BSA Starfire wrote:

And what's wrong with "budget" when it was as good as the Duron? Great little chips, fast and trouble free, what more could you ask for a period retro box?

Nothing wrong with it, you said smart people. In a sense yeah they were, price/performance was great but to claim fast meh. Few friends had them and they were fine for our lan parties back since most of us had duron, celeron or athlon.

atariangamer wrote:

More than I realized! :exclamation: […]
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Tetrium wrote:

atariangamer certainly has a lot of options 😄

More than I realized! 😲

After looking around a bit, I think I might want to go with Tualatin-s, just for the fact that I easily found one. And the mainboard... I've easily located VIAs Apollo Pro chipset for Tualatin, but intel has... i815? Which doesn't look anywhere near as nice in comparison.

Also, stumbled across a GA-6VXE7+ board that has ISA slots... bit expensive, but does this mean I could run nicer ISA sound cards in Windows?

i815 is actually a pretty good chipset, I always enjoyed using it!
Its main limitations are a lack of ISA and the 512MB RAM limit (and perhaps a limit as not supporting DDR).
ISA is nice, but that's more for DOS or a more DOS-oriënted retro rig.

Richo wrote:

Basic rule for athlons was not to combine amd with nvidia and via versa.

I'm not sure, but I never had any significant issues running nv with VIA and I ran at least 4 different VIA rigs for years along with GF.
I also ran VIA with Ati, it goes basically fine either way afaict.

Tetrium wrote:

Richo wrote:

Basic rule for athlons was not to combine amd with nvidia and via versa.

I'm not sure, but I never had any significant issues running nv with VIA and I ran at least 4 different VIA rigs for years along with GF.
I also ran VIA with Ati, it goes basically fine either way afaict.

I have no idea where this notion comes from either. It's probably due to some people using nForce chipsets and ATi cards messing their systems up with nVidia Gpu drivers or something, but I used a GeForce 3 with my Socket A system for a good while and it worked fine.

appiah4 wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Richo wrote:

Basic rule for athlons was not to combine amd with nvidia and via versa.

I'm not sure, but I never had any significant issues running nv with VIA and I ran at least 4 different VIA rigs for years along with GF.
I also ran VIA with Ati, it goes basically fine either way afaict.

I have no idea where this notion comes from either. It's probably due to some people using nForce chipsets and ATi cards messing their systems up with nVidia Gpu drivers or something, but I used a GeForce 3 with my Socket A system for a good while and it worked fine.

It might be due to that, but we know that that particular case has nothing to do with VIA, but more to do with nv & Ati 😜

As I'm putting together a SS7 system I was wondering why do people do early to mid 2000 gaming rigs? Wouldn't a newer computer play the games fine? For me the whole reason I'm doing a SS7 system is because the games won't look right or run on newer systems (outside emulation) where most 3D games will run fine. I'm sure I'm missing the point but I was wondering if someone could shed some light on what you can do with them. I have accumulated quite a few P3 - P4 era stuff just because its more prevalent so maybe it'd be worth putting something together.

Atariangamer may have made a mistake... Perhaps I should just pull my PowerMac G4 out of storage and find all the games I want on Mac OS 9!

Nah, I've had my fun there (and finding an appropriate CRT monitor for the Gigabit Ethernet model is a pain). But maybe I should put down the games that I really want to run at 75 frames or higher, 800x600 resolution (1024x768 would be great, but unnecessary):

1. Unreal (not Tournament)
2. Deus Ex
3. Quake series (but maybe not III, I'm more interested in single player)
4. Doom (But probably on a source port, so don't worry too much about DOS performance)
5. Half Life
6. Tomb Raider series (era appropriate)
7. Dark Forces/II
8. MDK 2
9. Diablo 2
10. The Sims
11. Max Payne

I realize these are much more late 90s focused, with Max Payne being the newest game on the list. There are loads of games I'd love to try out (Expendable comes to mind, need to find a copy) that are a little older, or a little newer. I'm a sucker for shooters, but any sort of 3D adventure game (or even 2D if they're fun!) will do.

Still, It seems like a top notch Pentium III or mid-spec Athlon would blow these games out of the water. I've sourced the 1.4Ghz Tualatin PIII-S, but finding a 1Ghz Athlon or higher that isn't an XP is hard. That might kill the AMD dream right then and there if I can't find quite what I want... why settle?

That said, the i815 chipset seems good... but while part of me is silently screaming over only 512MB Ram... The other part is thinking that's more than enough. And while some prices seem high, perhaps I can find an ASUS TUSL2-C? That seems to be a generally respected board... I think 😢

This is more confusing that I anticipated. Especially because now, with a range of games that wide (and the prices of most Voodoo 5's I've found)... What card can even begin to satisfy that list?

Shogun wrote:

As I'm putting together a SS7 system I was wondering why do people do early to mid 2000 gaming rigs? Wouldn't a newer computer play the games fine? For me the whole reason I'm doing a SS7 system is because the games won't look right or run on newer systems (outside emulation) where most 3D games will run fine. I'm sure I'm missing the point but I was wondering if someone could shed some light on what you can do with them. I have accumulated quite a few P3 - P4 era stuff just because its more prevalent so maybe it'd be worth putting something together.

The more I'm thinking, the more this is a late 90s rig. Also, for me, DOS and Windows 9x wasn't for games when I was a kid. That was for work, or edutainment. Video games with bright lights and fast action were relegated to Nintendo, and later on, Sony. By the time I got into PC gaming seriously, I was on the "Steam train", because Portal looked awesome and my poor P4 with integrated graphics couldn't handle it. While that eventually got me hooked enough to pursue a more modern rig starting in 2009 (with four computers later)... I always looked at games like Quake, MDK2, and other games that just reminded me of 'Millennium'. I didn't have that...

Also, CRT monitors, ball mice, cheap joysticks, and flimsy keyboards. While I couldn't dream of playing something like Witcher 3 without my 120hz monitor, nice keyboard, gaming mouse... I also feel like I'm missing something when I play Quake II in widescreen on the best hardware I can afford. But I can't easily simulate that old school experience on my newer computer. And things like 20GB IDE drives that made terrible racket, loud and slow CD-ROM drives... The Pentium II hp Pavilion my family had barely handled the games I threw at it (Lego games, mostly). And yet, I feel a huge sense of nostalgia about that computer setup. The mid 90s and earlier don't quite have that effect on me because I was like, three. And barely making my way through Super Solvers games in Windows 3.1.

That may not answer your question, but... This is why I held onto a dying iMac G3 for so long (bought in 2010, never quite worked right, died in 2015). It didn't connect to the internet, so I had to make sure everything I wanted was on CD, or transferred over by very slow USB 1.1. Because I would wake up early on Saturday, and instead of running to my new PC to play some Team Fortress 2 or something... I wanted to mess around in Tomb Raider. Or see how awful I was (at the time) in Quake III against bots. Or just pop in a CD and lazily watch the visualizer in iTunes. Could I have gotten these things on my modern PC? Sure... but it definitely didn't feel the same.

Shogun wrote:

As I'm putting together a SS7 system I was wondering why do people do early to mid 2000 gaming rigs? Wouldn't a newer computer play the games fine? For me the whole reason I'm doing a SS7 system is because the games won't look right or run on newer systems (outside emulation) where most 3D games will run fine. I'm sure I'm missing the point but I was wondering if someone could shed some light on what you can do with them. I have accumulated quite a few P3 - P4 era stuff just because its more prevalent so maybe it'd be worth putting something together.

Im in the same boat really, aside from nostlgia I find nothing motivates me to build a post millennium pc either. PIII Voodoo 3 onwards I find is quite well suited to run on modern hardware and OSs. If I get around to building my Socket A project it will be because I never got on the nF2 and Tbred OC wagon.

Shogun wrote:

As I'm putting together a SS7 system I was wondering why do people do early to mid 2000 gaming rigs? Wouldn't a newer computer play the games fine? For me the whole reason I'm doing a SS7 system is because the games won't look right or run on newer systems (outside emulation) where most 3D games will run fine.

You nailed it.

I wonder the same. The strength of SS7 is being able to play DOS and Windows games from the late 80s to late 90s on a single machine. With the right CPU you can really home in on the processing power and get most games to work at the correct speed.

It all depends on how well you can define the titles you want to run to their best quality. Why invest into a Voodoo3 machine if you can do these games better with a Voodoo5 (smoother performance, better filtering quality, etc.).

The end of the Win9x era coincides with the end of A3D and Glide, so maximizing on some of those games is pretty interesting. You do need slower CPU options among other compatibility concerns with many pre-1998 things.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Shogun wrote:

As I'm putting together a SS7 system I was wondering why do people do early to mid 2000 gaming rigs? Wouldn't a newer computer play the games fine? For me the whole reason I'm doing a SS7 system is because the games won't look right or run on newer systems (outside emulation) where most 3D games will run fine.

You nailed it.

I wonder the same. The strength of SS7 is being able to play DOS and Windows games from the late 80s to late 90s on a single machine. With the right CPU you can really home in on the processing power and get most games to work at the correct speed.

Well, it's not really particular to the SS7, you can get anything that runs on 66MHz or below FSB such as a Slot 1 to basically become a 386/486SX pretty much the same through disabling L1 and L2 caches.. Can the SS7 really go lower and emulate something like an 8086 or 286? I think the lower FSB they can go is 33MHz? I enjoy (S)S7 for what it is, but it is to me completely obsoleted by Slot 1 which plays everything I would want to play on a (S)S7. Slot 1 is retro and contemporary enough at the same time to be both practical and reliable for me.

Hmmm, I just quickly read through this thread, and was slightly surprised by people finding XP to be sluggish on sub P4 hardware. I run XP on my Tualatin-S 1.4GHz with 512MB RAM and Adaptec Ultra160-SCSI and Seagate Cheetah HDD and I'm actually finding it surprisingly usable. The system it self is too slow for modern tasks like youtube etc. for sure, but I've used it for some retro related activities like making spreadsheets of benchmarks etc, and it never really felt "slow" as such. But I guess I might not have used it enough.
I'm stuck with XP on that system though, as the Matrox Parhelia doesn't have drivers for anything older.

LunarG wrote:

Hmmm, I just quickly read through this thread, and was slightly surprised by people finding XP to be sluggish on sub P4 hardware. I run XP on my Tualatin-S 1.4GHz with 512MB RAM and Adaptec Ultra160-SCSI and Seagate Cheetah HDD and I'm actually finding it surprisingly usable. The system it self is too slow for modern tasks like youtube etc. for sure, but I've used it for some retro related activities like making spreadsheets of benchmarks etc, and it never really felt "slow" as such. But I guess I might not have used it enough.
I'm stuck with XP on that system though, as the Matrox Parhelia doesn't have drivers for anything older.

I run XP on a Tualeron 1300 and 512MB Ram and I find it to be fairly fine as well. I use it with a fairly fast DX8 class video hardware though, so that might be a big boost, I don't know. Maybe people are expecting a lot more snappiness than we are?

appiah4 wrote:

Well, it's not really particular to the SS7, you can get anything that runs on 66MHz or below FSB such as a Slot 1 to basically become a 386/486SX pretty much the same through disabling L1 and L2 caches..

I'd like to see that 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Well, it's not really particular to the SS7, you can get anything that runs on 66MHz or below FSB such as a Slot 1 to basically become a 386/486SX pretty much the same through disabling L1 and L2 caches..

I'd like to see that 😀

I'll try it on my PIII-450 tonight 😁

Awesome, nothing beats trying things out.

atariangamer wrote:

Atariangamer may have made a mistake... Perhaps I should just pull my PowerMac G4 out of storage and find all the games I want o […]
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Atariangamer may have made a mistake... Perhaps I should just pull my PowerMac G4 out of storage and find all the games I want on Mac OS 9!

Nah, I've had my fun there (and finding an appropriate CRT monitor for the Gigabit Ethernet model is a pain). But maybe I should put down the games that I really want to run at 75 frames or higher, 800x600 resolution (1024x768 would be great, but unnecessary):

1. Unreal (not Tournament)
2. Deus Ex
3. Quake series (but maybe not III, I'm more interested in single player)
4. Doom (But probably on a source port, so don't worry too much about DOS performance)
5. Half Life
6. Tomb Raider series (era appropriate)
7. Dark Forces/II
8. MDK 2
9. Diablo 2
10. The Sims
11. Max Payne

I realize these are much more late 90s focused, with Max Payne being the newest game on the list. There are loads of games I'd love to try out (Expendable comes to mind, need to find a copy) that are a little older, or a little newer. I'm a sucker for shooters, but any sort of 3D adventure game (or even 2D if they're fun!) will do.

Still, It seems like a top notch Pentium III or mid-spec Athlon would blow these games out of the water. I've sourced the 1.4Ghz Tualatin PIII-S, but finding a 1Ghz Athlon or higher that isn't an XP is hard. That might kill the AMD dream right then and there if I can't find quite what I want... why settle?

That said, the i815 chipset seems good... but while part of me is silently screaming over only 512MB Ram... The other part is thinking that's more than enough. And while some prices seem high, perhaps I can find an ASUS TUSL2-C? That seems to be a generally respected board... I think 😢

This is more confusing that I anticipated. Especially because now, with a range of games that wide (and the prices of most Voodoo 5's I've found)... What card can even begin to satisfy that list?

Shogun wrote:

As I'm putting together a SS7 system I was wondering why do people do early to mid 2000 gaming rigs? Wouldn't a newer computer play the games fine? For me the whole reason I'm doing a SS7 system is because the games won't look right or run on newer systems (outside emulation) where most 3D games will run fine. I'm sure I'm missing the point but I was wondering if someone could shed some light on what you can do with them. I have accumulated quite a few P3 - P4 era stuff just because its more prevalent so maybe it'd be worth putting something together.

The more I'm thinking, the more this is a late 90s rig. Also, for me, DOS and Windows 9x wasn't for games when I was a kid. That was for work, or edutainment. Video games with bright lights and fast action were relegated to Nintendo, and later on, Sony. By the time I got into PC gaming seriously, I was on the "Steam train", because Portal looked awesome and my poor P4 with integrated graphics couldn't handle it. While that eventually got me hooked enough to pursue a more modern rig starting in 2009 (with four computers later)... I always looked at games like Quake, MDK2, and other games that just reminded me of 'Millennium'. I didn't have that...

Also, CRT monitors, ball mice, cheap joysticks, and flimsy keyboards. While I couldn't dream of playing something like Witcher 3 without my 120hz monitor, nice keyboard, gaming mouse... I also feel like I'm missing something when I play Quake II in widescreen on the best hardware I can afford. But I can't easily simulate that old school experience on my newer computer. And things like 20GB IDE drives that made terrible racket, loud and slow CD-ROM drives... The Pentium II hp Pavilion my family had barely handled the games I threw at it (Lego games, mostly). And yet, I feel a huge sense of nostalgia about that computer setup. The mid 90s and earlier don't quite have that effect on me because I was like, three. And barely making my way through Super Solvers games in Windows 3.1.

That may not answer your question, but... This is why I held onto a dying iMac G3 for so long (bought in 2010, never quite worked right, died in 2015). It didn't connect to the internet, so I had to make sure everything I wanted was on CD, or transferred over by very slow USB 1.1. Because I would wake up early on Saturday, and instead of running to my new PC to play some Team Fortress 2 or something... I wanted to mess around in Tomb Raider. Or see how awful I was (at the time) in Quake III against bots. Or just pop in a CD and lazily watch the visualizer in iTunes. Could I have gotten these things on my modern PC? Sure... but it definitely didn't feel the same.

Sounds like you want the Tualatin 😁

There is more out there than just the TUSL2-C. Here's a link to a list of s370 boards gathered by the Vogons community. It may come in handy as you search for a Tualatin compatible motherboard.

You're correct about the 512MB RAM limit not being that much of a problem. It's only a problem if one intends to put XP or newer on there. 9x can basically run fine on only a fraction of 512MB.
And a Tualatin will probably run anything you want.

LunarG wrote:

Hmmm, I just quickly read through this thread, and was slightly surprised by people finding XP to be sluggish on sub P4 hardware. I run XP on my Tualatin-S 1.4GHz with 512MB RAM and Adaptec Ultra160-SCSI and Seagate Cheetah HDD and I'm actually finding it surprisingly usable. The system it self is too slow for modern tasks like youtube etc. for sure, but I've used it for some retro related activities like making spreadsheets of benchmarks etc, and it never really felt "slow" as such. But I guess I might not have used it enough.
I'm stuck with XP on that system though, as the Matrox Parhelia doesn't have drivers for anything older.

Maybe I didn't use the exact correct words as I should have, but XP on a Tualatin with 512MB RAM and 20GB harddrive is more sluggish compared to running the same hardware with 9x or running a A64 with 2GB and 1TB drive.
If one were to go down to, say, a Pentium 2 with 128MB RAM, 9x will barely get more sluggish but XP should even more so.

And unless there's a way sluggishness can be measured, it will always be more of a perceptual thing I guess.

all those games listed will run under windows xp under a core 2 duo, are you looking to run older os such as windows 98 or dos?

firage wrote:

It all depends on how well you can define the titles you want to run to their best quality. Why invest into a Voodoo3 machine if you can do these games better with a Voodoo5 (smoother performance, better filtering quality, etc.).

On the other hand, why pay a premium for a V5 when a similar performance can be had for a lot less with NV/ATI? In fact, you could pretty much buy all the early 00's GF/Radeon cards for the price of a one V5 and experiment a little. Also by 2000 most games were already made for the D3D so a 3Dfx card was becoming obsolete.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Awesome, nothing beats trying things out.

Apparently the Katmai 450MHz PIII I have will refuse to downclock with lower multipliers but My Deschutes PII-350 will (manufacture date 1999/Week10) and theoretically at 1x100MHz and L2 cache disabled it should be around 386DX levels.

I will test this tonight - if it works I may permanently downgrade my system from a PIII-450 to a PII-350, and actually remove Windows Me and install Windows 98SE for a real MSDOS Mode or try to set up an MS-DOS Dual Boot by adding a second Hard Drive instead.

Phil, when you do the DOS tests like TOPBENCH on Win9x systems do you boot from MSDOS floppies or just use Safe Mode with Command Prompt from the F8 menu?

I like testing with Wing Commander, Test Drive 3 and the benchmark pack on my website. For Dos mode I also made a easy to use ms-dos mode.