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