Websites weren't too bad back then, certainly didn't have the bloat they do now.

If you lived in the inner burbs you could have ADSL, especially if you could afford it.

ADSL wasn't even available where I was in the outer burbs, not for a few more years.
I worked in the city, so I was very aware of the difference.
Now I even have fibre to the same home ... what a difference several years make.

So, you are one of those armchair coaches.
Devs don't need to have deep computing knowledge. They don't need to for more then 30 years now.
As every worker they need to know their tools and their craft. And that is not low level programming such things.
When was low level coding a thing? There where engines and APIs even before DirectX

I want you to see to program a routine, that is reliable delta patching several some GB large archive files, that contain several other archive files with a nearly 100% success rate.
And a working time below current patching types would be great too.

You sound like it is something you could just do with one arm on your back - so do it.

A car mechanic does not need to be able to construct an engine but to repair it.
A musician does not need to be able to build an instrument, neither to compose music, only to play the instrument.
A pilot of an airliner can't do larger services to the plane but can fly it even if things go sideways.
An actor does not need to be able to write a script or to direct a movie (and a good part who try should never have tried).
A teacher does not need to be a scientist who found out everything on his own.

A game dev does not need to have deep computing knowledge. And he does not need to have this kind of knowledge at last since the fall of the Sowjet Union.

Times where you could do your own engine with all the new and shiny stuff we got in your garage and have the best looking game in the world are long gone.
The time when there was at last one guy doing the engine, while others did graphics, sound, levels, "AI" and so on. That there where groups of people with different qualification and knowledge in different fields working together to create games - that started in the 80s...

Yet there is you pretending to be negative surprised, that a game dev can't create a high class engine from scratch these days because he can't do low level coding.
This does not make you look smart.
It makes you look to be a smartass.

The problem are not the game devs, the problem are the engine devs.
The UE is easy to use at the first look. But in reality it will waste a lot of computing power. You can tweak and trick around it to some degree. But to be honest, the UE engine might be the best engine we got - but it is shit.
It is shitty for at last a decade now, but all the competitors are shitty in their own way.


And about your great binary patching.
Would be good if you could show me the archive binary patching type patch.
All I know are the uncompressing the archive and binary patch single files and repack the whole thing patches.
And yes, that takes a hell of time. So much time, that I will rather download the new game version for up to 20GB for sure instead of such a patch. And I only got 100mbit DSL and not fiber. Not yet.

I yet have to see a binary patch working on a archive in the double diggits GB without uncompressing it first.
There might be a reason nobody does it. There might be a reason binary patching is only a thing for smaller singles files outside of an archive.
I mean, binary patching is used till today, so the knowlege is there. I would bet, somebody smarter then me and you with more knowledge then me and you found good reasons to simply not do it to large archive files.

Btw, while the replace archive patching never went wrong for me, the binary patching type GoG games can use failed a few times for me in a way, that I had to deinstall and reinstall the whole game. If binary goes wrong, things are fucked.

Our situations reversed, lol.

I have two options here: fixed wireless NBN or wireless broadband.
The actual cabled NBN is still a farce - we are in a dead zone between two strand ends of the node network here; the farm properties are the only ones on the entire street (probably the entire suburb) without reliable access to the wired network because NBN decided it was too expensive to put an extra node in just to service two properties set back from the road.

I wasn't overly convinced to go with fixed wireless, but after having to upgrade my wireless BB usb modem recently I'm certainly reconsidering (the new modems overheat quickly at maximum speed thus are unsuitable for big downloads).

I was reading my reply to you earlier and it felt a bit rude, I don't know exactly why. But if it sounded rude to you in any way, I want to say sorry. :)
And yes, completely agree with you.

I'd argue that APIs like DirectX and OpenGL are pretty low level.

APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan are even more low level. (The Vulkan hello triangle example is over 1000 lines long, though some of them are comments meant for those new to the API.)

(I consider mysefl a game developer at this point, though my current project doesn't use any of these 3D graphics APIs.)

Nope, I didn't take it as rude.

Dunno about that; how are you defining "technical computing knowledge"? Being even a semi-decent game developer requires quite a bit of technical knowledge. Unless you're just making simple games, you still need to know the general pipeline even if the engine you're using is doing most of the low-level stuff. Plus you need to how to effectively use the engine, which is inherently technical knowledge. I'm afraid "I've been gaming since the 80s" doesn't really give you any insight about how they are actually made.

It was a thing before 2000 or so, for sure. Especially in the 70s/80s, you'd mostly be writing games in assembly language and directly accessing hardware registers. That's certainly what I did in the 80s. That sort of thing is 100% impossible for modern game development though.

Compared to the time before DX, where you had various APIs of different hardware companies and for some stuff no API at all...

Read a few paragraphs and it hit me....Funny how I would be more inclined to buy big games for a high price, on a Bluray than downloading. Naturally without DRM.

I hate requiring internet for media over walking through a mall to stuff.....never knew that would be a past time. Cripes.

I thought digital distribution would be convenient and cool, and I got swept away with the novelty of it all. But like yourself, I learned pretty hard and fast that I would rather own what I purchased and the rights to do with it as I pleased; that there is a greater appeal in being able to clutch and retain some physical possession, and some fondness in the effort of acquiring it. Thankfully, I didn't do what many (around me, at least) appear to have done, which is to discard all of their old physical media, assuming obsolescence. Internet connectivity, which seemed like a blessing; now mandatory, has become a curse.

You still have different APIs, particularly given that Apple doesn't offer DirectX, Vulkan, or modern OpenGL on their devices.