Doom 3? What about Deus Ex: Invisible War (December 2003)? Unoptimized crap with a mandatory DX9-compatible GPU requirement.

AlphaWing wrote:

I wasn't expecting anything outa that doom3 bench :D I barely played the game when I got it, I remember nearly nothing about it […]
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I wasn't expecting anything outa that doom3 bench 😁
I barely played the game when I got it, I remember nearly nothing about it 🤣.
I just thought I'd bench it on period correct hardware for it?
A good bench basis for the 9700 bench above? these 2 cards competed the systems are similar too.
Seems about as bad as JK's min req claiming its playable on a P90 in software 🤣.

But here's the thing, the 9700 was already two years old by the time Doom 3 hit the market. Don't expect miracles off of it. And anyway, Doom 3 ran better on Nvidia cards at the time (as did HL2, I'm GeForce FX users remember DX8.1 😉 ).

The readme on disc one of the doom3 copy I have lists a P4 @ 1.5ghz 384mb of ram min and these cards as supported.
o ATI(r) Radeon 8500
o ATI(r) Radeon 9000
o ATI(r) Radeon 9200
o ATI(r) Radeon 9500
o ATI(r) Radeon 9600
o ATI(r) Radeon 9700
o ATI(r) Radeon 9800
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce 3/Ti series
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce 4MX series
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce 4/Ti series
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce FX series
o Nvidia(r) GeForce 6800 series

I don't have a Geforce3\4 in any system right now to test with.
It lists the GF4MX series, so it must be able to fall back further?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Trespasser: Jurassic Park. The minimum spec for that 1998 game was a P2 266MHz, but I believe magazine reviewers at the time stated that it needs a P2 400MHz to begin to be playable, and that was top of the line hardware for 1998.

AlphaWing wrote:

The readme on disc one of the doom3 copy I have lists a P4 @ 1.5ghz 384mb of ram min and these cards as supported. o ATI(r […]
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The readme on disc one of the doom3 copy I have lists a P4 @ 1.5ghz 384mb of ram min and these cards as supported.
o ATI(r) Radeon 8500
o ATI(r) Radeon 9000
o ATI(r) Radeon 9200
o ATI(r) Radeon 9500
o ATI(r) Radeon 9600
o ATI(r) Radeon 9700
o ATI(r) Radeon 9800
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce 3/Ti series
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce 4MX series
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce 4/Ti series
o All Nvidia(r) GeForce FX series
o Nvidia(r) GeForce 6800 series

I don't have a Geforce3\4 in any system right now to test with.
It lists the GF4MX series, so it must be able to fall back further?

I neved trusted minimal specs back then... it was just here to sell games. 😒

In that case you'll never be able to list all the games that weren't playable with the minimal specs listed (just too much) especially with the 3D accelerated ones... 😵

Good luck for playing GTA III, NOLF, Max Payne, Kingpin, SOF 2, Shogo etc... with decent framerate 🤣

Great Hierophant wrote:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Trespasser: Jurassic Park. The minimum spec for that 1998 game was a P2 266MHz, but I believe magazine reviewers at the time stated that it needs a P2 400MHz to begin to be playable, and that was top of the line hardware for 1998.

I remember the demo for that now that you mention it.... It wasn't playable on my system back then.
Don't own the full game still.

Total Annihilation as mentioned above is one game that scales well to this day too with all the crazy unit mods.
First game I ever remember taking advantage of an SMP system too, equaling loading each cpu.
I don't even think they had SMP in mind when they made the game.

Hmm what a coincidence, I've just made a shortlist of common/general recommended specs for 90's games the other day, compared to available CPUs as a cue. 😀 I'll find it and copy-paste it here.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Trespasser: Jurassic Park. The minimum spec for that 1998 game was a P2 266MHz, but I believe magazine reviewers at the time stated that it needs a P2 400MHz to begin to be playable, and that was top of the line hardware for 1998.

That's listed as recommended specs though. This is from the pdf manual:

Minimum • Windows95® or Windows® 98 • Pentium™ 166MHz • 32MB RAM [...] • 100% Windows compatible 1MB video card. Supports most m […]
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Minimum
• Windows95® or Windows® 98
• Pentium™ 166MHz
• 32MB RAM
[...]
• 100% Windows compatible 1MB video card. Supports most major 3D acceleration cards. [...]

Recommended
• AMD K6-2 OR Pentium II 266MHz Processor
• 64MB RAM
• AGP2X 3D Accelerator Card

Of course with many of these official requirement specs (PR/public reception bias), I'd soon realize that it's wiser to take their recommended specs as THE MINIMUM, and more or less DOUBLE that specs for the actual optimum gameplay. 😀

Unknown_K wrote:

The original Quake made anything pre P133 worthless (same with a K5 and 686) and people were still gaming on high end 486 at the time (needed the FPU of an Intel Pentium).

Quake on a P100 in software mode yielded a playable framerate. I did it. It was certainly superior when I got my P200MMX though.

I do remember the pro-Intel FPU arguments of the day that made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

- John

DosFreak wrote:

I'm of that opinion that at least decent hardware from the same year the game was released should be sufficient.

Actually that's about right -- well, depending on what you call "decent". As we all know 90's PC hardware scene was changing fast.

Here's my quick reference list for up to 2001. As you see, the devs would usually target the period's "mid-range" systems in their official recommended specs, though of course there are always exceptions (which is exactly the subject of this thread!). 😀

1        mid-range                           top-end
2                                                                common requirements & recommended specs
31992    ...386SX  386DX/486SX  486DX  486DX2
41993    386SX/386DX/486SX/486DX/486DX2   [P60/P66]
51994    386DX 486DX2  486DX4  [P60/66]   P90/[P100]
61995    486DX2/486DX4      P75/ P90/P100/P120/P133  P6
71996    P75/P90/P100/ P120/P133/P150/  P166/ P200   P6      <-- pentium-class required & recommended + some early 3d accelerator support
81997    P133/P166 P200/P-MMX 166~233 PII-266 [PII-300]      <-- pentium-class required, P133~166 recommended, more 3d support
91998    P200/P-MMX/K6  PII-233~300 PII-333 /350/400/450     <-- pentium 133/166 or faster required (more REQUIRE 3d), P200/MMX recommended
101999    P-MMX/K6 /K6-2/K6-3/PII-350~450 Athlon/P3-500~[750] <-- P166 + 3d accelerator required, P-MMX/PII-233 recommended
112000    PII-266 ~ 450  Athlon/P3-500~600~700~800~900~[1000] <-- P200 + 3d accelerator required, PII-300 recommended (MDK2)
122001    Athlon/P3-500~800 ~ 1000~1133~1200~1333~1400 A-XP   <-- 400MHz/64MB RAM/16MB 3D req., 500MHz/128MB/32MB 3D rec. (Undying),
13                                                                450MHz/96MB RAM/16MB 3D req., 700MHz/128MB RAM/32MB 3D rec. (Max Payne)

It's not complete and only gives the big picture, also I'm trying to keep it short. 😀

Half Life 1: Released '98
Min: 133mhz Pentium 1
24MB RAM
8MB Video card
640x480
Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.0 and higher
400MB HDD
Recommended:
P233MMX
48MB RAM
16MB video card
400MB HDD
What I Ran it on:
PMMX233
64MB RAM
3GB HDD, Win98
64MB ATi Radeon 7000 VE
Choked badly on that GPU, even when moved onto my PIII 1GHz machine, needs a good video adapter.
(gonna try it on a Dell Optiplex 100GX, see how that goes.)

Actually, the minimum CPU for Half-Life is a mere Pentium 120Mhz. What a joke.

F2bnp wrote:

Actually, the minimum CPU for Half-Life is a mere Pentium 120Mhz. What a joke.

Actually was a P-133

Yeah, "Pentium 133+"

http://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/origi … 45864971-01.jpg

I beat this game on Pentium 100 MHz. 🤣

I went into basic training in Dec 1998 and still had a DX4/100 at that time. Just before I left basic I ordered a K63-400, Soyo SY5EMA and TNT1 from tigerdirect.

Got home but parts hadn't arrived yet so bought half-life and tried to play it on my parent's new compaq k62-333 with a crappy rage video card.
Think it was one of these: http://www.cnet.com/products/compaq-presario- … mhz-32-mb-4-gb/

heh Wrappers Galore!

Parts arrived the day before I left to go to my first duty station so I hurriedly put it all together.

Needless to say Half-Life ran much better on the K63-400 with the TNT1 (decent hardware) and software since I could now use opengl with half-life.

I remember trying to play Half-Life on my P100. Let's just say that "trying to play" is an understatement. 🤣

I first tried half-life on my Cyrix PR 200 + Voodoo banshee, machine that I still have.... I think I beat it on that machine too.
It had 48mb of EDO back then too... not the 128mb of sdram it has now.

armankordi wrote:

F2bnp wrote:

Actually, the minimum CPU for Half-Life is a mere Pentium 120Mhz. What a joke.

Actually was a P-133

Looks like I'll have this thing bugging my all night now. Why the hell did I think of the Pentium 120? Must be some other game that had this as minimum and I found it to be such a huge joke. Will report back when I've found it! 🤣

All this talk about Doom3's high requirement and no mention of the fact it could run okay on a Geforce2 with an Athlon. Playable on low with bumpmaps on for sure and it still looks distinctily Doom3 (And not DOOM3 ON VooDoo 2 SLi!!!), and I thought it was more optimal than Half-LongLoadingTimesTheReviewsDeny 2.

Also, its "require XP" thing can easily be hexed. Back then, most XP requirements were definitely artificial for the marketing.

Sutekh94 wrote:

I remember trying to play Half-Life on my P100. Let's just say that "trying to play" is an understatement. 🤣

Come on... 320x200 and you'll be juuuuust fine 😁

F2bnp wrote:

Looks like I'll have this thing bugging my all night now. Why the hell did I think of the Pentium 120? Must be some other game that had this as minimum and I found it to be such a huge joke. Will report back when I've found it! 🤣

POD? Battlezone? Baldur's Gate? F22 Raptor? Oddworld? [more random suggestions to follow]

leileilol wrote:

All this talk about Doom3's high requirement and no mention of the fact it could run okay on a Geforce2 with an Athlon. Playable on low with bumpmaps on for sure and it still looks distinctily Doom3

I played some DOOM3 on P4 2.4C (@3GHz of course) / 768MB / Radeon 8500LE, and it was okay. Turned off the lights (the room i mean), volume up and still got the horror thing.

leileilol wrote:

...and I thought it was more optimal than Half-LongLoadingTimesTheReviewsDeny 2...

So fucking true. I always hated staring at that loading text, but surprisingly it rarely comes up on conversations. I rarely remember it, I guess I love that game so much!

archsan wrote:

Oddworld?

Bingo! I love looking at system requirements on my games and I have Abe's Oddysee pretty close to the Half-Life box. Got the two mixed up I guess hehehe 🤣

May I also add Unreal 2 in this discussion? Let's see:

Unreal II - Released February 2003

Minimum Requirements: PIII or Athlon 733, 256MB RAM, 32MB GeForce 2MX
Recommended Requirements: PIII or Athlon 1.2GHz, 384MB, 64MB GeForce3/Radeon 8500

Just don't. Tried it on a Tualatin 1.4 with 512MB and a Ti4200 once and it was usually hovering at 20fps at 1024x768. I played and finished the game on a P4 3.2GHz with 2GB RAM and a 6600GT. Definitely a pleasing experience, but even on that system there were certain parts with noticeable framedrops. I mean what the hell, if you're going to bother to add stickers with "Maximize your experience with Pentium 4" on the back of the box, you might as well call it a recommended requirement...