goldenbones on 28/1/2017 at 05:31
Why is that software rendering feels much more immersive and cinematographic? is it just the gamma/dynamic range because of the 8 bit color depth? or maybe it's the sharpness because of the lack of texture filtering? I know for sure it can't be nostalgia, as when I first played TDP I used hardware mode (with an ATI Rage, IIRC)... but there is something with software rendering that makes me go much deeper into the game, and I think that's amazing :)
Inline Image:
http://i.imgur.com/o0oaALC.png Inline Image:
http://i.imgur.com/E56MqaN.pngvoodoo47 on 28/1/2017 at 11:29
I do miss a lot of things from the old days, but unaccelerated 3d games are not among them.
Briareos H on 28/1/2017 at 11:35
I really think that first generation 3D games look better with nearest neighbor interpolation, I play a lot of Quake fan levels and while I find some of them visually breathtaking, I couldn't play them with bilinear filtering. Your screenshot makes me want to try Thief like that; as for the reason why it looks better, I think that a noisier, rougher image fools our brain into thinking that the materials have a finer grain than what we see, that there is more detail and depth to be found while distracting from the excessively simple geometry.
chk772 on 28/1/2017 at 15:10
I fail to see what is better about the software rendering. Looks more grainy, and wishy washy. I agree with this:
Quote Posted by voodoo47
I do miss a lot of things from the old days, but unaccelerated 3d games are not among them.
Bannlyst on 28/1/2017 at 15:21
Interesting that this topic should come up. I haven't played Thief, or other stealth games, for a long time because of dissatisfaction with my LCD displays, but another reason, a reason I stopped played Fan Missions even before that, was that I thought the steadily improving graphics made the low polygon count stand out to an unbearable degree. The beautiful rendering and textures and what have you made too stark a contrast to the unimprovable geometry for me to be able to suspend my disbelief.
I've been planning a new playthrough of TG and T2, now with a back to basics look, but utilizing practical recent technological improvements, like widescreen support, etc.
Azaran on 28/1/2017 at 15:21
I agree. I first played it like that, it's grittier, the light contrast is sharper. I wish there was an easy way of implementing it in New Dark (hint hint)
ZylonBane on 28/1/2017 at 16:38
Quote Posted by chk772
I fail to see what is better about the software rendering. Looks more grainy, and wishy washy.
It looks indecisive and/or lacking in character?
Azaran on 28/1/2017 at 16:50
The other thing is it was available option in the original, so I'm still not sure why it vanished with DDFIX and NewDark. It should be there, hopefully whoever is working on New Dark can readd it in a future version. It can't be that hard (maybe a line in one of the cfg files?). It only adds to the game, and all the people who don't like it don't have to choose it if they don't want to
froghawk on 28/1/2017 at 18:44
I assume the top screenshot is software rendering? Definitely prefer the top one.
goldenbones on 28/1/2017 at 20:40
Quote Posted by froghawk
I assume the top screenshot is software rendering? Definitely prefer the top one.
That's correct, the first image is software mode.
Quote Posted by Azaran
[...] so I'm still not sure why it vanished with DDFIX and NewDark. [...]
I don't really know, but I think the reason probably is that it's much easier to modify some arguments on some API calls than reverse and reimplement all the software rendering math in assembly to support different aspect ratios and resolutions.
Quote Posted by Briareos H
[...] as for the reason why it looks better, I think that a noisier, rougher image fools our brain into thinking that the materials have a finer grain than what we see, that there is more detail and depth to be found while distracting from the excessively simple geometry.
That's a really good theory.
