RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-05, 15:54:

Just look at how much progress was made between 2000 and 2005 (Quake III Arena / Quake 4) and how much in any 5 years interval since then.

This is a really interesting concept. Most games from 2011 still look good and there's really nothing to complain about the controls. Think about games from 2001 compared to 2011, or 1991 to 2001. What a huge difference it used to be.

Regardless of how old it may be the Core2 architecture is anything but retro. It is more or less the same thing as Intel 10th Gen Core CPUs with less cores and clockspeed. An E6600 from 2006 runs Windows 10 just fine today. I know, because I am setting up a Win98/Win7 dual boot on an E6600 these days.

sf78 wrote on 2021-02-09, 10:12:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-05, 15:54:

Just look at how much progress was made between 2000 and 2005 (Quake III Arena / Quake 4) and how much in any 5 years interval since then.

This is a really interesting concept. Most games from 2011 still look good and there's really nothing to complain about the controls. Think about games from 2001 compared to 2011, or 1991 to 2001. What a huge difference it used to be.

It's not too weird as a concept. This is just the rule of diminishing returns. As we get closer to photorealism, there is less room to grow while growth demands more work and computational power. New technologies if fully implemented are absolute resource hogs which only gives marginally better visuals when turned on.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-02-09, 10:43:

Regardless of how old it may be the Core2 architecture is anything but retro. It is more or less the same thing as Intel 10th Gen Core CPUs with less cores and clockspeed. An E6600 from 2006 runs Windows 10 just fine today. I know, because I am setting up a Win98/Win7 dual boot on an E6600 these days.

I don't think that's the right way to look it. The way we interact with and companies support technologies are fundamentally different than what it was in the 90s. Up until Windows 10 we got a new version of Windows about every 3 years. Not taking into consideration hardware that is older than 3 generations wasn't extraordinary. Windows 10 as a rolling release is already in its 6th year and will stay with us at least for the next couple of years. That alone ensures long term support for older hardware, but on top of that in the late 2000s the rising popularity of low power systems (netbooks and nettops) just a touch above slim clients made it favorable for desktop OSs to run fine on underpowered hardware. Today all of the low-end notebook segment is built on the successors of these underpowered components that are still to this day slower than the Core2.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-09, 06:10:

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-02-09, 00:42:

For me I think of retro as not used or supported anymore. You can lump anything that has [...] standalone sound cards.

To this day I don't consider a PC complete without a dedicated sound card. My daily driver has an ASUS Xonar DGX and I built it out of brand new parts about 2 years ago.

Built in sound has been pretty decent for a long time now unless you are doing real audio work. You are better off spending cash on better speakers then on a sound card.

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-02-11, 01:23:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-09, 06:10:

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-02-09, 00:42:

For me I think of retro as not used or supported anymore. You can lump anything that has [...] standalone sound cards.

To this day I don't consider a PC complete without a dedicated sound card. My daily driver has an ASUS Xonar DGX and I built it out of brand new parts about 2 years ago.

Built in sound has been pretty decent for a long time now unless you are doing real audio work. You are better off spending cash on better speakers then on a sound card.

I found upgrading to a external DAC, the Schiit Hel made a nice diffrence in my game experience. Sounds great with the HD58X, much more clear and detailed compared to my X570's onboard. Plus I'm paranoid about EMI noise so having a soundcard outside the case makes a world of diffrence to my peace.

sf78 wrote on 2021-02-09, 10:12:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-05, 15:54:

Just look at how much progress was made between 2000 and 2005 (Quake III Arena / Quake 4) and how much in any 5 years interval since then.

This is a really interesting concept. Most games from 2011 still look good and there's really nothing to complain about the controls. Think about games from 2001 compared to 2011, or 1991 to 2001. What a huge difference it used to be.

One of the most popular games in 2000 was Diablo 2 and that wasn't even in 3D.

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-02-11, 01:23:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-09, 06:10:

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-02-09, 00:42:

For me I think of retro as not used or supported anymore. You can lump anything that has [...] standalone sound cards.

To this day I don't consider a PC complete without a dedicated sound card. My daily driver has an ASUS Xonar DGX and I built it out of brand new parts about 2 years ago.

Built in sound has been pretty decent for a long time now unless you are doing real audio work. You are better off spending cash on better speakers then on a sound card.

My relatively top of the line (when I purchased it in the spring of 2019 ) Z390 AORUS Master https://www.gigabyte.com/ca/Motherboard/Z390- … S-MASTER-rev-10 , in spite of its heavily hyped audio subsystem, still managed to generate audible noise, at least through the front panel out of my Antec Nine Hundred case when doing things like adjusting fan profiles. I did not test the rear output that uses an ESS Sabre DAC, as that does not seem to be well suited to driving headphones . Whether the issue is due to the motherboard itself or a cheap front panel/wiring harness is unknown, but at the end of the day, faced with either

a) getting a headphone AMP and using the rear output (assuming that it is noise free)
b) getting an external DAC designed for headphone output and connect it to the optical S/PDIF out (might be short lived as there is no guarantee that my next motherboard will have optical S/PDIF out)
c) Changing the front output wiring harness or even the case itself (a fair amount of effort and might be pointless as the issue might be the motherboard itself and besides, I like my Antec Nine Hundred)
d) getting a Fiio E10K USB DAC that will work with this motherboard through USB and whatever I buy next, with, at most the addition of a micro USB to USB-C cable and sounds fine to me with my headphones .

I chose option d .

If I was using speakers with this system, I probably would have gotten audio through the optical S/PDIF out or HDMI .

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-02-11, 01:33:

One of the most popular games in 2000 was Diablo 2 and that wasn't even in 3D.

And look how dated it was in 2010. It had the same pre-rendered look as Crusader No Remorse from -95.

sf78 wrote on 2021-02-09, 10:12:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-02-05, 15:54:

Just look at how much progress was made between 2000 and 2005 (Quake III Arena / Quake 4) and how much in any 5 years interval since then.

This is a really interesting concept. Most games from 2011 still look good and there's really nothing to complain about the controls. Think about games from 2001 compared to 2011, or 1991 to 2001. What a huge difference it used to be.

yes very true, there was almost an annual improvement noticeable back then, not so much now. the decades you chose are good examples, sure a game from 2011 might look very slightly older but not out of place - however a 1991 game in 2001! very different indeed!

Given my retro build i started last year is a 2005 build i certainly consider it retro. That said it was a turning point so some of these builds are more retro than others.

To me to qualify as retro the following needs to be the case :
- Contains a BIOS with no UEFI update being availible to modernize the system (This seperates my retro PC from my previous now 10 year old PC that has everything you need for the modern era).
- It has or even relies on obsolete tech, such as AGP, north bridges, old DDR standards, lack of USB3, AC97, parralel ports, IDE, floppy controllers, etc.
- Most importantly of all it can be used to do things modern systems can no longer do. Such as running Windows 98 stable on bare metal will all drivers installed correctly. XP is tricky here because XP still has unofficial support keeping it alive on modern tech but i know that my modern PC would never be able to run it. So in my opinion XP counts on this one, 7 does not since modern PC's can still run it and it doesn't rely on older tech to function. But also things like soundblaster emulation and native EAX come in play here.
- It can be used with Retro parts such as PCI hardware, AGP video cards, IDE hardware and floppy drives. None of which my modern PC can do.
- (Optional but a good indicator) Can not run the latest version of Windows properly.

So i don't think there is a certain cutoff point in terms of year. After all my 2005 Athlon 64 X2 build can almost flawlessly run 98, runs most dos games i tried and still has AGP graphics, ide controllers, a dvd drive with a headphone jack done in a case that feels undoubtedly retro. Yes, its clearly more modern than era's before it and resembles what we have now with the lack of jumpers on the motherboard or support for USB2 . And yes i could stick Windows 10 on it and usably use it as an office PC. But a system reliant on so much old tech to the point the vast majority of components in it are tech we no longer see in the modern day make it undoubtedly retro.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-02-09, 10:43:

Regardless of how old it may be the Core2 architecture is anything but retro. It is more or less the same thing as Intel 10th Gen Core CPUs with less cores and clockspeed. An E6600 from 2006 runs Windows 10 just fine today. I know, because I am setting up a Win98/Win7 dual boot on an E6600 these days.

I disagree with the idea that if its fast enough for lightweight modern day use on Windows 10 which my Athlon 64 X2 also qualifies for would be a disqualifier. The fact you are dual booting Windows 98 on that one should say a lot about how retro that system is. Especially if you like me can use official drivers for all the components in the system and its officially supported on them. A few year newer build would not pull that off.

So judging a CPU in a 2006 era build to me isn't very telling. Because in my case that same CPU can be put in a much more modern motherboard with PCIe, optimized for vista and all the tech you'd want for a low end but modern build. But also in the AGP motherboard i have that is more geared towards XP and 98.

I believe it's more of a generation thing, rather than a time thing.

Imagine, computing business did "evolve" slower or came to a halt for several years (say 20 years) .

Then, a 20 year old computer wouldn't not be old at all. At least not in terms of specs.

The capacitors and the power supply's fan would have aged, for sure, but not the computer per se.

The whole "retro" thing leaves as lot of interpretation, I guess. 😅

"Retro" means "looking backwards", or "relating to the past" etc etc.
A lot of old devices or vehicles are also "retro-fitted" with modern technologies: Space Shuttles (rip), fighter planes, etc..
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retro

Cyberdyne wrote on 2021-01-29, 11:07:

It it so subjective. 8bit computer to 286/386 are stone age. 486-P3 is retro. P4/Athlon XP/64 is obsolete. And Core2 is still usable, so not really retro. But it is only my subjective opinion.

but yes, a 69 Mustang or even a E38 7. series BMW will always be retro, IF it is in good condition. But I will never think that todays cars any of them have any retro value in the future. Maybe hipster retro. And yes I use hipster as a derogatory word.

But it is so subjective.... I really do not understand people who shell out 100 or 1000 for a Intel 4004. There is even not any personal nostalgia, only the name and history. 😁

as someone who has had to suffer recently using a Phenom II and a GTX 570 over at my wifes place (long story not going into it) to play WoW classic with her, I can honestly say it lags doing simple tasks these days, the GTX 570 can't keep up, and Netflix or youtube jump the CPU to nearly 100% use, I did add an SSD to it for Windows 10, so I could leave my Vista install alone, but honestly Retro to me is when can parts no longer be really useful, and given missing instructions for newer formats, CPU spiking, and in general not responsvie I'd say Phenom II and Core 2 era parts are now and well dead for modern use.

candle_86 wrote on 2021-02-12, 06:20:

Cyberdyne wrote on 2021-01-29, 11:07:

It it so subjective. 8bit computer to 286/386 are stone age. 486-P3 is retro. P4/Athlon XP/64 is obsolete. And Core2 is still usable, so not really retro. But it is only my subjective opinion.

but yes, a 69 Mustang or even a E38 7. series BMW will always be retro, IF it is in good condition. But I will never think that todays cars any of them have any retro value in the future. Maybe hipster retro. And yes I use hipster as a derogatory word.

But it is so subjective.... I really do not understand people who shell out 100 or 1000 for a Intel 4004. There is even not any personal nostalgia, only the name and history. 😁

as someone who has had to suffer recently using a Phenom II and a GTX 570 over at my wifes place (long story not going into it) to play WoW classic with her, I can honestly say it lags doing simple tasks these days, the GTX 570 can't keep up, and Netflix or youtube jump the CPU to nearly 100% use, I did add an SSD to it for Windows 10, so I could leave my Vista install alone, but honestly Retro to me is when can parts no longer be really useful, and given missing instructions for newer formats, CPU spiking, and in general not responsvie I'd say Phenom II and Core 2 era parts are now and well dead for modern use.

Phenom II is not retro, it is just an underperformer 😁

chinny22 wrote on 2021-02-02, 13:17:

See this is what annoys me Technically vintage means anything over 20 years, anything younger is just old, outdated, obsolete b […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote on 2021-02-02, 12:48:

Vintage on the other hand, is to me a fully acceptable term to describe everything computing related. Yes, even Cor2Duo machines. Because they are outdated,

See this is what annoys me
Technically vintage means anything over 20 years, anything younger is just old, outdated, obsolete
but then as already mentioned we aren't using the term retro correctly either so your closer to correct definition then I am calling a S775 running Win98 a "Retro PC" so I can't say anything.

I fully agree the way we use retro here is more based on nostalgia then actual dates. Many members here first PC was Win95 based so that's classifies as retro, for others that started with XT's and dos 3 Win9x is modern retro?
Some members haven't used anything earlier then XP, that just makes me feel old.

I think alot of it has to do with age, see I collect alot of XP era systems but the first one I used was my parents Windows 95 IBM Aptiva in 1996. But I was in highschool from 2001-2005 and then low paying jobs until about 2010, I wasn't able to experince bleeding edge until around 2013, so for me stuff from 2000-2010 holds a special place for me, because now I can afford to build the systems I wanted. I used to sit in Newegg and price out things like AMD FX55, ASUs A8N32-SLI, Dual 6800 Ultra, or later Core2 Extreme x6800 with Triple 8800 Ultra, I couldn't afford it, during those periods I used an Athlon XP 1700 I got for cheap and for the later era I was using a Socket AM2 Sempron and a 7600GT.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2021-02-12, 06:26:

candle_86 wrote on 2021-02-12, 06:20:

Cyberdyne wrote on 2021-01-29, 11:07:

It it so subjective. 8bit computer to 286/386 are stone age. 486-P3 is retro. P4/Athlon XP/64 is obsolete. And Core2 is still usable, so not really retro. But it is only my subjective opinion.

but yes, a 69 Mustang or even a E38 7. series BMW will always be retro, IF it is in good condition. But I will never think that todays cars any of them have any retro value in the future. Maybe hipster retro. And yes I use hipster as a derogatory word.

But it is so subjective.... I really do not understand people who shell out 100 or 1000 for a Intel 4004. There is even not any personal nostalgia, only the name and history. 😁

as someone who has had to suffer recently using a Phenom II and a GTX 570 over at my wifes place (long story not going into it) to play WoW classic with her, I can honestly say it lags doing simple tasks these days, the GTX 570 can't keep up, and Netflix or youtube jump the CPU to nearly 100% use, I did add an SSD to it for Windows 10, so I could leave my Vista install alone, but honestly Retro to me is when can parts no longer be really useful, and given missing instructions for newer formats, CPU spiking, and in general not responsvie I'd say Phenom II and Core 2 era parts are now and well dead for modern use.

Phenom II is not retro, it is just an underperformer 😁

Nah its retro to me, its driven me to the point where for modern tasks it makes me cry, it did just fine playing 2010 era games on Vista however for modern titles and web pages its junk. Maybe my Ryzen and RTX has spoiled me but i find it useless in the modern age.

Well .... i use a 1.2GHz Tularon for playing DOS games. And tinkering with Windows 3.xx. and NT. Thats overkill overperformer, but retro as hell 😉

candle_86 wrote on 2021-02-12, 06:20:

Cyberdyne wrote on 2021-01-29, 11:07:

It it so subjective. 8bit computer to 286/386 are stone age. 486-P3 is retro. P4/Athlon XP/64 is obsolete. And Core2 is still usable, so not really retro. But it is only my subjective opinion.

but yes, a 69 Mustang or even a E38 7. series BMW will always be retro, IF it is in good condition. But I will never think that todays cars any of them have any retro value in the future. Maybe hipster retro. And yes I use hipster as a derogatory word.

But it is so subjective.... I really do not understand people who shell out 100 or 1000 for a Intel 4004. There is even not any personal nostalgia, only the name and history. 😁

as someone who has had to suffer recently using a Phenom II and a GTX 570 over at my wifes place (long story not going into it) to play WoW classic with her, I can honestly say it lags doing simple tasks these days, the GTX 570 can't keep up, and Netflix or youtube jump the CPU to nearly 100% use, I did add an SSD to it for Windows 10, so I could leave my Vista install alone, but honestly Retro to me is when can parts no longer be really useful, and given missing instructions for newer formats, CPU spiking, and in general not responsvie I'd say Phenom II and Core 2 era parts are now and well dead for modern use.

Is that a slow config? I don't know any about modern TV streaming premium services and I don't know how much they requires as configurations but I remember the X3 720 cpu to be a good fast cpu some years ago. Lately my fastest config I can build is a Core2 E8600 with 8GB DDR3 and SSD but I admit it's a light home office machine more than a 4K developer/editing/whatever job related PC, and I find these old configs to be still very fast! I lack a good GPU cause I have no other choice but a GT610 or a GT210 or the integrated GMA4500, and in this I'm sure limited but I suppose a modern middle end gpu would still go fast for old style expectations (30fps games @ HD at best for example).

Awesome thread this 😀

I draw the line at Socket 370 and 462.
But I prefer SS7 as my most favorite! Can use it successful on Windows 95-XP
For the newer stuff I must say that a 7900GX2 has a nostalgic feeling to it.

Anyway I still didn't say where I'd draw the "retro" line in the PC configs and well, maybe I think I'd say that the SDR ram was the thing that make me think to the last of retro machines. So once DDR ram began to be used there were already so much innovations all around the other components that I'd not name DDR configs retro anymore. With DDR1 they even did Socket 775 machines I could use everyday as light perfectly updated machines. And the "slow" ram would not really be a problem. Lately I tried both an Athlon XP Barton with 2,5GB DDR1 and in past also P4 Prescott with DDR1 and as usual is more the amount of memory the problem before their speed (beside the more serious problem of the Barton lacking the SSE2.. that sure is a problem).

So generally I'd consider SS7/Slot A and Socket 370/Slot 1 boards more or less the last retro boards.

for me socket A is still retro, after that the lines are becoming blurred ^^