Yeah it’s actually around the 30s (or 60s, depending on whether you consider interlaced frames to be ‘true’ or just ‘halves’)

A CRT television runs at 60Hz because it uses the alternating current from the wall as a reference, but in every half cycle it only actually draws half of the image. “60i” as they call it.

So you can say it’s 60 interlaced frames a second, which is about comparable to 30 progressive frames.

Funny

I played a lot of Lunistice some time back. It’s a retro 3D platformer that has an option to cap the framerate at 20 for a “more authentic retro feel”. Fun lil’ game, even if I eventually uncapped the framerate because it’s also a high-speed and precision platformer and doing that at 20FPS is dizzying.

And yes absolutely Zelda 64 chokes on its 20 frames from time to time. I played it enough (again, yearly tradition, which started when I first finished the duology in the mid-aughts) to know that.

But it wouldn’t change the fact that its absolute maximum is 20 and it still doesn’t feel bad to play.

I wouldn’t know. Could never afford a posh high-refresh-rate monitor, and it’s very low on my priority list, so even if/when I do get a windfall of money, it probably won’t be what I buy next.

Wrong but also not completely wrong.

Framerates weren’t really a

Thing.

Before consoles had frame-buffers – Because Framebuffers are what allow the machine to build a frame of animation over several VBlank Intervals before presenting to the viewer.

The first console with a framebuffer was the 3DO. The first console people cared about with a framebuffer was the PSX.

Before that, you were in beam-racing town.

If your processing wasn’t enough to keep up with the TV’s refresh rate (60i/30p in NTSC territories, 50i/25p in PAL) – Things didn’t get stuttery or drop frames like modern games. They’d either literally run in slow-motion, or not display stuff (often both, as anyone who’s ever played a Shmup on NES can tell you)

You had the brief window of the HBlank and VBlank intervals of the television to calc stuff and get the next frame ready.

Buuuut, as of the PSX/N64/Saturn, most games were running anywhere between 15 and 60 FPS, with most sitting at the 20s.

PC is a whole different beast, as usual.

Descent is pretty fun. Not as big of a fan as you are, but I definitely dig it.

Ackshuli – By late 2000 there were a couple games on PC that could get there.

… If you were playing on high-end hardware. Which most PC gamers were not. (despite what Reddit PCMR weirdos will tell you, PC gaming has always been the home for janky hand-built shitboxes that are pushed to their crying limits trying to run games they were never meant to)

Regardless that’s beside the point – The original MM still doesn’t feel bad to go back to (it’s an annual tradition for me, and I alternate which port I play) even though it never changed from its 20FPSy roots.

Why not all of those

Cars are a pollutant that is accelerating climate change.

Cars are a danger to everyone involved.

Driving is isolating as compared to walking or biking or commuting.

Car-first infrastructure makes cities uglier and uglier.

These are all true.

Pee on Kissinger’s grave?