, Theme Park, King's Quest 6, Leisure Suit Larry 6
- 3D-engines, which opened the doors for new genres like FPS (Doom, Duke Nukem, Dark Forces...) and new experiences like "Magic Carpet" or changed other genres forever (Indy Car Racing, Strike Commander, Privateer, X-Wing/TIE Fighter, System Shock)
- full voice tracks thanks to CD-ROMs, f.e. the "talkie versions" of Indy 4, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, King's Quest 6, Space Quest 5, Gabriel Knight
- music tracks in CD-quality, f.e. the CD-version of Loom
- huge intros and cut scenes, or even FMV-games thanks to CD-ROM, f.e. Wing Commander 3, Myst, The 7th Guest, Under a Killing Moon
- new experiences thanks to CD-ROM, f.e. Rebel Assault + MegaRace, which used augmented video streaming
- networked multiplayer, f.e. Doom 1 + 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Command & Conquer, Diablo
- much better sound quality thanks to 16-bit-sound cards and sample-based synthesis
1995 - 1996 was another important milestone for PC gaming:
- networked multiplayer got more popular and easier to set up, f. e. Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Command & Conquer, Diablo, Need for Speed...
- much easier game setups thanks to Windows 95 and DirectX (no more manual sound settings, game controller calibrations, SVGA-problems and tinkering with config.sys and autoexec.bat)
- more games using higher resolutions and the first 3D accelerators
