Here's a pic of my retro gaming rig, which is mostly original.

Gateway 2000 G6-266:
- Gateway 2000 tower case. For a case from 1998 this thing is great. Sound-proofed, easy access and easy to work on, no sharp corners. My only complaint is that it's a bit tight behind the CD-ROM drives.
- Pentium II 266 MHz, not overclocked
- 440BX chipset, Intel OEM board.
- OEM Ensoniq Soundscape AudioPCI sound card
- original Mitsumi 18 speed CD-ROM drive (starts to get tired).
- Philips DVD-ROM/CD-writer out of an Apple eMac 1GHz. Just works, despite lacking a front plate.
- Original 4 Gb harddisk, to which I added a Maxtor 40 Gb harddisk that was supposedly failing in a newer AMD Duron-based system (that was 10 years ago... 🤣 )
- 320 Mb RAM, 64 Mb + single-sided 128 Mb + half-recognized single-sided 256 Mb stick. The latter two sticks didn't work under the original BIOS revision (P08), so I updated the BIOS to version P18 (when Gateway's site still existed). It's stable. A nice and interesting side-effect of the high RAM amount is that this system can play DVDs without hardware acceleration, despite supposedly being too slow for that (PowerDVD takes 194 Mb of RAM)
- Asus Nvidia TNT2 Riva M64 AGP videocard, replacing the original Nvidia TNT AGP card.
- ISA ISDN modem that I never removed from the system.
- FDD.
- USB 250 Mb ZIP-drive.
- original Gateway speakers
- I still have the original 17" monitor (HUGE heavy beast), but it has been replaced by a Dell flat screen
- Windows 95 (USB support) updated to Windows 98 SE

I still have a Adaptec ISA AHA-1542B SCSI-2 adapter I'll probably install into this machine, since Win98SE is the last OS that still has compatible drivers (I think...).

Diamond Viper 770 if you turn up empty handed on trying to get a proper 128 bit TNT like a Viper 550, the bandwidth difference is huge and really shows in some games.

Nice rig and I always love seeing those good old Gateway 2000s plus some them have Nice boards.

The M64 card comes out of a disastrous PC purchase I did in 2001 (had a system built by a system builder shop recommended by friends, turned out to be a complete mess that ate hard disks at a rate of 1 every three months and BSOD'ed under load 😒 ) Its 32Mb of RAM were a great improvement over the 4Mb of the original graphics card, despite the bandwidth problem. It also helps that I mostly play older DOS games and Windows RTS games.

This Gateway 2000 has a nice board 😀

yawetaG wrote:

The M64 card comes out of a disastrous PC purchase I did in 2001 (had a system built by a system builder shop recommended by friends, turned out to be a complete mess that ate hard disks at a rate of 1 every three months and BSOD'ed under load 😒 ) Its 32Mb of RAM were a great improvement over the 4Mb of the original graphics card, despite the bandwidth problem. It also helps that I mostly play older DOS games and Windows RTS games.

This Gateway 2000 has a nice board 😀

yawetaG wrote:

Here's a pic of my retro gaming rig, which is mostly original.

Gateway 2000 G6-266:
- Asus Nvidia TNT2 Riva M64 AGP videocard, replacing the original Nvidia TNT AGP card.

Perhaps you're referring to the Viper V330, which is a Riva 128? The Viper 550 (which I had in my first system) comes with 16MB, Riva 128 I see often with 4MB.

If you replaced a Riva 128 with a M64, then I'd say it would (or at least should) definitely be an improvement, though I dunno if this improvement was really significant. I found TNT1 not all though fantastic in performance (and you can forget about 32-bit gaming on the TNT, it was usually very slow and I noticed little difference).

I purchased a TNT1 when they were first out and I needed an AGP (which was new) video card. The drivers were so unpolished that all games had artifacts, took them a while to get it working decently.

I had a look at the original card, and it is a STB Velocity 128 AGP (rev. B) with 4 MB RAM and only VGA-out (never do things from memory... 😵 ). Interestingly, it has a Gateway-badged BIOS chip (version 1.6, dated Oct. 28, 1997).

Socket-7 build. Cable-managment need some extra-work, but the case is awesome - always want one of those.

Inside i've got 128mb of pc-133 ram, isa sound blaster vibra (i know its not awe64, but its sound really good with my antel lansig 2.1 setup) s3virge+voodoo-2 (will add second sli-voodoo2 and replace s3 with matrox millenium 2 shortly). Also i hook up voodoo 2 to the second vga-input on my Sony Trinitron g200 monitor. Boom, no image degrading and everything great until you start playing something like Myth: The fallen lords, where you have to switch inputs constantly)

I've reprogrammed standard Hi and LO lights on the case to 133 manually. It was not as hard as i thought, just basic jumpers-managment

nice ive been looking to have a setup like that

yawetaG wrote:

Here's a pic of my retro gaming rig, which is mostly original. […]
Show full quote

Here's a pic of my retro gaming rig, which is mostly original.

Gateway 2000 G6-266:
- Gateway 2000 tower case. For a case from 1998 this thing is great. Sound-proofed, easy access and easy to work on, no sharp corners. My only complaint is that it's a bit tight behind the CD-ROM drives.
- Pentium II 266 MHz, not overclocked
- 440BX chipset, Intel OEM board.
- OEM Ensoniq Soundscape AudioPCI sound card
- original Mitsumi 18 speed CD-ROM drive (starts to get tired).
- Philips DVD-ROM/CD-writer out of an Apple eMac 1GHz. Just works, despite lacking a front plate.
- Original 4 Gb harddisk, to which I added a Maxtor 40 Gb harddisk that was supposedly failing in a newer AMD Duron-based system (that was 10 years ago... 🤣 )
- 320 Mb RAM, 64 Mb + single-sided 128 Mb + half-recognized single-sided 256 Mb stick. The latter two sticks didn't work under the original BIOS revision (P08), so I updated the BIOS to version P18 (when Gateway's site still existed). It's stable. A nice and interesting side-effect of the high RAM amount is that this system can play DVDs without hardware acceleration, despite supposedly being too slow for that (PowerDVD takes 194 Mb of RAM)
- Asus Nvidia TNT2 Riva M64 AGP videocard, replacing the original Nvidia TNT AGP card.
- ISA ISDN modem that I never removed from the system.
- FDD.
- USB 250 Mb ZIP-drive.
- original Gateway speakers
- I still have the original 17" monitor (HUGE heavy beast), but it has been replaced by a Dell flat screen
- Windows 95 (USB support) updated to Windows 98 SE

I still have a Adaptec ISA AHA-1542B SCSI-2 adapter I'll probably install into this machine, since Win98SE is the last OS that still has compatible drivers (I think...).

gateway.jpg

I had this exact model, bought new in '97. Don't even want to think how much I spent on that bastard. I'm almost sure it was over $3k. If I'd put the same amount in Apple stock I'd have my damn house paid for.

Deflektor wrote:

Socket-7 build. Cable-managment need some extra-work, but the case is awesome - always want one of those.

Nice! Socket 7 is just so versatile - I've got four working systems at the moment, and parts for several more... 😊

What kind of motherboard and chipset is that? What processor? Looks good.

Personally, I wouldn't replace the Virge with a Millenium - the S3 has better DOS compatibility. Unless yours is a cheap one with bad image quality, I would keep it.

oerk wrote:

Deflektor wrote:

Personally, I wouldn't replace the Virge with a Millenium - the S3 has better DOS compatibility. Unless yours is a cheap one with bad image quality, I would keep it.

I've been through a couple of S3 Virge myself, currently using a Diamond Stealth 2000 Pro. Haven't really noticed any quality difference with a Matrox.

Here's my two that I currently got running, oldest first, showing both AIDA screencaps and empty desks.

Oldest, 433c, 9x-era.
-------------------------------------

-------------------------------------
Newest, dc5750, XP-era.
-------------------------------------

-------------------------------------
Leaving the laptop outta this as there's a separate thread for that, however the newest of the rigs I got that would count for retro/legacy/whatever is that dc5750, since it's based around hardware that came out in '04, which is kinda getting there.

love the Sonic CD and Ice Cap wallapers.

Hi Everyone 😀
Here's my Retro Rig:
Specs:
AMD K6-III 400Mhz
Gigabyte GA-5AX Rev 4.1 Motherboard
256MB PC133 memory.
20GB Quantum Fireball LM Plus hard disk
LG DVD Drive
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound card with a Yamaha DB50XG Daughter board.
Nvidia Geforce 2 MX AGP w/32MB
(I had a Voodoo 5 previously installed, though i've decided to use it with an Athlon XP 1800+ instead 😀
650Watt PSU
Windows 98 (Not Second Edition)

CodeFuApprentice wrote:

Hi Everyone :) Here's my Retro Rig: Specs: AMD K6-III 400Mhz Gigabyte GA-5AX Rev 4.1 Motherboard 256MB PC133 memory. 20GB Quantu […]
Show full quote

Hi Everyone 😀
Here's my Retro Rig:
Specs:
AMD K6-III 400Mhz
Gigabyte GA-5AX Rev 4.1 Motherboard
256MB PC133 memory.
20GB Quantum Fireball LM Plus hard disk
LG DVD Drive
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound card with a Yamaha DB50XG Daughter board.
Nvidia Geforce 2 MX AGP w/32MB
(I had a Voodoo 5 previously installed, though i've decided to use it with an Athlon XP 1800+ instead 😀
650Watt PSU
Windows 98 (Not Second Edition)

And on screen is Heretic II menu? I ended that game years ago and was very good 😀

Here are few of my retro computers.
I will take better pictures soon.
AT&T Globalyst310, intel dx2 66mhz, 1mb tseng et4000/w32i vlb, 16mb ram, 8gb compact flash hdd, Soundblaster 16vibra with opl3
Ast Bravo 386sx/20 4mb ram, 42 hdd
And noname case tomatoboard 4dps, AMD DX4 100mhz, 16mb ram, 1,7gb hdd, S3 trio64v+ and another vibra 16 with opl3

yawetaG wrote:

Here's a pic of my retro gaming rig, which is mostly original. […]
Show full quote

Here's a pic of my retro gaming rig, which is mostly original.

Gateway 2000 G6-266:
- Gateway 2000 tower case. For a case from 1998 this thing is great. Sound-proofed, easy access and easy to work on, no sharp corners. My only complaint is that it's a bit tight behind the CD-ROM drives.
- Pentium II 266 MHz, not overclocked
- 440BX chipset, Intel OEM board.
- OEM Ensoniq Soundscape AudioPCI sound card
- original Mitsumi 18 speed CD-ROM drive (starts to get tired).
- Philips DVD-ROM/CD-writer out of an Apple eMac 1GHz. Just works, despite lacking a front plate.
- Original 4 Gb harddisk, to which I added a Maxtor 40 Gb harddisk that was supposedly failing in a newer AMD Duron-based system (that was 10 years ago... 🤣 )
- 320 Mb RAM, 64 Mb + single-sided 128 Mb + half-recognized single-sided 256 Mb stick. The latter two sticks didn't work under the original BIOS revision (P08), so I updated the BIOS to version P18 (when Gateway's site still existed). It's stable. A nice and interesting side-effect of the high RAM amount is that this system can play DVDs without hardware acceleration, despite supposedly being too slow for that (PowerDVD takes 194 Mb of RAM)
- Asus Nvidia TNT2 Riva M64 AGP videocard, replacing the original Nvidia TNT AGP card.
- ISA ISDN modem that I never removed from the system.
- FDD.
- USB 250 Mb ZIP-drive.
- original Gateway speakers
- I still have the original 17" monitor (HUGE heavy beast), but it has been replaced by a Dell flat screen
- Windows 95 (USB support) updated to Windows 98 SE

I still have a Adaptec ISA AHA-1542B SCSI-2 adapter I'll probably install into this machine, since Win98SE is the last OS that still has compatible drivers (I think...).

gateway.jpg

Oh my. This is so cool to see. 😎

This is almost exactly my second computer, which I bought in '98. Wish I hadn't thrown it out!

Except mine definitely came with an STB Velocity 128 (RIVA128) 4 Mb AGP card. Hard drive was a Quantum Fireball 4.3 Gb. Original RAM was 64 Mb.

Also I'm positive the motherboard had an LX chipset. I remember the board being very picky with RAM; after a few years finding PC66 wasn't so easy and it simply wouldn't accept the PC100 RAM I bought and tried.

The 17" monitor you have is the EV700, right?

EDIT:

yawetaG wrote:

I had a look at the original card, and it is a STB Velocity 128 AGP (rev. B) with 4 MB RAM and only VGA-out (never do things from memory... 😵 ). Interestingly, it has a Gateway-badged BIOS chip (version 1.6, dated Oct. 28, 1997).

Didn't read the entire thread before replying but yes, there you go. So the system is probably 100% identical to mine. Are you sure the chipset isn't LX?

Here's a quick photo of my rather unusual XT clone:

Samsung SPC-3000. The brand/model is unusual but as far as specs it's bog-standard as can be... 8088, 640K RAM, dual 360K floppy drives, 20 MB ST125 hard disk, CGA graphics. There's nothing else in it except a dual gameport card. Totally stock, runs PC DOS 3.30. I believe this was sold in 1987 so it would have been really low-end for the time.

I'm not usually into PC hardware this old but a friend of my sister's was going to throw it out about fifteen years ago so I had to save it from certain death. It works but I'm not sure what to even do with an XT, so it just sits around chilling for the most part 😀

That's a very nice looking machine you got there. I don't think it was such low-end in 1987 - it has dual floppy drives and 640k, whereas lower-end PC usually came with just one drive and 512k RAM. You could try to run CGA games on it 😀

Thanks! I'm happy to have it. It does have some CGA games on the hard drive (Dig Dug, among others, which is fun and seems like a decent port) and they're pretty cool but an 8088 just seems so slow to me ;I

I guess it's not the lowest of low-end, but by 1987 a "normal" PC would have been something like a 286-10 with 1 Mb of RAM, right?