First post, by GhostyGhost
- Rank
- Newbie
Hi Everyone!
I'm GhostyGhost and I'm new to these forums.
First off, I would like to say I really love this website. Lots of people here who still have a passion for old tech and still work with them. Stuff that I like doing too.
I wanted to replay some old games I used to enjoy back in the day for some good old fun. But I wanted to do it on an actual PC from my old time. Why? Because playing on an emulator just doesn't have the same feel as when I did it long ago. I wanted to play play games such as
Wasteland (1988)
Day of the Tentacle (1993)
Maniac Mansion (1987)
Half Life 1 (1998
Quake series (1996-2000)
Doom series (1993-1996)
Fallout 1 & 2 (1997-1998)
and even more classic goodies from the late 80s and 90s!'
But there was just one problem. I had no knowledge of the parts used on PCs back in the day. I've begun doing PC repairs and Laptop repairs, both hardware and software, since 2010 and PCs have come a long way since then.
Now for the Topic at hand, the Windows 98SE PC
The List
Note: I only bought the motherboard only so far.
OS: Windows 98SE - A hybrid of MS-DOS and modern Windows at the time.
CPU: Pentium iii 1000Mhz Coppermine version model SL5QV - To be able to play late 1990s games good but the Motherboard I chose will be able to handle old games too via it's features
Motherboard: ASUS TUV4X - The motherboard has a large support for Legacy devices. The only downside to it is it has no ISA slot for MS-DOS sounds so this leaves me to focus on the Sound Card issue. But the 2 biggest reasons why I chose this motherboard is because you can automatically or manually underclock the CPU to 350Mhz, and not very sure, less than 350Mhz. Also I managed to find this Motherboard Brand new!. Came with old the ribbon cables and accessores, driver discs, both CD and Floppy, ipanel and USB 2.0 expansion card!
Soundcard: UNKNOWN - Candidates, Sound Blaster Live! MP3+ 5.1 This sound card can play from 4 bits to 16 bits resolutions and support for MIDI games apparently. I'm willing to buy it mostly I am curious to knowing how it will handle my MS-DOS games. Not so sure how it will work though.
RAM: Four 128Mb of SDRAM at 133Mhz. Type of SDRAM , TBD. This is the most you can apparently stuff into Windows 98SE and that's fine by me. Though I did hear that the maximum has issues. I want to experiment with that
Optical Drive: IDE DVD reader/burner. Has backwards compatibility with CD-R/CD-RW in various speed settings.
Floppy Drives: 5.25" and 3.5" Floppy Drives. Can't live without these.
PC Case: An TP-102HA case. It's a Mid Tower ATX/AT with four 5.25" drive bays and 2 Floppy drive bays. Also has a nice transparent blue front cover. I like shiny blue.
Graphics card or cards: Voodoo 5 5500 AGP and Voodoo 3 3000 PCI This was a tough decision as I needed performance to run late to very late 1990s games but be able to downgrade to MS-DOS game standards without breaking the game on too much performance. Seeing that it won't be easy to get the best of both worlds, I decided to go with a plan but not sure if it will work. I decided that I will want a Voodoo 5 5500 for my late 1990s games and Voodoo 3 3000 for my MS-DOS games via a switch system. How will I get it to work is unknown to me now. That's why I am doing this experimental build. I might have to change my voodoo 3 3000 for something older.
Storage: 120GB IDE HDD - The most you can put on Windows 98SE. This will do nicely. I want to play lots of games.
(UPDATED) PSU: EG365P-VE - With many thanks to PCBONEZ I have now a good PSU that will work well with my PC and its components reliably.
So that's all to my list. Sorry about the long post but I wanted to make things as clear as possible to the best of my ability. If there is anything that you recommend in terms of parts feel free to reply. If you have any questions regarding this build, also let me know so I may clarify it further. Feel free to comment on the build in any way you please.
P.S. I was actually after a Gigabyte GA-6VTXE motherboard but I couldn't find one and then I saw the ASUS motherboard that I listed in the parts. But then right after I bought the motherboard. My wanted motherboard in question finally showed up. Life just loves messing with people I guess.
Thank You to all. 😀
If life throws a wrench into your plans, then show life that no matter what it does to you, you will always prevail.
