What or who got you onto PC gaming?

Gregster said:
Hi Guys,

As some of you know me, I am rather old (46) and been gaming since I was a nipper. I started out with a Spectrum 48K and games like Manic Miner, Saboteur, Transformers and Head over Heals really started my gaming experience and I have been through so many different gaming systems from a Commodore C64, Spectrum +2, SNES, Megadrive, Amiga 500/1200/CD32, PS1/2/3 but the Amiga was always my favourite, as it was much more. I could use Bulleting boards and I remember linking up with my brothers Amiga and using a LAN (as close to what we use now I guess) connection to play Stunt Car Racer on 2 separate TVs and it was epic. I stuck with the Amiga, whilst my older brother moved over to PC and after watching him play Doom, I rushed out and bought myself a 386 Pentium machine and I have never looked back. There was something in that game that I had never seen before ever and although I had experienced fps 3D games before, Doom was in a class of its own. I have been a PC gamer ever since and I can't imagine being without it.

So, what got you started on PC gaming? Also interested in some history and if you are young or old :)
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Played and did all those things you mentioned here Greg along with Stunt Car Racer on the serial port connection. Dont forget The Last Ninja, Pirates, Starglider II, Rocket Ranger and Midwinter....the list goes on!! Im 42 years old.

All those machines were great in there day but the ones that really stood out were Zx spectrum, C64 and the Atari ST...before the Amiga arrived!

C64 what an Epic machine!!
 
Gregster said:
Hi Guys,

As some of you know me, I am rather old (46) and been gaming since I was a nipper. I started out with a Spectrum 48K and games like Manic Miner, Saboteur, Transformers and Head over Heals really started my gaming experience and I have been through so many different gaming systems from a Commodore C64, Spectrum +2, SNES, Megadrive, Amiga 500/1200/CD32, PS1/2/3 but the Amiga was always my favourite, as it was much more. I could use Bulleting boards and I remember linking up with my brothers Amiga and using a LAN (as close to what we use now I guess) connection to play Stunt Car Racer on 2 separate TVs and it was epic. I stuck with the Amiga, whilst my older brother moved over to PC and after watching him play Doom, I rushed out and bought myself a 386 Pentium machine and I have never looked back. There was something in that game that I had never seen before ever and although I had experienced fps 3D games before, Doom was in a class of its own. I have been a PC gamer ever since and I can't imagine being without it.

So, what got you started on PC gaming? Also interested in some history and if you are young or old :)
Click to expand...

I started on a ZX Spectrum when I was like 5 or something. Was mainly a console gamer until I got my first proper PC around 1999. I did play some games on it, but it was not powerful enough and that is when my graphics card upgrading addiction started. I remember loving playing Deus Ex on PC back in the day. But it probably was around the time Half Life 2/Doom 3 came out when I got my Radeon 9700 that I really started getting into it. I remember flashing the BIOS of a 9700 to make it a Pro and saving myself £100 (good times) :D

Once I got into PC gaming, this happened:

RIVA TNT
GeForce4 MX440
Radeon 9700 Pro
GeForce 7900 GT
GeForce 8800 GTS
Radeon 4870
Radeon 5770
Radeon 5850
Radeon 6970
Radeon 7870
Radeon 7950
GeForce 670
Radeon 7970
Radeon 290
Radeon 295x2
GeForce 1070
GeForce 1080
 
I started on one of these bad boys:

Acorngamescover.png


When I was at middle school, I then moved onto a Commodore 64, although I had a Spectrum +2 for a little while. Stayed with the C64 until I saved up enough cash to buy an Amiga, which looking back on it was an amazing system.

Whilst I had the Amiga I skipped between the Megadrive, PS1, SNES and Nintendo 64. I loved the SNES as well, which looking back on it was probably my favourite console. When I went to Uni, I bought a 486 DX33 with a whopping 8MB of RAM and then moved on console wise as well. Playing Command and Conquer or Doom on a LAN were special experiences.

Nowadays I have a XBox One so I can play with work colleagues but consider PC to be my primary platform :)
 
I was an Amiga gamer until early 93 when the likes of ultima underworld 2, wolfenstein 3d and wing commander 2 convinced me that a PC was the way forward...
 
TangoEchoAlpha said:
I started on one of these bad boys:

Acorngamescover.png


When I was at middle school, I then moved onto a Commodore 64, although I had a Spectrum +2 for a little while. Stayed with the C64 until I saved up enough cash to buy an Amiga, which looking back on it was an amazing system.

Whilst I had the Amiga I skipped between the Megadrive, PS1, SNES and Nintendo 64. I loved the SNES as well, which looking back on it was probably my favourite console. When I went to Uni, I bought a 486 DX33 with a whopping 8MB of RAM and then moved on console wise as well. Playing Command and Conquer or Doom on a LAN were special experiences.

Nowadays I have a XBox One so I can play with work colleagues but consider PC to be my primary platform :)
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Doom worked better on 8 than 4!

Now after tape loading that acorn electron wasn't it a bugger when you accidentally pressed 'break' mid way through a game. Or your little brother did it for you...
 
Just friends at school in the late 90s.

Started with the old Quest For Glory games and went from there. Had a break in my early 20s due to life circumstances but bought another PC in my mid 20s and always played on and off since then.
 
I'd dabbled between PC gaming and consoles when I was younger, but it was Counter-Strike that sealed it for me.
 
I had played games since the age of 5 on ZX81, the Spectrum, the C64, the amiga. But PC gaming (and more building my own PCs) after going to university in 1996 and seeing Doom and the first Tomb
Raider running on a PC at 680x480 on a hall mates PC who studied Comp Sci. After playing those I was hooked, spent my grant + loan on building my own to play (£1200 for a 266mhz pentium PC). Then spending £200 on Voodoo2 gfx card when that was released.
 
I think it all started with a Kingdom, (could have been hamurabi) a text based game which I used to annoy the secrtary to play at my fathers work. I was about 6-7 but was fascinated as it was about feeding people etc.. It used the word bushel and that is how I found out the games name some 38 years later.

Then BBC B, spectrum, real life stuf, amiga 1200 then PC. My first 486 cost me 1200 quid on HP. Played mostly duke nukem (nul modem with my brother doing coop and death match) quake, doom, etc. Spent loads on various cards n stuff. Must have spent 10's thousands over my time on hardwear... never any consoles. Kids had them as they never interested me. However both of them had pc's as well. Daughter's fav game for a long time was operation flashpoint as you could drive the vehicles it edit mode. She now is PS 4 n Mac and as such has disassociated herself from her PCMR father....

A lot of us are quite lucky in the time we grew up I think. Kept me in good stead for my careers and the tech they brought with them.
 
I would say Total Annihilation started it for me, and that was only sheer luck that the game came with our new family PC, which cost like £1200 with a 333MHz processor :D.
 
I'm also 46 and I started gaming in the late 70s on a friends Binatone TV Master Mk6, then a few years later in 1980 I played Star Raiders on an Atari 400, blew me away. But didn't own my first computer until a few years later when I received a CBM Vic20 for xmas.

Saved up my paper round money and bought a rubber keyed ZX Spectrum 48k, then a CBM 64 & Atari 800 XL. Hated the Atari's loading times, typically took 18 mins to load a game in, when the ZX/CBM took around 3-5 mins.

Had a few years off as I discovered girls and motorbikes, then bought myself an Amiga 500 on 0% finance from Rumbelows(!) in '90, played on that until the original Sony PS came out and then was given a P2 400mhz pc as a pressie from a friend in '98, he brought his pc down and another mate brought his round and I had my first taste of LAN partying. Quake 2, Battlezone and Delta Force.

Looking back I have to admit that the Amiga was my favourite, I still play Paradroid 90 and Speedball 2. Still play a handful of ZX games too.

Been playing computer games for 40 years :o
 
At school we were given laptops, to a certain few, about class sized. I think it started there, I remember I had crazy taxi and GTA 1 and GTA 2 and Screamer 4x4. That's where it began because I passed time playing games.. in lesson sssh!
 
23 here,

First console was a dreamcast, followed by a ps2 and when my older brother picked up a PS3 i moved over to pc but can't remember the specs. First two games I remember playing on the pc are fable the lost chapters and the other game being the reason I moved to pc after playing it for a weekend at a friends parents house was battlefield 2. I just immediately fell in love there and then. That and the pc instantly suited me because one of the first things I started to research was how to upgrade PCs and what are their different components.

Something I couldent do then, or now for that matter when it came to consoles.

digitalx said:
At school we were given laptops, to a certain few, about class sized. I think it started there, I remember I had crazy taxi and GTA 1 and GTA 2 and Screamer 4x4. That's where it began because I passed time playing games.. in lesson sssh!
Click to expand...

Me and a few friends used to adhoc play GTA vice city story's in school mainly during English, maths, science, r.e, it, dt, and media.
 
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Life began with ye olde Vic 20, even had the 1.5k expansion. Blitz was the game of choice. I always liked to be a little different so in the mid 80s when all my mates went Speccy or C64 (and one had a Japanese MSX of some kind) I had an Amstrad 464, then the Amstrad 6128, before finally going big time and getting an Atari 520 ST.

For the next 10 years I jumped between different versions of Atari ST, and more frequently, Amiga, 500s, 600s, 1200s, it was all a bit of a blur (The rock and roll lifestyle or the 3 kids, I don't know which) until finally, FINALLY, I could afford my first PC, using a cheap Cyrix 166+ chip, from a now defunct retailer called Roldec I think. Quickly jumped to an Athlon in the late 90s, and the days of glorious overclocking began. Oddly my game of choice was Panzer General, a turn based hex wargame, so no need for the extra speed, but I was keen on folding and genome and seti back then, and would regularly do drive by thread bombing on the early overclockers forum - I don't even remember my handle.

By the turn of the century it was all about the LAN parties, and cpu became a little less relevant, and the competition with my buddies was all about the graphics card and playing Unreal. Voodoo 3dfx, ati rage, tried loads, cant remember all the names! I do remember the day nvidia released the TNT detonator driver though, that was special, and had me ahead of my mates in our computer arms race.

Modern times are much less interesting, I can barely be arsed to overclock, the days of regular rebuilds and reinstalls long gone. I also don't want to stop and think how much money I've spent since that first Roldec
 
I started with an amstrad cpc464. My stepdad randomly decided that would be a good toy for a 5 year old. After that a random 386 I think that didnt have much on it. Hadnt really captured my interest away from my master system/Nes and then megadrive/snes at the time. Until I was around a friends after school and he loaded up C&C. I instantly knew I had to have this game and needed a PC to play on. After what felt like YEARS of begging (now single mum with not much $$) mum managed to get a deal on a friends old pc. a 486dx4 with 16mb ram and a 2mb s3 virge GPU. with a whopping 1gb HDD. Had so many games for that pc and such great times. Never stopped PC gaming from then. Its been such a great time. from the early RTS and FPS games to discovering MMOs and joining clans.
 
I always had an interest in computers and gaming has naturally been part of that too. I started off with an Amstrad CPC 464, bought lots of peripherals then sold the lot and didn't bother for years, rather stupidly partly because my eyesight changed and assumed hours in front of a monitor caused it but also life suddenly changed to that of an mid-teen/young adult.
Started looking at getting a PC when the Time machines (Time computers) were always advertised in the national press and then eventually took the plunge when the Pentium 100 came out and have not been without at least a laptop since and usually a PC or two and a laptop.
Mostly I go through phases of gaming and then not doing any gaming for a while, depends what new games come out I fancy playing. I still much prefer using a PC as the power just cannot be matched by anything else and there's something great about having that big box next to ya :D.

Oh, forget, I nearly bought an Atari St after the Amstrad but the sensible part of me won through, kept the cash from my paper round in the bank :). I used to love reading through the mags shared around at school and remember a mate bought an Acorn Archimedes, well, dad bought him one :)

Today not much changed. I love computers, gaming and IT in general and still a scrooge
 
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When I was very young we had some kind of cassette based computer which I liked playing games on with my Dad. We then got a Windows 95 PC which I liked playing games on like Network Q rally and Red Alert. I simply liked playing games rather than PC gaming at that age so I then drifted into consoles as the PC got out dated. I got specifically into PC gaming in around 2003 with Command and Conquer Generals and have preferred to game on PC since.
 
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