Re:27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful
by anyfoo on Saturday June 03, 2023 @06:55PM
(#36181299)
> Compared to productivity software, sure, but cycle-for-cycle, [...] they had to find ways to trick
That's true, but I think the idea was more that other software has not only been mostly stagnant (that, too), but often actually regressing in performance. Games on the other hand have been steadily improving. Maybe not keeping up the full pace, as the mathematical and hardware tricks became unnecessary and were traded in for ease of development, but game developers at least overall did make use of the better hardware. They stopped doing the super clever stuff when it was just not necessary anymore while still providing better fidelity.
> Doesn't sound like gaming to me.
Eh, it's part of it. And it's not like other aspects did not profit from the better hardware as well. Later Civilization titles are pretty compute-intensive between turns, for more complex gameplay. Earlier chess programs had to "think" a very long time for not that great chess performance...
That's true, but I think the idea was more that other software has not only been mostly stagnant (that, too), but often actually regressing in performance. Games on the other hand have been steadily improving. Maybe not keeping up the full pace, as the mathematical and hardware tricks became unnecessary and were traded in for ease of development, but game developers at least overall did make use of the better hardware. They stopped doing the super clever stuff when it was just not necessary anymore while still providing better fidelity.
> Doesn't sound like gaming to me.
Eh, it's part of it. And it's not like other aspects did not profit from the better hardware as well. Later Civilization titles are pretty compute-intensive between turns, for more complex gameplay. Earlier chess programs had to "think" a very long time for not that great chess performance...