@hatta
no, but some DOS games don't run right on newer CPU instruction sets, but thats a very small amount of games. it won't actually matter, but Win95 may not like the fast CPU...
I have a PIII Win95 box with an 800MHz PIII in it, and its quite unstable. BUT when I put a 733MHz PIII in, its fine. so i thought it was my 800MHz chip, but its unstable with my 933 MHz chip as well, and both chips work fine under Win98 and up.

I agree with the 3dfx suggestions. Love those cards! I use an Orchid Righteous on my DOS machine.

sprcorreia wrote:

Some stuff i had since the days, other i bought on ebay, local sellers, friends, etc. I have spent quite a deal of money, now i have too much stuff!

2000 was a year of transition. Less ISA slots on the motherboards....

How many machines do you want to build? 3? 4?

Five built or customized machines, excluding my current, main PC. I would probably just buy an older Apple II, C64, ZX Spectrum, or whatever.

1. DOS Machine
2. Windows 95
3. Windows 98
4. Windows 2000
^ (or Windows Me, for giggles)
5. Windows XP

Filosofia wrote:

I start with cpu and graphic card! That's what gamers do! :) […]
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I start with cpu and graphic card! That's what gamers do! 😀

1 - Realy, I decide what games are going to be played (and the OS )and go about reading magazines for the time and browsing the web, finding what were the hotest gaming rigs back then.

2 - Once the CPU/Graphic card combo is figured out I read motherboard reviews to find a suitable one to accomodate them.

3- Choose memory quantity, HDD size, optical drives, sound card (any PCI branded should be find for this system)

Or you could buy a ready one.
If you are going to start with the 2000's gaming project, you would be mainly thinking 1998-2002 windows 98 games , so buy a mainstream 2003 gaming rig.
This is just an example: you could start with the cheapest athlon-xp you could find on a VIA chipset, along with a also very cheap MX flavored geforce4. It is possible to get a complete case for €30 or so , but expect more like 50-60€.

This was very insightful in helping me formulate an approach to my purchases. (1) Identify a CPU and graphics card appropriate for the era I'm building the system for. (2) Read motherboard reviews to identify a good motherboard. (3) Choose RAM, HDD size, optical drive, sound cards, etc. The only thing you left off is buying a case. That's been a tough decision for me! =)

3DfxNerd wrote:

for the early win95/late DOS game machine, I would downgrade the PIII 933 to a PII 333 or so, and leave the ram at 128MB.
for the win98SE gaming machine I'd get a Voodoo 3 and get a slotket (slot 1 to S370 adapter for putting flip chips in a slot 1) and a 1.1GHz tualtin IF it would support it, seemingly unlikely.

The good news is that I picked up a 3dfx Voodoo 3 for $15, including shipping and handling. It also appears to be in great condition, and checks out okay during a brief test.

jmrydholm wrote:

I agree with the 3dfx suggestions. Love those cards! I use an Orchid Righteous on my DOS machine.

I've been looking for one of these lately. However, prices on Ebay really seem to vary wildly on it -- $30 - $230, with no real consistency in terms of condition, boxed or unboxed, testing or not.