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90's PC Gaming Appreciation Thread: From Boot Disks to 3dfx Voodoo cards
- Thread starter blast processed
- Start date
I tried for hours on Windows 7. The game is seriously bad to run. Even on Virtual PC, it failed.
MrCunningham
Member
I have been playing a little Half-Life 1 in its original form:
Straight from my original disc with no patches, no Steam or Steam Play.
Gotta love those original menu's.
Flipped on FRAPS at this point to show the wacky framerate:
The game is running at 1280x960 in OpenGL mode. For some reason I can;t get DirectX7 to work, despite the fact that this card supports it.
This is what DX7 looks like:
Really weird, since I did a complete reformat of the harddrive, reinstalled Windows 98se and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers as well. I am using is the forceware 71.84 drivers, which are the last set of drivers that support Windows 98se with this particular card. I am really thinking about swapping this card out for something else.
With that said, the original Half-Life is still a joy to play. I am also playing it on a CRT and the game feels so smooth, even with the wonky framerate. Having no latency from the monitor really does make these games feel different from how they play on my current Windows PC under Steam.
Straight from my original disc with no patches, no Steam or Steam Play.
Gotta love those original menu's.
Flipped on FRAPS at this point to show the wacky framerate:
The game is running at 1280x960 in OpenGL mode. For some reason I can;t get DirectX7 to work, despite the fact that this card supports it.
This is what DX7 looks like:
Really weird, since I did a complete reformat of the harddrive, reinstalled Windows 98se and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers as well. I am using is the forceware 71.84 drivers, which are the last set of drivers that support Windows 98se with this particular card. I am really thinking about swapping this card out for something else.
With that said, the original Half-Life is still a joy to play. I am also playing it on a CRT and the game feels so smooth, even with the wonky framerate. Having no latency from the monitor really does make these games feel different from how they play on my current Windows PC under Steam.
Kinda fits here, but there's a big all-star QuakeWorld TDM showmatch right now.
http://twitch.tv/suddendeathTV
http://twitch.tv/suddendeathTV
Tarin02543
Member
thanks to this thread I've been playing Quakeworld alot lately, using the Ezquake client.
1080p Quake is great!
1080p Quake is great!
Does anyone remember the "Aureal A3D" tech?
.png/150px-Aureal_A3D_(logo).png)
That shit was amazing. It made Jedi Knight an even better game than it already was.
Hahaha i loved A3D back in the old HLDM days.
I picked this up the other day. Still sealed!
Straight from my original disc with no patches, no Steam or Steam Play.
Oh my god, this just brought me way, WAYYY back. I feel like I'm in Grade 8 again. Amazing.
blast processed
Member
Is there a way to disable the updated models in Half Life on Steam. I'm replaying it and do not like the way the look.
blast processed
Member
MrCunningham
Member
So this thread has got me interested in EWJ on the PC. I did buy the Can 'O Worms version from GOG, but since it is a pain to run the GOG versions of my Windows 98SE PC, I just tracked down EWJ: Special Edition instead:
This port was published BY Activision as is not the same port that is seen in the Can 'O Worms version.
This is an interesting port because it runs directly off the disc with no installation. The game does still leave save files on the PC though.
I still own the Sega CD version of this game and the PC port is identical and plays just as well but with less dithered colours. It still has some of the quirks of the Sega Genesis/ CD version of the game like lack of transparencies. But this is a great port. The screenshots are not in full screen because I couldn't get the screen capture to work in Win98 so I had to use windowed mode. And yeah my desktop is 800x600, I never bothered to change it.
Also, I am playing the game with this gamepad (I posted a photo of it earlier):
Gravis GamePad Pro with a DA-15 game port connection.
The Game Pad feels hilariously cheap, it's so weightless and the plastic is not of a high quality. But it still works fine for this PC. The D-pad responsiveness is not as bad as what I remember, but it is still far from good too. It is serviceable at best.
This port was published BY Activision as is not the same port that is seen in the Can 'O Worms version.
This is an interesting port because it runs directly off the disc with no installation. The game does still leave save files on the PC though.
I still own the Sega CD version of this game and the PC port is identical and plays just as well but with less dithered colours. It still has some of the quirks of the Sega Genesis/ CD version of the game like lack of transparencies. But this is a great port. The screenshots are not in full screen because I couldn't get the screen capture to work in Win98 so I had to use windowed mode. And yeah my desktop is 800x600, I never bothered to change it.
Also, I am playing the game with this gamepad (I posted a photo of it earlier):
Gravis GamePad Pro with a DA-15 game port connection.
The Game Pad feels hilariously cheap, it's so weightless and the plastic is not of a high quality. But it still works fine for this PC. The D-pad responsiveness is not as bad as what I remember, but it is still far from good too. It is serviceable at best.
Nox was fucking awesome, imo
MrCunningham
Member
The version I have on disc is 1.1.0.6 and it does have quite a few differences from the Steam version. For one thing, this version of Half-Life has:
- Different menus and intro's
- Has OpenGL, Direct3D and Software Rendering, The current Steam version removed Direct3D and only has OpenGL or Software
- No widescreen modes (this should be obvious)
- Pre- Steam versions can't run on systems with more than 2GB of system Memory
- Quake styled screen tilting when strafing and moving in different directions
- No bunny hopping speed cap
- Idle animations are actually a little different for some of the weapons.
- MP5 has a faster rate of fire in the non-Steam version and is a little more accurate.
- Tau Cannon and Gluon Gun have slightly different visual effects when firing.
- NPC corpses spray out more blood in the original.
- Enemy soldier AI has tweaks and changes.
I also heard that there is at least one area in the game where there is no music in the Steam version where there should be in the older retail versions.
Unreal in glorious software rendering and 800x600. No other game looks quite like it.
I wonder what Deus Ex looks like in software as well.
Totally gorgeous. I am glad I am not the only one who prefers early 3D games with software rendering and unfiltered textures.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Hmmm... So with the ram issue, is it still possible to run HL on modern PCs?
I'm also curious what the newest compilation that was pre-Steam is. Might be nice to get all the expansions.
Same here. Software rendering was beautiful, imo
Dreams-Visions
Member
classic shit, bruh.
Pagusas
Elden Member
God damn I miss that game
potatohead
Member
Nice screens fam. I really like blocky-but-then-cutting-edge style of the first series of HL1 titles.
I got widescreen nicely working in TF Classic and HL1 also it's pretty sweet looking. SSAA and everything too.
MrCunningham
Member
I would have to investigate that. Years ago I remember people having issues running the older versions of Half-Life 1 on PC's with more than 2GB's of RAM, I dunno if there are any workarounds for it, but there might be. I can try installing my CD copy on my current PC and see what happens.
This site has a list of some of the versions of the game: https://wiki.sourceruns.org/wiki/Game_versions. I don't think it would be very hard to find a 1.1.0.6 version and just patch it up to the last version that was released before the Steam versions.
Just for fun, here's some HL1 screenshots I just took of the game running in software rendering mode at 800x600:
Running at 800x600 because my Win98 PC just can't handle the game at 1024x768 in software mode without the game turning into an unplayable slideshow. I could also play this in OpenGL and just flip the filtering to nearest neighbor. It really isn't a hard thing to do. But playing the game in software does give it a different look from OpenGL without filtering.
This. I was shocked how good Tomb Raider looked, when suddenly all the blocky textures were totally smooth
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Those Earth worm Jim pics made me feel six
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Those EWJ pics are making me a little crazy. I know I have my scratched up copy of the Win95 version stashed somewhere. I want to buy a new copy at some point, but in the meantime, maybe I should see how it works on a modern computer.
MrCunningham
Member
It actually works almost flawlessly on a modern PC with just a few minor tweaks and a small fan made patch: http://www.play-old-pc-games.com/2014/09/07/earthworm-special-edition/
PhantomZone
Member
Clicked on the thread and saw the computers in this image:
I had the HP computer on the bottom right......... got it in 2004 (p4 2.4 ghz) upgraded the video card, ram and hdd :-D. Was a good pc up until I decided it was time to upgrade in 2010 as the only games I could still play on the HP computer were the yearly fifa installments that didn't have huge system requirements year in year out.
My memories are somewhat hazy, while I was reasonably current with my console gaming as a youngster (or perhaps not as I got a NES as it was being phased out for the SNES, a Mega Drive in '94, psx in '97... wasn't until the ps2 came out in 2000 that I was up to date there lol) I was a bit behind the 8ball as it were when it came to pc gaming. I had a Commodore Amiga in the 90's and it satisfied me with the games I had to play (soooo many awesome ones).
I got my first pc in '95 (486 SX or was it DX 33 ? lol). I was able to play Doom, Doom 2 and many other common games, it would chug/lag away while playing Duke Nukem 3D.
I would always be about 3-5 years behind everyone else in my pc gaming, got a new computer in 1999 and caught up on games from 96-99 I had been unable to play properly (wasn't long before it was obsolete that I'd be stuck playing games from around that time while everyone else was able to play games from 2000-2005).
So again with Amiga comparisons while I was doing my 90's pc gaming, I used to cringe at the difference between the pc/amiga versions of games like Test Drive 1 - 3,
Getting games on cd was a fun experience, it was how I was able to FINALLY have all of the Leisure Suit Larry and Police Quest games (through the respective "collectors" series box sets) at once instead of just having the first few titles of each franchise. I remember installing DooM from the 3'5 discs, then buying Ultimate DooM and installing it from a cd instead. I also remember being cheeky and copying the install files from the cd on to separate 3'5 disks just to relive the old installation feeling haha.
Like others in the thread I do remember the old sega pc games - I had Virtua Fighter 1, Virtua Fighter 2 (amazingly enough it wasn't until I got VF 5 on the 360 in the late 2000's that I finally learned how to play the game properly LOL... so I was able to return to VF 1 & 2 and suddenly play it normally). Sega Rally and Daytona 1 & 2. I remember the Windows version of Earthworm Jim, the Pitfall remake and Sim City for Windows (still my favourite version of the original game!).
I didn't play the Resident Evil games fully on the playstation, while I played RE 2 on the psx first...... I only played through RE 1-3 on the pc.
I remember ROTT, MK 2 and 3.
One of my favourite racing games other than the original NFS was a game called Fatal Racing (in Europe/Australia - marketed as Whiplash in other markets). Racing while having to pull off various stunts through jumps was pretty cool and reminded me of the 4D stunts driving game from many years before.
So many other things I will post about later on!!
I had the HP computer on the bottom right......... got it in 2004 (p4 2.4 ghz) upgraded the video card, ram and hdd :-D. Was a good pc up until I decided it was time to upgrade in 2010 as the only games I could still play on the HP computer were the yearly fifa installments that didn't have huge system requirements year in year out.
My memories are somewhat hazy, while I was reasonably current with my console gaming as a youngster (or perhaps not as I got a NES as it was being phased out for the SNES, a Mega Drive in '94, psx in '97... wasn't until the ps2 came out in 2000 that I was up to date there lol) I was a bit behind the 8ball as it were when it came to pc gaming. I had a Commodore Amiga in the 90's and it satisfied me with the games I had to play (soooo many awesome ones).
I got my first pc in '95 (486 SX or was it DX 33 ? lol). I was able to play Doom, Doom 2 and many other common games, it would chug/lag away while playing Duke Nukem 3D.
I would always be about 3-5 years behind everyone else in my pc gaming, got a new computer in 1999 and caught up on games from 96-99 I had been unable to play properly (wasn't long before it was obsolete that I'd be stuck playing games from around that time while everyone else was able to play games from 2000-2005).
So again with Amiga comparisons while I was doing my 90's pc gaming, I used to cringe at the difference between the pc/amiga versions of games like Test Drive 1 - 3,
Getting games on cd was a fun experience, it was how I was able to FINALLY have all of the Leisure Suit Larry and Police Quest games (through the respective "collectors" series box sets) at once instead of just having the first few titles of each franchise. I remember installing DooM from the 3'5 discs, then buying Ultimate DooM and installing it from a cd instead. I also remember being cheeky and copying the install files from the cd on to separate 3'5 disks just to relive the old installation feeling haha.
Like others in the thread I do remember the old sega pc games - I had Virtua Fighter 1, Virtua Fighter 2 (amazingly enough it wasn't until I got VF 5 on the 360 in the late 2000's that I finally learned how to play the game properly LOL... so I was able to return to VF 1 & 2 and suddenly play it normally). Sega Rally and Daytona 1 & 2. I remember the Windows version of Earthworm Jim, the Pitfall remake and Sim City for Windows (still my favourite version of the original game!).
I didn't play the Resident Evil games fully on the playstation, while I played RE 2 on the psx first...... I only played through RE 1-3 on the pc.
I remember ROTT, MK 2 and 3.
One of my favourite racing games other than the original NFS was a game called Fatal Racing (in Europe/Australia - marketed as Whiplash in other markets). Racing while having to pull off various stunts through jumps was pretty cool and reminded me of the 4D stunts driving game from many years before.
So many other things I will post about later on!!
Subscribed.
I was a big PC gamer in the mid-late 90's.
Man, those PC Gamer demo disks on the first page made me so nostalgic.
I remember playing GTA on one of those disks and I had to buy the full game. It was so intoxicating. On those disks I used to always play Raptor, Shellshock and Carmaggedon, Duke Nukem 3D and so many more. I had a subscription to the magazine for probably five years.
My favorite full games were: U.S. Navy Fighters (w/Marine Fighters add-on), King's Quest VI, NASCAR Racing w/Track Pack (Papyrus), Road & Track Presents: The Need For Speed, Doom, Wolfenstein, NBA Live 96-99, Triple Play Baseball 98-2000, Microsoft Flight Simulator (w/add-on -- Caribbean).
I was hyped for N64 but PC gaming was such much better than consoles. I got rid of the N64, got a PS1 and continued to be a loyal PC gamer up until the launch of PS2. The only PC games I continued to play in the early to mid 2000's were Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike, Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2. When the PS3 came out I became a console gamer.
I miss the days of PC gaming.
I was a big PC gamer in the mid-late 90's.
Man, those PC Gamer demo disks on the first page made me so nostalgic.
I remember playing GTA on one of those disks and I had to buy the full game. It was so intoxicating. On those disks I used to always play Raptor, Shellshock and Carmaggedon, Duke Nukem 3D and so many more. I had a subscription to the magazine for probably five years.
My favorite full games were: U.S. Navy Fighters (w/Marine Fighters add-on), King's Quest VI, NASCAR Racing w/Track Pack (Papyrus), Road & Track Presents: The Need For Speed, Doom, Wolfenstein, NBA Live 96-99, Triple Play Baseball 98-2000, Microsoft Flight Simulator (w/add-on -- Caribbean).
I was hyped for N64 but PC gaming was such much better than consoles. I got rid of the N64, got a PS1 and continued to be a loyal PC gamer up until the launch of PS2. The only PC games I continued to play in the early to mid 2000's were Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike, Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2. When the PS3 came out I became a console gamer.
I miss the days of PC gaming.
PC gaming in the 90's was pretty much the pinnacle of gaming for me. DOOM was it.
Those shareware discs were like portals to other worlds. $5 for a summer's worth of entertainment.
I feel bad for kids today. Back in the 90s we got video games in cereal boxes! Even the educational software was way better than what they have today. MindMaze, Gizmos & Gadgets, The Incredible Machine...
Those shareware discs were like portals to other worlds. $5 for a summer's worth of entertainment.
I feel bad for kids today. Back in the 90s we got video games in cereal boxes! Even the educational software was way better than what they have today. MindMaze, Gizmos & Gadgets, The Incredible Machine...
Anyone remember this?
YES, another Quarantine lover.
I was a kid when I saw Doom and I was blown away. I remember thinking the graphics looked photorealistic lol. I used to play it all the time in the school library along with Scorched Earth, Wolfenstein and...
this!!! This game right here. This game was my introduction to PC gaming in school.This thread needs to recognize Ultrabots. Underappreciated mech game from 1993 in a crazy PC box.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrabots
Fuck yeah, I played that too.
Another PC Gamer demo that I played for hours/days/months.
Stiler
Member
I remember back in the mid'ish 90's, when I finally had my own pc and started to game on it. I bought Monster Truck Madness cause it looked fun and the graphics (at least at the time) looked amazing.
I had NO IDEA what a bloody "3d accelerator" was and I remember my huge disappointment when I installed the game on my pc and the graphics looked nothing like they did on the back of the box.
I even called up the help and support # for the game and the guy had to explain to me that the graphics were like that if you had a 3d accelerator and everything.
Finally I ended up upgrading my pc and I remember getting a brand new AMD K6 chip and a Diamond Monster 3d video game, this was around late 96/97'ish.
I was blown away, seeing the 3d graphics without the "pixelation" of the software rendering, actually having reflections on things like water, etc.
Just think, virtually no pc gamer that started around 2000'ish or newer will even remember how graphics looked under the crap software renderer.
IE, Quake 2 software vs opengl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxIvDWnW_Wc
Also another memory of 90's pc gaming. This was before I had the internet and it wasn't really like today where you know what games are coming out or can simply look up info about a game to see if it's good or if you might like it.
So most of my pc gaming was done by simply looking at the boxes and judging what I might like. Every weekend I'd go with my dad and grandma to town where they'd go to either wal mart or kmart sometimes. I'd always make a beeline straight for the electronics and while they were shopping I'd look at all the pc games there. Then when I found one I wanted I'd basically beg and beg my dad to get it for me lol.
I remember picking up some fun memorable games back then. Things like Battlzone, Redneck Rampage, Dark Earth, Myth, Myst, Monkey Island, etc.
I had NO IDEA what a bloody "3d accelerator" was and I remember my huge disappointment when I installed the game on my pc and the graphics looked nothing like they did on the back of the box.
I even called up the help and support # for the game and the guy had to explain to me that the graphics were like that if you had a 3d accelerator and everything.
Finally I ended up upgrading my pc and I remember getting a brand new AMD K6 chip and a Diamond Monster 3d video game, this was around late 96/97'ish.
I was blown away, seeing the 3d graphics without the "pixelation" of the software rendering, actually having reflections on things like water, etc.
Just think, virtually no pc gamer that started around 2000'ish or newer will even remember how graphics looked under the crap software renderer.
IE, Quake 2 software vs opengl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxIvDWnW_Wc
Also another memory of 90's pc gaming. This was before I had the internet and it wasn't really like today where you know what games are coming out or can simply look up info about a game to see if it's good or if you might like it.
So most of my pc gaming was done by simply looking at the boxes and judging what I might like. Every weekend I'd go with my dad and grandma to town where they'd go to either wal mart or kmart sometimes. I'd always make a beeline straight for the electronics and while they were shopping I'd look at all the pc games there. Then when I found one I wanted I'd basically beg and beg my dad to get it for me lol.
I remember picking up some fun memorable games back then. Things like Battlzone, Redneck Rampage, Dark Earth, Myth, Myst, Monkey Island, etc.
Chiggs
Gold Member
Emperor Bohe
Member
...I kinda like the art style
charlequin
Banned
This was one of the games I was the most disappointed to discover isn't available on GOG. I actually spent days bugging the mods to help me figure out what it was a couple years ago because I couldn't remember the name.
Woah,really impressive!
Shadow Hog
Member
I only really know of Quarantine from Ross's Game Dungeon. To be honest... the parts he hated seem to have stuck with me more than the parts he loved. Dunno why that is, really.
Looks like if you patched up a few things (made it so the destinations shown on the map line up with the destinations the game actually wants you to reach, fixed that Boss 2 teleportation bug), you'd have something pretty special here.
Looks like if you patched up a few things (made it so the destinations shown on the map line up with the destinations the game actually wants you to reach, fixed that Boss 2 teleportation bug), you'd have something pretty special here.
Whats up with that logo / menu?
You mean the main menu? It's the old leaked alpha, not the final release.