Best would probably be to scower old magazine scans on google books , normally the December issues have a recap with an outline of best hardware.

FaSMaN wrote:

Best would probably be to scower old magazine scans on google books , normally the December issues have a recap with an outline of best hardware.

Yep, I'm aware of that but I was looking for a more central repository where anyone could simply look at a given year and find all the relevant hardware of the time period without scouring through on-line copies of magazines like Maximum PC, etc. We could certainly leverage those to build this out, but I guess I'm looking for a more optimal way to aggregate this data.

That sounds like a good Google Sheets project for someone. 😉

if you google search for a specific piece of hardware and put release date after it, it should bring up wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_P … microprocessors even shows pricing for that year, motherboards on the other hand are a little harder.

we cold just start listing what we kno and can find and i can put it all together in a spreed sheet basically like the wiki link above, what would be a go universal format to use, i have both office 2016 and libreoffice

Needs to be a Google Docs thing like the game speed compatibility list.
Sounds like a awesome idea, I can start the spreadsheet if necessary 😀

Im working on the p3 list if someone else wants to do the p2

Excellent thoughts everyone. I agree that a Google Docs thing would probably work the best for sharing purposes. If someone wants to start the sheet and propose an easy-to-read format, we can then start adding hardware info. I've tried finding something like this for awhile now and always resorted to random Google searches, archived magazines, old reviews, etc. I think this can be a great benefit to the community so I'm excited that others are buying into the idea as well.

This is somewhat country specific. I can already think of h/w that someone might consider as the best of 199x and then someone else popping up claiming that x wasn't available until x+1 for example.

Also, what if the "top hardware" for any given year isn't the same as the best-supported hardware used by most of the games being released? There is surely some "top hardware" that might have been technically superior in some regards but just wasn't popular enough at the time of its release to be useful.

Jorpho wrote:

Also, what if the "top hardware" for any given year isn't the same as the best-supported hardware used by most of the games being released? There is surely some "top hardware" that might have been technically superior in some regards but just wasn't popular enough at the time of its release to be useful.

Can you provide an example? I want to make sure I'm understanding your point.

For example, 1998 was a landmark year because of the release of the 3DFX Voodoo2. It was the 'must-have' card (especially the 12MB version) for that year. I'm sure there were some other cards released in 98 that weren't quite as powerful, and I don't care if we list those as well. But for each year we know there are at least 1 or 2 major pieces of hardware released that were the most popular. I think if we can at least gather the info and get it into the sheet, we can certainly go back and make judgement calls on what should or should not be in there.

Artex wrote:

For example, 1998 was a landmark year because of the release of the 3DFX Voodoo2. It was the 'must-have' card (especially the 12MB version) for that year.

But was the Voodoo2 the best choice for games being released in 1998 specifically?

I'm sure there were some other cards released in 98 that weren't quite as powerful, and I don't care if we list those as well.

In that case the list quickly expands in scope to the point where it lacks clear meaning.

But for each year we know there are at least 1 or 2 major pieces of hardware released that were the most popular.

So instead of "top hardware", now it's "most popular" hardware?

I appreciate your input Jorpho. I don't want to over-complicate this, and am wide open to suggestions. I posed the idea as a way for folks new to the hobby to get their feet wet when searching for parts for a period-specific build. And for the larger group of enthusiasts out there, I figured it would just be a great reference to see what was out there for specific years. My original thought was to only list the top hardware - and after saying that I guess that is probably too subjective. I know that when I choose parts for a year-specific build, I aim to find the highest performing (and often times most expensive) hardware for the time. Parts that were widely known, widely popular, and most impactful at the the time.

1998 is tricky. This is where that solid TNT card comes in which is pretty powerful (and pretty clear and futureproof), but then again there is the Glide API stranglehold on most games like Unreal where it'll only run best on a Voodoo2 (and that's even counting the Banshee later released that year)

and then there's those quantum3d monsters which would qualify as "best best"

So I guess we're looking at "what, for X function, was the 'if you're rich and cool, you have this one' piece of hardware".

But sometimes that might be more than one piece of hardware, for instance in 1992 the "rich and cool" sound card combination might have been an SB16 + SC-55 or something. Or maybe just an Ultrasound, I don't know.

So what if we generalize then. Instead of thinking about only the high end stuff, what if we just list out known hardware by year released? I was trying to narrow down the list to make it easier to reference, but again perhaps that approach is too subjective.

Something like this (Video cards as an example):

1996
Video Cards:
*Rendition Verite V1000: Sierra Screamin 3D
*3DFX Voodoo: Orchid Righteous 3D (4MB)

1997
Video Cards (3D):
*NEC/PowerVR: Matrox M3D
*Rendition Verite V2100: Diamond Stealth II S220
*Rendition Verite V2200: Hercules Thriller 3D 4MB/8MB PCI/AGP
*3DFX Voodoo: Diamond Monster 3D (4MB)

1998
Video Cards (3D):
*3DFX: Diamond Monster 3D II (8/12MB), Orchid Righteous 3D II (8/12MB)

Here Is a list of processors for now, it contains dates and specs some dates are unknown.

Intel Pentium lll MMX, SSE Processor ------> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tBSoF … dit?usp=sharing

Intel Pentium Pro & Pentium ll Overdrive -----> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QAlbG … dit?usp=sharing

Intel Pentium Processor -----> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W4rSX … dit?usp=sharing

Maybe we can pull together a list of video cards similar to this layout.

Hmm, well, here's a mockup of what it might look like:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Bhlr_ … dit?usp=sharing

What do you think? Should the video card section be split into 2D and 3D?

Each column holds the hardware that was released in each year, organized by how good it was, from top to bottom. Subjective of course, might need some work.

I put a couple things in the 1992 slot to demonstrate.

Does it look good or is this not what we're looking for?

keep the 2d and 3d cards together but just list but another column in that specifies weather its 2d or 3d, but keep the brands kinda together