VOGONS


First post, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

According to many websites, they suggest a 500MHz CPU and a 16MB video card, which I find hard to believe as CS started out as a Half Life mod, and CPUs and GPUs with those specs didn't even exist when HL first came out.

Reply 1 of 12, by leileilol

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

1998 had plenty of 16MB video cards (TNT, Banshee). There's also the AMD K6-2 500MHz. Counter-Strike first came summer 1999 and the P3, Voodoo3 and TNT2 were already in full swing.

When Counter-Strike released 1.3 in 2001, it included 512x512 textures for player models so the 16mb VRAM requirement is more about those.

Most of Counter-Strike's performance issues stem from texture switching in particular with weapon models and animated sprites (especially large amounts bullet impact smoke). It was worse in earlier versions when each player model had like 4 different textures each, the 1.0 update resolved that with new single surface meshes. And of cousre the infamous smoke grenades that cause fillrate issues especially for unfortunate Rage Pro users......

Counter-Strike 1.6 today would require Windows XP and a P4 to run because of the Steam minimum requirements.

I've had CS 1.5 (last WON version) running on a PCX2 before, and that's way under 16mb 😀

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 2 of 12, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I see. The requirements actually kind of make sense now. 🤣

Reply 3 of 12, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I remember trying to help a guy with a SiS 530 IGP run the game. 😁 Oh boy.

Reply 4 of 12, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
swaaye wrote:

I remember trying to help a guy with a SiS 530 IGP run the game. 😁 Oh boy.

Could he even run it in software mode?

Reply 5 of 12, by leileilol

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Software mode is much faster (and prettier, of all things) than SiS 530....

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 6 of 12, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Care to do a video capture of a SiS 530 in action? 🤣

Reply 7 of 12, by leileilol

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

TBH I've only seen a SiS 651 in action and that's bad enough, it doesn't even do bilinear filtering properly so all the lightmaps look funny and patterned 😁
here's an OA screenshot that shows the filtering and the loss of color precision in modulated blend which would be bad for textures under lightmaps.

surely anything earlier is undoubtedly worse... Trident Blade is better than this trash!

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 8 of 12, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

SiS 530 can just barely run GLQuake adequately... 😀

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Could he even run it in software mode?

Since it was a K6 it was pretty sad in general. But I remember messing with D3D, OGL and software modes at very low resolutions.

Reply 9 of 12, by F2bnp

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

The SiS 530 is basically a SiS 6326. Very slow, but very compatible I would say.
I managed to run Quake III on it, obviously it is unplayable, rarely producing framerates that include 2 digits, even on the lowest possible settings. The sheer fact that it ran without any hassle though, I would say is quite a feat.

Reply 10 of 12, by leileilol

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Well even a measly MGA-G100a can run Q3A if beaten with a D3D wrapper... 😀

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 11 of 12, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
swaaye wrote:

SiS 530 can just barely run GLQuake adequately... 😀

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Could he even run it in software mode?

Since it was a K6 it was pretty sad in general. But I remember messing with D3D, OGL and software modes at very low resolutions.

That reminds of some experiences I've had a few years back trying to get TF2 to run acceptably on my friends' computers. Do you know how DIFFICULT it is to find a 16:10 resolution below 1280x800 that most onboard graphics cards will actually recognize? 🤣 I still wish they wrote graphics drivers capable of handling 320x200 in D3D or OGL, so that I could get games running on even the crappiest of machines.

Reply 12 of 12, by F2bnp

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
leileilol wrote:

Well even a measly MGA-G100a can run Q3A if beaten with a D3D wrapper... 😀

It won't look really accurate though, would it? I remember the SiS card actually rendering it properly!