I'm younger than you ^^

If you know how to build a computer and how to install the system, building an old PC shouldn't be too complicated. There are just a few problems that you will encounter on really old hardware that you won't encounter anymore now, but they are not too hard to understand

For windows 9x games up to 2000 I'd say go for an athlon or a pentium 3 with a good GeForce 2 and maybe also a voodoo 2 to be able to run most glide games. Why not a voodoo 3 ? Because you can combine a voodoo 2 (or even 2 of these in SLI) with a faster main gpu

I'm in france and I've found all of this over the past years. Stuff in the uk shouldn't be that different

It sounds like you want to build a Windows 98 computer, which is easier to find hardware for compared to if you wanted dos gaming. But do you want to build a computer of contemporary hardware, like Pentium II and III, or something with newer and perhaps overpowered hardware?

Worth noticing, the newest nVidia card with official driver support is the 6800 - for ATI Radeon its the X800.
I have had some trouble with newer nVidia cards and support for older directx games though, like for example fifa 98 to fifa 2000.

The old original hardware has its charm no doubt, but a cheaper alternative could be something like this: Thin client HP t5720 Win98/DOS experience

s0ren wrote:

The old original hardware has its charm no doubt, but a cheaper alternative could be something like this: Thin client HP t5720 Win98/DOS experience

Hey thanks for replying!

I'm thinking I want to lean more towards the contemporary hardware as it's something that my dad could relate to better (he's getting on a bit now so new hardware is a bit daunting to him - 73 years old!).

I am definitely liking the sound of a Pentium 3 build, and a GeForce 2 paired with a Voodoo 2 - what sort of motherboard, RAM and any other components would I need to go with this though?

A socket 370 motherboard or a late slot 1 board for the intel side and a socket A or a slot A (very rare though) for the AMD side. The ram will probably be SDRAM and even though people nowadays tend to put as ram as they can, 128-256MB of ram should be enough. As long as you don't go over 1GB (or even 512MB sometimes) under windows 98 you should't have any problems. For the hdd, in function of your requirements you can choose anything up to 128GB

Hi again guys,

Would a ASUS CUR-DLS, Dual Socket 370 be any good for a rig?

If I was to get this would I need 2 of the same CPU's or would this be complete overkill?

Thanks!

Deksor wrote:

For windows 9x games up to 2000 I'd say go for an athlon or a pentium 3 with a good GeForce 2 and maybe also a voodoo 2 to be able to run most glide games. Why not a voodoo 3 ? Because you can combine a voodoo 2 (or even 2 of these in SLI) with a faster main gpu

How many PCI slots would I need in total if I was to build something like this? Potentially 2 for Voodoo's and 1 for sound card?

Win9x can only see one CPU.

I am thinking that you can go with something like P-III 1.2/1.4 ghz, or Athlon 1800/2400. Geforce2/4 or Voodoo3-3000. 512mb RAM. 120gb HDD.

brostenen wrote:

Win9x can only see one CPU.

I am thinking that you can go with something like P-III 1.2/1.4 ghz, or Athlon 1800/2400. Geforce2/4 or Voodoo3-3000. 512mb RAM. 120gb HDD.

So if I was to go for a Geforce 4 MX440, an Intel P-III 1.266GHz SL5LW, 512mb RAM on just any old ASUS/Intel 370 mobo I'd be good to go?

I think you can do better than a GF4MX. Maybe a nice Quadro card?

Be careful with pentiums 3 over 1ghz because the 1.13GHz model il known to be buggy and the other one are newer revisions of the core so they don't work on every motherboard

gdjacobs wrote:

I think you can do better than a GF4MX. Maybe a nice Quadro card?

It is very likely that i am a complete noob, but when i tested a GF4 MX (in my case a MX4000 variant) and a Quadro card based on the GeForce FX, i found them to have very spotty compatibility with late 90s DirectX games. Seeing as he is doing a Win98 build, i guess this is the kind of games he is going to play.

Fifa 98 to 2000 had black screen or froze when starting a game - none of the 3rd party compatibility patches fixed it for me. Shogo does not display the main menu without 3rd party patches and a lot of fiddling around. GTA1 is flashing and flickering like crazy and i found no way to fix it. There are possibly other games with problems, i have only tested the few games that i have.

I would try a GF2 Ultra or GF3 TI, if it has to be contemporary nVidia cards. I have not tested them myself, but my guess is that they would be more likely to work with games that are essentially from the same time period as when they were made. Else i would go for a Radeon 8500 or 9xxx. All the games mentioned above worked for me with a Radeon 9200SE, but a 9250 or 8500 should give much better performance.

I'd suspect a driver issue. GF4MX is similar in terms of technology to the GF2 as both support a DX7 feature level.

gdjacobs wrote:

I'd suspect a driver issue. GF4MX is similar in terms of technology to the GF2 as both support a DX7 feature level.

Could very well be. I tested with the oldest available driver that supports the GeForce FX / Quadro, and the newest available driver that supports windows 98. Maybe an older driver for GeForce 2 cards (pre FX) will have better support.

FYI I use a place in Leeds called Revive IT Recycling for my old PC builds. They do cheap old pcs that you can use as a starting point and you can get that period look too. I usually search for isa on there ebay page to bring a few up: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/reviveitrecycling?rt … kw=isa&_sacat=0

Hope that helps

at that time we had a Dell p3 500 (slot-cpu). I now use it with 3x128MB RAM, a geforce2 ultra and will add 2 Voodoo2 12MB cards in SLI-mode for the fun 😀 those boards were already ATX compatible, so any modern power supply will do the job. still make sure you don't buy a noname powersupply, any make will be better than some fancy noname crap

I've had pretty good luck on gumtree, Its where I started when I got back into old PC's
Scored a PCI based 486 for less then £10 (despite the fact they said the PC was only a few years old, Creative CD-ROM said otherwise)
Another 486 being built

Got a "working" P3 Dell XPS T500" for around £10. By working I guess it turned on, but had no RAM or Video, But would have upgraded those anyway
Dell makes surprisingly good retro PC's

To start with I wouldn't be to strict on what to get, just find a good deal in your area and build up on that, 1/2 the fun is upgrading. Don't rule out big brand PC's either, most were still using generic parts.
I'm an Intel guy so lean towards a P3, for a Win98 PC will leave Athlon to the AMD experts, which I'm not
Slot wise
AGP
I'd get a GF4 but not the MX, lets you play all the D3d Games
or if your mainly after Glide then a Voodoo 3, later cards gets into stupid money

PCI
Sound card, Personally I like the Audigy 2 ZS, fairly common and one of the last cards to support Win98
NIC? whatever you want, makes copying files over easier
Voodoo 2? SLI? this will take 1 to 2 slots and is a option if you go with a D3d card and want glide AND D3D games

ISA
Not really a concern if your not getting into dos games

MrBrit wrote:

Hello! […]
Show full quote

Hello!

I'm looking into building myself a retro gaming PC. I was born in 1991 and my father got me quickly into gaming on his PC's, however due to being so young I never really understood the components and hardware that went into these machines. I'm quite knowledgeable when it comes to building modern computers but I'm a little out of my depth when it comes to building something retro.

I want to relive some of my childhood days and build myself a computer capable of running Windows 9x games and possibly some of the early 2000's titles with relative ease (if possible). This is a project I want to take on (with my dad) and try to build the best rig we can, which my dad would have loved to have got his hands on back in the day!

If you guys could help me out with some hardware to buy and put together, then that would be awesome!
On a side note, I live in the UK so hardware that is accessible here would be extra awesome! 😁

Thanks!

This is a hard question - it really comes down to what you want to play and at what detail levels and resolutions.

If you want a PC for late 80's / early 90's dos games, a 286 or 386 is in order - even a a 486 will do (you can disable cache). If 90's dos titles are your target, a fast 486 or pentium system is what you need. If you want to play 1990-2000 3D games, a Pentium III / Athlon will do - a 3DFX card for glide games is a big plus and broadens the spectrum of games you can play. There's also 3DFX ports of DOS software only games - like Carmageddon, Descent 1 and 2, Blood and so on - having a 3dfx card will let you play these games at higher resolutions with improved graphics.

There's also "all in one" machines that let you emulate a wide range of computers allowing you to play any game from late 80's to late 90's - that would be the Super Socket 7 AMD K6-2+ / K6-III or socket 370 VIA C3. These machines can be slowed down in software w/o restarting using a utility called setMUL. You can emulate anything from a 386 to a Pentium III. Add a voodoo card for 3dfx glide games and it's a great time machine.

Now for the tricky part - late 80's and early 90's games have great MIDI music - if you have the appropriate hardware. You can use either an external Roland sound module (MT32 or SC55), or a sound card with on board wavetable midi. For the ISA bus these things are hard to find and usually expensive, but usually cheaper then a Roland. These work great in DOS and use the General Midi standard and are supported by most games. Cards like the AWE32 and AWE64 need special game support for wavetable synth music, so they only work with later games, but are very cheap (especially the AWE64 value). If you want to use PCI cards, lots of them provide MIDI synth in Windows - the Yamaha DS-XG, Aureal Vortex, Crystal 4xxx series, ESS AudioDrive (Creative SB128) etc - but as far as I know the only one that can play wavetable music in DOS is the Audiodrive / SB128 - the rest will play OPL3 music, best if witch would be the Yamaha DS-XG.

If you want to play old windows games at silly resolutions (say 1600x1200) with AA and AF, you need a really fast win98 build. This means the fastest computer that has win98 drivers - for AMD you have the socket 754 and 939 platforms, with CPUs like the 3800+, 4000+ and FX series running on VIA K8VT800 or ULi M1689 chipsets (nforce 3 boards have win98 drivers too but are not as stable under 9x as the other two) while on the intel side you have i865 chipset boards that support socket 478 and LGA775 CPUs. A fast P4 CPU + i865 board combo is pretty easy and cheap to find. Add to that a video card with win98 drivers (fastest nvidia card is the gf 6800 while the fastest ATi card with win98 support is the x850xt). I personally recommend the X800PRO / XT since the AGP version is cheaper and easier to find then an AGP 6800GT and it performs the same. The 6800LE is quite a bit slower then the GT (it has several pipelines disabled) so be wary of that.

If you're looking for the cheapest option possible, a standard OEM pentium III or Athlon/Duron box is the way to go. Just make sure it has an AGP slot (some don't) and optionally one ISA slot.

Another thing to keep in mind is to be carefull what components you put in it. If you're thinking a Geforce 6800 will speed up your 800mhz P3, it wont - it might actually slow it down and create compatibility issues with older games. If you want a fast video card, go 1-2 years older TOPS - for example a Geforce 4 Titanium is the fastest video card you can use in a P3 machine - a newer card will be bottle-necked by the CPU.

Lastly, on win98, direct X 8.1 offers the greatest compatibility with older and newer titles. DX9 is really made for winXP and there are like 1 or 2 games that run on win98 witch take advantage of it. It does on the other hand break compatibility with select directX 6a and directX 5 games.

For what your asking, here is what I'd look into building.

AMD Athlon 64 FX 57
2gb DDR400 (use 512mb to install 98 then use the patches to limit it to 512mb then install XP)
VIA K8T800 939 Motherboard
Geforce 6800 Ultra AGP PRetty much will destroy DX7,8 and 2003/2004 DX9 Games
Voodoo 2 SLI
120GB SSD Boot Volume
500GB Data Drive connected after you install Chipset drivers for 48bit LBA
Soundblaster Audigy 2
Windows 98SE/Windows ME with Dual boot to Windows XP

The voodoo 2 SLI will take care of early DX 3/5/6 and Glide Games while the 6800 Ultra will cover DX7,8 and 9 games until 2004/2005 with absolute ease.

You can also use K8T890 and a 7900GTX and use the modded Nvidia drivers for Geforce 7 on Windows 9x and really dominate games until about 2007

Also a you can go further than a Geforce 4 with a PEntium III, depending on the card, remember the FX 5200/5200 Ultra/5600/5600Ultra are all slower than the Ti 4600 and are considerably cheaper than a Geforce 4 Ti card.

There's an awful lot of factors that will influence your decisions.

Cost is no concern? Want a hobby project with your Dad? Then custom build it with individually sourced parts.

Limited budget? Want to keep things simple? Get a decent pre-built and modify it for your needs.

Want to play DOS games as well as Windows games? Make sure you get a system with an ISA slot for a sound card.

Mildly concerned with DOS games and want hardware-accelerated sound? Then get an SBLive CT4620 or CT4670. Aureal Vortex 2 is also supposed to be quite good, but they're more expensive.

Not concerned at all with DOS games and want hardware-accelerated sound? Get an SBLive CT4830 as a cheap but good option. Again, Aureal Vortex 2 is also supposed to be great, but they're more expensive.

Want GLIDE support but don't want to break the bank? Get a Voodoo 3 3000.
(Personally, I find the V3 3000 to be the best all-around Win9x video card. If I could have only one Win9x system, it would run a V3 3000.)

Want GLIDE support and cash is no concern? Get a pair of Voodoo 2 cards and run them in SLI mode with a better primary video card. Matrox G400 Max is a great card. GeForce 2 is also good and a bit faster.

Don't care about GLIDE at all? Get a GeForce 4 Ti4200 video card. You could always use a wrapper for GLIDE support.

When you say you want to run early-2000s games, which ones? That time period is the crossroads when Win9x was falling out of favor and WinXP was gaining in popularity. If most of the games you want to play are from ~2003, then I would recommend a WinXP build like Candle_86 recommends, but without the Voodoo 2 cards. Also, keep in mind that most 2002+ games will probably run well on modern hardware. Do you really need to have WinXP compatibility, or should you focus on Win9x compatibility?