Tag Archives: pc

I Used To Play Videogames on WHAT?

Wow, I’m sorting my documents folder (in prep for my big hefty reinstall) and I come across this from years ago (the earliest date is 4th Feb 2004, which seems about right):

[OS]
OS=Windows 2000 v5.0 build 2195 Service Pack 4
Result=2
Skip=0
[Processor]
Type=Intel Pentium IIIXC
Vendor=Intel
NumCPUs=1
Speed=987
Result=2
Skip=0
[RAM]
RAM=256
Result=2
Skip=0
[Video Card]
Type=NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro                                                            
VRAM=32
Desktop Resolution=1024x768
Desktop Color Depth=32
Result=2
Skip=0
[Open GL]
OpenGL Installed=1
OpenGL Version=1.3.1
Result=2
Skip=0
[Direct X]
DirectX Installed=1
DirectX Version=DirectX (8+) (4.09.00.0902)
DirectX Build=4.09.00.0902
Result=2
Skip=0

It was, since the box still exists, a 1Ghz Pentium 3, and yes, 256MB RAM. I think Half-Life played okay at 1024×768 and, as you can see Neverwinter Nights (where this is from) did okay too, despite the pathetic 32MB of GeForce2 VRAM (I certainly couldn’t enable the 64MB texture option, thank goodness the game catered to 16 and 32 meg cards!), and the support for only OpenGL v1.3!

After this family PC I moved to University and had my own PC made from scratch, which was nice. The specs of that machine are much more game-friendly. I must admit, thinking about it, how many Dell/HP/Whatever white boxed PC’s are used to run games, it must hurt supporting lower-then-expected specs.