goodtofufriday wrote:

ive decided on a final build and have ordered most of the parts.

Well, it's a bit late to start changing things now, isn't it?

But no windows 98.

What's wrong with Windows 98? If you just have a vague personal preference for Windows 95, then what does it matter what anyone else thinks?

PCChips sounds like a terrible idea, even if you recap everything. (I hope you have experience with recapping.)

There is also nothing much to be gained in using a sound card with a Panasonic connector and its associated CD-ROM drive.

Jorpho wrote:

Well, it's a bit late to start changing things now, isn't it? […]
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goodtofufriday wrote:

ive decided on a final build and have ordered most of the parts.

Well, it's a bit late to start changing things now, isn't it?

But no windows 98.

What's wrong with Windows 98? If you just have a vague personal preference for Windows 95, then what does it matter what anyone else thinks?

PCChips sounds like a terrible idea, even if you recap everything. (I hope you have experience with recapping.)

There is also nothing much to be gained in using a sound card with a Panasonic connector and its associated CD-ROM drive.

I can still change parts later or even now. nothing set it stone. These are just he parts Ive concluded with.

I repair electronics as a second source of income, so recapping is about as easy as sleeping for me. I dont really know what pcchips boards are like, but i gather they arent great. However anandtech and this post says that this particular board is good, as its yet another clong of the ampton pm9900. Super-7 mobo RAM woes

Im making another machine thats XP/98 era. i know ATX very well, which is partly why I wanted to do this build here.

cd-rom drive I wanted because its a cd cassette loader instead of the tray. i just think its cool.

Looks nice but you'll definitely want to add a second faster CDROM or DVD drive. A drive old enough to use caddies is going to be incredibly slow at loading or installing games.

To me, the CPU and Video card are Windows 98 era parts. That's what I'd probably install on it. Since that CPU can likely be scaled way way down via disabling cache and lowering clocks you could use the SB Pro and old CDROM for really old stuff on a separate DOS 6.22 partition.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

Looks nice but you'll definitely want to add a second faster CDROM or DVD drive. A drive old enough to use caddies is going to be incredibly slow at loading or installing games.

To me, the CPU and Video card are Windows 98 era parts. That's what I'd probably install on it. Since that CPU can likely be scaled way way down via disabling cache and lowering clocks you could use the SB Pro and old CDROM for really old stuff on a separate DOS 6.22 partition.

the case i chose only has two drive bays. if its going to be that slow then I will save it for a future 486 build along with the sbpro. Is there any cd or dvd drive you can recommend that has an older style look?

If I did install 98, how well could it even play 98 games? I thought a slot 1 p3/4 would be better for that. Dos is before my time with PCs so I had set out to make a pc that could run nearly any game I threw at it, including 3d. Hence why compatibility was my main concern.

I do have a slot 1 board in mind that with a hacked bios can support a 1.4ghz p3.

goodtofufriday wrote:

Is there any cd or dvd drive you can recommend that has an older style look?

Every CD or DVD drive looks pretty much exactly the same to me. What's an "older style look" ?

If I did install 98, how well could it even play 98 games?

What do you mean by "98 games" ?

I had set out to make a pc that could run nearly any game I threw at it

There is no such thing. If you do that you will end up building two PCs. And then three PCs. And then more PCs. And you will never use half of them more than once. Decide what you are actually going to play.

Jorpho wrote:

Every CD or DVD drive looks pretty much exactly the same to me. What's an "older style look" ? […]
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goodtofufriday wrote:

Is there any cd or dvd drive you can recommend that has an older style look?

Every CD or DVD drive looks pretty much exactly the same to me. What's an "older style look" ?

If I did install 98, how well could it even play 98 games?

What do you mean by "98 games" ?

I had set out to make a pc that could run nearly any game I threw at it

There is no such thing. If you do that you will end up building two PCs. And then three PCs. And then more PCs. And you will never use half of them more than once. Decide what you are actually going to play.

Maybe funky would be a better term. just something that looks interesting.

98 games like say Unreal Tournament. ive read that a k6-3+ wont be able to handle the game very well.

I know that there are going to be a lot of games I can't play with machine, especially much older ones that would be happier with a voodoo1. but thats fine, Im mostly interested in the hardware more than anything.

goodtofufriday wrote:

Maybe funky would be a better term. just something that looks interesting.

I suppose some of the oldest models still have headphone jacks, volume knobs, and pause/next buttons. But CD drives can fail in numerous ways and even if you start looking for a specific model, you could very well end up with something that no longer reads CDs correctly.

What you're building would be an excellent late 90's Windows 98 games machine. DOS games would work of course, but the K6-III+ and the Voodoo 3 are waaaaay overkill.

You'd be better off (for DOS, that is) building a Socket 5 machine with a Pentium and a Trio32/64 or something. Edit: The SB16 is perfect for both eras.

keenmaster486 wrote:

What you're building would be an excellent late 90's Windows 98 games machine. DOS games would work of course, but the K6-III+ and the Voodoo 3 are waaaaay overkill.

You'd be better off (for DOS, that is) building a Socket 5 machine with a Pentium and a Trio32/64 or something. Edit: The SB16 is perfect for both eras.

i was afraid I made it too powerful. But my other build has a nvidia 6800gt agp sepcifically for 98 compatibility, so i didnt want that to feel like a waste. No Im not so sure to keep that building going

goodtofufriday wrote:

98 games like say Unreal Tournament. ive read that a k6-3+ wont be able to handle the game very well.

Where did you read this btw? Define "very well"?

UT probably has only slightly higher system requirements compared to Unreal and it ran fine using a K6-III/400 and another system using a Mendocino 400MHz.

Or are you going to be using some extreme 3rd party unofficial patch that drastically increases system requirements perhaps?

K6-III-400 with Voodoo3-3500 or TNT2-Ultra works well with UT99.
I have had both installed in one of my SS7 build's.
I have also used 2 x Voodoo2 8mb cards in SLI configuration, works well.
Shure it will not run at 1024x768. I run it at 800x600x32.
If the levels are too big, I change the resolution to 640x480x32.
Does not matter to me, and if I want higher res' I go for a faster machine.

The setup that I have used for it, was this...

- Gigabyte GA-5AX
- K6-III-400 (non plus)
- 128mb PC133 Ram (133 is for stability and long life of the ram on 100mhz Bus)
- Compaq TNT2-Ultra-32mb and Compaq Voodoo3-3500 (tried both)
- Voodoo2-8mb SLI (right now it's with TNT2 and V2-SLI)
- Creative AWE64 Gold
- Seagate 120gb 7200 rpm HDD

keenmaster486 wrote:

but the K6-III+ and the Voodoo 3 are waaaaay overkill.

I assume the idea of using the K6-III+ is that it can be easily and controllably throttled to an arbitrary degree using software. (Not that I have any idea how well that works.)

Jorpho wrote:

keenmaster486 wrote:

but the K6-III+ and the Voodoo 3 are waaaaay overkill.

I assume the idea of using the K6-III+ is that it can be easily and controllably throttled to an arbitrary degree using software. (Not that I have any idea how well that works.)

Correct. But that assumes he wants to run both DOS and Windows 9x games on it, and I think this machine is intended for DOS stuff, in which case the CPU would remain throttled.

You wouldn't throttle it when playing Build games at high res.

I think the choice of a plus CPU is wise enough. He does not need to throttle, yet he has the choice if the need is there.
K6-III and K6-III+ performs the same at the same clockspeed. The plus can throttle, run cooler and uses lower power.
In short. The plus are great at building a time machine.

Thats pretty much the reason for the k6-3+, lots of options with it, less power, less heat. The board has a bios mod for k6-3+ and 128gb hdd so it makes the most sense tgere too. Itll be interesting/fun to OC such old tech.

Since you guys say itll make a great 98 machine as well i will install 98se. No reason not to i guess.

I do have an ignorant question: are there things like chipset drivers and on-board device drivers? I cant seem to find them for this board.

As for UT maybe im thinking of Quake? It was some game like that. I read it here somewhere.

goodtofufriday wrote:

I do have an ignorant question: are there things like chipset drivers and on-board device drivers?

Yes. I think you might need the VIA 4-in-1 driver for full AGP functionality.

This should be the drivers....

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzzash5ZKLeK … iew?usp=sharing

brostenen wrote:

This should be the drivers....

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzzash5ZKLeK … iew?usp=sharing

Thank you. Greatly appreciate it!