Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
I think you need to get away from this 'frame based' mode of thought.
Not every game is synchronized with the video refresh, in fact I'm going to bet that most of those old games were not.
So it really isn't a good way of thinking about the problem of speed... faster video cards really is Not the reason old games run too fast, this is purely a cpu issue, not talking frames here...
Quote:
The problem may just be our different interpretations of the terminology.
make sure you get the Right terms before you go giving a presentation...
there is no interpretation, only right and wrong
He does have the terminology right. When we say a game is frame-based we don't mean that it's "synchronized" with the refresh rate. Time-based movement basically means that objects move X virtual space units per Y virtual time units. If the virtual time units are obtained from the CPU's clock, the movement is indepedent of the machine because the ratio (virtual time units)/(real time units) is the same for all machines, since all clocks run in the same speed no matter if they're in a 286 or a Pentium. Frame-based movement means that object move X space units per Y frames. Frame, in simple terms, means every time you process and render a new "snapshot" of your game's world. It is not indepedent of the machine because the ratio (frames)/(real time units) is not the same for all machines. The developers of those old games used tricks like loops to get the desirable ratio for the machine they worked on, but in faster machines the ratio increases, and naturally the game runs faster.
Also, video cards are completely irrelevent. I'm pretty sure that any game that used hardware acceleration(ie relatively modern) used time-base movement. Those old games used the CPU for nearly everything, including drawing the graphics, and they don't use it even today, regardless if they run in a system that does have HW acceleration, simply because they're unaware of it.
This has happened to me too with a slot machine game I made in BASIC around 10 years ago. I used the correct "for" loops to make the fruits roll in the screen in the speed I wanted them to in my 286, and then when I go and try it in a friend's 486...BAM! you couldn't even see them :)
