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.      

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!      

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.