I would say just leap in anywhere. It's a vast period with lots of interesting hardware. But setting that aside, the wiki has some intentionally good info. Have you looked around it already?
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

pewpewpew wrote:

I would say just leap in anywhere. It's a vast period with lots of interesting hardware. But setting that aside, the wiki has some intentionally good info. Have you looked around it already?
http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Thanks, I must have missed a link.

You said Splinter Cell.

Geforce4Ti. it'll also handle the other games you mentioned well 😀

C&C depends on the version you play. If it's the DOS version you should be able to get by with dosbox emulation on the said Pentium III for it. 😀

leileilol wrote:

You said Splinter Cell.

Yes, those two little words of doom... 🤣

I agree with a GF4 Ti even without That Game Which Shall Not Be Named; it's a good performer for that era, has wide-ranging driver support, and they're fairly easy to find. I'd probably "cheat" a little bit and go with a P4 or AthlonXP versus a P3/Athlon; it will probably end up costing a little bit less (or at worst about the same), provide somewhat better performance, and it shouldn't be too hard to get onboard SATA out of the deal too - which will mean more options for storage and optical drives.

leileilol wrote:

You said Splinter Cell.

Geforce4Ti. it'll also handle the other games you mentioned well 😀

C&C depends on the version you play. If it's the DOS version you should be able to get by with dosbox emulation on the said Pentium III for it. 😀

Thanks.

Back in the day I had the MX 440 (I'd call the 4 Ti an improvement over that otherwise slow thing). Good memories of playing GTA Vice City on it. As for the C&C version: probably RA, TS and RA2 (and maybe even some Generals, which also isn't much of a BFF with my system anymore 😐)

@obobskivich: It's indeed a bit easier to get an Athlon XP + mobo than a socket 370 mobo around here (Netherlands to be excat). I've done some digging and it seems that the Epox EP-8KHA+ was one of the better boards back in those days (Though apparently it didn't like the GeForce 4 that much).

Another vote for the GeForce4 😀

The fastest card to display Splinter Cell Correctly.

Kaasschaaf wrote:

Thanks.

Back in the day I had the MX 440 (I'd call the 4 Ti an improvement over that otherwise slow thing). Good memories of playing GTA Vice City on it. As for the C&C version: probably RA, TS and RA2 (and maybe even some Generals, which also isn't much of a BFF with my system anymore 😐)

MX and Ti are different beasts (despite both being called "GeForce 4"); the MX is NV1x based (similar to GeForce 2), while the Ti is NV2x based (beefed up GeForce 3). Ti is not only faster, but supports more features (like DX8).

@obobskivich: It's indeed a bit easier to get an Athlon XP + mobo than a socket 370 mobo around here (Netherlands to be excat). I've done some digging and it seems that the Epox EP-8KHA+ was one of the better boards back in those days (Though apparently it didn't like the GeForce 4 that much).

Is that the one with 6 PCI slots? Those were nifty back in the day. Other Socket A boards that had very high prestige reputations include the Abit NF7 and AN7, DFI LP NFII-Ultra-B, and Asus A7N8X. Basically nForce 2 is your friend. 😀

it's kind of like the confusion between Radeon 9000 and 9500

+1 for the GF4 Ti. I would go for the 4400 or 4600, going for a little more grunt and skipping the Ti4200.

Artex wrote:

+1 for the GF4 Ti. I would go for the 4400 or 4600, going for a little more grunt and skipping the Ti4200.

I found both a Ti 4800 SE and a Ti 4600 GS, I understand the Ti 4800 SE is simply a spiced up 4400? (Thus the 4600 is faster)?

Now there is just one issue left: storage. A DVD drive should be fairly logical, a floppy drive shouldn't be needed anymore (as 98SE supports CD booting), but what should I get for rewritable storage? A SSD could be an option on motherboards with SATA-150 (though some more recent SSD's apparently have some issues speaking SATA-150, so much for forwards compatibility). I could also get a PCI SATA controller (though most of them speak only SATA-150, so if above issues are true that would be a problem), or an IDE SSD, but those are really expensive. Apparently there are apparently also IDE to SATA adapters. Or I could go with something more historically accurate and get a conventional HDD, either new (also very expensive, especially when compared with solid state storage), or risk an old HDD (though I have never had any hard drives break on me, not even Maxtor drives)

Kaasschaaf wrote:

Artex wrote:

+1 for the GF4 Ti. I would go for the 4400 or 4600, going for a little more grunt and skipping the Ti4200.

I found both a Ti 4800 SE and a Ti 4600 GS, I understand the Ti 4800 SE is simply a spiced up 4400? (Thus the 4600 is faster)?

Now there is just one issue left: storage. A DVD drive should be fairly logical, a floppy drive shouldn't be needed anymore (as 98SE supports CD booting), but what should I get for rewritable storage? A SSD could be an option on motherboards with SATA-150 (though some more recent SSD's apparently have some issues speaking SATA-150, so much for forwards compatibility). I could also get a PCI SATA controller (though most of them speak only SATA-150, so if above issues are true that would be a problem), or an IDE SSD, but those are really expensive. Apparently there are apparently also IDE to SATA adapters. Or I could go with something more historically accurate and get a conventional HDD, either new (also very expensive, especially when compared with solid state storage), or risk an old HDD (though I have never had any hard drives break on me, not even Maxtor drives)

Yes the ti 4600 is somewhat faster.
Another card that is just as good is the Quadro4 980 XGL, it has more or less the same spec as the ti 4600 but supports AGP 8X like the ti 4800SE.

Kaasschaaf wrote:

I'm considering building a retro gaming system, and I'm not completely sure what hardware I should pick. It's definitely going to be somewhere 1999-2002 (something Pentium 3, AMD Athlon, running dualbooted Win98 & 2000 or XP). It's supposed to be a nice build to play games that keep losing compatibility with Windows 8 (e.g. Max Payne, C&C) and games which I never really got around to playing (Half-Life, Unreal, Splinter-Cell, MOHAA).

Basically: What hardware from that era should I look out for? Things like motherboards, CPU's, video cards? And what (historically inaccurate) storage solution should I use?

Phill has all the answers that you seek in his Splinter Cell videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5T8bm … ZHpq30_nk2HgZ9M

Kaasschaaf wrote:

Artex wrote:

+1 for the GF4 Ti. I would go for the 4400 or 4600, going for a little more grunt and skipping the Ti4200.

I found both a Ti 4800 SE and a Ti 4600 GS, I understand the Ti 4800 SE is simply a spiced up 4400? (Thus the 4600 is faster)?

Never heard of "GS" but I know nVidia did odd stuff with branding these cards globally (that is, it isn't consistent from one region of the world to the next).

On the 4800:
Ti 4800SE = Ti 4400 with AGP 8x
Ti 4800 = Ti 4600 with AGP 8x

4800SE isn't a bad card, nor is 4600; either would be good.

Now there is just one issue left: storage. A DVD drive should be fairly logical, a floppy drive shouldn't be needed anymore (as 98SE supports CD booting), but what should I get for rewritable storage? A SSD could be an option on motherboards with SATA-150 (though some more recent SSD's apparently have some issues speaking SATA-150, so much for forwards compatibility). I could also get a PCI SATA controller (though most of them speak only SATA-150, so if above issues are true that would be a problem), or an IDE SSD, but those are really expensive. Apparently there are apparently also IDE to SATA adapters. Or I could go with something more historically accurate and get a conventional HDD, either new (also very expensive, especially when compared with solid state storage), or risk an old HDD (though I have never had any hard drives break on me, not even Maxtor drives)

Why do you need an SSD? And why is a mechanical drive "very expensive compared to solid state storage"? If you're buying new, just get a 250-500GB SATA drive; you won't be able to use all of it (Win98 cannot), but it shouldn't cost terribly much, and it'll be faster than old drives and more than fast enough for Win98, gaming, etc. If you need a PCI card to control it, you may need a floppy drive to load drivers during configuration (same goes for some boards with onboard SATA controllers).

It's not that expensive anymore, super fast, no bothering with 48-bit LBA and Windows 98. But sure.

With mechanical drives I meant new PATA drives (in case I get a motherboard that only speaks PATA). But sure, I could get a €40 500GB SATA drive (and DVD drive while we're at it, most SATA motherboards from that era have 2 ports anyway)

*moved to Marvin

Kaasschaaf wrote:

It's not that expensive anymore, super fast, no bothering with 48-bit LBA and Windows 98. But sure.

With mechanical drives I meant new PATA drives (in case I get a motherboard that only speaks PATA). But sure, I could get a €40 500GB SATA drive (and DVD drive while we're at it, most SATA motherboards from that era have 2 ports anyway)

Oh, no I wouldn't buy a "new" PATA drive - a lot of those are refurbs or pulls that've just been cleaned up anyways (I remember a bit of scandal a year or so ago when Newegg started selling "new" PATA drives, and folks were finding them with >100,000 POH out of the box 😵). There's nothing wrong with SSD (and I know, in 2014 you can't say "gaming PC" on a forum without having SSDs everywhere), but you will pay more per GB, and applications from the late 1990s don't really expect 100MB/s for good performance either (consider if the game is bound to CD for example). Personally I'd go with the mechanical disk; it'll cost you less, you won't have to worry about wear leveling or garbage collection, and it'll be more than fast enough. But if you must have SSD, it's your money; do as you will. 😀

So I did some reading around and it turns out an Athlon XP sucks a lot of power from the +5V line, so I focused my search on that. But the only reasonably priced PSU's (e.g. not in the €150-300 range) I could find supply only 24A max on that line. (Seasonic S12II 520W), so I'm not sure if 24A is enough for an XP 2800+ on an A7N8X-X with a GF4Ti. (probably isn't :'() I googled around a bit too and got to an earlier thread here (2012), but 2 years later it's become even harder to get a proper PSU for it (35A on +5V, impossible)

If 24A isn't enough then I'm probably going to get a Northwood 2.8GHz on a P4C800-E Deluxe (which uses a P4 power connector, so less problematic)

Kaasschaaf wrote:

So I did some reading around and it turns out an Athlon XP sucks a lot of power from the +5V line, so I focused my search on that. But the only reasonably priced PSU's (e.g. not in the €150-300 range) I could find supply only 24A max on that line. (Seasonic S12II 520W), so I'm not sure if 24A is enough for an XP 2800+ on an A7N8X-X with a GF4Ti. (probably isn't :'() I googled around a bit too and got to an earlier thread here (2012), but 2 years later it's become even harder to get a proper PSU for it (35A on +5V, impossible)

If 24A isn't enough then I'm probably going to get a Northwood 2.8GHz on a P4C800-E Deluxe (which uses a P4 power connector, so less problematic)

You might want to look for older PSUs

smeezekitty wrote:

Kaasschaaf wrote:

So I did some reading around and it turns out an Athlon XP sucks a lot of power from the +5V line, so I focused my search on that. But the only reasonably priced PSU's (e.g. not in the €150-300 range) I could find supply only 24A max on that line. (Seasonic S12II 520W), so I'm not sure if 24A is enough for an XP 2800+ on an A7N8X-X with a GF4Ti. (probably isn't :'() I googled around a bit too and got to an earlier thread here (2012), but 2 years later it's become even harder to get a proper PSU for it (35A on +5V, impossible)

If 24A isn't enough then I'm probably going to get a Northwood 2.8GHz on a P4C800-E Deluxe (which uses a P4 power connector, so less problematic)

You might want to look for older PSUs

How far back should I look, and what brands should I focus on?

(also, general consensus seems that second hand power supplies are more trouble than they're worth - in which case Northwood may be a better idea?)