senrew wrote:

Some questions.

1) The K6-2 is significantly faster than the 200mmx I originally had, but I'll have to make do with it until I can get the original chip. Where would I have to run the K6-2 at to bring it down to the same performance as a 200mmx? 66 or 100mhz?

2) Are there any easily obtainable (ie. Not a bajillion dollars) Socket 7 ATX boards? I'd like to be able to stay with a modern case since AT cases are a massive pain to find down here.

Between Phil's VGA Benchmark Chart and my own chart with caches enabled/disabled, my guess is:
-for Doom set your K6-2 to ~200Mhz to approximate a 200MMX.
-for Quake set your K6-2 to ~300Mhz to approximate a 200MMX.

Keep checking ebay for SS7 boards. Also ask around if you know anyone who might have old computers. Sometimes the parents of friends will have one in storage, or you might work with someone that has old stuff. Check at thrift shops and Goodwill. Lastly, yard sales.

Good luck!

I've already got a beastly SS7 board. I'd be specifically looking for something LESS capable 😀

I don't know if I have a 200mmx but I have tons of 233mmx chips I can send you one and you can run it at 200. Just pay for postage.

Actually I have an ASUS p5-a motherboard too I believe.

Intel P200mmx chips are fairly easy to find cheap on Ebay, Your motherboard should support it.

Oh yeah, they are everywhere and this motherboard can handle pretty much anything with the right number of pins 😀

My issue right now is finding a case. I only have 2 ATX cases at the moment (outside of my main machine) and both have builds in them already.

Alright then, update time.

I've gone through and made a list of all the machines I owned personally, and I think my goal is to recreate the experience as I can. The main machine I want to "relive" was the Compaq I mentioned at the beginning of this thread. After going through what remains of my parts pile, I've settled on the following hardware: (Assuming it all works...)

Asus TX97-X (Socket 7, PCI only)
Pentium 166MMX
128MB PC100
4.3GB HD
Matrox Millenium 1
Cardex Dragon 1000 (Voodoo1)
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
3Com ISA NIC

I originally got the Compaq in late-ish 97, and it was my daily driver through about early 2001. Most of the games I remember playing on it were from about mid-98 and before. Except for the hard drive size, all the specs on this build are different from the original machine, but shouldn't too much more powerful for what I want. There weren't too many DOS games in my life at this point, mostly early Windows 9x era so that's where I'm focusing. I could easily build up a faster machine with the parts i have, but part of this nostalgic crap is living with the limitations of the hardware that I had available at that period in time.

I just need to get around the motherboard not recognizing keyboard input at POST. It gets stuck at the "press F1 to continue, DEL to setup" message, but doesn't give a keyboard error as if it's not recognizing that there's something plugged in.

As an alternative, I can switch the motherboard to my AOpen AX-59Pro and approximate things well enough, but I'd like to keep that board in ready reserve just in case.

If possible, I'd recommend using an S3 or Cirrus Logic card for maximum DOS compatibility.

I've got a GD5430 card, but I'm saving that for another planned build. The only S3 card I have is a virge/gx2 and this board is PCI only. I think the only other PCI card I have is a Rage 128 from a Mac. Not sure if it'll boot in a PC or not.

If I end up having to switch to my AOpen AX59Pro I can use the virge there.

senrew wrote:

I've got a GD5430 card, but I'm saving that for another planned build. The only S3 card I have is a virge/gx2 and this board is PCI only. I think the only other PCI card I have is a Rage 128 from a Mac. Not sure if it'll boot in a PC or not.

If I end up having to switch to my AOpen AX59Pro I can use the virge there.

So your S3 VirgeGX2 is AGP?

I think the Millennium will do for now. Later you can pick up something more compatible. Right now for DOS PCI cards, the talk of the town are:
-CL-GD5446
-3dfx Voodoo Banshee
-TNT2 M64
-S3
Here's a compatibility chart for PCI cards and DOS games:
http://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/
Note that not all S3 cards are considered highly compatible. Check the chart. Seems the Virge, Virge/DX, Virge/GX, Trio32/64, and 968 are some of the better ones.

Like most people, that chart is informative as hell but mostly irrelevant since I have no desire to play most of those games. The few that apply serm to work ok on the cards I do have. It also confirms ATI blows 😀

senrew wrote:

Like most people, that chart is informative as hell but mostly irrelevant since I have no desire to play most of those games. The few that apply serm to work ok on the cards I do have. It also confirms ATI blows 😀

I feel the same way (I don't play any of the games that struggle with compatibility on that chart). If that's the case, then just stick with the Millennium! It's above average in speed.

Virge DX,GX, and Trio 3D cards as well as Voodoo cards are desirable because of their superior VESA support. The CL 5446 is also an excellent card, but requires a TSR for high res titles needing VESA 2.0 support.

Any DOS games played on this machine will more than likely be played in a Win9x DOS window. Mostly later ones that shouldn't have an issue. Looking at my list, most of my games are 1994 and later. It's looking more and more that I'll be switching to the SS7 board cause I still have no clue how to fix this keyboard issue, so that opens more options.

How does a Riva 128 paired with the V1 sound?

gdjacobs wrote:

Virge DX,GX, and Trio 3D cards as well as Voodoo cards are desirable because of their superior VESA support. The CL 5446 is also an excellent card, but requires a TSR for high res titles needing VESA 2.0 support.

The S3 cards are very nice, indeed! Thanks to their high integration, they are effectively single-chip solutions and their
BIOSes can be swapped quite easily. I've got several Trio64s here and some of them do either have VBE 1.2 or 2.x. Very interesting.
So even if you got the "wrong" version (not really wrong, btw.) you can load a driver, like S3 VBE/Core 2.0, to make it VBE 2.x compatible. 😀

Ok, I really just need to get these parts squared away so I can pack them up till I find some ATX cases. I present to you...Reminiscence.

Reminiscence:
AOpen AX59Pro
Pentium 166MHZ MMX (retail version)
2x Crucial CT4M36P2M (16MB FPM Parity)
Seagate Medalist 4310 (ST34310A, 4.3GB)
Panasonic JU-256A217P Rev.F (3.5" Floppy)
Sony DDU-1621 (DVD-ROM)
Diamond Viper V330 (Riva 128 4MB AGP)
Cardex Dragon 1000 (Voodoo1 4MB)
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
3Com Etherlink III (3C509TP ISA 10mbps)
(Uh...forgot to write down the model of PSU, but it's an Enlight 250w something or other)

Here she is being tested:

And all boxed up for later:

As soon as I find an ATX case that fits my picky requirements, I'll properly case her up and do some proper testing and benching.

This machine is meant to recreate the Compaq Presario 4808 I had as a kid. The parts are different, but the feel is meant to be the same. There are definite upgrades here compared to what I had before, but hey...it's 2016 😀

The usage scenario for this machine is to go back and play the games I did between the years of mid-97 through about late-99. Now, I did have access to a newer machine during this time, but only for a few months. This was my primary machine.

I had several late DOS games, 1994 or so and later and they all ran just fine on the original. I skirted the early 3D craze with just the Trio64V2+/GX I had in the original machine, so this will give me a chance to play things the way they were meant to be played.

I won't have a chance to give this build a proper workout till I get a case for her, but here she is for now.

senrew wrote:

And all boxed up for later:

rem02.JPG

If you haven't done so already, you might want to at least put some sheets of paper between the parts, especially the PCBs can get damaged if some misfortune would happen to come your way (like I had with my Voodoo 4 a while ago).

Woops, I meant cardboard, paper is still a bit too thin to prevent damage by scratching and pressure by weights moving around 😊

I put the cards in anti-static bags and wrapped the rest in the anti-static bubblewrap I have lying around. That pic was more for show 😀

Managed to put together my second nostalgia machine tonight.

Background:
In February 1999, I was sent to live with my father in Chicago. I wasn't able to take my Compaq with me, so I was left with the machine he had at home. He'd only just bought it a few months before, so it was a bit of an upgrade from my Compaq. I managed to find the specs brochure for the exact model.

https://support.necam.com/downloads/PDFs/9889.pdf

Basically, it had a PII/350, 64MB PC100, ATI XPERT 98 (Rage Pro Turbo), and some commodity PC98 sound chip.

Since I'd moved there after the middle of the school year, I wasn't able to officially re-enroll in class. My dad said screw it, take the rest of the year off, and go explore the city and live it up. With all of my freedom, I did what any 16 year old nerd would do...I hung out at CompUSA and bought all the PC mags I could find that had demo disks 😀

This was the first real exposure I had to real 3D games. I remember very clearly playing the demos for Thief, Blood II, SiN, and a few others. I was blown away with the visuals and sounds in these games compared to what I was able to play on my Compaq back home.

A few months later, I returned to Miami and living with my mom, and I had my Compaq again. I still have very fond memories of staying up late and trying to find new ways to move Garrett around without wasting all of my moss arrows to pad the cobblestone footsteps 😀

Based on the parts I have, I've tried to recreate a machine for that experience. Thusly, I present to you...Wanderlust.

Wanderlust:
ASUS P2B-S
Pentium III 500mhz (SL37D)
128MB PC100 RAM (some obscure Samsung stick taken from a dead B&W G3)
Maxtor 93073U4 (30gb IDE, taken from a CRT iMac)
NEC FD1231M (3.5" Floppy)
HP GCC-4481B (CDRW/DVD Combo Drive)
Diamond Viper V770 (TNT2 Ultra 32MB AGP)
Sound Blaster Live! CT-4760
3Com EtherLink III PCI (3C590C PCI 10mbps)
(No PSU at the moment, I only have one left)

I may underclock the CPU to the 350 range to approximate the original machine, but only if I find a slower video card to replace the way too fast TNT2 Ultra. If I can find a Rage 128 or so, I may swap that in and clock down the CPU. You can see my not-quite subtle inquiries about the Rage series in my other thread here.

Teach me to love ATI Rage

I didn't manage to take any pictures of the parts before I wrapped them up and boxed them, but you guys can check out the pretty blue Ikea box I put them in!

Here's my final build for the time being. I've run out of (working!) motherboards to build systems around. I do have one or two more nostalgia builds in mind, but those will have to wait until I find the respective parts...and space...

Note: I originally described this build here: Senrew's Late Win98 Machine

Background:
In 2003, I'd moved back in with my mother. I had gone back to college for a semester and needed a computer. I took what I had left over of my financial aid award, headed to CompUSA, and picked up what I considered to be a decent machine for the money for general home use. The thing was defnitely not a game playing machine of any kind, but everything else it was perfectly adequate at. The only game I 100% remember playing on this was Warcraft III.

The machine itself was a HP Pavilion 504n. 2.0Ghz Celeron on a 845GL motherboard, built in "INTEL EXTREME GRAPHICS!!!", generic sound, blah blah. It was a perfectly fine for what I needed; IRC, general web stuff, mp3 hoarding and CD burning like a fiend...

Since it was the first machine I personally bought with my own money, I kind of wanted to recreate what I could have put together as a gaming machine at the time. This is an era where I don't have appropriate parts to recreate, but I'll do what I can.

I present to you...Catharsis.

Catharsis:
Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP (Socket 754, nForce3-150)
AMD Athlon64 3000+ (2.0GHZ, Clawhammer, ADA3000AEP4AP (C0))
ARCTIC COOLING Silencer64UltraTC L
Hynix 512MB PC3200 DDR 400MHZ CL3
Seagate ST3120213A (120GB U/ATA)
Mitsumi D359M3D (3.5" Floppy)
H·L GWA-4161B DVD-RW
ASUS V8460ULTRA/128M (GeForce4 Ti 4600 AGP 4x 128MB)
Phillips PSC604 PCI Soundcard

There were several games around this time that I'd played much later on, on much less capable systems. The ones I specifically remember were Max Payne, Deus Ex, Warcraft III + Frozen Throne, and a few others that I really can't remember right now.

The video card could be upgraded to match the rest of the machine. Possibly a GF 6800 or so, maybe a x300 for the AMD side to keep it all in the family. The sound card is an odd choice, but there are a couple of reasons for it. First...it's my last PCI sound card. Second, it's not a Sound Blaster. I've never really used dedicated sound cards that didn't have the Creative label on them so once I finally get things going, it'll be new to me.

I didn't take any new pics this time around, but here's a link to a gallery from when I attempted to actually build this up in a case. The case has since been tossed, so just ignore that part for now.

http://imgur.com/a/9PxZD