General Gaming Without looking it up or reading the responses, what do you think is the first game system with 3D hardware?

[Reputator]

This is part of some research I'm doing for a video topic I'm working on. This isn't so about seeing how many people get it "right", it's more to probe people's memory and see what the popular perception is on 3D history.

[Bacon]

I don't see Virtual Boy so that is probably wrong, but "other" is what I am going with. 

[eventide11]

Other for me as well 

[AbsolutSurgen]

The first systems capable of 3D graphics were in the early/mid 80s -- but those were run on the CPUs (first game I played was Elite on a BBC Micro).  So, I voted "other".

 

First game I remember playing with 3D "accelerated" graphics was StarFox on my buddy's SNES -- but that accelerator was in the cartridge, not the system.  As 32X was plugged-into the cartridge port of a Genesis, I'm going to say that's not part of the "system" either.

 

I don't think any of the 3DO's chips were dedicated to 3D.  (Was 3DO 92-93?)

 

About this time, the first PC 3D graphics accelerators came out (I'm guessing 93/94).

 

I think PSX was the first console with a chip more-or-less dedicated to 3D built into the system. (September '95 in NA, '94 in Japan)

[stepee]

What I think of immediately before I analyze what the correct answer might be is Saturn. 
 

I think it’s just it being the first console with some real 3D muscle that came out, if only by a few months, and though I never actually got one until NiGHTS came out. 

 

The first game on 3D hardware I played was probably the leaked Quake beta on pc followed by Mario 64 japanese version in a mall. I had a pc capable of playing 3D games the whole time and voodoo’s and all that the whole time and the first of the consoles I got was the n64. But na, it’s Saturn I think of.

 

lol i just realized this is a lot of irrelevant information i’m hi af

[XxEvil AshxX]

Are we talking 3D as in polygons? Or 3D as in 3D glasses? Because I remember playing a game that was a shoot-em-up in space on the Sega Master System and it had wired 3D glasses that plugged into the system. Worked pretty well too considering.

 

If we're talking polygons, it was definitely an arcade unit. Maybe Virtua Fighter or Daytona USA. The OG Star Wars cabinet might have used vector graphics, but they were technically "3D" as well... 

 

So it really depends on what you're looking for.

[Keyser_Soze]

I'm not old enough to remember anything prior to the NES / Commodore so I just picked Genesis since I somewhat recall a 3d-ish game on it... ?

[crispy4000]

First games with colored polygons were probably in the arcade, but the PC would have beaten consoles to it.  Stunts stands out in my memory, although I doubt it was the first.
 

 

The hardware could do it at the time, so I say it counts.

[XxEvil AshxX]

6 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

First games with polygons were probably in the arcade, but the PC would have beaten consoles to it.  Stunts stands out in my memory, although I doubt it was the first.
 

 

 

That reminds me of the first Test Drive. I'll have to look real quick to see when that arcade game first came out. I remember having to turn the key to start the car lol.

 

EDIT: Correction! It was a game called Hard Drivin'. 1989 though, so i doubt it was the first.

 

[Keyser_Soze]

4 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

That reminds me of the first Test Drive. I'll have to look real quick to see when that arcade game first came out. I remember having to turn the key to start the car lol.

 

EDIT: Correction! It was a game called Hard Drivin'

 

 

There was Race Drivin' and Hard Drivin' I believe - I had Race Drivin' on the  Genesis!

[vaxick]

Tricky question as we'd need more explanation as to what you specifically mean along with what platforms you're specifically speaking of.  If we're talking 3D as in polygons, that would be the Atari arcade game that was developed in 1983, I, Robot.   Nothing was as ahead of its time as that game was. 

[Spork3245]

Tricky question. This isn’t regarding the first system to have a 3D game, it’s regarding the first system to have hardware for 3D.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

Tricky question. This isn’t regarding the first system to have a 3D game, it’s regarding the first system to have hardware for 3D.

 

I'd classify any platform running a 3D polygonal game at playable framerates as having the hardware to do it.

[Spork3245]

16 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I'd classify any platform running a 3D polygonal game at playable framerates as having the hardware to do it.

GeForce 2 could brute force pixel and vertex shaders, but I would not consider it to have the hardware for it. Another example is ray-tracing on pre-2xxx series GPUs, it was very possible (and even modded in to older games like Q3A), but without dedicated hardware in the GPUs it cannot be considered “hardware ray-tracing” as the calculations were done via software to then run through said hardware.

[Keyser_Soze]

3 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

GeForce 2 could brute force pixel and vertex shaders, but I would not consider it to have the hardware for it. Another example is ray-tracing on pre-2xxx series GPUs, it was very possible (and even modded in to older games like Q3A), but without dedicated hardware in the GPUs it cannot be considered “hardware ray-tracing” as the calculations were done via software to then run through said hardware.

 

Voodoo 2 for life!

[crispy4000]

10 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

GeForce 2 could brute force pixel and vertex shaders, but I would not consider it to have the hardware for it. Another example is ray-tracing on pre-2xxx series GPUs, it was very possible (and even modded in to older games like Q3A), but without dedicated hardware in the GPUs it cannot be considered “hardware ray-tracing” as the calculations were done via software to then run through said hardware.

If a developer is crafty enough to make it work without dedicated hardware, and still playable by standards of the time, I'd consider the hardware legitimately capable of 3D.  Just limited to the talents and abilities of select studios.

Same goes with raytracing.  Crysis Remastered for example showed it could be done on the Pro and X, and should be considered the pioneer on consoles.

[Spork3245]

Just now, crispy4000 said:

If a developer is crafty enough to make it work without dedicated hardware, and still playable by standards of the time, I'd consider the hardware legitimately capable of 3D.  Just limited to the talents and abilities of select studios.

Same goes with raytracing.  Crysis Remastered for example showed it could be done on the Pro and X, and should be considered the pioneer on consoles.

The calculations are not being done through hardware, though. It’s a fairly big distinction, IMO.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

The calculations are not being done through hardware, though. It’s a fairly big distinction, IMO.

 

All calculations are done through hardware.

[Spork3245]

9 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

All calculations are done through hardware.

That’s simply not true when the hardware to achieve the effect is being emulated. GeForce 2 required software calculations for pixel/vertex shader effects. I am not stating this is always the case.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

That’s simply not true when the hardware to achieve the effect is being emulated. GeForce 2 required software calculations for pixel/vertex shader effects. I am not stating this is always the case.

You can't emulate something that doesn't exist yet.  Which is what the first developers of 3D polygonal games were faced with.  I don't think that word is fair to their work or process.

But it ultimately doesn't matter, because the calculations they coded are still run by consumer hardware of the time.

If you can make the computations work to produce a playable 3D game, then the hardware is capable of it.  That's honestly all that should matter when we're speaking about 'firsts' for 3D in gaming.  Dedicated 3D hardware acceleration helped the industry transition to 3D, but never was what enabled polygonal games in the first place.

[Mr.Vic20]

A PC is not a game system, its a PC that CAN play games, this poll is rigged! 

[Derek]

10 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

First games with colored polygons were probably in the arcade, but the PC would have beaten consoles to it.  Stunts stands out in my memory, although I doubt it was the first.
 

 

The hardware could do it at the time, so I say it counts.

I loved that game. Used to play it in computer class in middle school!

[chakoo]

I went PC/Other. As many rightly said early instances from a consumer side were in arcade games from Atari then Sega. Outside consumer it was in simulations.

 

Anybody who picked the SuperFX chip is wrong as it's not. It's just a fast math coprocessor to aide in bitmap drawing.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial

 

-edit-

I haven't fully read through the specs of the SVP (i've been meaning to, I want to make a custom cart to run SVP made games) but I also think it's more like the SuperFx then say 3d consoles like saturn/ps1.