I recommend the Rig 2
I hope it comes with a sound card

Disruptor wrote on 2023-03-14, 17:29:

I recommend the Rig 2
I hope it comes with a sound card

Integrated sadly. Is my SB Live no good ?

Yes, it is. I just thought about compatiblity with DOS games. But you have your 486 for that.

Normally I recommend P4 as a cheaper alternative to a P3.
But as the P3 is cheaper and considering Diablo 1 and Army Men are not very demanding I'd definitely go with rig2, even the included GF2 would be enough for your requirements.

Yeah I'd say get #2 to pick up where your 486 leaves off. It won't be good for everything after ~1999 (Some stuff to about 2003 will still be acceptable) but you won't be able to fill this gap for $35 too much longer, whereas a 2000 up system might be available for cheaper longer.

My decision would be motivated less by the CPU and more by the platform. What are the chipsets? What is the expansion?

I am guessing the pentium III build is a slot 1, which will have no issues with games released before 2000. Do you have any interest in early xp games? A ti 4200 with a pentium 4 will get you through 2003/2004 .

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2023-03-14, 17:11:

I did some reading/checking and Pentium IV is WAY easier to get and cheaper to buy, you can get a full PC for like 30-40$ in Poland.

That it is, it's also much easier to find a power supply for. Pentium 3s are too dam expensive.

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2023-03-14, 17:11:

1. 21" P1130 Dell Trinitron - that was the hardest part, big CRT monitors are almost extinct or barely functioning, with non-exi […]
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1. 21" P1130 Dell Trinitron - that was the hardest part, big CRT monitors are almost extinct or barely functioning, with non-existent blacks and dull colors
2. Soundblaster Live! - intact, kept it for ages in my drawer
3. PNY 4200 Ti 64 GB - https://archiwum.allegro.pl/oferta/super-kart … 6882709328.html it's this one. I'm not sure it works, not tested yet and I left it in my closet for 6 years.
4. A low-end FX 5500 (128bit lane tho), I can't recall what was the manufacturer - looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/e79MClD.png

The SB live is a decent card, will be just fine 😀

I would choose the Ti 4200 over the FX. Better earlier title support which seems what you're going for and since it's a 4x card, you should be able to use the fabled 28.32 drivers with it. Sadly my 4200 is an 8x card so I cannot 🙁

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2023-03-14, 17:11:

However, I also read that some older win 95 era games don't work too well with Pentium 4 and that Pentium 3 would be more compatible.

That does exist but it's not as big of a deal, the limit is around 2.1GHz. However, I haven't ran into anything that doesn't work on my 3.0 yet. To avoid it, you could go with a 1.5-2.0A Northwood which is still plenty fast and much cheaper than a later P3.

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2023-03-14, 17:11:

Rig 1: Pentium 4 530J, 512 MB RAM, Geforce 210 1GB - 50$ Rig 2: Pentium III MMX 450 MHz, 256 MB RAM, GeForce2 MX 400 32 MB - 35$ […]
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Rig 1: Pentium 4 530J, 512 MB RAM, Geforce 210 1GB - 50$
Rig 2: Pentium III MMX 450 MHz, 256 MB RAM, GeForce2 MX 400 32 MB - 35$
Rig 3: Pentium 4 2.53GHZ (unknown model), GeForce 2 mx400 64mb - 50$
Rig 4: Pentium 4 531 3.0 GHz, 1.5 GB DDR2,GeForce 7300 le - 50$
Rig 5: Pentium 4 650 3.4GH, 4 GB DDR2 400MHz, ASUS Radeon AH 3650 512MB - 100$

Rig 1 - Don't like 775 for 98, many boards just don't work well with it at that point. That and a GF210 is PCI-E so you can't use your cards, so it seems too new for 98.

Rig 2 - This one would be my first choice. It's not bad at all, great price, and it will work pretty well with 98. Am not sure if it'll be fast enough for what you need but only you can look at the full list of games that you want to play and tell. It will be the most 'compatible system' out of all of them and should work great with your GF4 (if the board is a 2x/4x slot). If the board allows you to drop in a faster CPU as well, that could be an option. Another way to look at it is to get this one for bridging the gap between what your 486 can do to XP (with what it should be able to do just fine with that CPU and your 4200) - then go for a nice cheap Core2 era system for XP stuff if you're interested in any of that. Even with the included GF2 MX card, it will still be decently fast for the games you listed here so you get a decent spare in case your 4200 stops working.

Rig 3 - If rig 2 doesn't work out (you want to play newer games than it can handle), this should depending on the board. It's probably Socket 478 going off of the CPU speed (Pentium 4s of that era doesn't have a 'model number', it was referred to by their clock speed).

Rigs 4 and 5 - See rig 1's comments.

I'll echo the recommendation for the Pentium III system. Coupled with the GeForce 4200 and SB Live card, you should have great compatibility and performance for games from the Windows 9x era.

+1 for Rig 2. Most Slot 1 Katmai MB (as the slowest Coppermine was 500 MHz) back then had at least one ISA slot, which is an additional bonus. And personally I avoid NetBurst structure whenever possible. 😜

gen_angry wrote on 2023-03-15, 15:59:

(Pentium 4s of that era doesn't have a 'model number', it was referred to by their clock speed).

They've got respective "SLxxx" sSpec numbers but that info is not available without eigher seeing the CPU physically (without heatsink) or identified via BIOS / software.