History of video games, Computer games

Early Computer Games

See the chapters early games and Dr. Nim for early examples of computer games.

1970-1979

(Image: Sandstein, CC BY-SA 3.0)

An IBM 5100 portable computer. While not used for gaming, it had a large influence on later designs.

(Image: Trinity77.jpg : Tim Colegrove
derivative work: Pittigrilli, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Common computers released in 1977, the Commodore PET 2001, the Apple II, and the TRS-80 Model I.

(Image: Rama & Musée Bolo, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr)

An Ohio Scientific Challenger 2P

(Image: Konstantin Lanzet, CC BY-SA 3.0)

AMD 9080 Processor

Games

(Image: Digital Game Museum, CC BY 2.0)

Infocom began producing text adventures in 1979.

(Image: Digital Game Museum, CC BY 2.0)

(Image: Digital Game Museum, CC BY 2.0)

Dial a Grue

1980-1989

CPUs

• 16 bit Intel 80286 (286) - 1982-1991
• 32 bit Intel 80386 (386) - 1985-2007
• 32 bit Intel 80486 (486) - 1989-2007

Regional Computers

In the 1980's there was a rivalry between Iraqi users of the Al Warkaa and the Sakhr 170 home gaming computers.[1][2]

In Wales, Dragon computers were popular.[3]

Gallery

(Image: Jörgen Nixdorf, CC BY-SA 3.0)

ATI Hercules Graphics Card (1986)

(Image: Austriacus, CC0)

AdLib Music Synthesizer Card (1987)

(Image: Tiziano Garuti ( 1000Bit, Public domain)

The Compaq Portable, a popular computer of the 1980's.

1990-1999

By 1990 well used dithering was being used in EGA games to create the illusion of better colors.[4] From the early to late 1990's Color Cycling, the shifting of a palette on a still image, was used to produce resource efficient animations in computer games.[4][5]

The 1990's saw the first common graphics cards, as well as the first common 3D API's for graphics cards such as Glide.

The introduction of CD-ROMs was initially seen as a way to reduce costs and piracy compared to floppy disks,[6] though pirates quickly gained familiarity with the new format.[7]

In 1994, the first Dreamhack was held in Malung, Sweden.[8]

In 1996 the Marine Doom is made for US military training, a notable early use of FPS games for military training.[9]

The Nvidia GeForce 256, considered as the world's first GPU, was released in 1999. It offered a huge improvement in 3D graphic capabilities.

(Image: Public domain)

The popularity of Doom was so massive that for a while first person shooters were commonly called "Doom clones"

(Image: Author list, Public domain)

The Quake engine spawned a number of decedent engines.

2000-2009

Valve launches Steam on September 12th, 2003.[10]

Audio Cards remain popular till the end of the decade in many high end gaming rigs, along with brief experiments in gaming themed network and physics acceleration cards.

Events

(Image: en:User:Toffelginkgo / User:Toffelginkgo, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Dreamhack 2004 LAN party

(Image: Gamerscore Blog from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0)

PAX 2006 computer gaming.

(Image: by Hachimaki, CC BY-SA 2.0)

A Korean PC Bang in 2006.

(Image: Barry Mulling from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0)

NVIDIA SLI at E3 2006

Components

GeForce FX5900

(Image: Evan-Amos, Public domain)

Powercolor Radeon 9000 AGP video card.

(Image: Evan-Amos, Public domain)

Nvidia 7900GS video card.

Nvidia 260 GTX. This card shows a trend where static 3D renderings were printed on the card.

(Image: Evan-Amos, Public domain)

A Turtle Beach Catalina sound card.

(Image: ShakataGaNai, CC BY-SA 3.0)

A Western Digital VelociRaptor in 2008.

(Image: Evan-Amos, Public domain)

A Linksys WRT54GS Router, common during the early to late 2000's.

(Image: Afrank99, CC BY-SA 3.0)

2009 LCD shutter glasses for 3D gaming.

2010-2019

Rise of Steam

We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.

—Gabe Newell, Interview with the The Cambridge Student - 2011.[11][12]

In 2011 Valve identifies game piracy as a service problem.[13] In 2013 Steam distributed 75% of digital games on PC.[14]

In 2015 Steam and Bethesda briefly introduced paid mods as a feature, before quickly withdrawing it in response to widespread criticism.[15][16]

Ray-tracing games started in 2018 and ray-tracing cards were released to be capable of ray-tracing in supported games. The first ray-tracing graphics cards were Nvidia RTX 2060, 2070, 2080, and Titan RTX.

2010's gallery

(Image: Eric Chan from Hollywood, United States, CC BY 2.0)

AMD booth at E3 2011

(Image: Evan-Amos, Public domain)

NVIDIA GTX 1070 Founders Edition

(Image: Laserlicht, CC BY-SA 4.0)

A Blizzard Battle.net Authenticator token in 2016.

2020-2029

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a shortage of computer parts.[17] Despite this the Folding@Home distributed computing project reaches quickly 1.5 Exaflops of capability as thousands of PC gamers donate unused cycles from their computers to tackle biomedical research in the fight against COVID-19.[18]

The Trump Administration began enforcing a new tariff on computer components from China near the end of it's term in mid-January 2021, causing GPU prices to significantly increase, sometimes by several hundred dollars.[19][20]

Some manufactures experimented with PCs in handheld console formfactors.[21] In 2022 Steam released the Steam Deck, which is a handheld console that runs PC games.

In 2022 Intel released its first graphics cards: the Arc A750 and A770. These GPUs supported RTX 3060 performance for cheaper prices in games, especially DirectX 12 ones. DirectX 9 support was improved on these GPUs in 2023.

2020's gallery

(Image: ZMASLO, CC BY 3.0)

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition

References

• ↑ "History of computers in Iraq". Retrieved 8 November 2020.
• ↑ Byford, Sam (1 May 2012). "Al-Warkaa: the Iraqi home computer series that took on the MSX 'enemy'". The Verge. Retrieved 8 November 2020.
• ↑ Evans, Jason (23 December 2019). "When a Welsh computer was the must-have Christmas gift" (in en). WalesOnline. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/dragon-computer-32-64-vintage-17433026.
• ↑ a b "8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box". Retrieved 17 November 2020.
• ↑ "Old School Color Cycling with HTML5 EffectGames.com". www.effectgames.com. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
• ↑ "WATCH OUT FOR THE CD-ROM HYPE Some industry executives tout the luminescent disks as the hottest thing since the VCR. But that view rests on seven myths you should know about. - September 19, 1994". archive.fortune.com. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
• ↑ D'Alessio, Vittoria. "Chinese pirates target software on CD". New Scientist. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
• ↑ "Dreamhack on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
• ↑ Riddell, Rob. "Doom Goes To War". Wired. https://www.wired.com/1997/04/ff-doom/.
• ↑ Sayer, Matt; Wilde, Tyler (12 September 2018). "The 15-year evolution of Steam". PC Gamer. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
• ↑ "Valve's Gabe Newell Says Piracy Is a Service Problem".
• ↑ "Gabe Says Piracy Isn't About Price - IGN".
• ↑ Cifaldi, Frank. "Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price". Retrieved 14 November 2020.
• ↑ "Valve Lines Up Console Partners in Challenge to Microsoft, Sony". Bloomberg.com. 4 November 2013. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
• ↑ Prescott, Shaun (27 April 2015). "Valve has removed paid mods functionality from Steam Workshop". PC Gamer. https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-has-removed-paid-mods-functionality-from-steam-workshop/.
• ↑ McWhertor, Michael (27 April 2015). "Valve kills paid mods on Steam, will refund Skyrim mod buyers" (in en). Polygon. https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/27/8505883/valve-removing-paid-mods-from-steam.
• ↑ Leon, Nicholas De. "How to Buy a Computer During the Great Laptop Shortage of 2020". Consumer Reports. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
• ↑ Merritt, Rick (1 April 2020). "NVIDIA Blogs: Virus War Goes Viral: Folding@Home Gets 1.5 Exaflops to Fight COVID-19". The Official NVIDIA Blog. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/04/01/foldingathome-exaflop-coronavirus/.
• ↑ "With Tariffs Back in Place, GPU Vendors EVGA, Zotac Raise Prices on Graphics Cards" (in en). PCMAG. https://www.pcmag.com/news/with-tariffs-back-in-place-gpu-vendors-evga-zotac-raise-prices-on-graphics.
• ↑ Hollister, Sean (13 January 2021). "Sure enough, EVGA and Zotac have raised prices on the Nvidia RTX 3080 and beyond" (in en). The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/13/22228470/nvidia-evga-zotac-raise-prices-rtx-3080-3070-3060-3090.
• ↑ Palladino, Valentina (6 January 2020). "Dell’s new Concept UFO puts PC gaming on a Nintendo Switch-like device" (in en-us). Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/dells-new-concept-ufo-puts-pc-gaming-on-a-nintendo-switch-like-device/.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Wikibooks. From “History of video games” on Wikibooks, by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changed here: set as a page; navigation and edit links left out; each image under its own licence, credited in its caption.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.