My second gaming epoch: The Pentium 3 Era
The Pentium 3 era was one of the best computing experiences I ever had. The machine had 256MB of RAM, a 64MB nVidia GPU, and some sort of soundblaster video card. I had a 933MHz Pentium 3, and it was glorious. The case was a simple midi tower, white steel with a blue flourish; lacking the turbo button of my original case.
This PC also heralded the arrival of Deus Ex, Half-Life, and something that I could competently run the Baldur's Gate Series on. Planescape: Torment confused my adolescent mind with its incredible plot and deep themes, which Age of Empires II ensured that I could turtle my way to success every-single time.
This PC ran so many video games in my home; and was my golden era of gaming. I had a wardrobe full of big-box games, with sagging shelves, heavy manuals making the MDF shelves struggle. This era represented the rise of the Role Playing Gaming in my development as a consumer of entertainment; and has definitely impacted my current, and future expectations of gaming.
This was also the time where I began to take a large interest in the industry of video games, starting to learn rudimentary 3D modelling skills, and start to want to develop mods. I never did at this stage in my life, but this was the time where I wrote my first reviews; some of them for my English classes at school.
For the first time in my life, I eventually came to own two computers at the same time, which was a terrifying concept for my parents. I had been collecting and trading Pokemon cards, and when it came time to sell, without a full understanding of what 'consitutded' a proper gaming PC, I brought a new Celeron, with a very shitty motherboard, and another 256MB of RAM. It wasn't long before I canibalised the RAM from the Celeron, and moved it into the Pentium 3 board.
That was the first time I actually worked on the internals of a computer; and it reminded me of the days as a very young child playing with Lego. It made the same 'click' sound; and fit in only one way. It was so amazingly simple, and so liberating. This was before the time of YouTube, so I had to convince two very concerned parents that I wasn't going to electrocute myself, and that the magazines I had been reading had all the instructions.
The extra memory made my Pentium 3 feel like an entirely new computer, and it endured for quite some time, never running out of a back catalog of entertainment. I would love to relive this era once again. It saw me through up until grade nine at school, where I would build my first PC from scratch, learning all about patience, and admitting failure.
Totally get it, one of my favorite PC of all times was an IBM midtower with a 800 MHz Pentium 3 (copperhead). That processor was a beast, designed specially for high temperatures, which made possible new applications, like onboard computers for engines (yes, imagine this processor powering your car computer). Also, it was ultra stable. Great post, thanks for making me remember.
Its almost making me want to buy and build a second hand 1GHz copper lake cpu and build a retro windows 98 gaming PC. I miss this era of games so much!
Oh this feels nostalgic....my first comp was a Pentium. But think it was a II. :) I didnt have any net either....but loved killing time on the games i had on. I usually killed time on playing warcraft lol.
This is brilliant! @holoz0r
Nice :) I still have a P3 500mHz with an nVidia card that I bought in like 98 or 99 and it still works... dont use it much anymore though... but I used to play all the games you mentioned on it, Quake 1,2 and 3 were some of my favorites to play on it :)