>system is period correct?

CPU corresponds to ~GeForce2/GF256/Radeon DDR or even Voodoo3 3000/TNT2, but it doesnt really matter much, close enough 😀 For your use case something like S3trio3D AGP would work just as good 😀 Part of the charm of building period correct systems is suffering their drawbacks, otherwise you would be playing all the games just fine on modern system with tweaks/emulators.

Thanks! I will put the Geforce 2 back in it as it has a Geforce 4 MX440 in it at the moment which i did think was a bit too 'modern'.

Indeed! I enjoy these systems and their quirks 😁

AWE64 is pretty ancient for that build, by that time Vortex/Live were everywhere and EnsoniqPCI was the budget choice - no one bought ISA sound cards anymore. Also, the period correct OS for that PC is Windows 2000 AFAIC..

AWE64 was still current offering and in sales channels in 2000, Live barely came out. Ensoniq didnt exist anymore, it was all SB 64/128 PCI at that point, and those were indeed awful.
All in all AWE64 is a solid DOS card and great for what OP wants.

WarhammerDarkOmen wrote on 2024-07-08, 10:05:

Also, how well would this machine run MS-DOS games? As I have a higher spec PC for Windows 98 SE now and I'd like to use this for older games both windows and MS-DOS.. Would the CPU be too fast or would this system be ok?

An Athlon 800 is definitely fast for DOS games. It should be fine for non-speed sensitive games. There are some 3D DOS games that can take advantage of the extra performance.

On the other hand, it will be too fast for speed sensitive games without throttling tools.

Consider having two sound cards, keep the AWE64 for better DOS compatibility and add an Aureal Vortex/SBLive! for Windows games if there is a free PCI slot.

The rest (except the GeForce4 MX) is period correct, including Windows 98 SE that was being supported until 2006.

WarhammerDarkOmen wrote on 2024-07-08, 10:32:

[..] I will put the Geforce 2 back in it as it has a Geforce 4 MX440 in it at the moment which i did think was a bit too 'modern'.

Hi, I think the Geforce 4 MX GPU is based on Geforce 2, so it's not that far off.
Technologically, they're siblings.

I remember this, because older MacOS releases (9.x to 10.4) would support GF2/3/4MX.
(The Geforce cards were popular among Power Mac G4 users.)

In 2000, we had a Pentium III 733 MHz (slot), 128MB, 20 GB HDD, Geforce (not the GF 256, so I think it was a Geforce 2), an ISA slot at the bottom and an Elsa Microlink 56k USB modem.
Monitor was an 17" CRT, I think. On-board sound could emulate SB16 in the Setup Utility.

If you're willing to take and advice about period-correctness: Take it easy. 😉
An approximation with a few exceptions is good enough.

Things like RAM or HDD capacity weren't always sufficient back in the day, for example.

So it's better to make a decision on what the system "wants" rather than what was common or socially being accepted.

That's especially important to keep in mind when checking old catalogues, I think.
Because they're just telling half the story. The stock configuration was seldomly being kept as is.

Users typically bought extra RAM or another HDD about half a year after they got the brand new PC.

Unfortunately, this is something that followers of period-correctness miss to realize, I believe.

Personalization and modification was very common in the PC or home computer scene.

That's why I often must shed a tear when I see so called "restoration" videos on YouTube.

The "from factory configuration" wasn't always the real experience. In my opinion, at least.

It's comparable to the automobile scene. Car owners did upgrade/modify their cars, as well.

Edit: First we did with the Pentium III was to upgrade RAM when XP was out. In its final configuration, it had 768 MB of RAM total. Because, that was all RAM we had available in SDRAM format.
This was between 2000 and 2004, I think.

Thanks for all the input everyone

I had no idea the MX Geforce 4 was a varient of the Geforce 2. Very interesting.

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-07-08, 13:35:

AWE64 was still current offering and in sales channels in 2000, Live barely came out.

Live launched in mid-late 98 and already effectively replaced the AWE64 as Creative's flagship card (and many related accessories), 2000's when the 5.1 model came about. Many new games were already supporting EAX by that point, and Audigy was just a year away....

leileilol wrote on 2024-07-08, 16:15:

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-07-08, 13:35:

AWE64 was still current offering and in sales channels in 2000, Live barely came out.

Live launched in mid-late 98 and already effectively replaced the AWE64 as Creative's flagship card (and many related accessories), 2000's when the 5.1 model came about. Many new games were already supporting EAX by that point, and Audigy was just a year away....

And by 1999-2000, a lot of boards would have been 440BX boards with one last remaining ISA slot. By mid-2000 the i815 dropped the last remaining ISA slot...

An ISA anything other than maybe a modem would have been very unusual on a new system, I think.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-07-08, 14:15:

If you're willing to take and advice about period-correctness: Take it easy. ;) An approximation with a few exceptions is good e […]
Show full quote

If you're willing to take and advice about period-correctness: Take it easy. 😉
An approximation with a few exceptions is good enough.

Things like RAM or HDD capacity weren't always sufficient back in the day, for example.

So it's better to make a decision on what the system "wants" rather than what was common or socially being accepted.

That's especially important to keep in mind when checking old catalogues, I think.
Because they're just telling half the story. The stock configuration was seldomly being kept as is.

Users typically bought extra RAM or another HDD about half a year after they got the brand new PC.

Unfortunately, this is something that followers of period-correctness miss to realize, I believe.

Personalization and modification was very common in the PC or home computer scene.

That's why I often must shed a tear when I see so called "restoration" videos on YouTube.

The "from factory configuration" wasn't always the real experience. In my opinion, at least.

It's comparable to the automobile scene. Car owners did upgrade/modify their cars, as well.

Edit: First we did with the Pentium III was to upgrade RAM when XP was out. In its final configuration, it had 768 MB of RAM total. Because, that was all RAM we had available in SDRAM format.
This was between 2000 and 2004, I think.

I would agree with this. Ultimately, people were... budget-constrained, prices were falling, software demands kept rising, etc, it was very common to say 'well, I'd really like X gigs of RAM but I can't afford it, I'll get X/2 and then hopefully RAM prices come down and I'll upgrade next year". Or to get, say, a basic CD-ROM rather than a CD burner and add the CD burner 6 months later. And also, for those of us who were younger, keep in mind that at least some of these parts may have been gifts. Much easier to get a CD burner as a Christmas/birthday gift than to somehow organize everybody to buy you a superfancy setup at once.

To the OP - as others have pointed out, there are two elements of non-period-correctness to your build, but both seem like advantages: the ISA AWE64 (2-3 years too old) and the GF4 MX (2-3 years too new). ISA sound card will get you better DOS compatibility. (Not to mention, don't some PCI creative cards have some allergies with some Athlon chipsets?) The GF4 MX is equivalent to a GF2, likely doesn't have any obvious downsides compared to a more period correct GeForce 256 or GF2.

Do you have a specific year in mind or more 2000-ish

As your finding this era hardware was released at a crazy pace it was hard to keep up. Most systems were upgraded and had a bit of a mix of old and new.
My PC built to a $3,000 AUD budget in Jan 99 was:
PII 400
16MB TNT
64MB RAM
Onboard Ensonic AudioPCI64

over the next 2 years the GPU had been upgraded to a GF2 MX an old SB16 added for dos gaming and more RAM added when I could afford it.

So if it was me...
GF2 MX vs GF4 MX, basically the same thing whichever you prefer.
Get a SB Live or Aureal Vortex for windows gaming but keep the ISA card for dos, plenty of us did this back in the day.
I really like Win2k but Win98 is more period correct for gaming PC and gives you access to dos 7.
The PC is a bit fast but majority of dos games will play fine

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-07-08, 13:35:

AWE64 was still current offering and in sales channels in 2000, Live barely came out. Ensoniq didnt exist anymore, it was all SB 64/128 PCI at that point, and those were indeed awful.
All in all AWE64 is a solid DOS card and great for what OP wants.

All of these are wrong.

Sound Blaster Live came out in 1998.
Aureal Vortex came out in 1997 and Vortex 2 came out in 1998.
Ensoniq was acquired by Creative in 2002. SB 64/PCI129 wouldn't be released until then.
AWE64 was released in 1996 and no longer a main seller in the channel in 2000. Dell had replaced the AWE64 in their XPS line of PCs with Audigy2 all the way back in 1998. It was if anything a budget offering nobody wanted.
AWE64 may be a good card for DOS (debatable) but it is NOT period correct.

I wasn't a gamer so maybe it's a special case, but I went straight from ISA sound cards to onboard AC '97 audio. I have zero nostalgia for any of the Ensoniq or SB Live stuff. When did gamers typically give up on discrete sound?

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-09, 05:57:

All of these are wrong. […]
Show full quote

All of these are wrong.

Sound Blaster Live came out in 1998.
Aureal Vortex came out in 1997 and Vortex 2 came out in 1998.
Ensoniq was acquired by Creative in 2002. SB 64/PCI129 wouldn't be released until then.
AWE64 was released in 1996 and no longer a main seller in the channel in 2000. Dell had replaced the AWE64 in their XPS line of PCs with Audigy2 all the way back in 1998. It was if anything a budget offering nobody wanted.
AWE64 may be a good card for DOS (debatable) but it is NOT period correct.

Ensoniq was acquired in early 1998 (hence leading to the SBPCI64/128/Live! line that year). Audigy2 was 2002!

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-07-09, 06:08:

I wasn't a gamer so maybe it's a special case, but I went straight from ISA sound cards to onboard AC '97 audio. I have zero nostalgia for any of the Ensoniq or SB Live stuff. When did gamers typically give up on discrete sound?

I'd say XP era started the decline but discrete sound was still fairly common.
By the mid 200o/late 2000's onboard was no longer just basic with support for 5.1 or better setups, Companies like Asus including their Xonar as onboard options.

If you look at the list of EAX games EAX4 only has about half as many games vs EAX3 (era of the SB Audigy)
Even EAX3 has less support then EAX2 so you could say SBLive era was Creatives golden days.

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … ith_EAX_support

chinny22 wrote on 2024-07-09, 06:58:

If you look at the list of EAX games EAX4 only has about half as many games vs EAX3 (era of the SB Audigy)
Even EAX3 has less support then EAX2 so you could say SBLive era was Creatives golden days.

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … ith_EAX_support

This was probably because EAX 3 and 4 were only available on Audigy cards, while EAX 5 was exclusive to the X-Fi. In contrast, EAX 1 and 2 worked on many third-party sound cards as well, including some on-board solutions. IIRC, Creative's licensing model enforced this.

For that reason, developers likely catered to the most common denominator, and stuck with EAX 1 and 2 for quite a while. Later on, EAX Unified came along, which made it easier to support older EAX versions while still providing extra functionality on the newer ones.

However, the difference in quality between EAX 2 and EAX 4 (and especially 5) is noticeable. For that reason, I wouldn't call the SBLive era the "golden age" of EAX, since it was just starting at that point. For me, that would be the period between 2001 and 2005. We got some real EAX gems like the Splinter Cell games, Thief: Deadly Shadows, F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 around that time. But then Vista came along in 2006 and ruined everything.

appiah4 wrote on 2024-07-09, 05:57:

All of these are wrong.

thats a strong statement, the easiest kind to refute 😀

>Ensoniq was acquired by Creative in 2002. SB 64/PCI129 wouldn't be released until then.

Jan. 9, 1998 https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/short … quires-ensoniq/

>AWE64 was released in 1996 and no longer a main seller in the channel in 2000
> It was if anything a budget offering nobody wanted.

It was the last ISA card Creative offered, and we did have it in stock (official Creative distributor for Central/Eastern Europe) all the way to end of 1999.

> Dell had replaced the AWE64 in their XPS line of PCs with Audigy2 all the way back in 1998.

1998 Audigy? :]

jakethompson1 wrote on 2024-07-09, 06:08:

I wasn't a gamer so maybe it's a special case, but I went straight from ISA sound cards to onboard AC '97 audio. I have zero nostalgia for any of the Ensoniq or SB Live stuff. When did gamers typically give up on discrete sound?

AC97 became ubiquitous somewhere around 2001? but it took probably around 5 more years for it to get so good PCI sound cards stopped making any sense. In 2006 motherboard manufacturers still tried differentiating with "premium" Realtek codec variants on high end boards, by ~2010 there was no difference.

Corrections to the above:

-I was wrong about the Ensoniq buyout date it is 1998; Sound Blaster 128 (which was the first of Creative's recycled Ensoniq PCI) was released in late 2000 according to reviews of it I can find in magazines. The defacto budget sound card until then was the Ensoniq PCI. If you still had AWE64 in stock in 1999 that was because you couldn't sell them. Nobody wanted ISA sound cards anymore in 2000. I'd go so far as to say nobody wanted ISA peripherals of any kind, but only kept using their ISA Modems if they still had them.
-I (obviously) mistyped Audigy2 and meant Vortex2.

The rest stand as is.

Regarding the Audigy release date, Creative says it is 2003: https://us.creative.com/soundblaster/ourstory/ which is in line with my recollection. If there is proof to the contrary, happy to hear.