Average 1998-ish era computer specs

[apolyonn]

Don't know if this should go here but I can't find anywhere else that it would.

If anyone's seen my post in the laptop/notebook section, I'm trying to get a portable computer to run Starcraft on, since my Inspiron 1000 refuses to play it without lag. I could be wrong, but I'd venture to say that my current laptop's specs are about on par with PCs from the timeframe that Starcraft was launched in (1998/1999). My laptop certainly blows SC's system requirements out of the water, but you wouldn't know it, sadly

Anyways, I've been learning a lot about computers in this last half-year, but I don't know much about computers from before 2000. So I was wondering if anyone happens to know the specs of any computers from back in the days when Paint was the best photo editor and the internet occupied your phone line.

 

[0ptic0n]

Back in the day used to rock it with windows 98 se with a massive 64megs of sdram pc100 powering it was all powered by an amd k6-2 500mhz cpu, video specs sis550 i think 4 or 8 megs of integrated video memory and for storage had a nice 10gig hd . For internet dialup..lol terrible experience but webpages where lighter back then to so its not exactly as comparable today dialup is far worse now. Also pc was purchased somewhere towards the end of 98 paid over 1k for it people wanna complain about price on current tech..was higher years ago and the older products are crap by todays standards

 

[cobot]

Hi,

some links where you can read about some components of that time:

CPU:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K6-2

GPU:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIVA_TNT

Hihi, used two of these in SLI for a looong time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo2

RAM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDRAM



To sum it up, a decent compy around 1998/early 1999 could look likte this:

400Mhz P2
64mb sdram running at 100 mhz
one or two voodoo 2 cards (90mhz core, 8 or 12 mb EDO VRAM)
a 2D card (voodoo 2 was a 3d accelerator only)
ATA-2 HD

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Sometime around 1999 I built an Intel Pentium III 600Mhz system with 128mb of RAM, an IBM Deskstar hard drive, a Plextor cd-rom drive, and a Sony 3.5 inch floppy disk drive.

In 2000 I signed up for internet service via satellite. I can't remember the name of the service but at the time it was a speed demon compared to a 56K telephone dial-up modem.

 

[nforce4max]

I still got my old rigs but one I keep running for nostalgia. k6-2 500 (550 on crap board) 320mb ram, 15gb drive, DFI board, last but not least is my voodoo 3 2k card pci (cool I might pop it in my main rig if I can find home brew vista 32 drivers). I sometimes play Drakan Order of the flame in glide mode on it and some times aoe2 since it is a glitch out with on modern drivers.

 

[wildwell]

I remember 1998 specifically and I was running a pretty average rig. I remember it well because it was a major step-up in 1997 from my previous rig, a home-built 486DX 50MHz machine. The new computer was an IBM Aptiva machine purchased from Best Buy in December of 1997 for just under $2000 and would represent a typical upper-mid level off the shelf machine for the time:

Intel Klamath Pentium II 266MHz
32MB RAM (SIMMs)
4GB HDD storage
ATI Rage Pro 3D card w/ 2MB vRAM.
CD-ROM drive
56k dial-up modem on an AOL subscription with a set number of minutes online
Windows 95

I don't know if that thing could check web based email today but I'm sure it could run Starcraft ok.

I never ran Starcraft on that Pent.II but I did play it (a lot) on a Macintosh G3 and G4 running OS 9 with great results. Never had a problem.

 

[nforce4max]

Intel Klamath Pentium II 266MHz
32MB RAM (SIMMs)
4GB HDD storage
ATI Rage Pro 3D card w/ 2MB vRAM.
CD-ROM drive
56k dial-up modem on an AOL subscription with a set number of minutes online
Windows 95


Those were good rigs back in the day when upgraded to 96mb and a voodoo card then it was heaven. I finally managed to track down a near mint copy of Blade Runner the game for the pc. Playing it now on a v3 2k card.

 

[reconviperone1]

Wow, i think 500 mhz was about average, did you think about maybe installing it in a virtual pc, running windows 98 or something

 

[nforce4max]

Wow, i think 500 mhz was about average, did you think about maybe installing it in a virtual pc, running windows 98 or something

I will eventually make use of vmware when I finally take the time to learn more about Linux and hackentosh but for vintage games going retro has the best results since it is more stable than emulation. Note voodoo 3 and above run hot, the 2k card I got has a mofet that heats up like nothing I have seen in any card hell cooling my 8800gtx and my 9800gt were easy.