First post, by Great Hierophant
- Rank
- l33t
In considering the Windows PC, you have to balance speed with compatibility. Some games don't like high speeds, other games use Glide.
Here is my perfect Windows 9x PC
Pentium III EB 1000MHz/133FSB
512MB PC133 SDRAM
ASUS P3B-F w/2xISA
Geforce2 Ultra 64MB
Diamond Monster 3D
3Com 10/100 NIC
Sound Blaster Audigy
Aureal Vortex 2 SQ2500 + Yamaha DB-50XG
Sound Blaster 16 ASP CT-1740
Roland SCM-15AT (MPU-401AT + SCB-55)
Western Digital Caviar SE 120GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive
ASUS 5232A CD-RW Drive (52x32x52)
Explanation of choices:
CPU - This is the fastest and stable PIII you can put into a BX motherboard. If can manage an extreme underclock, you can knock it down to a blazing 133MHz! (2.0 x 66MHz)
RAM - Windows 9x doesn't work well with more, and you can fill all slots with 4x128 DIMMs
MB - The P3B-F offers one major advantage over the P2B models, a jumperless motherboard. It can probably support later PIIIs better than the older boards as well. This is vital for underclocking the CPU. Older boards have 2 ISA slots, newer boards only 1 ISA slot.
AGP Video - The Geforce 2 cards are the least advanced Geforce cards that support the last Detonator drivers for Win9x. These cards should be fast enough for most DirectX 7 titles. They also should be the last Geforce cards with good VESA support (no 15 or 24bpp modes.) Should be able to work with an overclocked AGP bus. (89MHz v. 66 MHz) I recommend one with a DVI connector.
PCI Video - The old standby Voodoo 1 is present for those difficult early Voodoo games. I am on the fence, however, about recommending a Voodoo 2 instead.
NIC - For when you need to connect to the Internet. Still trying to figure out how to network with an XP machine.
PCI Audio 1 - Sound Blaster Audigy - The last Sound Blaster with drivers for Win 9x for DirectSound 3D and EAX hardware acceleration and soundfonts.
PCI Audio 2 - Aureal Vortex 2 SQ2500 - An updated version of the Vortex 2 chip for A3D 1.0 and 2.0 acceleration. Make sure the main chip is marked "8830", not "8830A2", which is the earlier chip.
Hard Drive - Fast, quiet, and just within the limits of 16-bit scandisk and 28-bit LBA.
ISA Sound 1 - The old standby, the Sound Blaster 16 for true FM and rock solid 8/16-bit DSP compatibility. Try to get one with a v4.05DSP. 8-bit compatibility leaves something to be desired, but you should not really need to go that low.
Now, this system will not work very well with many older games, no matter how low you clock the CPU. I have designed it to be sufficiently powerful to run those older games in DOSBox. It should be able to manage 5,000 cycles, maybe even 10,000 cycles in DOSBox, which should be sufficient for any early VGA games.