zlacker

I...totally prefer the SVGA "lower resolution" version, and I remember feeling like that at the time too.

The problem was the 3D version looked/looks just plain BLURRY.

Something about my brain is able to understand when they see a pixelated video game that it's an artifice, and give it a ton of benefit of the doubt.

I can't say it is in any way more realistic, but it feels more IMMERSIVE.

Whereas with the higher resolution one, it's an uncanny valley. Everything is too smooth and Barbara Walters-y.

Again, this is my memory of how I perceived it at the time, this isn't modern rose coloured glasses because obviously technology has improved dramatically.

>>deanCo+(OP)
Same. I have fond memories of first playing Doom on a 386 with the resolution set to extra low (approximately halving 320x200). The space between the pixels gives your imagination something to do. Sort of like how you can make a room look better by turning off the ceiling lights and just having a small lamp on your desk. I kind of think even if we get 120fps perfectly raytraced VR, it'll never be able to quite achieve the big pixel immersion experience.

>>deanCo+(OP)
People were already having this debate back in the 90's with Playstation vs. Nintendo 64. PSX was too pixelated while the N64 was too blurry.

>>CodeAr+rd
Probably because the textures were just too low resolution. You add bilinear filtering to low-res textures, you get something that looks blurry.

>>deanCo+(OP)
This is one of the reasons Quakespasm is my favourite Quake source port.

I can run on a modern system at modern resolutions but it still looks like it did back in the day.

Sometimes adding effects and filtering gives a strange broken feeling where the art on the screen no longer matches what is in my head or something.

I can’t handle upscaling old console games either. Something is always weird.

>>deanCo+(OP)
On 'modern' games, Max Payne 1/2 and Alan Wake didn't look "smooth and clean" like Unreal Engine based games, but crisp and "real world" like.

>>snek_c+1D
Yeah, the texture memory was anemic. 4KB total. If you had mipmapping on, that ate half leaving you with 2KB which is only enough to fit a single 32x32 pixel texture at 16-bit color.

>>CodeAr+rd
OMG I thought I was the only one. I was on team Playstation and my friends at the time were all raving about N64 and i was like "Am I the only one that genuinely thinks this looks WORSE?"

>>TOGoS+78
I felt similar things with the original Oculus Rift DK1 prototype. There was something magical when the pixel resolution was lower, your mind had to do more work and it somehow felt more immersive due to this..

At least in my eyes, might probably be also because it was the first VR headset I tried though. But the later DK2 and newer models did not capture that same feeling I had with the original DK..

>>deanCo+WN2
Both teams were delusional, it all looked bad on consoles :) one had uncorrected perspective, fixed point math resulting in gaps in geometry and no filtering, the other super low res textures resulting in blurry mess.