eyalk4568 wrote on 2024-04-28, 08:02:Yea, I'm aiming for a windows 98 PC, although all the points you gave are legitimate, would you say a Pentium 4 1.7 Willamette PC with DDR 266 RAM and a geforce3 TI 200 would be sufficient for an above 60 FPS gaming for games from around 2001 and before that, or should I upgrade some of the specs for better performance like the CPU or GPU?
At what resolutions?
I was playing games at 1600x1200 (I was lucky and got a 20" 1600x1200 LCD in late 2001...) on my 1.9 Willamette back in the day, first with a GF3 Ti500 then when that died, an ATI 9800 Pro. Gaming on those was acceptable though I suspect serious gamers would disagree. Those cards would have screamed at 1024x768 I suspect.
This was an era where people with CRTs, in particular, would regularly game at a lower resolution than what they used for their Windows desktops.
Also, note that some games from that era were not 3D accelerated, particularly strategy games (e.g. AoE 2, Civ III). That being said... why you'd want to play CivIII on retro hardware is a good question... I'm pretty sure the Steam version runs great on modern hardware and late game can definitely benefit from any additional CPU horsepower you can throw at it...
Realistically, I think you'll be fine. My suggestion - if you don't have one already, start planning for an XP retro rig as well. Anything from 2002ish that might struggle a bit on your 98SE Willamette at higher resolutions, just play on your XP rig and it should scream. And right now is a great time for XP retro rigs - there's tons of late-era XP hardware (sandy bridges, ivy bridges, stuff from a bit earlier, GTX 7xx cards, etc) very affordably available everywhere.