What was the crappiest computer that could run EQ 1999-2000?

All I remember is the load times. I could make a sandwich in between loading zones.

I got a Voodoo 5 5500 half a year into playing. So I had the Voodoo 3-2000 when I got EQ.

Awww yeah look at all that Voodoo power!

Gateway Pentium 1 133mHZ I bought after working a summer job.

Started in Nektulos, hung out at the noob log. All fog all day son. I thought the fog was part of the game and I thought it was normal that I could only see 20 feet ahead of me. Fuck me when I realized I could turn it down a bit.

Changed my entire outlook on LIFE in general. After that I was not content with default settings on any game or computer ever since.

I had an AMD K6 266mhz, 64mb of ram, voodoo banshee and AWE 32 which made the music in EQ sound really good for being MIDI. Also dial-up. With in a year I upgraded to 128mb of ram, Geforce 2 MX400 and Cable for internet which made a world of difference, the next year I upgraded to a Celeron 600 which I OC'd to 900MHz which ran really well, 256mb of ram... since then I continually upgraded my comp every year.

I had a Dell P2 450mhz that came with an Nvidia Riva card that I got in late 98 for Half-Life and Tribes. Once EQ came out I upgraded to two Voodoo 2's in SLI and it ran pretty damn good. Sometime in the first year of release I upgraded my ram to 256 from 128 I think and that made a huge difference in loading times.

I remember that half way during classic, I upgraded the original audio card (maybe even onboard) to a new Sound Blaster. All of the sudden the game went from sounding like something from the NES to actually having instruments that you could hear. I was blown away by how much better the loading screen sounded.

My early EQ days was a sad story....

I was 16, never had a computer and didn't know anything about them what so ever. I grew up poor and had been working a full 80 hours a week since my 8th grade summer. I read about this game called EQ and set my mind to saving up money that summer to buy a computer. Well my teacher said she had this apple computer that she would sell me for $400 (my mom worked with her and mentioned my plans). I saved up, bought the computer and went to try and install. The bomb dropped....the computer didn't have anything close spec wise to run the game or do anything on it outside of fucking moon patrol and Organ Trail.

Luckily the teacher refunded my money and I went to Walmart and bought an Acer. Rushed home, tried to play and boom...bomb #2 drops; my computer didn't have a graphics card and wouldn't play EQ. Went and got one (remember I was a country boy who had no clue about anything computer related, all my gaming was Sega masters system, atarii,NES/SNES and PS1 up to that point).

Finally....the moment of truth came late November if I recall right after my birthday. We got internet setup, I jumped right in as a dark elf necro (I was always a wizard person and hated pets in single games but figured I'd try it out). I got so fucking lost in nek that after a few hours I rerolled as a Eudrite necro. I messed around for abit and then rerolled when Lanys server came up in December as HE wiz. Oh the memories of trying to race to 50....but that's for another thread.

The final part of the story that is the depressing/funny thing is....I was up in north Dakota in the fucking BOONIES. I was able to get DSL but our phone lines pre-dated Mr. Bell himself. That coupled with my bare min req computer....led to me having zone times of...8+ minutes. I shit you not. I used to try and take the boat from Freeport and by the time I zoned into Ocean of Oasis or whatever it was called the boat would be gone. I couldn't swim for shit and drowned and lost my body. We had a gm/guide named Grid on the server who after a few times of coming to rescue me finally would tell me to petition if I needed to get into the zone or go through it etc. I also played without sound for years until I upgraded my computer. When I bought a new one in college...oh my god. Going from 8 min zones to like 10 seconds and being able to 2 box was the greatest gift in the world.

I had a lot of good friends in EQ and ran fear raids etc but the one thing I think most would remember is me holding groups up for fucking ever "dude I told you I zone slow, I'm almost there!! (remember trying to get on Lguk Frenized camp lists....I got to the point I'd just stay in the zone so I didn't loose my group since they would get impatient heh. I didn't lag too much unless in raids but zoning...oh god the zoning.

Oh the first time I finally loaded EQ and heard the loading screen music damn near brought a tear to my eye after playing for a long time never having heard any ingame music. I logged into Fewlith I believe and was so joyous.