Aug 17, 2026 Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full In the mid-90s the coolest thing to buy for a PC, besides the incredibly expensive Intel Pentium , was a CD-ROM drive . With their capacity of 640 MiB (three times the storage of PC HDD at the time), CDs allowed enthusiasts to step into a world of multimedia, made of high-resolution 640x480 256 colors palette-indexed photos [1] , VOC soundtracks, and play with Video For Windows butter-smooth 12 fps 240x179 videos [2] [3] lasting up to several seconds. For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993), Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994), or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). Some added high quality music. My most memorable take on the matter was from id Software's lead developer, John Carmack.…