Digital Foundry Retro Discussion [2016 - 2017]

[Arwin]

I don't know. Many racing games have stuck with 60hz. And even some of the cases that didn't, like DriveClub, still ended up really great. It will be interesting to see now that the VR version is coming with 60hz minimum, if that makes it significantly better or not. I was also a big fan of the Arcades. In fact, apparently one has opened not so far from here, I should go visit it today with my son. But their disappearance certainly was made up for partly by being able to get dance mats and force feedback steering wheels at home. I really hope that VR brings back the likes of Time Crisis though, as I still miss that.

 

[Cyan]

Another impressive video from Retro DF. I wonder why they don't publicise DF retro more. I've never played a Silent Hill game, alas. But one can imagine what a game changer Silent Hill 2 had to be.

 

[Nesh]

Another impressive video from Retro DF. I wonder why they don't publicise DF retro more. I've never played a Silent Hill game, alas. But one can imagine what a game changer Silent Hill 2 had to be.

Yes that game was exceptional in atmosphere. It is a must play. A trully unique experience

 

[I.S.T.]

I kind of wish they had brought up why that port was so awful: Konami.

Konami gave them incomplete source code and assets, and they actually had to rip assets from the PS2 game to help finish it. Combine that with the original rights to the voice acting expiring for some daft reason, and lack of time/budget, and well... you get the Silent Hill HD Collection. As it is, while they were nice to the people who ported it, they were also dismissive and left important information out.

When discussing how something sucks, if there's easy to find information on it, you should include it in your video essay.

 

[Sigfried1977]

To be fair, having to reverse engineer ancient Japanese code for the sake of a remaster seems to be rather common and not a hurdle Hijinx and only Hijinx had to face. Bluepoint had to do it for the Ico Collection, and I believe Ready at Dawn even had to do it for the Wii version of Okami. And the original Okami was how old at that time? 2 years maybe?

 

[tuna]

When discussing how something sucks, if there's easy to find information on it, you should include it in your video essay.

The gave links/references to that info, kind of pointless to repeat stuff.

 

[Cyan]

What I miss from the overall excellent DF Retro are articles about my childhood and the SNES, for instance, with technological achievements that were outwordly . For instance, the pre-rendered 3D graphics on a SNES along with water distortion effects that changed those graphics. That game was precious.

 

[I.S.T.]

Which game are you referring to? You left out the name, and I can think of about six or so pre-rendered games.

 

[Cyan]

Which game are you referring to? You left out the name, and I can think of about six or so pre-rendered games.

sorry, I was in a hurry because I had to work and didn't realise I didn't mention the game. I was referring to Donkey Kong Country.

 

[Cyan]

Now it's the time for Metroid Prime. The wireframe structure showing the polygons shown in the video are very cool.

I had a GC but not this game. Metroid Prime just shows that the GC was a beast. I had F-Zero GX and while I thought that the Xbox was more powerful, I am not sure it could run a game like F-Zero GX at 60 fps. I guess the eDRAM of the GC made it better for some games.

 

[Riddlewire]

He was a little unclear on this point in the video (since he mentioned it near the end).
Is all the footage on display from the enhanced emulated version? That absolutely does not look like captured component video from a GC.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I think it absolutely does. Most of it is standard 4:3 and full of jaggies (minus the wireframe shots). Compare the last couple of minutes to the rest of the video. The difference in IQ is enormous.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

DF Retro: Tomb Raider - PS1 vs Saturn vs PC
20 years on, Digital Foundry revisits the Croft original.

I can already sense the 4 generation old fanboys frothing at the mouth because of the injustice I loved this game, it was the game that convinced me buying a console in my 20s was completely an adult thing to do!

 

[Cyan]

DF Retro: Tomb Raider - PS1 vs Saturn vs PC
20 years on, Digital Foundry revisits the Croft original.

I can already sense the 4 generation old fanboys frothing at the mouth because of the injustice I loved this game, it was the game that convinced me buying a console in my 20s was completely an adult thing to do!

I played it on PC as a kid when my parents let me buy a PC (got the money from compensation for a car accident.., the car's driver was guilty, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, lost my spleen, wanted to buy a PC which was like my dream machine, and gave the rest of the money to my parents), and the game ran fine in my Pentium 100 with at 32MB of RAM, even if you played using a crappy Trident graphics card with 2MB of RAM, like mine --it didn't take much before I got a Monster 3D graphics card and that changed everything.

The accelerated version was a totally different story. The beginning of the 3D era was a landmark.

 

[Cyan]

DF Retro: Tomb Raider - PS1 vs Saturn vs PC
20 years on, Digital Foundry revisits the Croft original.

I can already sense the 4 generation old fanboys frothing at the mouth because of the injustice I loved this game, it was the game that convinced me buying a console in my 20s was completely an adult thing to do!

the only thing I missed in that video is a comparison between the DOS and Win95 version of the game. As discussed in another thread, games that ran under DOS and Win95 allegedly performed better in native DOS mode than on Windows 95. But I guess that's impossible to measure in modern hardware.

 

[cheapchips]

I really liked the 'unwarped' bit of Saturn footage. First time I'd seen that, even though I'm sure similar videos must have been knocking around for a while.

 

[user542745831]

it didn't take much before I got a Monster 3D graphics card and that changed everything.

The accelerated version was a totally different story. The beginning of the 3D era was a landmark.

According to the (comments on and fps counter in the) following video, the PowerVR version had even more effects and even ran at 60fps:

The following page also says that the PowerVR version ran at 60 fps and could even do 1024x768:

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2014/07/tomb-raider-pc-oldskool-style.html

 

[Cyan]

According to the (comments on and fps counter in the) following video, the PowerVR version had even more effects and even ran at 60fps:

The following page also says that the PowerVR version ran at 60 fps and could even do 1024x768:

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2014/07/tomb-raider-pc-oldskool-style.html

wish I knew back then. I had a an okay computer at the time, a Pentium 100 CPU with 32MB of RAM, with a superb mediocre Trident VGA card which had bad drivers and only 2 MB or video RAM. But then I got the Monster 3D and I could play fluidly games like Battle Arena Toshinden or Tomb Raider, it was magic.

My first game ever was Microsoft Golf, and then The Need for Speed.

 

[Simon F]

According to the (comments on and fps counter in the) following video, the PowerVR version had even more effects and even ran at 60fps:

Having worked on the port to PowerVR, it suppose it might have been able to go up to 60Hz on 'lower' res displays but, as it would have been locked to vsync (at least in double-buffered mode), it might have been difficult to sustain once you got into a complex bit of the map. Further, you'd need a decent 2D card (e.g. Matrox) as some cards had utterly dreadful PCI bandwidth which'd throttle the FPS.

When "testing", I personally nearly always ran it at 1024x768 and ~30Hz was not unreasonable.

 

[Simon F]

Oh... and never be rude and turn your back on a gorilla