I have a similar 3 machine, soon to be 4 then 5 machine series.

Here's the run down.

For games late 80's (non CPU dependent) to ~1996, I have Machine 1

CPU: Am486-DX4-100-SV8B @ 120 Mhz
Motherboard: DataExpert ExpertBoard EXP-4045 Socket 3 VLB
Memory: 32MB of 72-pin FPM RAM, with 256k of L2 Cache
Video card: Diamond Multimedia Stealth SE 2MB with a Trio32 core.
I/O card: A DTC VLB I/O card with dual channel EIDE, dual RS232, Centronics, Gameport, and floppy drive support.
Sound card: Creative SB32/AWE32 CT:3670 2MB
HDD: 2GB WD Caviar
FDD: Combo 5.25/3.5 inch drive
ODD: 52x ATAPI CD-ROM drive (Couldn't get anything older)
OS: PC-DOS 2000 with Win3.1

For games ~1993-1998 I have machine 2:

CPU: Pentium Pro 200Mhz 256k cache
Motherboard: Intel OEM Socket 8 board with FX chipset (bog standard)
RAM: 128MB of 72-pin 50/50 EDO/FPM RAM (was an ordering mixup, the supplier sent me the wrong RAM)
Video card: ATI Mach GX Pro Turbo 2MB VRAM PCI (Might be a WinTurbo)
3D card: Diamond Multimedia Monster 3D 4MB 3Dfx Voodoo 1 (Because a Diamond and ATI card in the same system amuses me)
Sound card: Creative SB32/AWE32 CT:3670 no memory upgrade
Modem: US Robotics Sportster 33.6 Voice modem PC/XT bus
SCSI Card: Adaptec PCI Ultra160 SCSI card
HDD: 147GB 15,000RPM Ultra320 SCA-80 generic enterprise HDD
FDD: Single 3.5inch floppy drive
ODD: ATAPI DVD Rewriter (for transferring files)
OS: Windows95c (OSR 2.5)

For games ~1996-2002ish

CPU: Pentium 3 450 w/ 512k of L2 Cache
Motherboard: SE440BX-2 Slot 1 (Intel)
RAM: 384MB of 3 DIMMs of SDRAM
GPU: nVidia GeForce 2MX/440 AGP 64MB
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Live! Value
Networking: 52kbaud PCI softmodem and a 100mbaud PCI ethernet adapter
HDD: 40GB Seagate Barracuda
FDD: Single 3.5 inch floppy drive
ODD: ATAPI DVD Rewriter
OS: Windows98 SE

Some machines make a bit more or less sense than others. It's just down to how overboard I went with them (Machine 2 being my nuts machine)

I am working on a fourth machine that will likely be an FX-55 machine with 4GB of RAM, and dual 7800GTXs (4 drive 160GB RAID 0 maybe...)

A possible fifth machine will be an AM2+ Phenom X4 955 machine with dual 6000 series Radeons and 8GB of RAM.

Bancho wrote:

I'd like to know what you would build if you had to put two machines together. I'll tell you where I am with what i'm currently working on.

First machine would be a P200MMX/VirgeGX/MT-32/GM because it can slow down to 386 and 486 speeds and handle most of the newest DOS games. Second machine would be a 1Ghz P3/V2 SLI/GF4 Ti4200 which should cover everything the 1st machine can't handle all the way up to games from 2004 or so. So 1992-2004ish? That is my gaming sweetspot anyhow (I almost entirely stopped gaming between 2005-present).

In reality, I also have a DX2/66 and a P2-400 (my V2 SLI on here).

Honestly if I can only ever pick two machines, I would go for an MMX233 (Maybe a PPro200), and my new FX-55 machine. That can cover most 90's and 00's games.

While the Socket 7 K6+ builds are certainly awesome they really can't be made to perform like a 486DX-2(66) which seems to be a pretty important performance point for a lot of games. On the other hand, faster Pentium MMX chips like the 200 you have or a 233 can hit this mark perfectly but then don't have as much room on the top-end as the K6+ chips.

I really think Slot 1 makes the best time machine build but it is unfortunately much harder to source the parts you need to make an effective one. With the right motherboard, CPU and slotket you can have a machine that can do smooth scaling from a slow 386 to a fast K6+, with all cache, multiplier and even FSB toggles being changed through software in DOS.. you don't even need to go into BIOS -- and that's with FSBs of 50, 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, and 133 to choose from. Further.... if you can get the right slotket with a decent enclosure or build one around a capable slotket you can very easily swap the cartridge out to go from being capped at K6-500 speeds to any Pentium III upwards of Tualatins.

I was also working on a 98/XP hybrid build on an S939 Asrock board with both AGP and PCIe. It's a cool idea to try condensing these eras and Windows 98/late DOS games actually run great on S939 but I'll probably have to end up doing separate builds if I want a really fast XP machine -- with a 285 GTX in the PCI-e the FX5900 Ultra's bottom heatsink doesn't clear to fit in the AGP slot. As far as reasoning ...If you want the highest resolutions for software rendered games then there really is no such thing as too fast a machine. Xjas has a thread about this. A 3ghz+ Pentium 4 and 4000+ A64 still give under 60FPS in Quake at the highest 1280x1024 resolution -- somewhere in the 40-48FPS range. I don't believe there is any downside to using DOS-compatible PCI soundcards for the late era DOS games that can take all the CPU power you can throw at it so in these cases it really comes down to ... what's the final CPU architecture that has support for W98 and can still do the IRQ/DMA, etc business for DOS?

The other thing you have to keep in mind when making flex builds is that depending on how much you want to cover a single video card won't do. For example, a FX5900/6800 seems to be the fastest compatible W98 card.... but anything beyond a Geforce 3 (at least from NVIDIA) will have issues with Build Engine games at higher resolutions. Another example would be a game like Might & Magic III on a K6 or Ezra slowdown machine. At the slowest CPU/cache disabling speeds that work perfect for Wing Commander 1 on a Voodoo 3, MMIII will be perfectly playable but have animations that are too fast. Switch over to an ISA-bus video card and this is fixed.

I also have two, a K6-III 400 upgraded socket 5 machine, Voodoo 3 3000, ISA sound and MIDI wavetable that also benchmarks around a 25mhz 286 with cache disabled, that covers pretty much all of my DOS stuff and most Win9x

And a 1.4GHz tualatin slotket-equipped Pentium 3, Geforce FX 5900 for the later and high resolution stuff

I also have a Sandy Bridge Windows XP / 7 and 10 machine with an AMD 7970 to sort out XP compatibility while also being usable for modern things

Bancho wrote:

I'd like to know what you would build if you had to put two machines together. I'll tell you where I am with what i'm currently working on.

-snip-

What are your thoughts?

If I had to stick with two machines, I'd use a Slot 1 build for DOS and Windows 9x games and some late Pentium 4/Athlon 64 era build for anything that'll run on XP.

I've actually been there at one point too, a couple years ago, my fast 9x P4 Dell build was in need of a rebuild, so I relied on my Slotket Celeron build for 9x titles and used my AMD64 build for XP titles, worked fine for a while but it had to come to an end once my faster 9x system (a Dell Dimension 4300S) was rebuilt and tested. Now I have four machines that cover my retro gaming curiosities (as can be seen in my signature at the time of writing).