ANT Forum

Ever think about how much netcode has changed? I remember playing CS 1.6 with all sorts of lag spikes, but somehow we just dealt with it. Nowadays, people complain if there’s even a hint of delay. Was the old netcode really that bad, or did we just not care as much?      

Honestly, we put up with a lot back then. The hit reg in CS 1.6 could be rough sometimes, but we barely noticed because it was just how things were. Now, everyone expects everything to be perfect. If you want to test it for yourself, you can get the CS 1.6 2025 version and try a few online matches. I did it out of curiosity, and it’s funny — you notice the lag, but it’s still playable. Makes you realize how much better (and fussier) we’ve all become with modern games.      

Game tech has changed so much, it’s wild. Sometimes I think people now would rage-quit if they had to deal with what we played through back then. But it was part of the fun, I guess.
     

Old-school netcode was truly built different! Back in CS 1.6 days, we'd happily play through 200ms ping like it was nothing - now people rage over 50ms delay. Reminds me of how we used to calculate grades manually, while today tools like grade calculator do it instantly. Tech progress really changes our standards!      

Back in the CS 1.6 days, lag was part of gaming life. Today’s gamers are spoiled by smooth netcode thanks to huge tech improvements from companies like argentics. Maybe we didn’t care before, but now every delay feels impossible to tolerate. We've raised our standards.
     

I still remember CS 1.6 days vividly—shooting through dustclouds on de_dust2 with pings over 120ms and rubberbanding during every clutch moment. Back then, we didn’t question netcode because most of us didn’t even know what it was. We just accepted that gameplay came with its quirks. Now, with servers pushing sub-20ms and hit registration being razor-precise, the expectations have shifted completely. It’s not that the old netcode was perfect—it was simply the best available. Today, developers have tools like https://www.code-maestro.com/ that can analyze legacy systems and even help port or refactor code while preserving the architecture. I’ve seen it streamline entire workflows, especially with complex multiplayer logic. So when we compare then and now, it’s less about nostalgia and more about how far the infrastructure—and the development tools behind it—have come. Standards change, but so do the resources supporting them.      

I grew up on CS 1.6 on ADSL, 90-120 ping, and we just compensated. Tweaking rate, cl_cmdrate, cl_updaterate, and cranking interp helped, plus a bit of shot leading.

On CS2/Valorant with fiber, I can feel a 20 ms spike now. Old netcode wasn’t good, we just had lower expectations and fewer tools to expose issues, LAN felt fine, online was good enough.
Funny contrast: I recently sold a few CS2 skins through https://skinomat.com/ and got paid almost instantly. That kind of speed across the ecosystem probably makes us less tolerant of any lag now.      

In the past, netcode had many limitations, sometimes lag or hitbox deviation happened frequently, but we still happily accepted it because that was the standard at that time. Nowadays, technology has developed and experience standards are higher, fnf, so even a little bit of lag makes players easily complain and compare.