Yoghoo wrote on 2023-10-24, 06:45:Love threads like this. Is there a 2000/2001 thread somewhere as well?
I am working on extending this list in both directions (early 90s and into the 2000s).
Just need to gather more information in the mean time.
Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:27:Price/performance ratios and affordability is an important factor. […]
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 14:37:Thats also another AMD fan marker. Theyre hung up on prices.
Price/performance ratios and affordability is an important factor.
I used AMD systems from the K6-2 era through to the Athlon XP , not because I wanted to, but because I was a student working low-paying jobs and paying for school.
As much as I would have loved to have a high-end Pentium II or Pentium III system of the time, financial realities dictated otherwise.
Agreed. As a gamer I built a Soyo SY-5EMA+, K63-400 ,128mb, 20gb Maxtor and TNT1 via TigerDirect in Jan/Feb of 99 for 98SE/ME/NT4 and then later 2000.
I did initially load Redhat first thing but noped out of that pretty quick.
I've never built an "Ultimate" gaming rig and likely never will heh.
>ultimate gaming rigs
>94 pentium 90
pentium 100 came out in 94
eyeballed most demanding 94' games: 1942 paw, nascar, overlord, pacific strike, serf city, transport tycoon, wing commander iii, fleet defender,dawn patrol
>95 pentium 133
pentium 133 came out in june, pentium pro 200 came out in nov, so 133 was top dog for five months
eyeballed most demanding 95' games: air power, apache, destruction derby, us navy fighters, wings of glory, transport tycoon deluxe, msfs 5.1, screamer, wipeout, terminal velocity
>96 pentium pro 200
pentium pro 200 512k came out in quarter 2
eyeballed most demanding 96' games: quake, wing commander iv, settlers ii, daggerfall, destruction derby 2, a-10 cuba, assault rigs, sim copter, tomb raider, daytona usa deluxe, descent ii, ef2000, earthsiege 2, duke nukem 3d, f22 lightning ii, grand prix ii, hind,indycar racing ii, msfs 95, mechwarrior 2, monster truck madness, nascar 2, screamer 2,silent thunder a-10 tank killer ii, su27 flanker, usnf 97
97,98.99...
Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-20, 23:50:I've compiled a list of "ultimate" gaming build specs by year from 1994 to 1999. It's based on what should have been available up to December 31 of that particular year. A lot of specs were compiled from old magazines and some educated guesses about when certain hardware was made available.
interesting list and thread 😀
a reminder of jut how much things were moving back then - the gulf between 94 and 99 (and think between 89 and 94 too!)
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:13:I know. I now also know you werent actually there at the time all this was playing out.
If you were you would know why I use the terms I do to differentiate the things we're talking about.
I was in the trade at the time, nobody outside of marketing people called it a flip chip.
https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-doc … -integrated.pdf
another Pentium 2, released before fcpga, goes into mobile PPGA socket
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:13:If youre reduced to that then its about time to call it a loss isnt it?
Its not a competition, did I offend you in some way?
awgamer wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:36:>ultimate gaming rigs
>94 pentium 90
pentium 100 came out in 94
I originally had the Pentium 100 listed for the 1994 build. However, upon reviewing magazines from 1994 I can't find a single instance of the Pentium 100 being advertised and sold. Even PC Magazine which tends to target a business audience doesn't have any systems reviewed or advertised with a Pentium 100.
The earliest instance I can find of it for sale was in PC Magazine's Feb 1995 issue. So while the Pentium 100 may have technically existed in 1994, it was virtually non-existent from a consumer perspective.
pentium 133 came out in june, pentium pro 200 came out in nov, so 133 was top dog for five months
True, although I noted in the OP, this was an era where speed sensitive games were still a thing. I think for 1995 a Pentium 133 was an appropriate high-end gaming rig of the time taking compatibility into account.
Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:34:5) Modified the 1996 GPU to a S3 ViRGE/VX in place of the previous ViRGE/DX.
The Matrox Mystique was superior to either of those in pretty much everything except DOS game compatibility (Commander Keen scrolling).
I think the original Mystique (not the 220 version) was available in 1996, but I'm not 100% certain.
gerry wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:43:Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-20, 23:50:I've compiled a list of "ultimate" gaming build specs by year from 1994 to 1999. It's based on what should have been available up to December 31 of that particular year. A lot of specs were compiled from old magazines and some educated guesses about when certain hardware was made available.
interesting list and thread 😀
a reminder of jut how much things were moving back then - the gulf between 94 and 99 (and think between 89 and 94 too!)
What's wild to me is how quickly operating systems changed.
From 1994 to 2001 we went from DOS -> Windows 95 -> Windows 98 -> Windows XP. Four operating systems in just seven years.
Meanwhile over the past dozen years I've only used two: Windows 7 and Windows 10.
Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-10-24, 16:17:Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:34:5) Modified the 1996 GPU to a S3 ViRGE/VX in place of the previous ViRGE/DX.
The Matrox Mystique was superior to either of those in pretty much everything except DOS game compatibility (Commander Keen scrolling).
I think the original Mystique (not the 220 version) was available in 1996, but I'm not 100% certain.
I looked it up and it was advertised for sale in 1996 and some cards have '96 manufacturing dates on them.
I suppose it comes down to prioritizing performance versus broader compatibility. For games of that era like Duke 3D you're right that the Mystique would have been a better performer.
Come to think of it the ATI 3D Rage / Rage II also came out in 1996 I believe and would have been comparable performers. I'll have to dig into these cards a bit more.
DVD was available in 1997. If the ultimate build could include a crazy priced $2000 CPU like a Pentium II 300, then the same person with money to burn likely had DVD for $500 more. I'd spec the 1997 machine as a Pentium II 266, realistically, though.
Decoder and drive:
https://www.tech-insider.org/digital-video/re … /1996/1119.html
SCSI HBA should also be in high-end for everything up to 1997, if not including 1998 and 1999, in my opinion, too.
Finally, I suggest a PowerVR PCX2 card be tossed into the 1997 build, also, for the ultimate build. Perhaps 1996 with a PCX1, as well?
Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:27:Price/performance ratios and affordability is an important factor. […]
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 14:37:Thats also another AMD fan marker. Theyre hung up on prices.
Price/performance ratios and affordability is an important factor.
I used AMD systems from the K6-2 era through to the Athlon XP , not because I wanted to, but because I was a student working low-paying jobs and paying for school.
As much as I would have loved to have a high-end Pentium II or Pentium III system of the time, financial realities dictated otherwise.
This also wasn't exclusive to AMD users. The Celeron 300 was highly popular because of its overclockability and overall price-to-performance ratio.
When youre buying a new computer yeah sure of course it is but in retro PCs?
If that were true then the prices of certain things wouldnt be out of control like they are. I mean I was looking on ebay at an i5 gen 4 system earlier today which is massively more capable than a P3 system and yet the motherboard for the P3 is double the cost of the i5 as a going concern...
Popularity also plays a roll in prices paid when new.
Intel might not have been the best at the time, and I would agree that the AMD 1Ghz CPU was better than the Intel over all at the time but the thing was Intel had the name to trade on while AMD didnt.
Professionals went with dual P3s while those had an eye on the wallet went with AMD.
Intel sold more CPUs.
There were many reasons for that, some of which was due to underhanded practice and some wasnt.
That situation didnt change until the Athlon XP and Duron CPUs in the early/mid 2000s.
rasz_pl wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:48:I was in the trade at the time, nobody outside of marketing people called it a flip chip. https://www.analog.com/media/en/techni […]
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:13:I know. I now also know you werent actually there at the time all this was playing out.
If you were you would know why I use the terms I do to differentiate the things we're talking about.I was in the trade at the time, nobody outside of marketing people called it a flip chip.
https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-doc … -integrated.pdf
another Pentium 2, released before fcpga, goes into mobile PPGA socket
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:13:If youre reduced to that then its about time to call it a loss isnt it?
Its not a competition, did I offend you in some way?
SECC and FC-PGA.
Show me a P2 that can drop onto a ZIF socket and Ill agree.
I was in the industry too. Marketing I have no idea about.
I really cant believe were having a conversation as to a P2 has a slot or socket design.
I dont care what the technical aspects of the design are, thats what we called them when we were building systems. And then when the slot 1s went away they were just Pentium 3s.
rasz_pl wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:48:I was in the trade at the time, nobody outside of marketing people called it a flip chip.
I definitely remember hearing and using this term. I was a system builder at the time of the Slot 1 --> S370 transition.
Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-24, 16:55:What's wild to me is how quickly operating systems changed. […]
gerry wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:43:Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-20, 23:50:I've compiled a list of "ultimate" gaming build specs by year from 1994 to 1999. It's based on what should have been available up to December 31 of that particular year. A lot of specs were compiled from old magazines and some educated guesses about when certain hardware was made available.
interesting list and thread 😀
a reminder of jut how much things were moving back then - the gulf between 94 and 99 (and think between 89 and 94 too!)
What's wild to me is how quickly operating systems changed.
From 1994 to 2001 we went from DOS -> Windows 95 -> Windows 98 -> Windows XP. Four operating systems in just seven years.
Meanwhile over the past dozen years I've only used two: Windows 7 and Windows 10.
Well, you're missing NT 3.5, NT 3.51, NT 4, and Windows 2000 as well.
Over the past dozen years, there was also 8 and 8.1, but those were... doomed.
But I think it's important to understand one core thing about the 1980-2000ish period, especially in operating systems. People knew how to design robust operating systems; the original UNIX on PDPs dates back to the early 1970s. But those operating systems needed expensive hardware - memory, MMUs, lots of other things. So PCs (whether DOS, Mac, etc) in the early 1980s launched with, frankly, bad operating systems. But hey, those were the best operating systems that you could run on the hardware in your budget.
What happened in the course of the 1990s, in particular, is that the hardware got dramatically better. More memory, more clock rates, but also built in MMUs, built-in FPUs, etc. And so... the operating system world basically struggled to go from the lousy, unreliable, single-tasking-focused operating systems of the 1980s to much more robust operating systems, while trying not to break software compatibility too much.
In Windows world, you see this with Win9x, which were lousy operating systems but were able to run 32-bit software using the Win32 API on relatively affordable hardware (and also had excellent compatibility with DOS at a time when lots of people still wanted to run WP5.1 for DOS). NT 3.1/3.5/3.51/4 were much better operating systems, but their RAM requirements (16+ megs at a time when that would cost thousands of dollars) alone made them unattainable for most. By 2000, hardware had improved to such a point that you could run an NT-based OS on a lot of things, and by 2003-4, your grandmother could run an NT-based OS on a Dell Dimension 2400 for however little money those cost. And since you were already running 32-bit Win32 software on 95/98... well, certainly most productivity software moved over to NT-based OSes just fine, games less so.
People were very, very eager to embrace new operating systems until, well, Vista, because, for most people, every operating system they had used prior to XP was garbage. (Win2000 fans, obviously, would disagree, but not that many people used 2000). So the bar was really "is Win98 RTM on release day any worse than Win95?" and the answer was usually no.
In Mac world, you see a less orderly transition but a struggle with basically the same issue. The classic Mac OS was designed for a single-tasking system and made a whole number of (dumb) architectural decisions based on that assumption. By 1991, they wanted to have multi-tasking always enabled and the hardware was powerful enough to do it, but MultiFinder was a giant, ugly hack. Apple struggled to develop a more modern operating system (anyone remember Copland and Gershwin?) until eventually, they bought NeXT, developed two compatibility mechanisms for existing software, and moved forward with NeXT's *NIX-based OS. And while Apple has had a lot more OS versions between 10.0 and today's Sonoma, after the first couple of OS X releases, most were relatively minor revisions.
(I should note, I have been unable so far to get a retro 98SE machine working... I do have two vintage Macs that can boot the classic OS, and... while the classic Mac OS is a brilliant quirky piece of engineering, it's also amazing how bad a lot of things, particularly dealing with multitasking, are when you've been used to Win95/98, NT, and OS X for 25 years. These were not robust operating systems...)
Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:04:I suppose it comes down to prioritizing performance versus broader compatibility. For games of that era like Duke 3D you're right that the Mystique would have been a better performer.
If you go and read old magazines, no-one cared about compatibility on older titles. It was all about the best Windows and video acceleration/quality and performance on current titles. That is why the Matrox'es were seen as the better more high-end product.
So it depends who you're making these lists for. Contemporary as in ultimate in 1996, or in hindsight for retro users.
vetz wrote on 2023-10-25, 05:50:If you go and read old magazines, no-one cared about compatibility on older titles. It was all about the best Windows and video acceleration/quality and performance on current titles. That is why the Matrox'es were seen as the better more high-end product.
There's also the fact that all Matrox cards were manufactured by the company itself, and built to high quality standards.
In contrast, S3 only produced the Virge chips, while other companies manufactured the rest of the card, which resulted in very uneven quality. A no-name, unbranded Virge card can have lower clocks and worse image quality than one made by a reputable manufacturer like Diamond, STB, Hercules or ELSA. There is no such variation with Matrox cards, and they were always known for having exceptional image quality.
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:Show me a P2 that can drop onto a ZIF socket and Ill agree.
I did, last picture is Pentium 2 for 615 ZIF socket https://web.archive.org/web/20070927060354/ht … ts/24528401.pdf
But its not about Pentium 2, NexGen is also a Flip Chip design, so are all K6s and Athlons.
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:I really cant believe were having a conversation as to a P2 has a slot or socket design.
We arent.
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:I dont care what the technical aspects of the design are
😀
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:thats what we called them when we were building systems.
Can you define we? I simply might not be familiar with a specific geographic trend.
In the entire searchable history of Vogons there have ever been 4 other people beside you to call socket370 processor a "flip chip". Its like calling Intel Coppermine CPUs "Copper" despite them containing 0% cu (if you exclude packaging).
Afaik first flip chip x86 cpu was 1996 NexGen. First x86 cpu with Copper interconnects was AMD Thunderbird in 2000, Intel finally got there two years later with Pentium 4 in 2002, but Intel marketing beat AMD by over a year hijacking the name.
rasz_pl wrote on 2023-10-25, 18:04:I did, last picture is Pentium 2 for 615 ZIF socket https://web.archive.org/web/20070927060354/ht … ts/24528401.pdf But its not […]
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:Show me a P2 that can drop onto a ZIF socket and Ill agree.
I did, last picture is Pentium 2 for 615 ZIF socket https://web.archive.org/web/20070927060354/ht … ts/24528401.pdf
But its not about Pentium 2, NexGen is also a Flip Chip design, so are all K6s and Athlons.ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:I really cant believe were having a conversation as to a P2 has a slot or socket design.
We arent.
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:I dont care what the technical aspects of the design are
😀
ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:42:thats what we called them when we were building systems.
Can you define we? I simply might not be familiar with a specific geographic trend.
In the entire searchable history of Vogons there have ever been 4 other people beside you to call socket370 processor a "flip chip". Its like calling Intel Coppermine CPUs "Copper" despite them containing 0% cu (if you exclude packaging).
Afaik first flip chip x86 cpu was 1996 NexGen. First x86 cpu with Copper interconnects was AMD Thunderbird in 2000, Intel finally got there two years later with Pentium 4 in 2002, but Intel marketing beat AMD by over a year hijacking the name.
It might not be a term used on Vogons. But then there aint many on here who seem to have been active system builders back in the 90s and early 2000s who built systems.
Look up PPGA and FC-PGA.
I was building my own systems after about 98 or so, but that just involved going into the store and buying cooling looking stuff off the shelves 😀
Meatball wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:16:DVD was available in 1997. If the ultimate build could include a crazy priced $2000 CPU like a Pentium II 300, then the same person with money to burn likely had DVD for $500 more. I'd spec the 1997 machine as a Pentium II 266, realistically, though.
That's a good point. I looked up to see if DVD-ROMs were available in 1997 and it turns out they were. So I'll modify the list accordingly.
SCSI HBA should also be in high-end for everything up to 1997, if not including 1998 and 1999, in my opinion, too.
I figure it's a given that in most cases SCSI drives are going to be the higher performance option. I didn't want to get too much into the details of listing out SCSI versus EIDE, etc.
Finally, I suggest a PowerVR PCX2 card be tossed into the 1997 build, also, for the ultimate build. Perhaps 1996 with a PCX1, as well?
I agree that for a 1997 build, a PowerVR card is a viable addition. I'm working on a 1997 build with the intent of a triple GPU setup (Riva 128, Voodoo and PowerVR PCX2).
To keep the list simple though I'm limiting it to primary and secondary cards, especially since the PowerVR card is pretty niche in terms of games support.
