What game caused your helli$h descent into computer building?

Battlefield 2 is what really got me into building computers. Playing on 512mb of RAM and a Radeon 9600 Pro did not work out well... Prior to BF2 I played mainly WC3, BF1942, Rise of Nations, and NFS:Underground on an eMachines my parents got me for xmas back in 2002. Man I'm never going back to pre-built computers.
 
this is a FAILthread of epic proportions...

no mention of X-COM...? really...? and y'all are supposedly talking about "classics"...? ugh...

for shame...

I just recently started gaming seriously (a few years now) and caught the bug of which the OP speaks, it started with early COD games long after their original release, then I wanted to play Crysis and got a 4850 so that I could (but not with much eye candy), since then I've added a 4870 and now am hooked on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC multiplayer (most team deathmatches), I go back and forth between just the 4870 and sometimes adding the 4850 for mixed crossfire, but am thinking of getting a 4890 so I can lay crossfire to rest (I seem to experience some stuttering at times), the 4890 seems just about right for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. without blowing up my bank account on something high end...

I love the atmosphere of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the maps, which I have finally learned...
 
Mechwarior 1,2,3,4 I became a blob in front of my computer desk from those games.
 
wol-va-rine said:
this is a FAILthread of epic proportions...

no mention of X-COM...? really...? and y'all are supposedly talking about "classics"...? ugh...

for shame...
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To be fair, computer building was a very niche and difficult to get into back during the days of XCOM. You could not really buy OEM parts and build a computer as it were like you can today by strolling into microcenter or going to newegg. Most people were faced with prebuilt beige boxes and the choices the computer store offered you at the time. You could buy your own ram and harddrives and install them yourself but other than that, there were very little upgrade options. Everybody had a 386. That was the only decent processor you could buy. You had the choice from 12 MHz to 40 MHz models and Intel or clone (AMD). There was no need to really build your own computer just because you wanted to play XCOM. Chances were that if you had a decent computer, it WAS a 386 and therefore, you COULD play XCOM. The only thing you would really do is maybe buy a new soundcard back in the day (adlib, roland, soundblaster).
 
Starcraft 1. God I spent weeks figuring out issues with my 486 DX66mhz .. it was a nightmare and it barely ran SC , infact during any heavy action it would slow to a crawl.

But I didn't care , it was my PC and I loved every minute of it .. there was nothing like SC on consoles , it was another world.
 
I said Quake 2, but come to think of it, it was Doom, and Alone in the Dark 2. Because they were the games I played on my dad's laptop which made me decide it was time to save up some money for my own PC. And that very first DX2/66 was custom-specced even if I didn't build it myself. 2MB VESA VGA memory FTW. Doom 2 came out like the same week I got the computer, and I played the living shit out of it. Even played multiplayer over the modem, direct connection to my friend's house.
 
Doom3 in 2004, built my 2.5ghz axp mobile just to run the game. then Wotlk came out 2008 and I built my quad core system.
 
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Spare-Flair said:
To be fair, computer building was a very niche and difficult to get into back during the days of XCOM. You could not really buy OEM parts and build a computer as it were like you can today by strolling into microcenter or going to newegg. Most people were faced with prebuilt beige boxes and the choices the computer store offered you at the time. You could buy your own ram and harddrives and install them yourself but other than that, there were very little upgrade options. Everybody had a 386. That was the only decent processor you could buy. You had the choice from 12 MHz to 40 MHz models and Intel or clone (AMD). There was no need to really build your own computer just because you wanted to play XCOM. Chances were that if you had a decent computer, it WAS a 386 and therefore, you COULD play XCOM. The only thing you would really do is maybe buy a new soundcard back in the day (adlib, roland, soundblaster).
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Obviously you've never played X-COM with the texture pack cinematic mod version 12.5?

/sarcasm
 
I built my first real machine in 1996... a good year to jump in as a fantastic little thing called "Voodoo 1" came about that same year... :cool: R.I.P. 3DFX.
 
Test Drive 5, it required a "3D Accelerator", which I didn't have, so I bought one.. a Voodoo3. After that it was Rainbow 6 / Eagle Watch, Rogue Spear, etc. From there it was a series of Jane's games: 688(I) (gold edition), Longbow 2 (in 3DFX!!!), F-15.. then Ghost Recon.. and that's the last computer game I've played. System is so old now, it won't run anything.
 
KublaKhan said:
Test Drive 5, it required a "3D Accelerator", which I didn't have, so I bought one.. a Voodoo3. After that it was Rainbow 6 / Eagle Watch, Rogue Spear, etc. From there it was a series of Jane's games: 688(I) (gold edition), Longbow 2 (in 3DFX!!!), F-15.. then Ghost Recon.. and that's the last computer game I've played. System is so old now, it won't run anything.
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I forgot about TD5! That one rocked.

And the Jane's games. LOTS of hours burned on those! (ESPECIALLY Longbow 2 and F-15!)
 
No game.

It's a matter of economics. I bought my first PC back in the late '90s when the Pentium 166MHz MMX was first introduced. I cost me over $2k. I realized later that I could shave at least $500 off the price if I built it myself with the same or very similar parts.
 
Started off with CS, went from a prebuilt to a system with (drumroll) GeForce 2.

Upgraded every few years since then.

I purchased an SSD recently for APB.
 
the game vietcong. i had a dell 5850 i think i had a gforce 5500 vcard ,lol.then call of duty really got me building. fps junky
 
I had to upgrade after playing the Half Life 2 demo on an Athlon XP 1600+ with 512 MB of ram and a Geforce 4 MX 440. 640x480 all low 120 second load times FTL.
 
Funny the thread title mentions Perdition, because it was Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM shareware that had me wanting a system of my own. Unfortunately all I could get where I live was a 386sx, basically a 286, so while Wolf 3D ran alright, DOOM introduced me to the term Frames Per Second, and lack thereof. I had a 40MB HDD, and when DOOM 2 was released, I just had to have it, never mind when installed it took up half the hard disk, and ran like a slide show, but hot damn did it ever relieve stress!!!

When Heretic came out, ooooooooooo a fantasy first person shooter based on the DOOM engine and I could actually LOOK UP AND DOWN!!!??? Had to have, however the installer smacked me in the face with the message "486 or higher processor required". So began my venture into CPUs beyond Intel, and I purchased an AMD 486 DX4 100MHz, which lasted until that most excellent, computer game world changing release named QUAKE, which just had to have a Pentium(and Vquake for my Rendition 2100 Verite, I miss my Diamond Stealth S220). Thus I purchased my first CPU meant only for my games, the Intel Celeron 333. From that point on, it became all about video cards with Quake II and it's colored lighting and hardware acceleration starting it all.
 
Built my first budget PC based on an AMD Athlon64 (the 2800+ 754, not the 940) so I could play Battlefield Vietnam and not have it look like a slide show.

I built my first powerhouse computer when I learned about the forth coming Battlefield 2... had to be able to paly that game maxed out, so I put together an S939 A64 4000+ rig with *2GB* or RAM (alot back on 2005 IIRC).

However I was gaming on a 486DX maching back when was a kid.... Never forget the day I played my first mission in Aces of The Pacific, or the first time I played Wolf3D.... great games for sure!

We had a wolfenstien renaissance, I just wish we would ginally get an Aces game back out there, but alas, PC flight sims died with MIcrosoft FSX.
 
Doom originally, upgraded my RAM from 4mb to 8mb (was about 13 years old). After that is was HDD upgrade, to 20MB, sucked until I got my first 1GB HDD (I was in awe) both of which I still have sitting somewhere in a drawer.
 
Everything was prebuilt till

wow.jpg


then the 9800pro turned my world upside down...
 
GL Quake was the first game I *HAD* to shell out the big bucks to build a new system and buy a 3d card. I played Quake non-stop my senior year of high-school and as soon as GL Quake came out I worked my ass off to buy a Voodoo.

I had computers long before this, but it was the first one I built completely myself.
 
wolf 3d :)

That game stressed the hell out of my 286... I had to play in a window about the size of a postage stamp to get acceptable performance lol

Next thing I know, I was adding parts and optimizing (or trying at least) the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to try squeezing every last bit of performance out of it.

here we are, 20+ years later and nothing has changed lol
 
During the good old times of Half-life, it was also a time when my dad was a Mac guy and then my brother finally built a PC.
 
StaticShoes said:
Funny the thread title mentions Perdition, because it was Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM shareware that had me wanting a system of my own. Unfortunately all I could get where I live was a 386sx, basically a 286, so while Wolf 3D ran alright, DOOM introduced me to the term Frames Per Second, and lack thereof. I had a 40MB HDD, and when DOOM 2 was released, I just had to have it, never mind when installed it took up half the hard disk, and ran like a slide show, but hot damn did it ever relieve stress!!!
Click to expand...

Before I modded computers to maximize PC performance I modded the boot sequence and what loaded on boot in the autoexec.bat. I take it you never tried modding your autoexec.bat so that it wouldn't load any crap (like Windows 3.11), once you have a lean machine which only loads DOS even a 386sx (can't remember if I was ever able to salvage a mathco from anywhere) with only 4MB of RAM could run DOOM, once I got to 8MB I could let it load all the Windows stuff. I fried my 100Mhz 486, I thought that CPU didn't need heatsinks, boy was I wrong.
 
StaticSurge said:
Wing Commander 2

Ditched my 386 to play this and got a 486 dx2 66mhz with a whopping 8 megs of ram and a 1 meg trident vid card :cool:

Funny thing is gaming seemed like it was more fun back then.. maybe I'm just getting old :eek:
Click to expand...

I remember playing this game. It was awesome. I had completely forgotten about it.

I loved the concept of upgrading and modifying your ship...
 
Zarathustra[H];1035780094 said:
I remember playing this game. It was awesome. I had completely forgotten about it.

I loved the concept of upgrading and modifying your ship...
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm thinking of Wing Commander Privateer. I did play wing commander II, but I was a much bigger fan of privateer.
 
wol-va-rine said:
this is a FAILthread of epic proportions...

no mention of X-COM...? really...? and y'all are supposedly talking about "classics"...? ugh...

for shame...
Click to expand...

I have only vague memories of X-Com. I played it back in the day, but I certainly wouldn't call it a classic....
 
BioShock.


The game really didn't push me into overclocking and building as much as the hardware did. Tweaking my ThinkPad T61p and benching 3dMark06 really got me hooked on over clocking and benching. My favorite game is UT3.
 
Spare-Flair said:
To be fair, computer building was a very niche and difficult to get into back during the days of XCOM. You could not really buy OEM parts and build a computer as it were like you can today by strolling into microcenter or going to newegg. Most people were faced with prebuilt beige boxes and the choices the computer store offered you at the time. You could buy your own ram and harddrives and install them yourself but other than that, there were very little upgrade options. Everybody had a 386. That was the only decent processor you could buy. You had the choice from 12 MHz to 40 MHz models and Intel or clone (AMD). There was no need to really build your own computer just because you wanted to play XCOM. Chances were that if you had a decent computer, it WAS a 386 and therefore, you COULD play XCOM. The only thing you would really do is maybe buy a new soundcard back in the day (adlib, roland, soundblaster).
Click to expand...

I don't think that's accurate at all...

I've been building my own since the early 90s when I could afford my first 8 mhz 286 (which was pretty much obsolete by the time I built it). I have never even owned a brand name, big box PC...

Instead of big chains, there were tons of hole in the wall computer stores in which you could buy parts, and you could also get catalogs and mail order parts. I got many by reading print computer magazines, looking at their ads, and ordering stuff.

Sadly, very few of those little hole in the wall computer stores are still around today.
 
Speaking of true classics...

Does anyone else remember this gem?

portsofcall-splash.jpg


I spent countless hours playing ports of call.
 
I started playing computer games in the late 80s, I played all the sierra text command games (hero's quests, king's quests, space quests, codename: iceman, and a few others), and a lot of wing commander, before getting into doom and quake. Didn't start building my own until 2003 though, not due to any particular game, just because really - cheaper high-end stuff I guess, and since I debug my own problems anyway I didn't need to pay for support I figured, and hell, it's just plain fun.
 
Tolyngee said:
Damn, that's a little late to the party...

At least it was before Crysis arrived in retail...
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I grew up playing games. In my family we had Atari 2600, Intelivision, Colecovision, Vectrex, As an Adult I bought a PS3 and then shortly after got into computers. Late to computer gaming but a long time gamer.
 
I feel like I should be ashamed I forgot about the Wing Commander games! :rolleyes:

SOOOO engrossing! (Had some fun with Independence War, years later...what happened to all the cool, space sim games?!?!)
 
Warcraft and Diablo were the first games to cause me to build a system, since then the games that have sparked enormous sinkholes in my wallet are: Diablo2, SWG, WoW (I feel like crap admitting this), Crysis by default, and Battlefield:Bad Company 2.
 
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