First of all, just saying "late 1995 to late 1996" covers a hell of a lot of different hardware... the gaming system you'd have gotten in November '95 was a quite different thing from a system from November '96. During that time, processor speeds nearly doubled, hard drive sizes did double, memory prices plummeted after the DRAM shortage ended, and 3D accelerators came onto the scene.

Flipping through magazines will give an idea of what was available at what time, but it doesn't really show the full picture. Whitebox/homebuilt systems were quite common... probably as much as they are nowadays, percentage-wise. Sure, the Compaqs and Dells were more common for the average person, and those were the ones you would see advertised... that hasn't really changed... but also like nowadays, you could often build a better system for cheaper if you went with a whitebox. And many people did just that.

And as a side note, overclocking wasn't entirely uncommon either... I don't remember ever hearing that word until the '00s, but nevertheless, it was pretty well known that the P75s (later production ones, at least) would do 90, and usually even 100mhz, the 120s would all do 133, and the 150s would do 166. I never actually owned a 'real' P100, 133 or 166 until fairly recently.

I know this period had quite alot of hardware and the upgrade pace was high. My project is to make a Youtube video series were the focus is to show gaming in late 95 to late 96 with the early 3D accelerators. For this I need a period correct setup in terms of performance that won't cause too much controversy. Since I don't have the 3D Blaster VLB late 95 stuff is going to be limited to the Matrox Millennium and the NV1. Here I am just going to go with the recommended setup for NV1, which is a P90 with 16mb of RAM. Then nothing really happened until the release of ATI Rage in april of 96 and the S3 Virge in June. The rest of the cards didn't come out untill later in the autumn. For these cards I'll be using either a P120 or P133. Haven't really decided yet, but from what I've read P133 seems to be what most cards were tested on in the magazines.

Hmmm.

But hardly anyone would have had a NV1.

I was on a Pentium 133 (with 166 and 200 non mmx around) with an S3 Trio 64V+ and a 3DBlaster (Voodoo). I'd say that would be quite a period correct machine.

I wouldn't bother with the NV1 for such a system and as Mau1wurf1977 had suggested why not a V1 for a late 1996 machine. The V1 came out November of 96 anyway.

It's just for testing purposes for the project, not something I'll keep around. Since it will focus on the different early 3D accelerators, NV1 must be part of it.

If I were to build a more time correct setup to actually play on I would go for more a system as mau1wurf suggests.

3DBlaster (Voodoo)

Btw, Creative never had a Voodoo 1, so are you sure about those specs?

I have a Dell Optiplex P133 and it has the date of manufacture (February 1996) stamped on the inside of the case. However, it may not have shipped from the factory for a few months.

My family's second computer, bought in June 1995, was a Micron Millennia P-133 with 32MB RAM, a 1.2GB hard drive, Sound Blaster AWE32, and 4x CD-ROM. It came preinstalled with WFW 3.11 and included a free upgrade to Win95 when it was finally released (which was a painful, buggy process!). It was a high-end configuration at the time and cost $4k, but that price did NOT include the cost of the video card (ATI Graphics Pro Turbo PCI 4MB video card, about $450) or the cost of the monitor (a 17" Sony Trinitron for $1000), so all told the system set my folks back about $5,500.

It played The Need for Speed in SVGA significantly faster than my friend's P-75, so bear that in mind if you plan to do any high resolution DOS gaming. A fast 486 or low-end Pentium will be fine at 320x200, but at 640x480 in games like NFS, MSFS, and Nascar Racing, it will just choke.

By mid-1996, the P-133 that my parents bought would have been considered a midrange system, and the new high-end was occupied by 166+MHz Pentiums and Pentium Pros.

We had a P100 back then...

3DBlaster (Voodoo)

Btw, Creative never had a Voodoo 1, so are you sure about those specs?

There was a 3D Blaster PCI (Rendition Verite) from late 1996 but not sure that's what Mau1wurf1977 meant.

I posted about V1 on previous page but maybe that got overlooked -- look at this Monster 3D's PCB from an old Tom Hardware's article: http://www.dfki.uni-kl.de/~aabecker/Voodoo/monster3d.html
I'd guess it was far from mainstream though. Not until late 1997 anyway.

Hmm maybe my memory is letting me down. Maybe it was the Voodoo 2 I purchased later. In that case I don't know what brand my Voodoo was. It was a regular one though, not a rush.

The previous machine was an AMD 486-DX4 100 and I remember how much of an upgrade the Pentium 133 was. I also remember hunting for a cheap Pentium 200 without success. They cost a fortune and my Gigabyte board wasn't compatible with the MMX chips.

We also bought a machine during this time frame. 1995 was a big upgrade year due to Windows 95. Here were its specs.

Packard Bell Force 1999CDTW purchased 10/31/1995
Pentium 133Mhz
16MB RAM
2.1GB HD
NEC 4X CD-ROM drive
built in Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430 video with 1MB VRAM
14.4 Modem/16bit Aztech soundcard

With 15in monitor it was likely over $2500 new. Most mainstream machines at the time were Pentium 75-100Mhz with sub 1GB HDs and 8-16MB RAM.

I bought my first PC in January 1996, which happen to be the cheapest Pentium at the time, a 75mhz. Bestbuy was offering Pentium systems from 75 up to 133 IIRC but the P75 was all I could afford and got my foot in the door to PC computing. Good times.

I had my first PC in November 1995. AMD DX4/100, 4 Mb RAM, 850 Mb WD Caviar, S3 Trio 32 with 1 MB, 14" Daewoo and a lousy and very uncomfortable Genius mouse.
The mouse died while I was playing X-Wing, and I replaced it with a cheaper and better designed Artec/Target mouse (Oh, I think I had 2 of those; one died while I played Tie Fighter, and bought the same thing, because I really liked it).
No soundcard until '96, when I got a Miss Melody ESS 688, no more RAM until '97. Then I got 4 more megs, sold the Miss Melody and bought an ESS 1868 (can't remember the brand, I think it was Pine Schubert or something, although I am not certain). Sometime later in '97 I got my first Pentium (133), a 1.7 Gb IBM HDD and a S3 Trio 64V+.
No 3d acceleration for me until much, much later. My first 3d card had Riva 128 on it, at a time when Max Payne was all the rage and needed a better card than I had.