If you asked me, I would go with Voodoo 2 SLI + Riva TNT2 (I have some sentiment for TNT2s as well). As for sound cards, I recommend SB Live!, Aureal Vortex cards are somehow problematic and I never managed to make it work.

Thanks Maf, but unfortunately I only possess 1 Voodoo card....(8Mb Diamond). If I manage to get my hands on another one (say an innoVision 12MB) is it possible to use sli?

Dhall wrote:

Thanks Maf, but unfortunately I only possess 1 Voodoo card....(8Mb Diamond). If I manage to get my hands on another one (say an innoVision 12MB) is it possible to use sli?

As far as I know, it is doable with custom drivers, but may be problematic. I'd rather stay with two identical cards or stick with a single card. Diamond Monster II cards are not that rare, try to hunt one down on ebay if you care 😉

Back in those days I upgraded from a P133 with Voodoo to a PII 300 with Voodoo2. If I'd rebuild similar systems I would go with slightly faster CPUs though, like a P233MMX and a PIII 500+.

I'd build this for 1998:

Pentium II/ Celeron 300a @ 400+ mhz (the faster the better)
Matrox G200 + V2 in SLI (you cannot SLI V1 and V2 together)
Asus Slot 1 board
SB AWE64 or Live!
7200rpm hard drive
Win 98SE

Though my thoughts are why limit yourself to a particular year? Just aim for an ultimate platform type like, a Slot 1 build to run V2s in SLI in this instance and then max out the CPU, ram, hard disk, etc. In the long term, it results in a much more usable and likeable system. Unless of course, you must have a build from exactly that year.

Yeah, might as well build a machine that can run your games all buttery smooth. I doubt you really want to re-experience load times and FPS drops, right?

My actual build from back in late '98 was: PII-350, Intel SE440BX motherboard, Riva TNT 16MB, Voodoo2 12MB, Sound Blaster PCI 128, 64MB PC100, WD 6.4GB 7200RPM, Win98SE. I don't think I'd want to play games on that now. 😉

Actually, I DO want to recreate everything exactly as how it was back then. Call it whatever you want, I am basically recreating a part of my youth, which I spent happily back then. This includes load times.

About the limitations: it may sound weird, but these "boundaries" are actually there to help me. By specifying the exact years, I limit myself hardware-wise. I have a limited amount of choice if I say until 99. Had I no limitations I wouldn't know when or where to stop when it comes to for example a VGA card. Riva TNT? but the TNT2 is better, hell while I'm at it, why not get a Geforce 2, but then why not a xxxxx card which came out the following year? In other words, I think it would defeat its own purpose. (Why not just load up dosbox and be done with it? )

I see you mentioned AWE64, Sound Blaster Live! and Sound Blaster 128. Is there a significant difference between those? (I'm quite familiar with older cards and back then how having an sb16 or having a roland or yamaha card made all the difference, but I'm not sure between 97-99)

Dhall wrote:

Actually, I DO want to recreate everything exactly as how it was back then. Call it whatever you want, I am basically recreating a part of my youth, which I spent happily back then. This includes load times.

About the limitations: it may sound weird, but these "boundaries" are actually there to help me. By specifying the exact years, I limit myself hardware-wise. I have a limited amount of choice if I say until 99. Had I no limitations I wouldn't know when or where to stop when it comes to for example a VGA card. Riva TNT? but the TNT2 is better, hell while I'm at it, why not get a Geforce 2, but then why not a xxxxx card which came out the following year? In other words, I think it would defeat its own purpose. (Why not just load up dosbox and be done with it? )

OK, that's perfectly understandable. I've done the same thing many times before too.😀

Dhall wrote:

I see you mentioned AWE64, Sound Blaster Live! and Sound Blaster 128. Is there a significant difference between those? (I'm quite familiar with older cards and back then how having an sb16 or having a roland or yamaha card made all the difference, but I'm not sure between 97-99)

SB128 is a renamed Ensoniq PCI, the first pci sound card ever. It's really a cheap card and has noticeably poorer sound quality than the other two. SB Live has the best sound quality and compatibility while in my opinion at least, AWE64 comes in a solid second. I use all three anyway in my various retro builds.

Looks like a good build.

Just to note the Geforce 256 32mb released in oct 99. Grab a DDR version!

Overclock that P2 and put in an extra 128mb for atleast 256mb!

The AWE64 Gold! is a good card but it is ISA which is known to steal more resources. The SB Live! is rather low running on resources and as long as games are ran from windows it works great. DOS drivers can be a pain so I dropped them and run dos games from a dos window.

Just to note the Geforce 256 32mb released in oct 99. Grab a DDR version!

Oh yeah, I knew something escaped my attention. The Geforce256 indeed. Unfortunately, I cannot just "grab" anything so easily. I learned that to order from the States the shipping costs more than the actual product, so I'm using the Hungarian Vatera ( ebay-like system). It is good a source of retro hardware (got a complete 486 system for under 10 dollars, a TNT2 card for 2 dollars and so on) but I have to wait.......thanks for reminding me!

SB128 is a renamed Ensoniq PCI, the first pci sound card ever. It's really a cheap card and has noticeably poorer sound quality than the other two. SB Live has the best sound quality and compatibility while in my opinion at least, AWE64 comes in a solid second. I use all three anyway in my various retro builds.

Thanks, I'll stick to the SB Live if nobody tries to convince me otherwise 😉