I came across a random Youtube recommended video of a "3dfx Voodoo 3" review a couple weeks back. Watched it and then sent it to my friend who had shown interest in building a Win98 era PC in the past. I knew full well this would re-ignite this idea in him. I myself hadn't felt much of a need for it. So after he views the video, which indeed sets him off, he links me an eBay listing for an old Dell Dimension PC that looked identical to what I had as sort of my first PC as a kid. At least at the age where I can remember it and started playing PC games and such. It was also dirt cheap. This immediately gets the nostalgia juices flowing, my friend somehow remembers exactly the specs my Dell had, and we both start scouring eBay looking at old stuff and reminiscing, all the while saying it would be dumb to buy this thing. I still have my 19" NEC MultiSync FE791SB 1600x1200 CRT buried in the closet for over a decade. Finally, he puts his foot down, tells himself "No!", and empties the shopping cart..
....and then some minutes later he says jokingly.. "We could play Diablo 2 together.."
Now, obviously you can just play this for the most part on new stuff. That wasn't the point. We played D2 a ton for many years. I said.. "Well, if you can find another PC like that then.." Commence several more hours of furious eBay digging. We ended up with identical Dell Dimension 4100's. Exterior wise it looked the same as my first, but this one was equipped with a much better CPU than I had. Half the fun of this for me was that I still had the original Dell Resource CD, Dell Voodoo 3 driver CD, my copy of Win98 and the manual/cdkey, old sound card, and pretty much all my games on their original CDs.
Me being the compulsive spender that I am, actually started to rebuild the other old PCs I used to have mixed with better hardware for the time. So add in WinXP 2003'ish + WinXP 2007'ish rigs, but I won't go into them here unless people are interested since they aren't quite as complete.
This is what my Win98 era PC ended up with in the end:
- Pentium III 1.0 Ghz
- 512 MB of RAM
- 3dfx Voodoo 3 Video Card
- Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Sound Card
- NetGear Network Card
- 120GB HDD
- Windows 98 SE
I'd actually like to try and get a Voodoo 5 5500 AGP card, as that is actually the very first GFX card I ever got and put in my PC. My old Dell, along with the Voodoo 5, was passed to my friend and then onto his younger sister and then who knows where. Landfill we think. So of course Voodoo 5s are worth $100+ at this point.
Anyway, I spent too many hours attempting to get this thing to run at 100%. I had a load of trouble getting the Sound Blaster Live! Value in it to work, so I happened to have my old Live! 5.1 card. Then Windows was doing a weird thing where it was sort of BSOD whenever you went to shut it down or restart. It wasn't some huge problem getting in the way, but it was just dumb and I wanted everything to work properly. Finally got it working correctly the other night.
Currently installed (Updated 2/24/16):
- Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
- Rune
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
- Railroad Tycoon 2 Gold Edition
- Need For Speed: High Stakes
- Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed
- Half Life
- Hard Truck 2
- SimCity 3000 Unlimited
- SimCopter
- The Sims
- Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors
- Arcanum
- Ultima IX: Ascension
- MechWarrior 3
- Dirt Track Racing
- Motocross Madness 2
- Monster Truck Madness 2
- Midtown Madness 2
- Gearhead Garage
- Cabela's 4x4 Off-road Adventure
- F22 Lightning 3
- Carmageddon 2
- Screamer 4x4
- MechCommander Gold
- Flight Simulator 2000
- Police Quest: SWAT 2
- Dungeon Keeper
- Planescape: Torment
- Soldier of Fortune
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
- Interstate '76
- Stronghold
- Deus Ex
- Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business
- Thief
- Half Life: Opposing Force
- Half Life: Blue Shift
- Counter-Strike 1.5
- Commandos 2
- Serious Sam
- Combat Flight Simulator
- Icewind Dale
- Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn
I have mostly fond memories of every single game on this list. I still have a few others I could install but they seem redundant or not working etc Warcraft 2 seems to want an older sound card. Or 9: The Last Resort is giving me an error about not having 8MB of RAM.
What I am interested in is hearing some other people's suggestions. What 1996 - 2001 era games do you think I'd like based on stuff on this list?
I think Deus Ex came out around then? I've heard endless amounts about it but never played it. I'd like to get some old version of Counter-Strike working as that was the FPS I was into as a kid.. No Quake or Unreal stuff for me. I used to have Interstate '76 (I still have the box actually) but no idea where that CD went. That Baldur's Gate stuff is another one I've heard a billion times but never played.. I think its from that time? I seem to be missing my copy of Soldier of Fortune, but I remember that game lead me to doing my first ever PC improvement, putting in a RAM stick, bumping it from 64MB to 128MB I think. The game went from running like complete garbage to amazing.
Shoot me some suggestions!
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