What pc would you say is retro?

Methanoid · 30 Oct 2020 at 10:34

If it runs on an Abit BP6 its retro, otherwise not...

kar · 10 Dec 2020 at 13:47

If it can run 32bit chrome (ie it has SSE2) it's not retro.

So anything up until the pentium 4, athlon x2/opteron.

Methanoid · 10 Dec 2020 at 13:55

Quartz said:
For me, retro means DOS-based, and that includes Windows 9x. Windows 2000 marks the change. No, Windows NT and 95 / 98 don't count. Windows NT was too restrictive. With Windows 2000 I had a decent Windows OS in which I could both run games and be productive without rebooting and didn't crash. OS/2 worked fine for me in the 90s until copy protection mechanisms became obnoxious. But when Windows 2000 came out I switched immediately.

My backup PC would probably be entirely fine running Windows 2000.

Win2K has a soft spot in my heart... I remember a friend telling me I needed Win2K if I wanted to run multi CPU with the legendary Abit BP6 mobo and two Celerons. I switched, and stayed. I was on W2K for a while and didnt want to move to that new XP thing until I was pointed to the Classic theme to avoid its "garish colours" etc. I skipped Vista and went to 7 with classic theme for a while before finally kicking the classic habit. Not sure I could go back from Win10 now... I actually like it but that's cos I have LTSC

iamwilf · 12 Dec 2020 at 15:46

Agree w2k was the turning point for stability. I still consider any game after 2000 to be recent, then i remember it's 2020

panthro · 14 Dec 2020 at 16:12

I always thought the Pentium was the first modern processor and anything before i.e. 486 was retro. I remember how much better Wipeout used to run on a friends Pentium vs my 486 DX2-66 as the game was "optimised for Pentium".

iamwilf · 17 Dec 2020 at 13:03

panthro said:
I always thought the Pentium was the first modern processor and anything before i.e. 486 was retro. I remember how much better Wipeout used to run on a friends Pentium vs my 486 DX2-66 as the game was "optimised for Pentium".

I was very envious of my friend's 486 while I was using a 14mhz Amiga. Fun times

Cyber-Mav · 19 Dec 2020 at 00:06

Windows 2000. Now your talking. Awsome os and i was on it till xp sp3 came out.

IICIIEII · 14 Jan 2021 at 00:30

DOS PCs, 16bit and 8bit computers for me

Of course I realize that I am 40 and I had a Pentium when I was 15-16... (an Windows NT!) but still, I cannot see those as "retro"

For somebody that is 20, well... the Xbox 360 may be retro enough.

iamwilf · 14 Jan 2021 at 09:37

Pentium with 4mb orchid righteous 3D accelerator was my first modern system. Still love playing DOS games

paradigm · 26 Jan 2021 at 09:33

I think people are confusing "Retro" and "Vintage". Retro is a style/design/aesthetic choice, "Vintage" is hardware of a certain age.

You can build a "Retro" system using modern hardware and DOSBox. You can't build a "Vintage" system using modern hardware.

ScotchHop · 31 Jan 2021 at 03:19

Speccy and early Amiga era I guess. PCs were not that good and so expensive next to the Amiga and Atari ST.

lokiss · 31 Jan 2021 at 14:09

You could simplify it by just saying anything beige with a slight tint of yellow, and the desktop needs to look like it's been cut and pasted with a razor blade.

Paradigm is right, it's more of a stylisation at this point. Personally the only true vintage stuff for me will be the pioneering stuff of the 70's and the first one or maybe two iterations on that. Anything beyond that it becomes personal to you. As for 90's PC's, never really wanted to go back. Unless you enjoy the challenge, or still have enough hair to tug on, then sure

turbot1984 · 31 Jan 2021 at 14:31

Cyrix FasMath... isn't that when 'plug n play' became the new vernacular, lol

kar · 11 Feb 2021 at 19:57

iamwilf said:
Pentium with 4mb orchid righteous 3D accelerator was my first modern system. Still love playing DOS games

Same here - though I classify that as Vintage now.

I recently acquired a Voodoo 1 (though not the Righteous, those things are ridiculously expensive now), and it wouldn't even work in an Athlon XP test system as it was too fast :eek:

iamwilf · 11 Feb 2021 at 21:44

kar said:
Same here - though I classify that as Vintage now.

I recently acquired a Voodoo 1 (though not the Righteous, those things are ridiculously expensive now), and it wouldn't even work in an Athlon XP test system as it was too fast

I still think of the 90s as the heyday of pc gaming and 3dfx as the dawn of the new era. Athlon xp was my last AMD CPU, it might be time to go back to the red team considering their recent improvements

Cyber-Mav · 14 Feb 2021 at 07:50

Was fun trying to emulate arcade and console games on underpowered hardware. Any tweaks done could get you some speed.
These days powerful hardware i find for me takes some of the fun out. I found some enjoyment when my system used to struggle.
This is back in 486 era

DoneADougalOnSofa · 14 Feb 2021 at 08:00

Cyber-Mav said:
Windows 2000. Now your talking. Awsome os and i was on it till xp sp3 came out.

I actually really liked Vista.
Was pretty good at the end of its life, post-service packs.

DoneADougalOnSofa · 14 Feb 2021 at 08:05

I remember leafing through Computer Shopper every night in bed, looking at all the hugely-expensive 386DX and -shudders in delight- 486DX2 systems, with their raytraced screen images of the shiny balls or a sports car. More money than I knew existed at the time.
Eventually got a Tiny 486SX2-50 for Christmas one year. I went mad, even got 8MB of RAM rather then the usual 4MB. Cirrus Logic 5428 GPU. oh yes, now we're talking.
Still doing similar today...

Retro6 · 23 Oct 2021 at 13:32

Time goes by so quickly the 90's seems like a decade ago. The PC's I'd consider retro is anything up to Pentium 4. Pentium III was the last decent retro computer but some Pentium 4 computers can still be ok for retro OS like Win98.

Windows 2000 is ok and marks the end for retro computing.

I have a Pentium 4 computer and on the P4 sticker it says designed for Windows 98SE which I thought is odd because most Pentium 4 computers came with Windows XP. It runs Windows 98 SE pretty well. I will have to get it out some time and upload a photo of it.