My old computer adventures were more epic I think (you can compare):
1) 1993-2001
My PC Was next:
486 DX2 66 MHz
8 MB RAM
256 MB HDD
15 inches monitor (Samsung as I remember), 1024x768x85Hz max
1 MB VideoCard, integrated to motherboard (cirrus logis, as I remember), 75HZ max (which killed my eyes totally - I will never forget this mistake).
3.5 and 5 inch floppy drives
In 1995 parents bought me:
- soundblaster (media magic) with cheap stereo sound speakers
- CDROM (Sony, 2x, which plugged to PC via slot on the sound card)
- 1200 MB HDD (WD)
- 36 MB RAM (32 MB as 4x8MB and additional 4 MB on moherboard - I dont remember the details, but total displayed MB in bios was 35840 KB, and I sucessfully loaded 33MB SMKs to RAM (using smackply.exe), so it was more than 32MB )
Most epic things I did on this PC:
- finished singleplayer of dungeon keeper 1, duke3d, quake 1, quake 2, starcraft, starcraft broodwar. Played quake 1 with bots.
I had average 10 fps in Quake 1 (20 max, 3 min), average 7 fps in Quake 2 (15 max, 1 min).
Also I tried to play Hexen 2 on this PC, and FPS, which was 0,2 (1 frame per 5 seconds) killed my mind and I decided not to play Hexen 2 on this PC:)
The loading time of Quake 2, as I remember, was approximately 3 minutes for main game and 3-5 minutes for ingame levels or "load game".
About Starcraft - It had approximately 20 fps, if you dont scroll screen, and 3 fps if you scroll screen. The main menu had also 3 fps.
About SMK - read below. Game speed was "slower" (on complex maps) or "normal" (on easy maps, like terran tutorial), if I set it to "fastest" (because of slow PC). Speed of replays was also divided - It was "slower" if I set it to "fastest x1", and "fastext x2", if I set it to "fastest x16". The melee computer AI was even worse, than in original SC, but on normal PC.
The loading time of Starcraft/BroodWar, as I remember, was approximately 7 minutes for main game (main menu) and 5-20 seconds for ingame levels or "load game".
- browsed Internet via Netscape Communicator, because Internet Explorer worked too slow, but, even in Netscape, page with 25 photos in it (starcraft battle report for eample) loaded during 5 minutes or even more, ans this is not because of slow interned speed - even if I try to open HTM file from HDD (without connection to the internet), it loaded duting 5 minutes.
- played MP3 files in 22khz mono quality, because this PC cannot run stereo 22 khz or mono 44hkz - too slow processor for that. The main fun was, that playing 22kz mono WAV files doesnt need a fast processor, so sometimes I played Starcraft with ingame music - and it really did not big influence to the fps! The influence was like "3-5 fps lower" (scrolling FPS was the same (3 fps), and non-scrolling FPS was 15-17 fps).
- wrote personal software for unpacking music from Red Alert 2, unpacked it, played it and and recorded it to the audio tape
- created my first version of Crazy CPU map (if you want - I can create topic about that map on SEN, but think I dont need it, because most of people know this map) and tested some balance (first ver was 1x1 only, designed for ZvP only, without air attacks after 15 minutes of the start of the game). I should say, that I created Crazy CPU without any internet tutorial - I just read the blizzard's staredit help, opened Blizzard maps and campaign missions (for example bunker command or terran05) and watched how they did triggers. This is only tutorial I had till June 2008.
- copied a lot of games like redalert, starcraft quake 2 and so on - fully on hard drive (for faster work). The total time for copy of 500MB starcraft's install.exe file was approximately 1 hour.
- Had Win95, but played most of games (Quake 1 for example) in DOS because DOS was faster on that PC.
- SMKs of starcraft was unwatchable under windows and from starcraft engine, but I can watch unpacked (by MPQView) versions of them in DOS, if I load them fully to the RAM (using smackply.exe). The fun part was, that zerg2.smk take 64 MB of space, so I cut it to two 32 MB files using "rad game tools" and then watched it in DOS using smackply.exe. The cutting process took, as I remember, 2 hours (1 hour per each 32MB part). Also I watched Dungeon Keeper's and Wrestle Mania's SMKs in the same way.
- Created a mixcut of the best fragments of the Wrestle Mania's SMKs in a single SMK file. The rendering process took 3 hours as I remember
And top1 most epic thing on that PC: as you read above, the Starcraft's melee speed was "normal" at start of the game, and "slower" after 2 mins of the game. And I learned staredit.exe via help and Blizzard maps.
What I did: I created the map (changed bloodbath), where all speed things like "building time", "research time" were 4x faster, and all costs were 4x lower. I placed 3 enemy computers in it (zerg, terran and toss). It was very nice for me to play "fastest" speed on my slow PC, even with slow movement speed of units and projectiles. Also I experimented with 2x2 (1 PC was set to ally by triggers).
This PC was most epic PC in my life lol:)
2) 2001-2008
Summer of 2001: parents told me, that if I will sussessfully enter the best university in my city as "non payable student" (will not be forced to pay for study) - they will bought me a PC with approximately $1200 cost.
So here is my PC for 2001-2008:
AMD Athlon 1133 MHz
256 MB RAM
Geforce 2 GTS 32 MB
Via KT 266 chipset
IBM 40GB HDD
Sony CD-RW 32x/12x/8x
Monitor 17 Inch Samsung 700 ift (CRT one) with 1600x1200x60Hz max (most of the time I used 1024x768x100Hz)
Creative SBLive 5.1 Sound Card with 5.1 sound speakers which cost $300 in that time
Can you imagine the difference between
486 DX2 66 / 36 MB RAM / 1200 MB HDD / 1 MB VideoCard 75HZ max /15 inches monitor with 1024x768x85Hz max / non-writable 2x CD-ROM / stereo sound card with cheap stereo sound speakers
and
Athlon 1133 / 256 RAM / Geforce 2 with 32 MB video / 40 GB HDD / rewritable 32x/12x/8x CD-RW / SBLive 5.1 with good speakers / 17 Inch Monitor with possibilities to 1024x768x100Hz or 1600x1200x60Hz
in 2001 ?
And please read again, what I did with old PC, and how it will fly on a new PC! I mostly impressed, how starcraft loading time can take only 1 second, how SMK rendering can take less than 1 minute and how Hexen 2 can show 120 fps. It is unforgettable feeling!
Another good impressions were possibility to watch movies, collect installed games on HDD wihtout deletion and so on.
In 2001 I thought that it is powerful PC, but today, as you understand better than me:), this is slow PC.
So - what epic things I did from 2001 till 2008 in that PC:
- Had WinXP, but played most of games (Doom3 for example) in Win98 because Win98 was faster on that PC.
- Finished Warcraft 3 RoC (maxed graphics), 30% of Doom3 (on minimal graphics settings), Need for Speed Underground 1, 2 (on maxed graphics settings) and Most Wanted (on minimal graphics settings, but in 1024x768), Painkiller and Painkiller BOOH (on maxed graphics)
Doom3 had approximately 20 fps, minimum 5 fps. NFSU1 and NFSU2 had playable FPS. NFSMW had unplayable FPS, so I ran it in Win98 and deleted all sounds from the game for reduce the RAM usage, so FPS became playable (I ran Doom3 also in Win98). Painkiller's FPS was playable on minimal ghraphics settings, and sometimes was "unplayable" on maxed graphics, but the developers of Painkiler created a special algorithms, which slowing the game speed (like "faster" "normal" "slower" in BW) if processor cannot make playable FPS, so the game was playable even if FPS is slow. Warcraft 3 RoC, as I remember, was playable on maxed graphics most of the time (except last missions).
Also I should say, that I patched Doom3 and NFSMW for run them in Win98 (because they had Win98 protection, designed for for XP-play only).
3) Nowadays
Today I have good PC (it run hard SC2 scenes on best graphics settings without any fps lags), and it's fun to remember about what I did on old slow ones. That's realy - really nostalgy:) Those games in "3 fps mode" and "minimal graphic settings" in that time made more pleasure for me, than current games with normal fps now.
Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Aug 21 2011, 11:48 am by theleo_ua.
None.