I remember those old games that would run faster to the point of hilarity if you put them on anything more modern than they were originally intended to run on. Like the game timing is tied to the frame rate.
This was by and large the reason for the “turbo” buttons on all those 286 and 386 computers back in the day. Disengaging the turbo would artificially slow down your processor to 8086 speed so that all your old games that were timed by processor clock speed and not screen refresh or timers would not be unplayably fast.
Quite a few more modern games have their physics tied to frame rate – if you manage to run them much faster than the hardware available at the time of their releases could, they freak out. The PC port of Dark Souls was a notorious example, as is Skyrim (at least the OG, non “Legendary Edition” or SE versions).
On launch, Spyro: Reignited Trilogy had a level you couldn’t complete unless you changed the settings to lock it to 30fps. It’s probably been patched by now, but was that ever infuriating.
It’s embarrassing when a modern game does that. Game Programming 101 now tells you to keep physics and graphics loop timing separate. Engines like Unreal and Godot will do it for you out of the box. I’m pretty sure the SDL tutorials I read circa 2003 told you to do it. AAA developers still doing it on this side of 2008 should be dragged outside and shot for the good of the rest of us.
Command and Conquer Generals lets you choose game speed for skirmish matches, the natural cap of 60 and an option to uncap. You need superhuman reflexes to play with an uncapped speed on modern hardware !
There used to be dip switches on some older machines (386/486 era), eventually ‘turbo buttons’ that accomplished the same thing, toggling would cut the clock speed so older software would be compatible with clock speed. Those turbo buttons were more a ‘valet mode’ than anything, but it all died out before the Pentium/Athlon era to say the least
I remember those old games that would run faster to the point of hilarity if you put them on anything more modern than they were originally intended to run on. Like the game timing is tied to the frame rate.
This was by and large the reason for the “turbo” buttons on all those 286 and 386 computers back in the day. Disengaging the turbo would artificially slow down your processor to 8086 speed so that all your old games that were timed by processor clock speed and not screen refresh or timers would not be unplayably fast.
Quite a few more modern games have their physics tied to frame rate – if you manage to run them much faster than the hardware available at the time of their releases could, they freak out. The PC port of Dark Souls was a notorious example, as is Skyrim (at least the OG, non “Legendary Edition” or SE versions).
On launch, Spyro: Reignited Trilogy had a level you couldn’t complete unless you changed the settings to lock it to 30fps. It’s probably been patched by now, but was that ever infuriating.
GTA SA 3 VC too
It’s embarrassing when a modern game does that. Game Programming 101 now tells you to keep physics and graphics loop timing separate. Engines like Unreal and Godot will do it for you out of the box. I’m pretty sure the SDL tutorials I read circa 2003 told you to do it. AAA developers still doing it on this side of 2008 should be dragged outside and shot for the good of the rest of us.
I didn’t even know they still did it. I just remember games in the 80s and 90s doing that.
Yeah its about time someone put down bethesda
Oh you mean fallout 4?
Command and Conquer Generals lets you choose game speed for skirmish matches, the natural cap of 60 and an option to uncap. You need superhuman reflexes to play with an uncapped speed on modern hardware !
There used to be dip switches on some older machines (386/486 era), eventually ‘turbo buttons’ that accomplished the same thing, toggling would cut the clock speed so older software would be compatible with clock speed. Those turbo buttons were more a ‘valet mode’ than anything, but it all died out before the Pentium/Athlon era to say the least