>>3574550>Your average consumer desktop PC in 1997, assuming they were brand new, would have been a Pentium MMX 166 with no 3D acceleratorExactly.
PC gaming in 1997 barely used any 3D outside of FPS. This was the year where RTS crushed FPS in sales and the top selling games had no use for 3D.
Best selling PC games of 1997:
>Riven (puzzle adventure) 4 million>Age of empires (RTS) 3 mil>Diablo (released december 31, 1996) 2.5 Mil>Total Annihilation (RTS) 1.5 Mil>C&C Gold (RTS) Re-released in 1997 for total of 3 million sales including original release>Deer hunter (Hunting FPS) 1 Mil>Quake II (FPS) 1 MilWarcraft II and C&C: Red Alert from previous years re-surged in popularity from previous years thanks to better internet access by 1997. Diablo also thrived for the same reason and the hellfire expansion in late '97 brought it renewed interest.
The 3D performance enthusiast gamers were a minority within a minority. Most Quake II players did not have the higher end Voodoo cards.
tl;dr
Most PC gamers played potato quake with shit entry level graphics cards and spent more time playing RTS
