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90's PC Gaming Appreciation Thread: From Boot Disks to 3dfx Voodoo cards
- Thread starter blast processed
- Start date
I remember playing Quake 3 on Savage 4: first run was a total system crash in the Ranger arena
After some adjustment in the settings menu I managed to run it at medium-low details!
So much love for the S3 brand
Also, beautiful thread, my friends!
zombipuppy
Member
Got a new case for my retro PC. I had it stuck in an old Thermaltake Armor case that I used back in college, but that thing was WAY too massive for what I needed (not to mention I kind of grew out of that aesthetic).
Great cable management, I know. >_>
It's just a cheap little Rosewill Blackbone case, but it does the job pretty well.
The PC itself is a 700 MHz P3, 256 MB RAM, Voodoo3 3000, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (for Winidows98), and a Yamaha Audician 32 plus with a Dreamblaster S1.
I love the slot 1 motherboard, cause it's really easy to swap CPUs. I bought a few ebay lots of them, so it's pretty painless to go from a 300MHz P2 up to a 1GHz P3 with anything in between.
This is really cool
. I'm inspired to build my own retro PC now..Not sure. Maybe google X52 vs X52 Pro and see the differences.
mattwhite924
Member
This is really cool
Go for it!
I've had a ton of fun building mine. Parts are relatively cheap for most things, so it's pretty easy to get into. I think you just need to decide what era of PC games you want to play and go from there.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Been listening to PC soundtracks all morning.
Been listening to PC soundtracks all morning.
Anyone who says they like MT-32 and hasn't listened to DID's Inferno Title theme doesn't really know what they are talking about.
Been listening to PC soundtracks all morning.
I picked up both an MT-32 and a Sound Canvas a few years ago on eBay. I think I got the MT32 for 40 bucks or so. It was a childhood dream come true for me...I never could afford a Roland interface and always lusted after one. I ended up hooking it all to my home theatre and rocked out to MT-32 MIDI deliciousness.
My poor girlfriend.
MissCauthon
Member
So many memories just looking at op
Shadow Hog
Member
Funny, I've been like this for the past couple of days, but about the SC-55 instead.Been listening to PC soundtracks all morning.
Or SC-55mkII.
Or SC-88pro.
I can't decide.
This is probably a long shot but I figure I'd ask anyway:
I've been looking for an old PC Games (I think) magazine from probably the early-mid 90s. The cover had a pilot guy, helmet and aviators facing towards the camera. Really close up shot.
I've been trying to find this for years since it was the thing that really got me into PCs back then and would love to read through it again.
Would be willing to pay for a copy!
EDIT: It might have been simply called "Computer Games"
I've been looking for an old PC Games (I think) magazine from probably the early-mid 90s. The cover had a pilot guy, helmet and aviators facing towards the camera. Really close up shot.
I've been trying to find this for years since it was the thing that really got me into PCs back then and would love to read through it again.
Would be willing to pay for a copy!
EDIT: It might have been simply called "Computer Games"
I just purchased an HP Pavilion 8290 on eBay. $65 shipped. The main reason I bought this PC is because I had an HP 8240 (pentium MMX 233) in my childhood, and was really nostalgic for the case. I think it is one of the best looking 90s PC cases. It is a nice grey, rounded design rather than the usual 90s beige box. The back panel of the case looks really fancy, which is something most PC cases overlook. I managed to find a brand new matching keyboard/palm rest too! Now to track down the matching CRT/polk audio speakers...
Anyways, here are the important specs:
400MHZ Pentium II MMX
Ensoniq AudioPCI sound card
ASUS P2898-XV motherboard with 4 PCI slots+2 ISA
Integrated ATI 3DRAGE Pro
12GB Quantum Bigfoot HDD (dat sound!!!!)
64 MB RAM (it had an additional 128MB stick in there, but it makes the PC not boot)
original DVD drive
upgraded (?) from Win95 to Win Me
It was absolutely filthy when it came in, and reeked of cigarette smoke. I took everything apart and cleaned it out. The smell is about 90% gone now. I think it just needs a new power supply to get rid of the little smell left (I was too scared to clean the insides well). It still had the specs sticker on the front of the case, but the cleaner I was using got on it and melted the ink off it
I had this exact computer for a very long time. Used it from 1998 - 2006. Towards the end it was only good for Counter-Strike, but I had a lot of fun with it.
ichtyander
Member
Maybe they used the cover art for Thunderhawk? Found a cover of Computer Games Strategy Plus with Thunderhawk on the main page. Apparently there was a Computer Games magazine but I couldn't find a cover that resembles the description.
mattwhite924
Member
I finally ordered a CRT. Not the most high-end one, but I think it should do nicely for my purposes. It's a brand new unopened one, and ended up being only about $65 shipped.
[/IMG]
mattwhite924
Member
Got the monitor in today! Did a quick setup on the dining room table.
So far I'm really happy with it. I feel like I've finally got a retro PC set up that I'll be happy with for a while. I had forgotten how nice CRT monitors looked in motion. Unfortunately I'd also forgotten how hard on your eyes they can be at 60Hz.
So far I'm really happy with it. I feel like I've finally got a retro PC set up that I'll be happy with for a while. I had forgotten how nice CRT monitors looked in motion. Unfortunately I'd also forgotten how hard on your eyes they can be at 60Hz.
Got the monitor in today! Did a quick setup on the dining room table.
So far I'm really happy with it. I feel like I've finally got a retro PC set up that I'll be happy with for a while. I had forgotten how nice CRT monitors looked in motion. Unfortunately I'd also forgotten how hard on your eyes they can be at 60Hz.
Damn that's a cool setup! Having people use CRT always warms my heart.
You can use higher refresh rates, usually 60Hz is the highest at the highest resolution, but once you lower it a few notches, you can clock it up, like 640x480@240Hz
Low refresh rates are usually only noticeable on bright static empty images, once you get it moving (in games) or display colourful pictures, it's much less a problem.
Pretty cool retro build including some benchmarks and gameplay.
Pentium II 300 Build with Nvidia Riva 128 AGP Graphics Card
Pentium II 300 Build with Nvidia Riva 128 AGP Graphics Card
tioslash
Member
Got the monitor in today! Did a quick setup on the dining room table.
So far I'm really happy with it. I feel like I've finally got a retro PC set up that I'll be happy with for a while. I had forgotten how nice CRT monitors looked in motion. Unfortunately I'd also forgotten how hard on your eyes they can be at 60Hz.
Nice setup! I still have a CRT here too and it is a damn fine panel. Unfortunately I don´t have any of my old setup hardware parts. :/
Also, those desktop icons. Half-Life, NFS 2: SE, Quake and Shadow Warrior. Oh, the good old times!
https://twitter.com/benheck/status/834895954125914114
Felix obtained this old IBM still sealed in the box! Feels like an episode of @lazygamereviews
@benheck Sold that to Felix this afternoon. Hope it gets put to good use after collecting dust in a warehouse for 27 years.
JRW
Member
I remember in the late 90's my PC consisted of an Abit BH6 mobo, Celeron 300A overlcocked 464Mhz, Diamond Voodoo 2 SLI 24MB + TNT 2 Ultra 32MB as the primary 2D card, actually the TNT2 ran D3D titles better than the Voodoo's (such as Descent), and a beautiful Sony G520P 21" CRT
I was heavily into Unreal / Doom / Quake online at the time, also played a lot of Descent 2 & 3.
Good times.
I was heavily into Unreal / Doom / Quake online at the time, also played a lot of Descent 2 & 3.
Good times.
Spladam
Member
Don't know how I missed this thread, great job OP, Just the Gamespy screen on the OP gave me chills of nostalgia, thanks for this.
Did you know Tyrian fell into freeware license and was ported for the modern PC? You can find a free copy online. You also get the classic version for free from GOG just for making an account. Great game, played too much of that and Kilo Blaster.
Is that a Rosewill Bare Bones case? I used one on a PC build back in 2011, still have that machine. Set-up looks awesome.Got the monitor in today! Did a quick setup on the dining room table.
So far I'm really happy with it. I feel like I've finally got a retro PC set up that I'll be happy with for a while. I had forgotten how nice CRT monitors looked in motion. Unfortunately I'd also forgotten how hard on your eyes they can be at 60Hz.
mattwhite924
Member
Yep. I had it in a giant Thermaktake Armor case, but got tired of how large it was. Went on Amazon and grabbed the cheapest midtower I could find that had floppy drive bays. I've been really surprised at how nice the case is for how little it costs.
Spladam
Member
Hey blast processed, have another youtube channel you might want to add to the OP, Nostalgia Nerd, he does some really good nostalgia trecks down old PC memories, and does an amazing breakdown of the history of Rise of the Triads.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
Man, I'd give just about anything to track down my childhood Packard Bell from 1993 in like-new condition, though I realize that's impossible for many reasons.
PC Gaming in the 90s was the shit.
PC Gaming in the 90s was the shit.
A friend gifted me a Toshiba Libretto 70CT
Is a Pentium 120 MMX with 16MB of RAM, 6.1 TFT screen with 640x480 resolution.
Like this one: https://doogielabs.com/2013/01/vintage-computer-collection-toshiba-libretto-50-70ct/
But mine has Win98 installed.
Is a Pentium 120 MMX with 16MB of RAM, 6.1 TFT screen with 640x480 resolution.
Like this one: https://doogielabs.com/2013/01/vintage-computer-collection-toshiba-libretto-50-70ct/
But mine has Win98 installed.
blast processed
Member
Thanks!!! Just added him..
I would love to have a Packard Bell 486 DX2 166 w/MMX. Took my first loan out to get that computer. It was a beast for DOS games, but worthless for anything Windows.
PastorOfMuppets
Banned
Figured some of you guys would appreciate this. I posted this in another reto game thread but since it's PC only here, it's fitting.
The first Google album is a bunch of unsorted pictures of a haul of PC games I took it a while ago. They're pre 90's. They're 80's. Lots of Amiga and C64 stuff in there too. Historically relevant games like Civilization, weird anomalies like the C64 port of Double Dragon, point at click classics like the old Sierra adventures. Here it is.
The second batch is much more well sorted and just something I got around to doing today. It's games from the late 90's to mid 2000's.
The first Google album is a bunch of unsorted pictures of a haul of PC games I took it a while ago. They're pre 90's. They're 80's. Lots of Amiga and C64 stuff in there too. Historically relevant games like Civilization, weird anomalies like the C64 port of Double Dragon, point at click classics like the old Sierra adventures. Here it is.
The second batch is much more well sorted and just something I got around to doing today. It's games from the late 90's to mid 2000's.
I found a different issue of the magazine I'm talking about:
PC Games
Electronic Entertainment
PC Entertainment
All by IDG Publishing
See http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2010/01/column_game_mag_weaseling_pc_g_1.php
The closet I can find is this one
https://archive.org/details/ElectronicEntertainment21Sep1995
Professionals built a boot menu for different games. Although that really was a thing rather in the early 90s.
blast processed
Member
I remember most early Lucas Arts games had boot disk installers. I think I still have my Tie Fighter boot disk laying around.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
So I bought an old win98 PC for salvage at a thrift store. I was mostly intending to harvest it's PCI cards but I didn't expect it to have a fairly nice motherboard and some other goodies. Honestly I expected like b-tier OEM junk with messed up caps and a low end celeron.
It's got an Asus Socket A A7V266-C motherboard with some nice rubycon caps all in good condition. It came paired with an Athlon XP 1800+ and 512mb DDR RAM.
I'm thinking to maybe pair it with a period appropriate graphics card falling a bit out of the scope of this thread. Right now my old PC build covers like mid-80s to 2000 fairly well, but the Vooodo 3 starts to fall apart around 2000 with Deus Ex running very poorly. So I was thinking I could put together something else to cover the next few years, something like the DX7 to early DX9 era so 2000-2004 probably. Might necessitate a dual boot or something.
Any recommendations on a graphics card to pair with an Athlon XP 1800+? Ideally one that supports the famous shadows in Splinter Cell and isn't an overpriced collector's card. I'm not opposed to upgrading the CPU to the (max supported) 2600+ if that's a good idea.
It's got an Asus Socket A A7V266-C motherboard with some nice rubycon caps all in good condition. It came paired with an Athlon XP 1800+ and 512mb DDR RAM.
I'm thinking to maybe pair it with a period appropriate graphics card falling a bit out of the scope of this thread. Right now my old PC build covers like mid-80s to 2000 fairly well, but the Vooodo 3 starts to fall apart around 2000 with Deus Ex running very poorly. So I was thinking I could put together something else to cover the next few years, something like the DX7 to early DX9 era so 2000-2004 probably. Might necessitate a dual boot or something.
Any recommendations on a graphics card to pair with an Athlon XP 1800+? Ideally one that supports the famous shadows in Splinter Cell and isn't an overpriced collector's card. I'm not opposed to upgrading the CPU to the (max supported) 2600+ if that's a good idea.
Dang you fancy kids and your Voodoo 3's, I had to settle with the Riva TNT2!
Edit: Though apparently they were fairly close, upon retrospect. But still, Voodoo was the hotness. Plus glide support in emulators, was mad jelly my friend could emulate Mario 64 at fast speeds lol. The funny thing is that even after I got the TNT2, it took me a..uh, while, to figure out you had to manually enable 3D accelerated graphics in Unreal.
Edit: Though apparently they were fairly close, upon retrospect. But still, Voodoo was the hotness. Plus glide support in emulators, was mad jelly my friend could emulate Mario 64 at fast speeds lol. The funny thing is that even after I got the TNT2, it took me a..uh, while, to figure out you had to manually enable 3D accelerated graphics in Unreal.
If you can find an ATI Radeon 9600 or 9800 Pro, you should be set for just about anything you can throw at it from that era.
mattwhite924
Member
At GeForce 4 Ti would be a good choice for you. The 4200 should be cheap enough, and it supports the shadows in Splinter Cell. They were super popular at the time.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Thanks for the input. I bought a Radeon 9600 Pro, mostly since I actually had one back in 2004 so it felt appropriate.
I had a second though about Splinter Cell and since I already have all of them on Xbox I think I'm just going to forget about that. Unless there's some other really interesting game that uses shadow buffers.
I also decided to grab a Athlon XP 2600+ since it was only $10.
I had a second though about Splinter Cell and since I already have all of them on Xbox I think I'm just going to forget about that. Unless there's some other really interesting game that uses shadow buffers.
I also decided to grab a Athlon XP 2600+ since it was only $10.
mattwhite924
Member
Nice! The 9600 is great! (though I guess you already knew that
)It might be worth tracking down some drivers from that era, since they had some fun rendering effects. Like you do render everything as ASCII, black and white, or a bunch of other effects. The newer drivers don't have those options.
so i decided to finally go ahead and accelerate the production of my dos/98se machine and bought a p2 333mhz (stock heatsink only, no fan) and a SE440BX-2 board. how viable is it to run this cpu with passive cooling? if worst comes to worst i could blow a 120mm fan across the board, but i'd like it to be as quiet as possible.
also is there any place i can find an mpu401 compatible DA-15 breakout cable to hook up my card (audician 32 plus) to my gm device?
also is there any place i can find an mpu401 compatible DA-15 breakout cable to hook up my card (audician 32 plus) to my gm device?
I remember my slot1 cpu had fans on it. I don't know which it was though. You're probably fine as long as you have some air flowing inside the case. The BIOS should have temperature monitoring so it's a good first way to check that the idle temps are within your safe range. Install Windows and do some benchmark just to be sure it won't blow in the middle of an extensive gaming session.
I believe the mpu401 is only needed for Roland non-GM MIDI units. For a GM device any gameport-midi cable should do. It's all about configuring the software correctly after that.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
This thread needs more attention.
I've been playing Tiberian Sun. Running into a lot of crashes, though. I traced back some issues to my 3dfx driver; I was using the x3dfx community driver but it seems to have issues with direct draw (mix of internal exceptions & blue screens). So I switched to official and then the AmigaMerlin driver and both seem better but I'm still getting some hard crash to desktops.
Mostly I wanted to reach my old favorite mission in Tiberian Sun. There's a Nod mission where you need to destroy a Mammoth Mk2 prototype; I used to replay that all the time as a kid to just try different stuff. The map layout makes turtling a lot of fun, there are some good spots to just build for a really long time.
Unfortunately, my "engineer bomb" (subterranean vehicle stuffed with engineers sent to the middle of the base) made this mission extremely easy but it was still nice to re-live that memory.
I've been playing Tiberian Sun. Running into a lot of crashes, though. I traced back some issues to my 3dfx driver; I was using the x3dfx community driver but it seems to have issues with direct draw (mix of internal exceptions & blue screens). So I switched to official and then the AmigaMerlin driver and both seem better but I'm still getting some hard crash to desktops.
Mostly I wanted to reach my old favorite mission in Tiberian Sun. There's a Nod mission where you need to destroy a Mammoth Mk2 prototype; I used to replay that all the time as a kid to just try different stuff. The map layout makes turtling a lot of fun, there are some good spots to just build for a really long time.
Unfortunately, my "engineer bomb" (subterranean vehicle stuffed with engineers sent to the middle of the base) made this mission extremely easy but it was still nice to re-live that memory.
j^aws
Member
Alrighty.
90s Appreciated. This decade started with the PC getting great VGA graphics and sound hardware, together with its open nature, managed to displace the Home Computers of the 80s. Fought off competition from consoles and Arcades throughout the remainder of the decade, and finished with some of the most rapid advancements in CPU and graphics hardware in gaming history.
So many gaming genres were experimented, many types of input devices were developed, 3D and sound APIs everywhere... and emulators ruled. Whatever you bought, was out of date within months. Good times.
BTW, anyone building an old 90s PC should checkout SetMul - a DOS app for compatible CPUs, which comes in handy for speed sensitive games and demos. It's entirely done via hardware to manipulate CPU multipliers, cache and certain registers.
Metal Jesus with one of the greatest single hauls of all time.
INSANE FIND: 600 Big Box PC Games for $75!! Games from 80s, 90s & 2000s
edit - damn it, I just saw there's a separate thread
INSANE FIND: 600 Big Box PC Games for $75!! Games from 80s, 90s & 2000s
edit - damn it, I just saw there's a separate thread
Captain Zyrain
Member
Just the other day I played through Panzer General II on my laptop.. such a fun game.
Amazing that it feels so timeless. Has to be 20 years old at this point.
Also nice that it still runs on Windows 10. Got it off GOG, even though I have my original install files floating around here somewhere.
Amazing that it feels so timeless. Has to be 20 years old at this point.
Also nice that it still runs on Windows 10. Got it off GOG, even though I have my original install files floating around here somewhere.
Holy shit, awesome. Fucking awesome