VOGONS


First post, by weldum

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Good night Vogons users, another post about a computer not particularly good but meaningful to me.
Let's go to the story:

All of my computers are meaningful to me, in different ways, ranging from simple things up to almost everything you can imagine.
This one is based on the first computer I've had that i've used mostly for gaming.
It has several differences that, for now, can't be fixed but is not a problem at all.
And it works better than the original. Mostly because of the knowledge that i've gained through years.
In the C3 post (My C3 800 rig) i wrote about my first computers. There i wrote about a P4 machine that i had in 2009 that was glorious to me back then because it allowed me to run lots of games, not the latest games but very good ones like Half Life and UT ran excellent.
Now i've recreated that machine almost exactly because:
The psu and case are differente (psu better, case worse)
The GPU and HDD aren't the same (originally had a GF6200 AGP 256MB and a 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 IDE)
The processor is better (original was a Celeron D 315 2.26 Prescott-256)
The heatsink/fan is a lot better (original was an Intel original one, but smaller compared to the standard for 478)
Almost the entire original computer was sold to make an i7 2600k for my dad, I only kept the HDD, GPU and RAM. Ram is in this computer, but the HDD is in the next computer i will post about, and the GPU was sold some months ago.

So, these are the specs:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.26GHz Socket 478 (BETTER!)
Mobo: ASRock P4VM800 (maybe better, don't remember the original mobo)
Chipset: VIA P4M800-CE
RAM: 768MB DDR PC3200 (Same)
Video: NVidia GeForce FX5200 AGP 128MB (in some games actually a lot better than the original)
Sound: C-Media 9761 AC'97 Audio (same quality, harder to find drivers than the original -Realtek AC'97-)
NIC: VIA Rhine II Fast
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 40GB IDE (A little bit faster than the original but with 1/4 of the capacity)
OS: Windows XP SP3 (Same)
PSU PontiX ATX (it's heavy, if it means something)
MagnumTech generic cheap case with "custom" reset button

Now with the benchs:

p4.png

Notice that there are some benchmarks that i haven't run on some machines, these later will be run.

Now the games:

Call of Duty: excellent performance, also i can enable nvidia distance fog, which is just fog, but exclusive to nvidia, max settings, 640x480x32
Call of Duty 2: excellent performance but only in DirectX7 mode, in DirectX9 it's unplayable, max settings, 640x480x32
Counter Strike Source: 17.59 FPS, but that's only in the video bench, because actual gameplay is almost perfect, with some dips when there are many players on screen, min settings, 640x480x16
Serious Sam TSE: perfect even in Grand Cathedral, max settings, 640x480x32
GTA 3: perfect, min settings, 640x480x16
GTA Vice City: perfect, min settings, 640x480x16
GTA San Andreas: perfect, min settings, 640x480x16
Half Life: perfect, max settings, 640x480x32
Almost all the Steam engine games run slow or not run at all, the exception is CSS

Edit:
Halo: almost perfect, in some parts of the game it gets slowdown but mostly fine, max settings, 640x480x32
Max Payne: excellent, max settings, 640x480x32
Max Payne 2: perfect, max settings, 640x480x32
Need for Speed Carbon: almost perfect, but have some slowdowns mostly when there are a lot of cars, of if you want to play it with good graphics, min settings, 640x480
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2: Crashes, but when runs runs fine, max settings, 640x480x32
Need for Speed Most Wanted: exactly like NFS Carbon, min settings, 640x480
Need for Speed Underground: runs pretty fast, i think it's running too fast, i've read that this game framerate and speed is locked to the refresh rate, and i've tested it with an 85Hz CRT and indeed it was faster than before, max settings, 640x480x32
Need for Speed Underground 2: as fast as it should, max settings, 640x480x32
Quake 2: perfect, max settings, 640x480x32
Quake 3 Arena: perfect, max settings, 640x480x32

Edit2:
Serious Sam TFE: perfect, max settings, 640x480x32
Unreal Tournament: perfect, max settings, 640x480x32
Unreal Tournament 2004: Runs pretty near 60 fps, but have a lot of dips to 40 fps, min settings, 640x480x16
Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne: excellent, max settings, 640x480x32
FlatOut 2: pretty smooth, everything set to max, 640x480x32

Last edited by weldum on 2018-01-04, 23:49. Edited 2 times in total.

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 1 of 2, by dr.zeissler

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Beside the ugly DVI image quality I would high recommend the GF6200 over the FX5200.
In dos they are nearly the same, but in windows the gf6200 is superbe.
the shaders are good enough to display the ati-techdemos up to 9800;
with 3danalyse the matrox reef demo is also very good!

the fx5200 could perhaps be better in terms of compatibilty with older games,
but I never got into big problems with it.

Doc

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 2 of 2, by weldum

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dr.zeissler wrote:
Beside the ugly DVI image quality I would high recommend the GF6200 over the FX5200. In dos they are nearly the same, but in win […]
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Beside the ugly DVI image quality I would high recommend the GF6200 over the FX5200.
In dos they are nearly the same, but in windows the gf6200 is superbe.
the shaders are good enough to display the ati-techdemos up to 9800;
with 3danalyse the matrox reef demo is also very good!

the fx5200 could perhaps be better in terms of compatibilty with older games,
but I never got into big problems with it.

Doc

yeah maybe, but as i saw before, the 6200 was sold some time ago, and the fx5200 runs good, also no DOS for this machine, just XP and some of the games that I'm testing

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475