Old School PC Game Specs

[Xiorell]

I might be remembering this wrong but I don't think so.
Does anyone remember the PC gameing days, when if your PC Specs fell ANYWHERE into those printed on the back of the game box, then you could run that game absolutley flat out, every detail to max, resolution anywhere you wanted and never have the framerate fall off?
No matter if your PC only just scrapped into the minimum required specs of the game or if it was twice as much as needed.

I remember my first PROPPER PC, after having had Amigas and stuff in the past. It was running

AMD K6-2 350Mhz CPU
128MB Ram
3DFX Voodoo Banshee 16mb Graphics
10GB (i think) hdd
Gigabyte Motherboard (Can't remember model now)

At the time I got that is was considered a kick ass machine. I could run absolutely anything I wanted. As it aged though as these things do the specs on the back of the boxes started exceeding the machines. HOWEVOOOR, it was still a case of "if the game runs at all, it runs flat out".

Now though, if you look at a games required specs, and you are over the recommended spec, you can pretty much be sure you're gonna have to run the fucking thing at minimum settings possible, or get shite framerates. Unless of course your machine is actually mental (Which my new build once again is luckily).
Obviously I realise this is due to the way games are now, far more complex than the old days.

But I mean does anyone else remember when if your PC was able to run the game AT ALL, then you could run the game with everything at max and not give a though as to frames??

 

[SimuLord]

My first "gaming" PC, over a decade ago:

133MHz Pentium
16MB RAM
Integrated video (3D accelerators were still mainly for high-end enthusiasts)
7.8GB HDD
Windows 95.

 

[Xiorell]

And also, aint it mad how much tech has come along... I was just looking at them specs of my first ever PC and comparing it to the one I am on now.... hooooooly shit that's fast fast progression really.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

But I mean does anyone else remember when if your PC was able to run the game AT ALL, then you could run the game with everything at max and not give a though as to frames??

Nope. I remember some very old games a very long time ago running but running very badly if you didn't have a fast enough CPU. Kind of like now.

 

[AWAR]

I still have my amd athlon xp 1700+, nvidia geforce 2, 512 mb ram pc laying around here somewhere. The motherboard was a -very expensive at that time- QDI Legend.

 

[The_Healer]

-Snip-

Hah! You are so old!
Sorry couldn't help myself.

I only just finally got myself a gaming pc.

Ps. What's your new rig's specs?

 

[Xiorell]

But I mean does anyone else remember when if your PC was able to run the game AT ALL, then you could run the game with everything at max and not give a though as to frames??

Nope. I remember some very old games a very long time ago running but running very badly if you didn't have a fast enough CPU. Kind of like now.

Really? I can't remember anything of the sort... I just remember being able to run anything, with any setting, with no slow down, nothing.

My last PC however, which when built was again, pretty top of the line (without going to mega money extremes), and even that was having to reel back detail settings on games it should been kicking the crap out of

 

[LetoTheTyrant]

I remember first pc, which obviously I only used for games (I was a kid after all). Was well over a decade ago!

I used DOS to play games, that's where all the games run. And then we had Windows 3.11 for doing word processing. Later, we had a system of DOS for games, Windows 3.11 for word processing, and Windows NT for internet. Not kidding. It's whole purpose (for me anyway) was it could do internet, the others couldn't.

Specs?

Intel III (600 Mhz I think)
Integrated Video
2GB Hard Disk

And I really can't remember the rest because I was too young at the time.

 

[Summerstorm]

Hm My first PC:

386 SX
mighty 33 Mhz (with booster activated)
2 MB Ram (Upgraded to 4 for christmas - YEAAAAAAH)
Soundblaster Pro 16 audio

Then 486 DX... and a CD DRIVE...

God i love that all. Having less than 200 MB space on harddrive. Installing games from 1 up to 25 disks... doing stuff in quickbasic and thinking: "I am an awesome game designer"

But my first real GAMING PC:

Pentium II - 266 Mhz, 64MB RAM, 3d Savage Pro Graphic card... beautiful

I also fondly remember my Schneider CPC (The one C stand for COLOUR) - but that was misleading... i had a green/black monitor.

Good old nostalgia... and now i am sitting on a thing looking like the Monolith of 2001 which can emulate probably 50 of those 386 machines and have enough juice to steer 200 moonlandings AND can show me four porn-vids at the same time.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

-Snip-

Hah! You are so old!

Heh. If starting with a K6-2 makes him old, what does my VIC-20 make me?

Really? I can't remember anything of the sort... I just remember being able to run anything, with any setting, with no slow down, nothing.

It was an issue well before them, but the id games have generally been a pretty good example. John Carmack has always been big on pushing hardware as hard as he could in his engines, which resulted in some people's computers being very sad when trying to play their latest games, whether Doom or Quake or whatever. Or around the same time as Doom, Marathon had a similar effect on Macs. Go back far enough, and I remember playing 2D games that the hardware couldn't keep up with and scroll the backgrounds/draw the sprites fast enough. Heh.

 

[Xiorell]

-Snip-

Hah! You are so old!
Sorry couldn't help myself.

I only just finally got myself a gaming pc.

Ps. What's your new rig's specs?

OLD?! Pah ! Experienced

new rig is running

Thermaltake VL20001 Element V chasis
Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (There's a faster one now so swapping this out soon)
Geil 8GB DDR3 RAM (1333) - want to double this but can't seem to find big enough modules
OCZ Vertex 120GB Solid State Primary drive
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA Backup drive
Asus HD5970 GPU (Gonna get another one for Xfire)
Asus Xonar D2X Soundcard
Samsung SH-B083L Blu-Ray

compare that to these old specs... fuck my old boots, that madness. Imagine if say... the car, had made that much progress in 10 or 15 years.

 

[Low Key]

I remember my dad had a pretty good computer for the time way back in the early 90s. I have no idea what the specs were (it was a massive Acer with not one, but two floppy drives! And he even sprung for the CD-Rom when that came out), but I could run almost any game with no problem at all.

 

[The_Healer]

-Snip-

Hah! You are so old!
Sorry couldn't help myself.

I only just finally got myself a gaming pc.

Ps. What's your new rig's specs?

OLD?! Pah ! Experienced

new rig is running

Thermaltake VL20001 Element V chasis
Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (There's a faster one now so swapping this out soon)
Geil 8GB DDR3 RAM (1333) - want to double this but can't seem to find big enough modules
OCZ Vertex 120GB Solid State Primary drive
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA Backup drive
Asus HD5970 GPU (Gonna get another one for Xfire)
Asus Xonar D2X Soundcard
Samsung SH-B083L Blu-Ray

compare that to these old specs... fuck my old boots, that madness. Imagine if say... the car, had made that much progress in 10 or 15 years.

Daaaammn! That is a nice set up. Must have set you back a fair bit.

I really wish I could afford a SSD, are they worth the money?
2 5970's? Now THAT seems a little excessive.

 

[Xiorell]

-Snip-

Hah! You are so old!
Sorry couldn't help myself.

I only just finally got myself a gaming pc.

Ps. What's your new rig's specs?

OLD?! Pah ! Experienced

new rig is running

Thermaltake VL20001 Element V chasis
Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (There's a faster one now so swapping this out soon)
Geil 8GB DDR3 RAM (1333) - want to double this but can't seem to find big enough modules
OCZ Vertex 120GB Solid State Primary drive
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB SATA Backup drive
Asus HD5970 GPU (Gonna get another one for Xfire)
Asus Xonar D2X Soundcard
Samsung SH-B083L Blu-Ray

compare that to these old specs... fuck my old boots, that madness. Imagine if say... the car, had made that much progress in 10 or 15 years.

Daaaammn! That is a nice set up. Must have set you back a fair bit.

I really wish I could afford a SSD, are they worth the money?
2 5970's? Now THAT seems a little excessive.

I dunno how to do that snip thing.

Yeh expensive I suppose but I am a dick for that... the rig I had before cost way to much a couple years ago, said I wouldn't spend alot of money on a rig again but... opps.

Main thing I love about SSD... SILENCE lol. First time I used one so far.
Nah 2 5970s aint enough I am sure someone will quad Xfire them sooner or later if they aint already.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

And also, aint it mad how much tech has come along... I was just looking at them specs of my first ever PC and comparing it to the one I am on now.... hooooooly shit that's fast fast progression really.

Boy, isn't this the truth. To compare the specs of older games and modern games, I've pulled two games off the shelf: Civilization II and TESIV:Oblivion (What can I say, Oblivion is the newest game I've got a hard copy of).

Civ II:

Windows 3.1 or Windows 95
IBM PC 333MHz 80486 or compatible or faster
8MB Ram
Hard Drive (15MB Free)
Double Speed CD-ROM drive (330K/sec sustained transfer rate with MSCDEX version 2.2
Super VGA Graphics for 640 x 480 x 256 colors
Windows 95 compatible soundcard
Microsoft-compatible mouse
CD Audio

Oblivion:

Minimum:
Windows XP
512 MB System RAM
2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
128MB Direct3D compatible Video Card and DirectX9.0 compatible driver;

8x DVD ROM drive; 4.6 GB Free hard disk space; DirectX 9.0c (included); DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card; Keyboard, Mouse

Recommended:

3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
1GB System RAM
(specific supported chipsets omitted)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a 10 year gap between these two games, and man has it made a difference in pretty much everything on the requirements. About the original post: I do remember a time when pretty much any game would run on pretty much any computer, but that era basically ended with Quake and the advent of 3D accelerator cards. As far as the requirements on modern games, my computer is over the recommended for many things on Oblivion, but is limited somewhat by the onboard graphics card. It runs it alright maxed, even with an added texture pack, but I average 10 FPS in the wilderness, and 25-30 in dungeons; I can see what you're talking about with the lying system requirements.

 

[The_Healer]

I dunno how to do that snip thing.

Yeh expensive I suppose but I am a dick for that... the rig I had before cost way to much a couple years ago, said I wouldn't spend alot of money on a rig again but... opps.

Main thing I love about SSD... SILENCE lol. First time I used one so far.
Nah 2 5970s aint enough I am sure someone will quad Xfire them sooner or later if they aint already.

Ah you just delete the stuff in the quote brackets and replace it with "snip" or whatever.\

I've heard they give great startup and loading speeds, which interests me a lot.

Hahaha, you'll run into some serious CPU bottlenecks doing that. Let alone power supply failure...

 

[Xiorell]

Ah you just delete the stuff in the quote brackets and replace it with "snip" or whatever.\

I've heard they give great startup and loading speeds, which interests me a lot.

Hahaha, you'll run into some serious CPU bottlenecks doing that. Let alone power supply failure...

lol personally I wouldn't spend near 2grand to try anyway it but you know someone will.
Apparently Sapphire are releasing a 4GB version of the 5970, so that says to me I HAVE to get a matching card and Xfire, can't be having that over me. Sapphire can f-off anyway, I'm an Asus whore.