An original Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo Rush is probably going to be the best for a 1997 period PC. The original Voodoo pretty much set the bar for speed and quality at that time. Voodoo Graphics has the advantage of being faster, but requires a separate 2D Card and pass through cable while the Rush is an all in one card with an Alliance 2D chip on board that requires only one slot, but is slower than Voodoo Graphics with a dedicated 2D card. There is a late model Hercules Rush that adds a little more RAM and bumps the clocks slightly to make up some of the speed loss, but it's probably not worth looking for one unless money is no object because they don't usually go cheap.

Oh, and watch out for a Voodoo Rush with a Macronix 2D chip (it has a big MX written on top). They are rarer than the ones with the Alliance 2D chip but the 2D performance is supposed to be worse, so for a machine you intend to use a lot I'd try to find one with an Alliance 2D chip.

The nVidia Riva 128 was a good performer in 97' if you could find a card with that chip. Fast in DOS too.

I agree with the Voodoo 1, it's the best from that era 😉

I'd say use 64MB RAM as theres really not much point to go lower (unless you simply don't have the extra memory laying around that is).
AT cases are hard to find, it would be much easier (and cheaper) to use one of those AT2ATX PSU adapters and a backplate with just a hole for the big keyboard plug.
I'm not sure if any recent cases still have mounting spots for AT boards but iirc many older ATX cases still had them.

In my experience AT PSU's are usually of crappy quality, you could just get a decent 300W or lower PSU for hardly anything these days 😉

Are you set on the Cyrix? They had poor fpu performance which made 3d games suffer. I had a pr166 M2 back in the say and it was faster for most things, but it was significantly slower in 3d than a pentium 120.

Where abouts in Australia are you ? If you are near gold coast I have a few old socket 7 bits I can get rid of.

I believe I have the exact same case as you do, sitting in my stockpile 😀 haven't done anything with it yet.

DonutKing wrote:

Are you set on the Cyrix? They had poor fpu performance which made 3d games suffer. I had a pr166 M2 back in the say and it was faster for most things, but it was significantly slower in 3d than a pentium 120.

Where abouts in Australia are you ? If you are near gold coast I have a few old socket 7 bits I can get rid of.

I believe I have the exact same case as you do, sitting in my stockpile 😀 haven't done anything with it yet.

Agree with this. if you are going to go Socket 7, you may as well go with Intel because the FPU performance is better than any other Socket 7 chip running at the same clock speed. Intel Pentium and Pentium MMX were expensive back then, but there's no reason not to have one now. Other Socket 7 chips are nice for novelty value or if you want to exploit a specific feature of that chip, but for vintage gaming Intel is best.

sliderider wrote:

An original Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo Rush is probably going to be the best for a 1997 period PC. The original Voodoo pretty much set the bar for speed and quality at that time. Voodoo Graphics has the advantage of being faster, but requires a separate 2D Card and pass through cable while the Rush is an all in one card with an Alliance 2D chip on board that requires only one slot, but is slower than Voodoo Graphics with a dedicated 2D card. There is a late model Hercules Rush that adds a little more RAM and bumps the clocks slightly to make up some of the speed loss, but it's probably not worth looking for one unless money is no object because they don't usually go cheap.

Oh, and watch out for a Voodoo Rush with a Macronix 2D chip (it has a big MX written on top). They are rarer than the ones with the Alliance 2D chip but the 2D performance is supposed to be worse, so for a machine you intend to use a lot I'd try to find one with an Alliance 2D chip.

Yeah but a Voodoo1 costs more than a Voodoo 2 by a fair margin, and for the most part the V2 will run everything the V1 will run and then some, albeit at around the same speed as the CPU will be a limiting factor. I know of only one title that won't run on a V2, Dreams to Reality.

Cost wise the V2 makes a lot more sense IMO, especially since you can get a brand new one for 15 USD + shipping right now, and I've shipped to Australia before and it wasn't prohibitive (I want to say a card like a V2 would probably cost around 20 bucks to ship with a flat rate box, perhaps even less with parcel post). If 2D is a requirement, then go with a Voodoo Banshee, but there appear to be free PCI slots still available in that box, and the Banshee isn't as compatible as the plain V2 (supposedly, as I've never had a Banshee). Then again, the Voodoo Rush is supposed to be less compatible as well, but I never had trouble with my Rush back in the day 😀.

Still, why go Voodoo 1 when it's slower and more expensive.

SavantStrike wrote:

Yeah but a Voodoo1 costs more than a Voodoo 2 by a fair margin, and for the most part the V2 will run everything the V1 will run […]
Show full quote

sliderider wrote:

An original Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo Rush is probably going to be the best for a 1997 period PC. The original Voodoo pretty much set the bar for speed and quality at that time. Voodoo Graphics has the advantage of being faster, but requires a separate 2D Card and pass through cable while the Rush is an all in one card with an Alliance 2D chip on board that requires only one slot, but is slower than Voodoo Graphics with a dedicated 2D card. There is a late model Hercules Rush that adds a little more RAM and bumps the clocks slightly to make up some of the speed loss, but it's probably not worth looking for one unless money is no object because they don't usually go cheap.

Oh, and watch out for a Voodoo Rush with a Macronix 2D chip (it has a big MX written on top). They are rarer than the ones with the Alliance 2D chip but the 2D performance is supposed to be worse, so for a machine you intend to use a lot I'd try to find one with an Alliance 2D chip.

Yeah but a Voodoo1 costs more than a Voodoo 2 by a fair margin, and for the most part the V2 will run everything the V1 will run and then some, albeit at around the same speed as the CPU will be a limiting factor. I know of only one title that won't run on a V2, Dreams to Reality.

Cost wise the V2 makes a lot more sense IMO, especially since you can get a brand new one for 15 USD + shipping right now, and I've shipped to Australia before and it wasn't prohibitive (I want to say a card like a V2 would probably cost around 20 bucks to ship with a flat rate box, perhaps even less with parcel post). If 2D is a requirement, then go with a Voodoo Banshee, but there appear to be free PCI slots still available in that box, and the Banshee isn't as compatible as the plain V2 (supposedly, as I've never had a Banshee). Then again, the Voodoo Rush is supposed to be less compatible as well, but I never had trouble with my Rush back in the day 😀.

Still, why go Voodoo 1 when it's slower and more expensive.

I don't see how a Voodoo Rush can be less compatible since it uses the same Voodoo Graphics core and yes, a V2 might be cheaper but might be overkill depending on the speed of the CPU. He also said he was building a period 1997 machine and the V2 didn't come out until 1998.

sliderider wrote:

SavantStrike wrote:

Yeah but a Voodoo1 costs more than a Voodoo 2 by a fair margin, and for the most part the V2 will run everything the V1 will run […]
Show full quote

sliderider wrote:

An original Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo Rush is probably going to be the best for a 1997 period PC. The original Voodoo pretty much set the bar for speed and quality at that time. Voodoo Graphics has the advantage of being faster, but requires a separate 2D Card and pass through cable while the Rush is an all in one card with an Alliance 2D chip on board that requires only one slot, but is slower than Voodoo Graphics with a dedicated 2D card. There is a late model Hercules Rush that adds a little more RAM and bumps the clocks slightly to make up some of the speed loss, but it's probably not worth looking for one unless money is no object because they don't usually go cheap.

Oh, and watch out for a Voodoo Rush with a Macronix 2D chip (it has a big MX written on top). They are rarer than the ones with the Alliance 2D chip but the 2D performance is supposed to be worse, so for a machine you intend to use a lot I'd try to find one with an Alliance 2D chip.

Yeah but a Voodoo1 costs more than a Voodoo 2 by a fair margin, and for the most part the V2 will run everything the V1 will run and then some, albeit at around the same speed as the CPU will be a limiting factor. I know of only one title that won't run on a V2, Dreams to Reality.

Cost wise the V2 makes a lot more sense IMO, especially since you can get a brand new one for 15 USD + shipping right now, and I've shipped to Australia before and it wasn't prohibitive (I want to say a card like a V2 would probably cost around 20 bucks to ship with a flat rate box, perhaps even less with parcel post). If 2D is a requirement, then go with a Voodoo Banshee, but there appear to be free PCI slots still available in that box, and the Banshee isn't as compatible as the plain V2 (supposedly, as I've never had a Banshee). Then again, the Voodoo Rush is supposed to be less compatible as well, but I never had trouble with my Rush back in the day 😀.

Still, why go Voodoo 1 when it's slower and more expensive.

I don't see how a Voodoo Rush can be less compatible since it uses the same Voodoo Graphics core and yes, a V2 might be cheaper but might be overkill depending on the speed of the CPU. He also said he was building a period 1997 machine and the V2 didn't come out until 1998.

Yeah, but he would stretch it to a 1998 card if there was a significant jump. If the machine doesn't catch on fire, he can run 3D at 800x600 instead of 640x480, and the V2 will be a little faster than a V1 even on the current CPU (although that would a lot more true if the CPU were a 233mhz mmx chip, but even that chip can't come close to satisfying a V2).

But, you're right, the V2 is techincally a 1998 card, although it was really early 1998. I got my V2 at Christmas in 1997 knowing full well the V2 was coming, and it came out less than 3 months afterwards. [/i]

If you're going to strictly stick with a 1997 build then I would suggest:

1) 233MMX chip for the better FPU
2) 64mb ram- you will notice the difference and I think the TX chipset only supports a max of 64mb in any case
3) S3 Virge with 4mb for 2d
4) Voodoo 1 or Rush for 3d
5) The 4x CD rom is going to be very slow loading stuff but is period correct so I'd keep it
6) 2.1gb harddisk- maybe 7200rpm 50 pin SCSI if you can get one
7) Windows 95OSR/B

The above machine should be ok for all 1997 games, i.e Q2, NFS2SE but will struggle with games from '98. HL1, NFS3, CeasarIII will play but very poorly.

With a less strict intepretation of "period correct" you could put in an AMD K6-2 and a Voodoo2 and have a machine capable of playing most 1990s games.

sgt76 wrote:

If you're going to strictly stick with a 1997 build then I would suggest: […]
Show full quote

If you're going to strictly stick with a 1997 build then I would suggest:

1) 233MMX chip for the better FPU
2) 64mb ram- you will notice the difference and I think the TX chipset only supports a max of 64mb in any case
3) S3 Virge with 4mb for 2d
4) Voodoo 1 or Rush for 3d
5) The 4x CD rom is going to be very slow loading stuff but is period correct so I'd keep it
6) 2.1gb harddisk- maybe 7200rpm 50 pin SCSI if you can get one
7) Windows 95OSR/B

The above machine should be ok for all 1997 games, i.e Q2, NFS2SE but will struggle with games from '98. HL1, NFS3, CeasarIII will play but very poorly.

With a less strict intepretation of "period correct" you could put in an AMD K6-2 and a Voodoo2 and have a machine capable of playing most 1990s games.

Just a small correction: The TX will work with at least 128MB, but it won't cache more then 64MB, hence the general preference of 64MB with the TX chipset 😉
And I've noticed 1 drawback of using 8x speed CDROM drives and slower:They may have difficulty reading burned CDR's

sgt76 wrote:

If you're going to strictly stick with a 1997 build then I would suggest: […]
Show full quote

If you're going to strictly stick with a 1997 build then I would suggest:

1) 233MMX chip for the better FPU
2) 64mb ram- you will notice the difference and I think the TX chipset only supports a max of 64mb in any case
3) S3 Virge with 4mb for 2d
4) Voodoo 1 or Rush for 3d
5) The 4x CD rom is going to be very slow loading stuff but is period correct so I'd keep it
6) 2.1gb harddisk- maybe 7200rpm 50 pin SCSI if you can get one
7) Windows 95OSR/B

The above machine should be ok for all 1997 games, i.e Q2, NFS2SE but will struggle with games from '98. HL1, NFS3, CeasarIII will play but very poorly.

With a less strict intepretation of "period correct" you could put in an AMD K6-2 and a Voodoo2 and have a machine capable of playing most 1990s games.

I thought I had posted in response to this earlier but can't find the post.

I agree, stretch it on the CPU and the video a bit. Voodoo 2 is king. Toms hardware has a review that shows a Cyrix PR200 running 3 fps faster with a V2 at 800x600 than it did at 640x480 with a Voodoo 1. And February of 1998 is close enough to 1997 any ways 😀.

That said, the V2 can scale as far as you can push the system up until a faster PII. Most of what you get is better resolution for the same FPS. But it's cheaper too so win win 😀.

Windows 95 = FAT16 = 2GB partition limit. Make sure this isn't your problem if only 2GB is detecting then you need to just make more partitions.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/118335

Tetrium wrote:

Just a small correction: The TX will work with at least 128MB, but it won't cache more then 64MB, hence the general preference of 64MB with the TX chipset 😉

Ha, yes...thanks Tetrium...

Tetrium wrote:

And I've noticed 1 drawback of using 8x speed CDROM drives and slower:They may have difficulty reading burned CDR's

Add to that 8x and slower drives take forever to install games and all. A faster drive on these systems is really an upgrade you can feel. Unless you want the period correct feeling of waiting all afternoon for a game install to complete 🤣 (oh, the good bad ol' days!)

SavantStrike wrote:

I agree, stretch it on the CPU and the video a bit. Voodoo 2 is king. Toms hardware has a review that shows a Cyrix PR200 running 3 fps faster with a V2 at 800x600 than it did at 640x480 with a Voodoo 1. And February of 1998 is close enough to 1997 any ways 😀.=
That said, the V2 can scale as far as you can push the system up until a faster PII. Most of what you get is better resolution for the same FPS. But it's cheaper too so win win 😀.

... And still period correct enough in my books as no one with a new system in 97 woulda tossed it in the trash come 98. A v2 was a pretty standard upgrade for many Pentium 1 systems back in the day.

Don't forget the K6-2, it'll make the whole experience much more satisfying. That QDI board supports up to a K6-2+ with a modded bios, so you could theoretically get 83x6 = 500mhz or a more conservative and easily achievable 75x6= 450mhz.

With that kinda power you could run a V2 SLI setup or a single V3 and have a very nice glide rig capable of playing stuff up to 2000, if that is your intention.

sgt76 wrote:

If you're going to strictly stick with a 1997 build then I would suggest: […]
Show full quote

If you're going to strictly stick with a 1997 build then I would suggest:

1) 233MMX chip for the better FPU
2) 64mb ram- you will notice the difference and I think the TX chipset only supports a max of 64mb in any case
3) S3 Virge with 4mb for 2d
4) Voodoo 1 or Rush for 3d
5) The 4x CD rom is going to be very slow loading stuff but is period correct so I'd keep it
6) 2.1gb harddisk- maybe 7200rpm 50 pin SCSI if you can get one
7) Windows 95OSR/B

The above machine should be ok for all 1997 games, i.e Q2, NFS2SE but will struggle with games from '98. HL1, NFS3, CeasarIII will play but very poorly.

With a less strict intepretation of "period correct" you could put in an AMD K6-2 and a Voodoo2 and have a machine capable of playing most 1990s games.

Why not a Tillamook? Tillamooks came out at the beginning of the 4th quarter of 1997 and as seen in another thread, overclock to the moon. Use one of those and overclock it to 450mhz+, and you'll have the best FPU for 3d Gaming out of any socket 7 chip, including the K6-2's that are capable of hitting 600mhz, which didn't come out until a year or more later, so wouldn't be correct for 1997.

sliderider wrote:

Why not a Tillamook? Tillamooks came out at the beginning of the 4th quarter of 1997 and as seen in another thread, overclock to the moon. Use one of those and overclock it to 450mhz+, and you'll have the best FPU for 3d Gaming out of any socket 7 chip, including the K6-2's that are capable of hitting 600mhz, which didn't come out until a year or more later, so wouldn't be correct for 1997.

K6-2 just came off the top of my head being common and all, but yeah, go with the Tillamook if you can get one. The nice thing bout s7 systems is the myriad of options available- even a simple ol' MMX at 262-290mhz would be nice here.

His motherboard isn't Super 7 though, so overclocking a Tillamook might get tricky. Tillamook seems to be a very tricky CPU as it's even unknown if it can run with L2 cache enabled on anything but an Intel chipset.
K6-2 (provided it's a CTX cored K6-2) can run 400Mhz using it's 6x multiplier, but this won't solve the cacheable area limit of 64MB.
K6-2 does have a bit a slower FPU then the Pentium one, but having the FPU clocked at nearly twice the speed of the Intel one should make up for that 😉
And the K6-2's are very common and very cheap to get 😉

A "standard" Pentium MMX chip is the easiest way out here though, and also very common.
I got a whole bunch of 233Mhz ones as they were like $1 each 😁

Thanks for the advice! 😁 I've made the upgrade to 64MB and in the process discovered...that I actually have an IBM/Cyrix 6x86MX PR233 running 3.0x66-200MHz. I suppose this sweetens it a little. I'm quite keen on the Cyrix as I have literally dozens of Intel/AMD CPU's but only a single Cyrix. Given the state of today's games, it's funny to think that they were once CPU limited.

I think the Voodoo1 & Rush interest me most at this stage - I have plans to resurrect a 1998 P2 400 soon, which by the sound of it would better suit a Voodoo2 or V2 SLI?
How much of a premium should I be expecting to pay for 1/Rush? I'm seeing all the way to triple digits for some 3DFX cards on eBay!

Funnily enough, this turned up on eBay AU overnight. Not 100% sure what it is?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Diamond-3DFX-Add-c … =item1c1ca58d5c

Thanks Again

Hexace wrote:

Funnily enough, this turned up on eBay AU overnight. Not 100% sure what it is?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Diamond-3DFX-Add-c … =item1c1ca58d5c

That's a Diamond Multimedia Voodoo1 card. The revision letter is in that little white box, just below the word Diamond. Not sure which ones are the best, really. Most of the ones I've seen are revision D. I guess its BIOS is not flashable, and so everytime something needed to be fixed/tweaked, out came a new revision of this card. You'll need a pass-through cable for it, but if you want, you can buy these new, as they are simply very short monitor extension cables.

Thanks for the info, I may bid on it. Will it have quality/degradation problems using a standard 1-2M VGA cable? I have plenty of those sitting around.