Games were impressive in this way too. Computers and consoles didn’t have much CPU power or memory, so they had to squeeze every little bit.
This was still happening even with 5th gen consoles. Crash Bandicoot couldn’t fit in the Playstation’s memory so they ended up overwriting system memory and memory allocated to features of Sony’s standard library they weren’t using.
These days, game development is more “boring” in that aspect. Systems are powerful and frameworks like Unreal Engine handle all the core stuff. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though - it lets the game developers focus on the game itself.
Yet, some of the most anticipated titles released are streamlined, soulless and boring. Every edge has been rounded off to such a degree, it makes Disney look gory.
Anyone who wants to know more about the exact craziness in retro game code should read “Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System” by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort.
And they had bugs that were a direct result of limitations. The Minus World in Super Mario World, for example, comes from a combination of uninitialized values, how data structures are packed, and imperfect collision detection.
People don’t talk about the problems that result from doing things that way.
Most regular players didn’t encounter these bugs though, as often they’re edge cases that don’t occur during regular gameplay. A lot of them were found by people intentionally looking for them.
I’d argue that games today are bugger than games in the past, just due to how complex they are now. Sure, they’re a different class of bug (and arbitrary code execution via buffer overflows isn’t really a thing any more thanks to ASLR and the NX bit), but I don’t think there’s fewer bugs at all.
Games were impressive in this way too. Computers and consoles didn’t have much CPU power or memory, so they had to squeeze every little bit.
This was still happening even with 5th gen consoles. Crash Bandicoot couldn’t fit in the Playstation’s memory so they ended up overwriting system memory and memory allocated to features of Sony’s standard library they weren’t using.
These days, game development is more “boring” in that aspect. Systems are powerful and frameworks like Unreal Engine handle all the core stuff. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though - it lets the game developers focus on the game itself.
Yet, some of the most anticipated titles released are streamlined, soulless and boring. Every edge has been rounded off to such a degree, it makes Disney look gory.
Constraints are amazing for creativity.
Anyone who wants to know more about the exact craziness in retro game code should read “Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System” by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort.
Go with Unity at least. I know no Unreal game without stuttering.
I’m not a game developer so I just used the first example I could think of.
And they had bugs that were a direct result of limitations. The Minus World in Super Mario World, for example, comes from a combination of uninitialized values, how data structures are packed, and imperfect collision detection.
People don’t talk about the problems that result from doing things that way.
Most regular players didn’t encounter these bugs though, as often they’re edge cases that don’t occur during regular gameplay. A lot of them were found by people intentionally looking for them.
I’d argue that games today are bugger than games in the past, just due to how complex they are now. Sure, they’re a different class of bug (and arbitrary code execution via buffer overflows isn’t really a thing any more thanks to ASLR and the NX bit), but I don’t think there’s fewer bugs at all.
Downside to that is there isn’t a ton of people putting effort into efficiency/performance. And they sort of seem to be a dying breed at this point