Misuse of updated technology

Why is it that now since people have all kinds of shader technology with X amount of pipelines and X amount of instruction handling that people want to make their nex-gen technology render ZX Spectrum quality graphics. If I really wanted a to play something in 16 color I'd go to a pawn shop and buy a commodore. Not spend $1200 on a graphics card that using shaders, renders something so ugly.

The biggest baddest card on the market, cannot render gameplay .

Good graphics does not an amazing game make, and some people get their kicks out of making retro software.

I have a kicking gfx card for the next gen games that I want to play. Not necessarily for coding games. I enjoy games with awesome gameplay, if the gfx are great, then that is a bonus.

I hate the overuse of normalmapping and Depth of Field and everything they're experimenting with in todays games.
I love WoW for its simplicity.

Darwinia

That's like saying you cannot watch an old film on an HD television, just because the TV has new technology!

Dabz

@dabz,
I know people that dont watch films that are in Black and white on the grounds that they cannot be any good.

No, you misinterpreted what I said. Using shaders to render outdated 'effects' -- such as 16 color Spectrum (if you even call it an effect).

@Leiden : Oh, got ya now! :)

@H&K : lol, your probably right, but I still like watching the odd B&W sherlock holmes film! :)

Dabz

Using new tech to render old looking this is just a waste of power. However.. if you are going for an old look... maybe pixel-made sprites... but that happen to be 3D... Why not.

Imagine an old sprite that you can spin around and shows up as what the pixels would look like from that POV... like Toon-shading only it is pixels.

But that isn't what you mean.

Who uses new tech to do old style effects?

I was browsing around the net and came across someones blog who had a tutorial to render a model in 16 color ZX Spectrum quality graphics -- using shader model 3.0 :/

Edit: Found it!

http://www.3dlevel.com/gamedev/zx-shader.php

I can see uses for this though.. What if you have for instance, a place in your game where you would have to play an old computer game. Mini games ;)

What if you have some type of game where your player gets stuck in an alternate dimension-- a c64/zx/old ass computer dimension.

Granted these probably wont be needed in most games, but regardless. This is one of the main points of the programmable pipeline-- having the flexibility to do whatever you want.

Why should everygame have to be hyper realistic?

The problem is common to every technology out there. The industry has brought forth technology which is so advanced that the average person cannot pronounce, explain or even distinguish from the last generation.

It's no longer a question of giving the customer what they want, but rather to keep pumping out updates so that people are forced to pay through the nose for upgrades.

Basically we are buying cars with a non-refillable gastank. But the thing is, most of the buying public can't remember when things were different, so they don't question this and strongly believe that this is how it has always been.


Andy