VOGONS


First post, by athlon-power

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This is an update post to my prior one about this system, here's the link: Pentium III Katmai 500 Build

Several things have been updated since then, and since this initial post; I am now using the active cooler that was on the Coppermine on the Katmai for now, but I plan on getting a new, better cooler on eBay. I added a fan that sits in the case to help cool the cards until I can get a case fan for the front panel, and I recently downgraded the memory to 128MB so that it's more inline with a machine such as this one. I've also re-installed Windows 98 SE, and added the HDD to the specs, which I forgot to mention when I initially made this post. I also detailed the actual speed of the integrated IDE controller. I removed a lot of the bulk of the post, as a lot of it had become unnecessary since the initial posting.

Here's the specs of the system:

Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard
Intel Pentium III Katmai SL35E 500MHz/512K Cache @250MHz/100MHz FSB
128MB PC133 RAM (Restricted to 100MHz by the motherboard/processor's FSB)
ASUS AGP-V3800M 32MB SDRAM (nVidia Vanta TNT2 M64)
AOpen AW744L II Sound Card
Samsung 48X IDE CD-ROM Drive (Restricted to ATA-33 by the motherboard's IDE controller)
Western Digital WD400 40GB IDE HDD (Restricted to ATA-33 by the motherboard's IDE controller)
Standard 1.44MB 3.5" FDD

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Last edited by athlon-power on 2018-12-14, 14:33. Edited 1 time in total.

Where am I?

Reply 1 of 5, by FFXIhealer

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Nice build. Very similar to my Windows 98 gaming rig.

MB: ASUS P2B Revision 1.02
CPU: Intel Pentium III "Katmai" 600MHz Slot1, 100MHz FSB
RAM: 256MB SDRAM (2x 128MB)
AGP: Diamond Viper V770 (NVidia Riva TNT2 32MB)
3dfx: 2x STB-1000v 12MB Voodoo2 cards in SLI
Sound: Creative Labs AWE64 Standard ISA
HDD: 40GB Western Digital
OS: Windows 98 SE

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Reply 2 of 5, by athlon-power

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I forgot to mention, but I have a WD400 Caviar HDD as well. Your processor was released roughly 6 months after mine, give or take. I thought for a split second that you were OC'ing because I thought 500MHz was the cap for Katmai, and I luckily second-guessed myself and looked it up.

The biggest difference here is that you're using 2 VooDoo 2's for your 3D rendering, I'm using just the TNT2 M64. I also ended up being very close to getting a similar ISA card, but I didn't because I didn't feel like I knew enough about the cards at the time. So I'm using that AW744L II, and I fear that it's too new for my build. I plan on converting everything to parts released at that time, minus the PSU.

I'm also using a single 256MB stick because I'm pretty sure that the 128MB stick that died was the only 128MB stick I had, everything else is 32MB, 64MB, and 256MB. Like I said earlier, I was using 192MB of RAM, but I found out that the 128MB stick was dead in memtest86+.

Quick question, how does Half-Life run on that machine? I started a thread a little while back wherein I was having odd performance issues with Half-Life (and I sort of still am), and it was determined that it was because the game was very CPU-intensive. I'm curious as to whether or not the VooDoo 2's might be drawing a bit of the load off of the processor, because I would certainly look into getting a couple for SLI. It's just that they are so expensive, it'll be hard to acquire two of them, let alone two compatible models.

Where am I?

Reply 3 of 5, by FFXIhealer

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I don't really have a way to monitor FPS output in Windows 98, but it seems to run smoothly enough to play in 1024x768 resolution using the Voodoos. I haven't tried testing it on the TNT2 card yet.

But you gotta realize that I remember first playing Half-Life back in 1999 on a 350MHz Pentium II, 128 MB of RAM @100MHz, and an 8MB Intel i740 AGP card. Ran smoothly enough back then too at 800x600. Tell you what - I'll hook that system back up tomorrow and play a bit and seen if I can give you something of a report.

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Reply 4 of 5, by chinny22

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Good use for the bays? not really.
Filling them for the sake of filling them. Get a SB Live! or later with the front panel.
I'm on the lookout for a fan controller that matches beige cases, more so I can keep an eye on temperature's then the actual fan controller.

Nice PC overall, is it only a Win98 machine or do you use it for dos gaming as well?

Reply 5 of 5, by athlon-power

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I use it to play things like DOOM occasionally, Wolf3d won't run on it due to weird sound card issues with it and Wolf3d. I run Quake through QuakeGL, so I guess that counts(?)

Anyways, I'm kind of thinking of using a ZIP 100 drive for the free 3.5" bay or something like front panel USB ports. I've also sort of wanted to get a 5.25" FDD for it, even though that really doesn't make any sense for a build like that.

I might get a DVD-ROM for it, or something like that later on.

Where am I?