kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 04:10:

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-28, 01:43:

Funny thing is, by 2000, 9x was so unstable that any reasonable person wanted NT anyways except for gaming (and even then... at least some game developers had passable support for 2000).

Are you referring to Millennium Edition when you say 9x codebase in 2000? If so, I agree. If you're referring to Windows 98, I disagree.

I'm referring to 98SE. I could literally boot up Windows 98SE on my PIII 700 with an always-on Internet connection, in summer 2000, open a standard set of applications (ICQ/AIM, a web browser, email client, newsreader, etc) and it would be at <20% system resources and start getting unstable in 30 minutes if I wasn't careful. Even being careful, I'd say you needed a reboot every 2-3 days due to system resources issues.

Once I undid my mistake ordering that machine with 98SE and installed Win2000 6 months later, same workflow, the machine could stay up for a month or two without a reboot. The only thing was... 128 megs of RAM turned out to be a little on the low side, but another 128 megs (which had become cheap) and it purred.

Once you got to above, oh, I don't know, 64 or 128 megs of RAM, the system resources thing became a huge, huge, huge problem. If you had 16 megs of RAM, who cares, you'll be swapping to your HDD like mad long before you run out of system resources, but with 128 megs of RAM, that's not the case anymore.

It's actually one of those things that astound me, how most people's nostalgia for 98SE isn't tainted by bad memories of system resource issues. Maybe it's a timing issue - if you went from a ~1998-era computer running 98 to a ~2002 computer running XP, you might have avoided the worst of it. Or maybe it has to do with people not having always-on high-speed Internet - if you were still on dialup, well, you can't run as many Internet applications at the same time and you wouldn't have them running all day. And if you turn off your system at night, that would have helped too.

For me, I still think the 98SE -> 2000 upgrade was the most consequential Windows upgrade ever. You went from a world of "can I open this program without the resource meter going to low and everything going wonky and reboot time" to not needing to think about reboots for weeks/months. No other upgrade was that dramatic - 3.1 -> 95 had a lot of benefits, especially for recent Mac converts, but it just wasn't that level of dramatic in terms of usability.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-29, 05:16:

If youre refering to the instability of 9x then if it counts for one (ME) then it counts for the other (98) because of the reaso […]
Show full quote

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 04:10:

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-28, 01:43:

Funny thing is, by 2000, 9x was so unstable that any reasonable person wanted NT anyways except for gaming (and even then... at least some game developers had passable support for 2000).

Are you referring to Millennium Edition when you say 9x codebase in 2000? If so, I agree. If you're referring to Windows 98, I disagree.

If youre refering to the instability of 9x then if it counts for one (ME) then it counts for the other (98) because of the reasons why it is so unstable.
Windows 98 was based on DOS which wasnt designed to do what they tried to make it do, the software written for the hardware was a major problem and stems from its foundation, poor resource management, PnP didnt work as intended and it didnt handle those problems very well, instabilities caused by software running on it.

If you ignore all that then yeah I would agree with you it was quite stable!

DOS/PnP/etc had nothing to do with the stability issues I'm referring to. If anything, the fact that my last 98SE hardware was very stable from that perspective contributed to my issues.

My problem with 98SE and its stability had to do with the infamous system resources; a huge design limitation that basically caused things to go wonky and need a reboot once you started running out of system resources.

I'm surprised you guys don't have memories of having the helpfully-included resource meter in your taskbar and watching it go low and low and low. And once you got below 15-20%, random windows would start getting corrupted and everything started breaking and REBOOT TIME!

If you treated 98SE as a quasi-single-tasking OS, you'd have been fine. If you wanted to take advantage of your always-on Internet connection, not so much.

dormcat wrote on 2023-10-29, 05:20:

I wouldn't be surprised if some users have such an opinion after seeing Win95 kept something like this:
Win95_PM.png

I believe one of the reasons that it was kept is that a whole number of Windows 3.1 installers added icons/program groups by directly interacting with progman.exe instead of using the proper APIs (which, in 9x, switched to generating shortcuts/folders in the start menu items). An early example of Microsoft keeping unnecessary dated stuff in the name of compatibility...

Great list, but expensive hardware for a gaming computer, especially for your avarage Joe, particularly since PC gaming didn't really gain much traction until the late 90's - early 2000's, and most folk probably wouldn't spend too much on a computer for gaming, especially in the early 90's. Back then, in my country at least, an early 90's gaming PC was a computer folks with disposible income would buy for their kids, and as such it was usually a budget computer.

I'd say your pics fit more into the "deam PC" category. In my opinion, gaming PC's by year would look more like this:

1992:

AMD 386DX-40 or 486SX-25
2-4MB of ram
512kb to 1MB ISA graphics card (Cirrus Logics, Trident or Tseng)
120-200MB HDD
Sound Blaster clone (Opti/ESS)
1.44" FDD

1993:

AMD/Cyrix 486 DX-33
4MB of ram
1MB ISA or VLB graphics card (Cirrus Logics, Trident, ARK)
200(ish)MB HDD
Sound Blaster clone (Opti/ESS)
1.44" FDD

1994:

AMD/Intel 486 DX2-66 or DX4-100 if the PC was purchased in late autum or winter 1994
8MB of ram
1MB VLB or PCI graphics card (S3, Cirrus Logics, Trident, ARK)
400-500MB HDD
Sound Blaster 16 Value or SB Clone (ESS, Aztec, Opti)
1.44" FDD

1995:

AMD 5x86-133 or Socket 5 Pentium 75
8MB of ram
1MB PCI graphics card (S3, Cirrus Logics, Trident, ARK)
500-800MB HDD
SB 16 Clone with integrated wavetable (ESS+Dream, Aztec+ICS WaveFont, Opti+Yamaha YMF-278BF, Yamaha YMF-719+YMF-721S ) or Sound Blaster 32 PNP
1.44" FDD
Optional CD-ROM drive, altough in 1995 I'd only seen very few new computers with CD-ROM drives, and those were usually OEM machines.

1996:

Cyrix PR-150 or Pentium 120
16MB of ram
2MB PCI graphics card (S3, Cirrus Logics, Trident, ARK)
800MB-1GB HDD
SB 16 Clone with integrated wavetable (ESS+Dream, Aztec+ICS WaveFont, Opti+Yamaha YMF-278BF, Yamaha YMF-719+YMF-721S ) or Creative AWE64 Value
8x CD-ROM Drive

1997:

Pentium 166 or AMD K6 200 or Cyrix PR-200
16 or 32MB ram
2MB PCI graphics card (S3, Cirrus Logics, Trident, ARK)
3DFX Voodoo 1 or PowerVR PCX1
800MB to 1.2GB HDD
SB 16 Clone with integrated wavetable (ESS+Dream, Aztec+ICS WaveFont, Opti+Yamaha YMF-278BF, Yamaha YMF-719+YMF-721S ) or Creative AWE64 Value
16x CD-ROM Drive

1998 was the first year I've seen PCs actually built for gaming starting to appear in my country - and there were two kinds from then on: budget (usually purchased for kids) and high-end (ish)

1998 budget gaming PC build:

AMD K6-2 350
VIA MVP3 Super-7 motherboard
32MB of ram
Riva 128 / Ati Rage PRO / S3 Trio3D + Voodoo 2 8MB (most likely purchased second hand after the kid realised his video card doesn't like openGL games)
1.2-2GB HDD
Budget sound card - AWE64 value, ESS Maestro, etc
24x CD-ROM Drive

1998 high end gaming PC (i've actually only ever seen one back in 1999 at a (ritch) friend's birthday party

Intel Pentium II 266
Intel 440BX board, ATX
64MB RAM
Intel 740 + Voodoo 2 SLI
2GB HDD
Creative AWE64 Gold
CD-RW
19" CRT (first time seing a monitor that big)

1999 budget build:

Celeron 300a + AT form factor i440LX board OR AMD K6-2 400 + VIA MVP3 board
Riva TNT2 M64 or Rage 128 Pro
64MB RAM
3.2GB HDD
random sound card
32x CD-ROM

1999 High End build:

Pentium III 500-600MHz
Intel i440BX board
64MB of RAM
3DFX Voodo 3
4GB HDD
Yamaha YMF744 or Aureal Vortex sound card
CD-RW (4x?)
DVD-ROM

2000's budget gaming PC

AMD Duron 600-700MHz (Intel's celeron line was pretty attractive, but I've only ever seen one Celeron ordered, a 733, and I could not call that a gaming PC since it had on-board everything).
VIA KT133 mainboard
128MB of ram
3DFX Voodoo 3 or Geforce 2 MX -> altrough most of the time the people ordered this PC with on board graphics to save money (despite our recomendation of at least a TNT2 M64), and would come in 2-3 months later for a dedicated graphics card. Oddly enough the money "saved" on the GPU for this "gaming" build would go to more ram and a bigger HDD, someties a CD-Burner.
4-6GB HDD
On-board sound card
48x CD-ROM, sometimes even a CD-Burner

2000's high-end gaming PC

AMD Athlon 850 or Pentium III 800
256MB of ram
Geforce 256 DDR or Radeon DDR
4-6GB HDD
Aureal Vortex 2, Yamaha YMF-744 or Creative Sound Blaster LIVE!
CD burner, DVD-ROM

If memory serves, that's about what sold in my coutry (new PCs) throughout the years, but please note that often times, gaming PCs in those years were built for kids, and were usually hand-me-downs or purchased second hand. The new setups I listed above were rarely purchased, at least from 1992 to 1998, since PC's were quite expensive here up until 1997(ish) and pay was low.

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 13:42:

dormcat wrote on 2023-10-29, 05:20:

I wouldn't be surprised if some users have such an opinion after seeing Win95 kept something like this:
Win95_PM.png

I believe one of the reasons that it was kept is that a whole number of Windows 3.1 installers added icons/program groups by directly interacting with progman.exe instead of using the proper APIs (which, in 9x, switched to generating shortcuts/folders in the start menu items). An early example of Microsoft keeping unnecessary dated stuff in the name of compatibility...

No offense, but you have the wildest, most unhinged takes on Windows 98 that I've ever seen. Every post of yours is about how 98 was unusable. I built hundreds of 98 machines for customers during that time (and supported them) and never experienced problems that weren't related to hardware issues like bad ram. Plenty of people on Vogons, including myself, build myriad permutations of Win98 machines and game on them for hours on end without "resource problems" and instability.

Also, your posts about old hardware are broad and incorrect. "Old" CPUs had MMUs. The CPU+MMU combo just didn't support modern features like virtual memory, etc.

Socket3 wrote on 2023-10-29, 19:38:

Great list, but expensive hardware for a gaming computer, especially for your avarage Joe, particularly since PC gaming didn't really gain much traction until the late 90's - early 2000's, and most folk probably wouldn't spend too much on a computer for gaming, especially in the early 90's. Back then, in my country at least, an early 90's gaming PC was a computer folks with disposible income would buy for their kids, and as such it was usually a budget computer.

I'd say your pics fit more into the "deam PC" category. In my opinion, gaming PC's by year would look more like this:

If memory serves, that's about what sold in my coutry (new PCs) throughout the years, but please note that often times, gaming PCs in those years were built for kids, and were usually hand-me-downs or purchased second hand. The new setups I listed above were rarely purchased, at least from 1992 to 1998, since PC's were quite expensive here up until 1997(ish) and pay was low.

Many of us tried to tell the OP this... really, what he's trying to do is a dream PC list for each year.

Fundamentally, until the rise of 3D graphics in the late 1990s, there wasn't really such a thing as a 'gaming PC'. Games were played on computers already acquired for other purposes, with perhaps a few additional peripherals like a sound card (and even then, the "multimedia PC" standard/trend threw sound cards in with CD-ROMs, so... if your parents bought the CD-ROM so you could use the encyclopedia for school, you also got a gaming-friendly sound card in the process)

I would probably argue that the "gaming PC" really became a thing only in the late 1990s when you get i) combined 2D/3D graphics cards using AGP, and ii) Intel launched their exceptionally-gaming-unfriendly on-chipset graphics. Suddenly you couldn't take a random computer your parents bought from Worst Buy (which was highly likely not to have an AGP slot) and play games with it... or throw a Voodoo card in an empty PCI slot.

And... I would probably add one other thing - I don't think there were many 20-35 year old PC gamers in the 1990s with money to spend on the kinds of parts that exist now. Lots of teens and pre-teens. No one would have bought a USD$1500+ video card for gaming in 1996...

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:25:

Many of us tried to tell the OP this... really, what he's trying to do is a dream PC list for each year.

I fully acknowledged this. It's right there in the title of the thread: Ultimate Gaming Rigs. 😉

This is largely inspired by the CGW ultimate gaming PCs from back in the day. They would spec out these ridiculous rigs with upwards of $10k price tags each year.

This list was never intended to be anything else.

Fundamentally, until the rise of 3D graphics in the late 1990s, there wasn't really such a thing as a 'gaming PC'

As early as 1993 there were PCs being advertised primarily for the purpose of gaming. So the idea of gaming PC goes back to at least 1993.

CGW started their own ultimate gaming PC lists beginning in December 1994.PC Gamer later did their own similar article in July 1996.

It was also games that in our house was driver for PC upgrades. After getting a taste of Doom back in early 1994, we pestered our parents for a new PC (486) since the old 286 didn't cut it any more. And I remember a lot of my money went towards various PC upgrades throughout the 90's primarily to play games.

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:20:

No offense, but you have the wildest, most unhinged takes on Windows 98 that I've ever seen. Every post of yours is about how 98 was unusable. I built hundreds of 98 machines for customers during that time (and supported them) and never experienced problems that weren't related to hardware issues like bad ram. Plenty of people on Vogons, including myself, build myriad permutations of Win98 machines and game on them for hours on end without "resource problems" and instability.

And I used 95/98 prior to 2000 on RAM-starved machines that were rebooted regularly and it was fine.

All I can tell you is that I had a PIII 700MHz that I ordered with 98SE. It was my computer, not shared with other family members, so not rebooted to change users ("log out" in 95/98 wasn't that reliable a way to change user profiles, reboot was better and not that much slower). Had full-time Internet access. And my recollection is that when it booted up and after opening my usual Internet apps (listed in the above post), it was already in the 50% free system resources. Use it for a day or two, system resources would go down and down, and... well, a few days later, reboot time.

That machine had no hardware issues. Put Win2000 on it and it would run 1-3 months without a reboot.

Am I the ONLY one to remember what happens when the 64k of GDI and USER system resources are exhausted in Win9x????? That was widely established at the time - I actually remember reading about it in magazines in the Win3.1 days (and the magazines said Win95 had improvements that would make the situation less bad), but I certainly didn't have good enough hardware to run out of resources before effectively running out of RAM in the 3.1 days. In fact, it would take me five years after Win9x's hardware to have enough RAM where this became an issue.

There's even a Wikipedia article about this so I don't think I'm crazy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device … ace#Limitations . They describe EXACTLY the same thing I am saying. As you open more stuff in Win9x, you draw upon this limited pool of resources, and if you start to run out, it stops being able to create new windows, etc and goes all wonky requiring a reboot!

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:20:

Also, your posts about old hardware are broad and incorrect. "Old" CPUs had MMUs. The CPU+MMU combo just didn't support modern features like virtual memory, etc.

I think I was thinking more about Macs/68K - 68K didn't have built-in MMUs until the 68030, and a huge part of the classic MacOS's issues stem from having designed it (unlike the Lisa) without an MMU. That's not exactly that controversial - go read Andy Hertzfeld's stories at folklore.org. This is the guy who designed most of the relevant parts of the OS.

I'm not sure which post this was (you're welcome to respond to it if you disagree), but I would say that it's fairly well-known that memory management (and multitasking), and in particular memory architectures that did not scale well as RAM became more affordable, was a major challenge for 1980s OSes - DOS/Windows, the classic MacOS, etc. And really, these issues only got fully sorted out by the move to 'modern' OSes in the early 2000s.

And, I would further add, this is not really a 'modern' vs 'old' thing. I've never used VMS, but I suspect VMS had proper memory management long before Dave Cutler went to Microsoft and started working on NT. And I suspect UNIX had proper memory management dating back to the early 1970s. What those OSes all had in common is that, at least until some point in the 1990s, they needed hardware at least an order of magnitude more expensive than a PC.

In any event, I am not going to pretend I am an expert on x86 memory management (I am not), but let me ask you this: could an 8086/8088 or even a 80286 do memory management in the way required by a serious OS (whether NT, UNIX, Linux, or anything else)? My understanding has always been no, that the 80386 (which happened to come out around the same time as the 68030) in protected mode was the first x86 chip with the necessary abilities. And I believe Wikipedia claims that one big problem OS/2 encountered is that IBM insisted it needed to run on a 286, but that the 286 was missing some of those features.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:30:

I fully acknowledged this. It's right there in the title of the thread: Ultimate Gaming Rigs. ;) […]
Show full quote

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:25:

Many of us tried to tell the OP this... really, what he's trying to do is a dream PC list for each year.

I fully acknowledged this. It's right there in the title of the thread: Ultimate Gaming Rigs. 😉

This is largely inspired by the CGW ultimate gaming PCs from back in the day. They would spec out these ridiculous rigs with upwards of $10k price tags each year.

This list was never intended to be anything else.

It's such a weird exercise they were doing when you actually think about it. $10K USD in the 1990s was a huge amount of money, you could probably have bought an economy car for that kind of money. So... what's the point of putting together these dream lists almost none of their readers could afford? And the other question is - how much better is the $10K machine compared to, say, a $3500 machine? My guess is <10-15% difference, but did they tell you that? By the next summer, the $3500 machine would outperform the holiday season's $10K machine.

I've seen plenty of web sites in the 2000s do the same exercise, but they've typically done it with a $5K budget. $5K is still a lot, but with the aging of gamers, plus the fact that hardware evolves slower, it's not completely crazy. And it's also interesting in another way - if you need one or two parts higher-end than their $2500 system, you can always mix and match from both lists.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:30:

As early 1993 there were PCs being advertised primarily for the purpose of gaming. So the idea of gaming PC goes back to at leas […]
Show full quote

Fundamentally, until the rise of 3D graphics in the late 1990s, there wasn't really such a thing as a 'gaming PC'

As early 1993 there were PCs being advertised primarily for the purpose of gaming. So the idea of gaming PC goes back to at least 1993.

And CGW started their own ultimate gaming PC lists beginning in December 1994.

It was also games that at least in our house that was driver for PC upgrades. After getting a taste of Doom back in early 1994, we pestered our parents for a new PC (486) since the old 286 didn't cut it any more. And I remember investing spare cash in various PC upgrades throughout the 90's primarily to play games.

Well, I think the 286... didn't cut it for a lot of purposes by 1994 😀 This was an era where I had to get more RAM for a 3-month-old 486 just to run Office 4.2.

The interesting question - what were those 'various PC upgrades' you got? And were they gaming-specific or things that would be helpful both for games and productivity but that you happened to want for gaming? Faster CPUs, bigger hard drives, etc. were useful for basically every purpose. RAM - my guess is you needed more RAM for Office 4.2 than for Doom, but maybe not?

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:59:

So... what's the point of putting together these dream lists almost none of their readers could afford?

Just for fun. I used to read those articles and fantasize about what it would be like to game on one of those at the time.

That's partially why I am making this list now. I'm actively building a lot of these machines just to see what it would have been like to game on one back in the day.

The interesting question - what were those 'various PC upgrades' you got? And were they gaming-specific or things that would be helpful both for games and productivity but that you happened to want for gaming? Faster CPUs, bigger hard drives, etc. were useful for basically every purpose. RAM - my guess is you needed more RAM for Office 4.2 than for Doom, but maybe not?

Any upgrades were 100% intended for gaming. Pre-internet, our family computer was primarily for gaming and word processing. The latter we could have easily done on an XT class system especially since we used the same DOS application (Q&A Write) for years.

The specific upgrades I remember personally buying included more RAM, a Matrox Millennium video card (which I remember paying around $400 to $500 for), a Pentium MMX 166 processor, and a Diamond Monster 3D. I might have also bought a modem or two, but I don't remember. Eventually I bought my own PC back in 1998.

The other funny thing about these upgrades were I did them all in secret. My parents didn't like the idea of spending money on the computer, so we couldn't take it to a store for upgrades. So I'd buy hardware myself and install it without anyone being the wiser. 😁

Fortunately my parents were also computer illiterate enough not to notice when anything changed.

Socket3 wrote on 2023-10-29, 19:38:

Great list, but expensive hardware for a gaming computer, especially for your avarage Joe, particularly since PC gaming didn't really gain much traction until the late 90's - early 2000's, and most folk probably wouldn't spend too much on a computer for gaming, especially in the early 90's. Back then, in my country at least, an early 90's gaming PC was a computer folks with disposible income would buy for their kids, and as such it was usually a budget computer.

Back in the 90's, I did spend a lot of my earned money on hardware for gaming. I think our first computer was maybe 1988 or 1989 (286) and computers in our family were almost entirely used for games from that point onward.

I'd say your pics fit more into the "deam PC" category. In my opinion, gaming PC's by year would look more like this:

Yeah, the list is intended to be the highest end specs each year for a gaming PC. It's inspired from Computer Gaming World's ultimate gaming machine articles they used to publish annually.

Your list is definitely more representative of what realistic builds would have looked like for gamers.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-29, 22:15:

Any upgrades were 100% intended for gaming. Pre-internet, our family computer was primarily for gaming and word processing. Th […]
Show full quote

Any upgrades were 100% intended for gaming. Pre-internet, our family computer was primarily for gaming and word processing. The latter we could have easily done on an XT class system especially since we used the same DOS application (Q&A Write) for years.

The specific upgrades I remember personally buying included more RAM, a Matrox Millennium video card (which I remember paying around $400 to $500 for), a Pentium MMX 166 processor, and a Diamond Monster 3D. I might have also bought a modem or two, but I don't remember. Eventually I bought my own PC back in 1998.

The other funny thing about these upgrades were I did them all in secret. My parents didn't like the idea of spending money on the computer, so we couldn't take it to a store for upgrades. So I'd buy hardware myself and install it without anyone being the wiser. 😁

Fortunately my parents were also computer illiterate enough not to notice when anything changed.

Consider me impressed! 😀 I certainly wouldn't have contemplated or pulled off that kind of sneakiness...

I remember the first time or two opening up a computer, my parents had maximum anxiety and, frankly, would have probably preferred taking it to a store. And, with the benefit of hindsight, I kinda get it - you've got a piece of hardware that costs real money, that the entire family is relying on, that they don't understand, and that is being opened up by some teenager who has zero experience/training/etc beyond whatever instructions are in the box.

I also remember my late uncle - first computer he/my aunt got new, a Dell Dimension 2400/3000 that I told him to buy with an absurdly-too-little-for-XP 128 megs of RAM and then order some RAM elsewhere. When I turned up to set it up for them, and popped the case open, he was astounded to discover that this computer was mostly empty space... and how easy/modular it was. I have a vague recollection that he ended up buying even more RAM for it a few years later and installed it himself. People just... had no idea... how those things worked, so certainly when they cost big bucks in the 1990s, I can understand the anxiety about your kid taking it apart. (And hence my admiration that you were willing to take on the risk of the computer not working if one of your sneaky upgrades went sideways...)

And well, in my case, sometimes parents would frustrate a lot of plans, e.g. in 1996 or so, stuck with a 420 meg hard drive and a BIOS that wouldn't go over 5xx megs and a motherboard with only one PATA channel (yes, I know, it seems odd to believe, but this early-1995 computer had only one PATA channel) and no other obvious way of adding storage (slow parallel port that was likely too slow for a Zip drive, just one free ISA slot, no PCI/etc), I thought DriveSpace 3 was a reasonable idea and compressed the drive. Within a few weeks, my parents were like 'the computer is much slower now, that needs to be removed'. So... back to 420 megs things went. I also had a big worry when I installed TCP/IP on this machine for something, it included the Client for Microsoft Networks and some other things, and they complained the computer was much slower... but removing the Client for Microsoft Networks and leaving TCP/IP fixed the issue and left the door open for getting dial-up Internet access a few months later 😀

And honestly, I will say this - while I may have disagreed with some things on your list, I do agree with the spirit. If I wanted a 1995-era system, certainly, I wouldn't want back my 1995-era system. (I continue to be astounded I saw one on Facebook marketplace with the original 4 megs of RAM and bundled 14" monitor a few months and it sold promptly.) Not when I spent the next 3.5 years battling its limitations. So, if I wanted a 1995-era system (and maybe I will look at that if I can get my 98SE project working), I might as well get as close to the dreamiest 1995-era system that one can reasonably find today. At least your list's ultimate-end-of-1994 system would have two PATA channels, an EPP/ECP parallel port, probably PCI slots, and serial ports with 16550 UARTs. 😀

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:20:

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 13:42:

dormcat wrote on 2023-10-29, 05:20:

I wouldn't be surprised if some users have such an opinion after seeing Win95 kept something like this:
Win95_PM.png

I believe one of the reasons that it was kept is that a whole number of Windows 3.1 installers added icons/program groups by directly interacting with progman.exe instead of using the proper APIs (which, in 9x, switched to generating shortcuts/folders in the start menu items). An early example of Microsoft keeping unnecessary dated stuff in the name of compatibility...

No offense, but you have the wildest, most unhinged takes on Windows 98 that I've ever seen. Every post of yours is about how 98 was unusable. I built hundreds of 98 machines for customers during that time (and supported them) and never experienced problems that weren't related to hardware issues like bad ram. Plenty of people on Vogons, including myself, build myriad permutations of Win98 machines and game on them for hours on end without "resource problems" and instability.

Also, your posts about old hardware are broad and incorrect. "Old" CPUs had MMUs. The CPU+MMU combo just didn't support modern features like virtual memory, etc.

I would suggest maybe 1% of the people on Vogons use their Windows 98 PCs like we did back in the late 90s into the 2000s.
The resource problems are baked into the Win9x architecture itself and the underlaying problem is DOS.

I have a few PCs running Windows 98 today and the experience is very different to the ones I had back when I owned them in the 90s, and that is purely down to the way we use them now.
Half or all of the software I used to have to install then just isnt needed now so none of the problems will manifest themselves and Windows wont struggle.

Its not like this is just my opinion on 98, its based on technical limitations of the OS itself and is well documented.

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:20:

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 13:42:

dormcat wrote on 2023-10-29, 05:20:

I wouldn't be surprised if some users have such an opinion after seeing Win95 kept something like this:
Win95_PM.png

I believe one of the reasons that it was kept is that a whole number of Windows 3.1 installers added icons/program groups by directly interacting with progman.exe instead of using the proper APIs (which, in 9x, switched to generating shortcuts/folders in the start menu items). An early example of Microsoft keeping unnecessary dated stuff in the name of compatibility...

No offense, but you have the wildest, most unhinged takes on Windows 98 that I've ever seen. Every post of yours is about how 98 was unusable. I built hundreds of 98 machines for customers during that time (and supported them) and never experienced problems that weren't related to hardware issues like bad ram. Plenty of people on Vogons, including myself, build myriad permutations of Win98 machines and game on them for hours on end without "resource problems" and instability.

Also, your posts about old hardware are broad and incorrect. "Old" CPUs had MMUs. The CPU+MMU combo just didn't support modern features like virtual memory, etc.

Right click the my computer icon on the desktop and click the performance tab, then click the Virtual Memory button...
Its called Virtual Memory in Windows 98 but its also known as a swap file.
Its used when you have a low amount (lower than that which is required, so 16Mb could be considered low, but so could 512Mb if you require more at the time the call is made) of system RAM, it is also used to hibernate the computer.

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:48:

And I used 95/98 prior to 2000 on RAM-starved machines that were rebooted regularly and it was fine. […]
Show full quote

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:20:

No offense, but you have the wildest, most unhinged takes on Windows 98 that I've ever seen. Every post of yours is about how 98 was unusable. I built hundreds of 98 machines for customers during that time (and supported them) and never experienced problems that weren't related to hardware issues like bad ram. Plenty of people on Vogons, including myself, build myriad permutations of Win98 machines and game on them for hours on end without "resource problems" and instability.

And I used 95/98 prior to 2000 on RAM-starved machines that were rebooted regularly and it was fine.

All I can tell you is that I had a PIII 700MHz that I ordered with 98SE. It was my computer, not shared with other family members, so not rebooted to change users ("log out" in 95/98 wasn't that reliable a way to change user profiles, reboot was better and not that much slower). Had full-time Internet access. And my recollection is that when it booted up and after opening my usual Internet apps (listed in the above post), it was already in the 50% free system resources. Use it for a day or two, system resources would go down and down, and... well, a few days later, reboot time.

That machine had no hardware issues. Put Win2000 on it and it would run 1-3 months without a reboot.

Am I the ONLY one to remember what happens when the 64k of GDI and USER system resources are exhausted in Win9x????? That was widely established at the time - I actually remember reading about it in magazines in the Win3.1 days (and the magazines said Win95 had improvements that would make the situation less bad), but I certainly didn't have good enough hardware to run out of resources before effectively running out of RAM in the 3.1 days. In fact, it would take me five years after Win9x's hardware to have enough RAM where this became an issue.

There's even a Wikipedia article about this so I don't think I'm crazy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device … ace#Limitations . They describe EXACTLY the same thing I am saying. As you open more stuff in Win9x, you draw upon this limited pool of resources, and if you start to run out, it stops being able to create new windows, etc and goes all wonky requiring a reboot!

kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 20:20:

Also, your posts about old hardware are broad and incorrect. "Old" CPUs had MMUs. The CPU+MMU combo just didn't support modern features like virtual memory, etc.

I think I was thinking more about Macs/68K - 68K didn't have built-in MMUs until the 68030, and a huge part of the classic MacOS's issues stem from having designed it (unlike the Lisa) without an MMU. That's not exactly that controversial - go read Andy Hertzfeld's stories at folklore.org. This is the guy who designed most of the relevant parts of the OS.

I'm not sure which post this was (you're welcome to respond to it if you disagree), but I would say that it's fairly well-known that memory management (and multitasking), and in particular memory architectures that did not scale well as RAM became more affordable, was a major challenge for 1980s OSes - DOS/Windows, the classic MacOS, etc. And really, these issues only got fully sorted out by the move to 'modern' OSes in the early 2000s.

And, I would further add, this is not really a 'modern' vs 'old' thing. I've never used VMS, but I suspect VMS had proper memory management long before Dave Cutler went to Microsoft and started working on NT. And I suspect UNIX had proper memory management dating back to the early 1970s. What those OSes all had in common is that, at least until some point in the 1990s, they needed hardware at least an order of magnitude more expensive than a PC.

In any event, I am not going to pretend I am an expert on x86 memory management (I am not), but let me ask you this: could an 8086/8088 or even a 80286 do memory management in the way required by a serious OS (whether NT, UNIX, Linux, or anything else)? My understanding has always been no, that the 80386 (which happened to come out around the same time as the 68030) in protected mode was the first x86 chip with the necessary abilities. And I believe Wikipedia claims that one big problem OS/2 encountered is that IBM insisted it needed to run on a 286, but that the 286 was missing some of those features.

Yeah its not just in your mind and I dont think youre the only person who remembers it if they really think about it.
Windows 98 did have a limited number of system resources, it had 16384 user resources and 10240 for the GDI that it could call on and after that then it wouldnt be able to call any more even if it had other system resources to call on (like if it had free physical RAM to store them in)
Its one of the limitations of the OS itself.
Windows 2000 changed the user resoruces, it wasnt limited, there was an infinate number it could create as long as it had the system resources, like RAM to create them into.
Thus Win2k was more stable in its operations.
I have had Win2k servers up and running for several years at a time.

Windows ME changed some things and despite all the talk about ME by the shall we say "more modern users" it was better in many ways than 98 was. Because it could strip unused resources that hadnt been released properly by applications or drivers and return then to the useable pool.

I remember my parents PC bought from Tiny Computers at some point in the late 90s. It had a PIII 450/128/8.4Gb. i810 with onboard sound and VGA.
Nothing to write home about.

I remember using that computer several times over the years and I found that it was amazingly unstable and always run out of resources and always had one problem or another... be that slow video or just needed to restart etc.
Meanwhile my parents used it for several years and didnt replace it until well into the XP era... SP2 days. Vista might even have been RC2. but im not sure. I do remember using it to do a repack of RC2 but that could be after they replaced it and I was staying there so used that... CAnt remember.
And that was the same computer, same login even, just two different use cases.

So im quite prepared to believe people never had a problem with it, but by experience I also know that doesnt mean a lot because all you have to do is change what you want it to do to see the problems that are there, you just cant see them all the time.

Honestly, after ten days on the first page I still don't get what's the point of this topic if you reject all the suggestions on this magazine ads based configurations. I can make a long argue with arguments on most of the listed "top tear" configurations by years, but maybe this is the point - just to waste time.

analog_programmer wrote on 2023-10-30, 07:44:

Honestly, after ten days on the first page I still don't get what's the point of this topic if you reject all the suggestions on this magazine ads based configurations. I can make a long argue with arguments on most of the listed "top tear" configurations by years, but maybe this is the point - just to waste time.

I think it’s pretty clear: the OP wants to build a list of the specs for the ultimate gaming-oriented PC for each year. What “ultimate” means is part of the discussion, usually it’s the highest-specced components available that year, unless for some reason they affect the main purpose of the system (gaming).

We do this because for us it’s a fun exercise to try and build (or just fantasize about) what kind of computer we could have realistically assembled at that time if money was not a limitation.

It’s not more of a waste of time than fooling around with old computers or games or any hobby for that matter. Not every retro PC has to be a utilitarian DOS socket 7 PC with slowdown from a Phil’s Computer Lab guide or a P4 with all W98 games.

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-29, 22:32:

Consider me impressed! 😀 I certainly wouldn't have contemplated or pulled off that kind of sneakiness...

I remember the first time or two opening up a computer, my parents had maximum anxiety and, frankly, would have probably preferred taking it to a store. And, with the benefit of hindsight, I kinda get it - you've got a piece of hardware that costs real money, that the entire family is relying on, that they don't understand, and that is being opened up by some teenager who has zero experience/training/etc beyond whatever instructions are in the box.

Thank you! 😀

In fairness, my parents fears were somewhat justified. I do remember damaging pins on a motherboard at one point and having to replace it. Similarly, a friend of my fried his computer when trying to install an Adlib card while the computer was powered on.

I chalk it up to part of the learning experience. One is bound to break something when tinkering around with computers and everything can be repaired or replaced.

I also remember my late uncle - first computer he/my aunt got new, a Dell Dimension 2400/3000 that I told him to buy with an absurdly-too-little-for-XP 128 megs of RAM and then order some RAM elsewhere. When I turned up to set it up for them, and popped the case open, he was astounded to discover that this computer was mostly empty space... and how easy/modular it was. I have a vague recollection that he ended up buying even more RAM for it a few years later and installed it himself. People just... had no idea... how those things worked, so certainly when they cost big bucks in the 1990s, I can understand the anxiety about your kid taking it apart. (And hence my admiration that you were willing to take on the risk of the computer not working if one of your sneaky upgrades went sideways...)

I imagine for anyone used to more traditional appliances that the modular nature of a computer would have been quite a change.

I thought DriveSpace 3 was a reasonable idea and compressed the drive. Within a few weeks, my parents were like 'the computer is much slower now, that needs to be removed'.

Heh, I remember discovering DriveSpace and marveling at how it turned a 40 megabyte drive into a 120 MB drive. Until I started trying to install stuff and watching that free space disappear much quicker than expected.

Turns out drive compression wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

And honestly, I will say this - while I may have disagreed with some things on your list, I do agree with the spirit.

Thank you, I do appreciate it. 😀

I recognize that no matter what I put in this list, someone will disagree with it. But that's okay, it's just all in fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

If I wanted a 1995-era system, certainly, I wouldn't want back my 1995-era system. (I continue to be astounded I saw one on Facebook marketplace with the original 4 megs of RAM and bundled 14" monitor a few months and it sold promptly.) Not when I spent the next 3.5 years battling its limitations. So, if I wanted a 1995-era system (and maybe I will look at that if I can get my 98SE project working), I might as well get as close to the dreamiest 1995-era system that one can reasonably find today. At least your list's ultimate-end-of-1994 system would have two PATA channels, an EPP/ECP parallel port, probably PCI slots, and serial ports with 16550 UARTs. 😀

This is exactly why I created this list; having something to compare/benchmark the top-end specs of each year relative to more mainstream or budget oriented systems.

TheMobRules wrote on 2023-10-30, 13:44:

I think it’s pretty clear: the OP wants to build a list of the specs for the ultimate gaming-oriented PC for each year. What “ultimate” means is part of the discussion, usually it’s the highest-specced components available that year, unless for some reason they affect the main purpose of the system (gaming).

Exactly. I feel like I've been fairly transparent about the intent of the list/thread. I do recognize that not everyone will agree with everything on the list, and that different folks have different ideas of what an ultimate gaming rig would entail.

It is just for fun though. I figured since it was something I was doing anyway for my own interest, I'd share it here for anyone who might be interested.

You do recognize that not everyone will agree with everything on the list as different folks have different ideas of what an was ultimate gaming rig for those years, but from what perspective?

Some guys wrote that for the time they were new some parts were too expensive for casual home computer user back then. Of course now (for example) old computer RAM and likes are affordable as obsolete (useless) parts. And of course you insist that it's proper to use only top tear parts for the year of the platform was put on the store shelves, not in terms of compatibility (usually a year or two later best parts are available). To me these rules are in pure contradiction. If I'm gonna assembly for example entire slot1 system I'll not limit myself to chose parts just from the year this system was first-time seen by consumers.

I think you just have enough spare time to dig in old PC-magazines ads, selecting the most expensive parts year by year and presenting them here, but as I wrote I see no point in this task. Maybe its some kind of yours personal pleasure, so enjoy. I'll not mess anymore.