Past/present computers you played EQ with...

[Budder]

Mine...
1999-2003 AMD K6-450 with 256 mb of ram(maybe a bit more?), 16gb riva tnt/32gb Voodoo 3dfx, 56k dial up and 19 inch CRT

Now...AMD 8 core 8350 black edition, 16gb ram, 8gb AMD sapphire 580, 100mb cable internet and 27 inch 4K monitor.

Funny how the technology changed so much yet we still play the same game!

[Jibartik]

https://youtu.be/lO79sc3D1q8

My dad thought he bought a quantum computer.

[Tethler]

My first year playing EQ in '99 I was in highschool. I didn't have a home computer, but a friend of mine worked at a LAN/card game shop. So I'd hang out there and play Magic and he'd let me use the computers for free. Those were good times. After closing shop around midnight a group of us (usually 4 or 5 people) would stay late until 4-5am playing counter-strike or grouping in EQ. Fond memories of 3am Freeti camps in solb and frenzy in Guk.

So I always did that on Fridays after school and most weekends. Those were Pentium II's, though I don't know the exact specs.

Around late Velious I finished HS and got a job and built my own PC. Don't remember mobo or specific parts, but it was some 2gig AMD processor, a 512mb video card, 1 gig of ram, and I had a 19in monitor. Was proud of myself at the time, haha.

[sacman08]

I bought myself my first computer just to play EQ without any lag. I had an ATI card on it too - the first of several graphics cards I went through. I built the computer from scratch myself and had several problems with it. The AMD K6-2 CPU would get so hot, that I had to run it with the case side door off and a box fan on high blowing right against it. After about 1.5 hours, EQ would get the computer so hot it would freeze up and I had to unplug the power and leave it for a while to cool down. Later I found out the AMD k6-2 had a manufacturing's recall because it would (guess what!) get too hot with the voltage. I ended up patching evenutally and was so happy I could go hours without my computer locking up.
I also remember going to a local computer show and snagging a low cost 21 inch CRT monitor. It was so heavy I couldn't carry it around but for a few minutes before we left the show. It ended up being so deep that I had to move my computer desk away from the wall and put it in the corner just so it would fit and not bow the desk with it's weight. Good times!

[Lemonhead]

Hey, AMD K6-2 also! 512meg ram I think. They were pretty cheap. I think I threw it together for 400 bucks. That might have included a cheap 17 inch monitor. I don't think I had one. This is just before Kunark. I had been playing on my roommate's before this. I miss the days when putting it together yourself saved you a bunch of money. Maybe it does on the high end now, but it just doesn't seem worth it, especially the pain of working with non-licensed windows or adding that cost.

[Valura]

pentium II, 64mb ram.

[Budder]

That AMD K6-2 was shit hot! I think it had the 3D Now technology Or something like that. I remember the 450 was a lot less in price then the 500. Looking back at the video cards and the cool box art is fun now too. You can still find them on eBay and the gaming computers from then.
Also putting in a new video card from 16 mb of ram to a 32mb and actually seeing the graphics difference was awesome. Good times! I kinda miss that now for sure.

[Chortles Snort|eS]

PENTIUM 4? MMX SOMETHIN

[Aalderon Crystafire]

Dell XPS R450 -- a cutting edge Pentium II 450mhz CPU, Turtle Beach Montego sound card and....

well, it came with a rather new nVidia RIVA TNT card but Dell shipped these machines with pretty crappy barebone drivers and I had no idea what drivers were in '98 so when Half-Life couldn't run in anything but Software mode we went out and got a Diamond Monster 3DII - 3dfx Voodoo 2 and so the TNT became the 2D card while pass-through Voodoo 2 took care of everything 3D. I played Everquest a few months later on that machine in Glide mode.

[mcoy]

First system (barely ran EQ) Gateway 120 (upgraded to an off-brand 133 MHz CPU). The sheer convenience of having both 3.5" and 5.25" drives! This was also my first system with a CPU better than a 386, and my first experience with Windows 95.

Second - PII-450 with a shiny new 3DFX VooDoo2 card. Lasted me until I went to college and moved to playing on a laptop. Turned this one into a home theater for my dorm room thanks to the addition of a dvd decoder card and a klipsch 5.1 setup. That's where the soda stain on the front came from. I really should get around to cleaning that since it happened 18 years or so ago.

Both still work. I was surprised at how quickly Win 98 booted from the old 5400 rpm drives. Unfortunately, my 17.6GB 2nd drive in the HP is dead and that's where my original EQ screenshots and stuff are. Waiting for the price per GB of recovery to come down a bit more and I'll ship it out to drivesavers or one of those places.

-Mcoy

[Cen]

My first EQ PC was a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Presario_5460

Which had a slowish frame rate but burned in my firzt permanent neriak and qeynos memories to my brain.

[Nairb1]

First pc was a pent 75 with a turbo botton that bumped it up to p125 with a intergraded vid card, 64 meg of ram(i think) 32.2 modem. It took me near 7 min to zone, people would think i left the group when wed zone because itd take me near 14 min to zone from a train and zone back. Good thing i maind a Necro so id just fd instead of zone.

Current pc is a bit older aswell, quad core 2.5gz, 1060 vid card, 16 gig ram. Just upgraded to my first sshd which im loven. Still lag when on a free server and maken a mega train threw plain of disease =P

[ineubis]

For Live: Some Compaq Pentium2 333. A few gigs of RAM, Voodoo 3 vid card, 56K dial up modem.
For P99: My computer is a Dell Latitude E6430 (7 yo Dell work laptop) I use just the laptop and a mouse, no other accessories lol.

[Dolalin]

This, but a Pentium 200mmx, I threw a 12meg voodoo2 card in it to run EQ. It chugged on its 32 megs of ram but I upgraded it to 96MB and load times were tolerable.

Still only got like 10fps in unrest. That was a real dog of a zone.

[kjs86z]

I just bought this in preparation for Green.

https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=2074121

Gotta be the first to load in zones to get that guise / manastone, right?

[bilirubin]

These pics of these older computers are glorious, keep posting them please.

Newer computer components/towers are such an eyesore, why does everything need to have bright neon lights and Xtreme in the name?

[Lurgort/Sseri]

Oh man...

In 2000-2003, a Celeron 533 in a HP Pavilion. No graphics card, intel onboard graphics...the trees in Warslik's Woods all had texture issues, literal hell trying to navigate. 256 MB of RAM.

2003 outta high school having taken some IT classes, built an AMD "Barton" 2500+ with a GeForce Ti 4200 and 2.5 GB of RAM. Played a ton of Battlefield 1942, PlanetSide 1, and FFXI. Did some new EQ live expansions up 'til Prophecy of Ro.

Presently I have an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 with a RX 5700 XT with a 3440x1440 Ultrawide, it's nice to have P99 EQ in a 4:3 1600x1200 Window with classwork or media/browser on the rest of this display. Waiting for Pantheon / Cyberpunk 2077 / DOOM(II) 2019!

[Aalderon Crystafire]

McCoy, love that machine -- those Epson (?) two-in-one 3.5/5.25 drives for a single slot are nice, I really need to get one for my DOS machines.

[DMN]

How do people remember this shit? Sometimes I take a moment to recall my home phone when calling for delivery.

[Lurgort/Sseri]

How do people remember this shit? Sometimes I take a moment to recall my home phone when calling for delivery.

I'd say it's 'baked in memory' because you recall what you did with those machines very easily.

[DMN]

I'd say it's 'baked in memory' because you recall what you did with those machines very easily.

i don't. Well, I do, but i don't remember whatever shittyass computer I was using. CPU that wasn't good enough, GFX card that wasn't good enough, shitty dialup modem, shitty ball mouse. I still dig CRT monitors though.

[Mblake81]

My first EQ PC was a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Presario_5460

Which had a slowish frame rate but burned in my firzt permanent neriak and qeynos memories to my brain.

Gateway essential purchased in early 2000. Had the Geforce 256, SoundBlaster audio card paired with Boston Acoustics Digital BA735 2.1.

Everquest doesn't seem the same on a widescreen LCD..

2nd comp was from ABS, third was a shit E-Machines.. started putting my own computers together after that.

This, but a Pentium 200mmx, I threw a 12meg voodoo2 card in it to run EQ. It chugged on its 32 megs of ram but I upgraded it to 96MB and load times were tolerable.

Still only got like 10fps in unrest. That was a real dog of a zone.

That pic you attached has the aesthetic I like, but only because its been gone for so long. A computer was aimed at a business office and you added a couple things to play games better. No gaming computers or RGB lights.

I have been looking at 4:3 ratio LCD monitors lately.

These pics of these older computers are glorious, keep posting them please.

Newer computer components/towers are such an eyesore, why does everything need to have bright neon lights and Xtreme in the name?

That is cool when its an exception only. The guys over at [H]ardforum (https://hardforum.com/forums/cases-case-modding.13/) were putting plexi glass windows to see inside and doing all kinds of stuff. Here is my first custom. (https://hardforum.com/threads/my-sg33g5b-shoe-box.1214662/)

How do people remember this shit? Sometimes I take a moment to recall my home phone when calling for delivery.

Lots of time spent.

[Mblake81]

I still dig CRT monitors though.

That 4:3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0rv1pqCs-E)

[mcoy]

I still dig CRT monitors though.

Some things just look better on them - EQ included. It's much less washed out, despite the "brighter" Titanium client.

This same monitor was used on the Gateway I pictured earlier. I had to get it because my original monitor exploded (flames and everything out the back) when Win95 tried to put it to sleep the first time. We were just about to leave the house when I heard a loud pop (guessing capacitor exploding?) and saw the glow in the computer room. Luckily I never bother screwing VGA cables in so I was able to quickly grab it and throw it outside before anything else got ruined.

-Mcoy

[Mblake81]

Most of the 4:3 LCD can't match the CRT for visual quality. Shame that technology could not be made smaller so your monitor doesn't weigh 40lbs.

[Mblake81]

I still dig CRT monitors though.

Some things just look better on them - EQ included. It's much less washed out, despite the "brighter" Titanium client.

the rich colors (https://youtu.be/87tiT16BZf0?t=460)

[Blingy]

My first EQ computer was a Micron P2/200MMX. I had to buy a passthrough 3d video card to play. It had 64 megs of ram. My landlord/roomie worked for the local telephone company so we had the best dial up service available. Only after he got engaged (and kicked me out) did he upgrade to DSL......oh that hurt.

[Mblake81]

Most of the LCDs can't match the CRT for visual quality. Shame that technology could not be made smaller so your monitor doesn't weigh 40lbs.

the rich colors (https://youtu.be/87tiT16BZf0?t=460)

September 16, 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8BVTHxc4LM)

have a good one guys :cool: