Your First Gaming Build

booman

booman

Grand High Exalted Mystic Emperor of Linux Gaming
Staff member
We all had our first gaming computer. Whether you built it yourself or it was a pre-built (Dell, HP)...

What was your first gaming computer?

OS:
CPU:
Mobo:
RAM:
Hard Drive:
Video Card:
Audio Card:
Case:
Power Supply:
Monitor:
 
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It's a long time since my first gaming computer, and I am not sure if I remember all specs, but what I do remember:

CPU: AMD K6-2, I believe the clock rate was 480 MHz
RAM: 32 Mb
Hard Drive: 3 Gb
Video Card: 3D Blaster Banshee

I don't remember anything else about this one, but I got it in early 1999 and it was running Windows 98. I remember very clearly that this was when Might and Magic 6 was new and I played through that game for the first time on this computer. I also played Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 for the first time on this computer. And Half-Life, of course.

One thing I remember clearly is how I would need to uninstall one game to install another game. When Vampire The Masquerade Redemption came out, it was a 1 Gb game, so I could not have many other games installed while playing it.
 
My first build was after I got married 14 years ago. I had a friend (also named Brian) that knew how to build PC's and happen to tinker with Linux. Too bad I wasn't very interested in Linux then :(

OS: Windows 98
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (2.4 GHz I think)
Mobo: Intel Socket 478 FSB 800
RAM: DDR 400
Hard Drive: Maxtor 40GB
Video Card: GeForce MMX 400
Audio Card: n/a
Case: used hand-me-down
Power Supply: Generic
Monitor: CRT hand-me-down
 
I also had a GeForce 400 card at some point. This setup of yours is better than even my second computer which had a GeForce 2 card, and a 1 GHz CPU.

And yeah, I remember the good old CRT screens. They took way too much space and weighed a ton, at least that's what it felt like.
 
Well, that computer was built around 2003. I came late in the game :(
But the MMX 400 was an amazing card for its time. I kept it for many years. After that I upgraded to an ATI Radeon 9800 and it rocked as well.
I even purchased three 21" CRT used monitors from craigslist.com, they were so heavy and eventually started displaying artifacts. That was the last time I purchased used monitors.
 
Hmmm.....I'll not be able to remember all the bits involved here as my first build was in the very early parts of the 90's

OS: Win 3.11
CPU: AM486 DX4-100
Mobo: -
RAM: -
Hard Drive: 110 Mb Connor
Video Card: Trident sumpin or other
Audio Card: -
Case: Sumin scavenged from the trash
Power Supply: -
Monitor: -
 
Ah, I remember the Connor drives. Nice product before Seagate bought them. I also had some CDC Wren drives at one point; those things were also great drives before Seagate bought them.
 
So are we talking first computer, first built computer, or first gaming computer?

I can't say I've ever had a rig built with gaming in mind; honestly, I've tended toward consoles for my gaming needs. That being said, I've always had a taste for esoteric hardware and configs, so even though I've not built a GAMING rig, my rigs have always tended to be capable and to be used at least to some extent for gaming.

First computer: Texas Instruments Ti 99/4A
First built computer:
OS: Win 3.11
CPU: A Cyrix 486SLC if I recall correctly.
Video: 'Trident sumpin or other' LOL.
Case: 'Sumin scavenged from the trash'

Sorry Luta, but I just loved those descriptions, so I HAD to use them.

I actually built the system so that I could run some CAD software. At the time I was designing printed circuit boards and needed the software for both the pc board layout and also for Programmable Logic Array work that I was doing.
 
Gizmo said:
honestly, I've tended toward consoles for my gaming needs.
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Uhhh, GASPS! :eek:
How could you??? After all we've been through... I feel betrayed! :rolling:

CAD huh? What were you using CAD for?
 
I just kinda figgered any comp build is for gaming to some extent......that was, after all, the firstest task put to a computer.
 
cloasters said:
Shazam Gizmo, you are the man. Did you have a $2000 Pro vidcard to aid with CAD design of circuit boards?
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No, I wasn't running AutoCAD or anything like that (frankly, I don't remember the name of the software I was running). I did have a Matrox card at one point though; at the time it was a several hundred $ card.

booman said:
Yeah, one of those Quadro cards?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure nVidia even HAD the Quadro at the time? I <THINK> this was around about when they released the NV10, so they were still very much consumer graphics, not professional. That changed just a few years later though, IIRC.
 
Matrox made some rather nice vid cards back in the day. But then they got complacent and COMPLETELY missed the 3D rendering movement. By the time they caught back up, upstarts like nVidia and AMD ruled the roost. Matrox are still around, but they focus on very niche markets now, mostly multi-monitor stuff (think video walls); they have one card that can drive up to 6 monitors at up to 4096 x 2160 resolution, and you can put 2 such cards into a system to drive 12 displays.
 
I haven't thought of Matrox for at least ten years. Nice to know that I still don't HAVE to have one of their vidcards!

Speaking of AMD vidcards--I get a lot of updates from Mint referencing AMD64. Does the use of an AMD video card demand ALL of that software that references it?
I avoided an AMD video card because of possible driver problems. Must I still use all of those "AMD64" updates?
 
I assume you've got an AMD CPU? The AMD64 updates are referring to the CPU, not the video card.
 
Did you install a 64-bit version of Mint? The AMD64 updates are probably referring to 64-bit-specific stuff. The 64-bit instruction set we use (even on Intel) these days was invented by AMD.
 
Gizmo said:
Did you install a 64-bit version of Mint? The AMD64 updates are probably referring to 64-bit-specific stuff. The 64-bit instruction set we use (even on Intel) these days was invented by AMD.
Click to expand...
How can Intel live with itself! Do they have to pay AMD big bunches of cash or did they follow custom and just steal it!?
 
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