I must admit i don't suffer feature/scope creep really. Once a PC is up and running and satisfactorily runs things of its era then its done, if i have spare ram it may get that, but not much more

agreed on the distraction value of the hobby, creating a temporary sense of purpose and control

That's some deep stuff about life and so....

But totally recognisable. Happily married, great job and good friends: but this hobby can make you forget everything for a little while 😀

As for the scope creep: that's why my 440BX / p2-266 with SIS AGP card ended up with a 4200Ti and a coppermine 933 at 1050 MHz 😜

On the other hand, I've rebuild the pc from my childhood almost to perfection. Only HDD and CPU are a little different 😀

geertjanb wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:10:

I build a Pentium 2 450 MHz voodoo2 sli system. Then I'm like mmm, maybe I should swap the slot 1 cpu to a Pentium 3 so I get the best out of the voodoo2's. Then I'm like, maybe I should swap the matrox g200 for a GeForce 2 GTS so I can play battlefield 1942 and it fits better with the Pentium 3. And now I'm thinking to install a Pentium 3 1.4 GHz and a GeForce 4 ti 4200.. 🤡 do you guys also experience this phenomenon/"problem"?

To some degree, yes.

Since I always tend to build my rigs in an optimal configuration from the start, I always tended to end up with builds which are rather similar (like having multiple s370 builds using the 1GHz 133MHz FSB Coppermine because why use a slower s370 CPU? Or why build a 200MHz Pentium non-MMX if you can just swap it with a 233MHz MMX Pentium instead? Why use Cyrix MII 400 @300MHz if you can just plug in a K6-2/550 or K6+ instead?).
I did end up building a rig with a 800MHz Celeron even though that board would work with a (faster) Coppermine just fine, but I really wanted to build with that Celeron. Same reason why my 1.4GHz Tualatin ended up with a GF3 200 and not with a FX 5900U.
I don't tend to want to upgrade the rigs I already build unless it's for my main rig (or very sometimes it's to solve some kind of deficiency like my old backup rig needing more storage space so I added a harddrive, stuff like that).

For me it's always been a bit different in that for me part of the experience is to find out the hard way that a certain game won't run on a certain rig in the way that I would want it. I could play Unreal on a Coppermine and run it fluently [EDIT:and with fluently I mean with zero slowdowns ever! It's not like it ran like a snail the whole time, it was perfectly playable for my standards], but I still chose to run it on a 400MHz CPU with TNT2 M64 or a single Voodoo 2 instead. I build first and then see how a game will run on it. If I really want to run a game faster I will prefer to use a faster rig instead of tinkering with a slower one.
I actually like to experience the limitations of old hardware, just like I experienced it back in the day when a 2 year old PC was already having a hard time running the most recent games that just came out. These days this barely matters.

BetaC wrote on 2021-04-01, 01:26:

Jorpho wrote on 2021-03-31, 21:22:

geertjanb wrote on 2021-03-31, 18:10:

so I can play battlefield 1942 and it fits better with the Pentium 3.

Maybe it's more fun to think about playing Battlefield 1942 than it is to actually play Battlefield 1942?

It's usually more fun with specifically BF1942. Nothing quite beats killing yourself because you dropped a bomb then dove a little.

Reminds me of playing BF2 (AIX2 mod which has the F-14 Tomcat), taking off of a runway with the Tomcat and the very moment my plane left the runway I tried to make a turn, tip of my wing touches the runway (because I tried to make a turn while the plane had barely lift off) and my plane explodes xD
Actually happened multiple times >.<

Most of what I want to build is likely to be short term. Maybe something will stick if I like it enough, but things I want to build have a lot of functional overlap and I don't have space for them all, so they can't all exist at the same time.

I'm pretty interested in seeing how different combos will perform with different software. So I'll start with one thing and then keep changing parts/drivers/settings gradually, logging benchmarks as I go. That process gets tedious (especially when I find I've made a mistake and have to start over) so it only happens in short bursts, but filling in the data is satisfying for whatever reason.
This can lead to buying extraneous hardware just because I want to experiment with it. Afterward it will add itself to my pile of junk, awaiting the day that I might want to play with it again, if ever.

I have one build in mind that I intend to be permanent, and which I would actually play games on - but who knows if I'll actually stick to it.

A 2nd system has been the basis for the above type of benchmarking and screwing around, but it *might* eventually settle to a permanent configuration. Maybe.

One thing I want to do is recreate an old PC I had in the late 90s, but then I want to modify it. When I look back it was one of my favorite systems, but when 3D took over it was suddenly too slow. That was a time when there were a lot of options for upgrading. So I'd like to experiment with alternate upgrade paths from what I actually did back then and see how satisfactory they would have been.
To make that more interesting I hope to find more historical pricing info. I've found 1 or 2 sources via archive.org but the info is too thin and scattered to really be sure what specific things cost at a specific time. The sites I used to shop from in the 90s are not in there.
But once I've satisfied that curiosity, the system will be redundant so I won't have any reason to keep it. The only reason (and best reason) for me to change my mind will be if I find I just happen to "like" it too much and prefer using it over a machine that supersedes it.

My builds ultimately end in feature creep because I always wonder if I could do better. I focus my retro activities on old software, so hardware performance and features can make a difference. Therefore, I try to make the platform for my builds as expandable as possible so that I can switch out components as needed to make improvements.

As an example, I'm now the proud owner of multiple vintage PCI graphics cards that I didn't start with the intention to buy (ET4000, Trio64, CL-GD5446, and Mach32) all in an effort to find the best video card for Windows MME (3.0a). While they each have pros and cons, none of them really satisfy. Oh, I reuse them for other projects, but I didn't start out with a plan to buy any of them except for the CL-GD5446.

Once I get the software the way I like it, I move on to another project which often makes me wonder if other hardware makes a difference. It's a never ending cycle.

I agree with what others wrote above. It's a fun past time, but it's too easy to get lost in it. It also isn't as fulfilling as doing activities outside the home. Unfortunately, activities outside the home are still a bit restricted right now.