Very Impressive! I like the case and the choice of units and controls you placed, looks very good. The touch with the keys is nice, too. 😀

Nice build khyypio, your attention to detail on your builds is very inspiring. I love this and your P4.

My family computer in 2000 was a Pentium III with windows Me on it, very similar specs to yours, just the budget version (no Noctua fans or modular power supply either 😉) so I think you’ve nailed it!

Seems about right. Year 2000 no-nonsense gaming PC.

khyypio wrote on 2024-06-14, 22:08:

Been a while, got something you folks might find interesting: I´ve recently finished a Windows Me rig with top-notch (for year 2000) core components. Here´s a vid: https://youtu.be/3fyCNFl7iIg

At one point in the video, you mention having to use WDM drivers for the SBLive under WinME. This is a common misconception.

In truth, VxD drivers can be used under WinME and will work fine, including DOS game support (from within Windows). See the latest version of my guide for more details.

Very nice! Which motherboard is that? ST6?

I really like that you've filled all the drive bays with black parts, really gives a nice contrast. And I might let myself be inspired from it for a beige case, where drives in beige can be hard to find and even harder to find in the same tone of beige. I think that black drives could work there as well ...

That is a beautiful system. I would of loved a system like that back in 2000

You installed a different heatsink on a video card using pistons right? The one that fits a 40mm fan

AntonPC wrote on 2024-06-14, 23:00:

Very Impressive! I like the case and the choice of units and controls you placed, looks very good. The touch with the keys is nice, too. 😀

Martli wrote on 2024-06-15, 00:56:

Nice build khyypio, your attention to detail on your builds is very inspiring. I love this and your P4.

My family computer in 2000 was a Pentium III with windows Me on it, very similar specs to yours, just the budget version (no Noctua fans or modular power supply either 😉) so I think you’ve nailed it!

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-06-15, 01:08:

Seems about right. Year 2000 no-nonsense gaming PC.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2024-06-28, 20:03:

That is a beautiful system. I would of loved a system like that back in 2000

Thanks guys! 😀

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-06-15, 03:36:

khyypio wrote on 2024-06-14, 22:08:

Been a while, got something you folks might find interesting: I´ve recently finished a Windows Me rig with top-notch (for year 2000) core components. Here´s a vid: https://youtu.be/3fyCNFl7iIg

At one point in the video, you mention having to use WDM drivers for the SBLive under WinME. This is a common misconception.

In truth, VxD drivers can be used under WinME and will work fine, including DOS game support (from within Windows). See the latest version of my guide for more details.

The configuration you saw in the video was based on previous testing with these same components, VxD drivers gently killed the whole configuration to a point that it couldn´t be restored. The boot would always end up in a blue screen of death and despite trying to erase every trace of Creative drivers in safe mode and nothing would help, only a clean OS install and WMD drivers for the Live! card.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-06-15, 20:17:

Very nice! Which motherboard is that? ST6?

I really like that you've filled all the drive bays with black parts, really gives a nice contrast. And I might let myself be inspired from it for a beige case, where drives in beige can be hard to find and even harder to find in the same tone of beige. I think that black drives could work there as well ...

Thank you! Yes, that´s Abit ST6 😀

Bruno128 wrote on 2024-07-13, 13:40:

You installed a different heatsink on a video card using pistons right? The one that fits a 40mm fan

I installed it with small nuts and bolts. And just to be safe, on the backside I isolated the nuts from the board surface with a rubber ring. The Noctua fan is just screwed on top, there´s no mounting for it on the heatsink.

Too slow memory - try to instal CL2 DIMMs like Kingston KVR133X64C2/128

khyypio wrote on 2024-08-05, 10:26:

The configuration you saw in the video was based on previous testing with these same components, VxD drivers gently killed the whole configuration to a point that it couldn´t be restored. The boot would always end up in a blue screen of death and despite trying to erase every trace of Creative drivers in safe mode and nothing would help, only a clean OS install and WMD drivers for the Live! card.

Interesting, I wonder what's causing that.

For my part, I've been using VxD drivers on several of my WinME retro systems for 2 years now. No issues whatsoever. And a few other people have also reported success under WinME in my guide thread.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-05, 12:01:

khyypio wrote on 2024-08-05, 10:26:

The configuration you saw in the video was based on previous testing with these same components, VxD drivers gently killed the whole configuration to a point that it couldn´t be restored. The boot would always end up in a blue screen of death and despite trying to erase every trace of Creative drivers in safe mode and nothing would help, only a clean OS install and WMD drivers for the Live! card.

Interesting, I wonder what's causing that.

For my part, I've been using VxD drivers on several of my WinME retro systems for 2 years now. No issues whatsoever. And a few other people have also reported success under WinME in my guide thread.

Maybe switch to another PCI slot? I didn´t think to try it at the time, I was just too fed up with the configuration acting up. The WDM drivers worked well with ME so I just made my peace with it.

I may have done something "almost" similar at one point... however there were two drawbacks at the time I last had it pieced together as a build.

The specs below probably speak for themselves as to why:

- ECS K7VZA crossflashed to Shuttle AK12A BIOS (Shuttle's board is exactly the same as ECS, except their BIOS is far better than ECS' original)
- 384MB of SDRAM (later upped to 512MB when I got a load of SDR sticks)
- Geforce 4 Ti4200 8x 128MB (originally had a MX440SE)
- Sound Blaster Audigy 1394 (originally had a run of the mill CMI8738 card w/ Terratec drivers to boost it up)
- completely rebuilt P&O LC-B350ATX PSU (I remember spending more than 3 months to get caps, transformers and silicon to upgrade it but I don't regret it 🤣)
- 20GB IBM Deskstar 60GXP
- Samsung SH-S182D burner (one of the few ODDs I have that still had working lasers)
- VIA based USB2 PCI card
- AMD Duron 1600 (Palomino core IIRC)
- one of those generic but trusty cases with the Internet Explorer logo on the sides

It ran fairly well until its dismantling for an upgrade to Netburst (ABIT IS7-E v1.2 + Northwood HT 2.😎, but as it stands, I feel like the main weak point is the CPU (quite obviously) and the HDD. The former because Duron was pretty much the early Celeron counterpart from AMD (as Sempron would take its place later) and the latter because while it was fairly speedy, 20GB just doesn't cut it.

If I had to do another rebuild of it, I would probably source a ceramic Athlon or a 1700+ XP, and bump the HDD to either 40 or 60GB IBM. Most of it though is quite easier to be said than done... the few ceramics I have been able to source are Durons, and IBM Deskstar of the early 2000s seem just as hard to be found in working condition.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-05, 21:43:

I may have done something "almost" similar at one point...

Neither Audigy 1 nor Gf4Ti did exist in year 2000. It’s not the same.

Bruno128 wrote on 2024-08-05, 22:22:

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-05, 21:43:

I may have done something "almost" similar at one point...

Neither Audigy 1 nor Gf4Ti did exist in year 2000. It’s not the same.

Both were installed due to issues with a Geforce 2 Pro and a Radeon 7500.
Geforce 2 Pro constantly blacked out randomly and 7500 had some weird graphic glitching whenever I'd move a windows across the screen.
Both cards were subsequently retested on a Soyo 6BA+IV and neither exhibited the symptoms that showed up on KT133.

As for Audigy, I didn't want to face possible problems that were known to happen when pairing a Live! card w/ KT133A and generally 686 southbridge. (the latency bug)

But that’s the thing with the period correctness some extra troubles are part of it you can’t just take better 2002 hardware and call it “a 2000 build”. If you don’t want to play this game alright then there is dosbox and whatnot.

The only thing that is 2002 is the GPU out of it.

Even the Audigy used has 2001 printed on it, which would be close enough.

As for DOSBOX, that's absolutely out of the question.

If I really wanted to nitpick like you, even a few elements of OP's build above aren't exactly period correct - PSU, DVD burner, Noctua fans, USB+fan controller, and there may be more to name.

A true period correct build would use a 2000s PSU and not a Corsair CX450M from 2010, a CD-RW or DVD-ROM drive at best (no burners), no Noctua fans but instead classic 1999-2000 fans, no USB+fan controller, and an proper IBM Deskstar or equivalent spinning hard drive instead of any form of solid state drives (this includes SD/CF cards). To put it bluntly, all 2000 parts with no new PSU, DVD burner or solid state storage. Because that isn't 2000s either.

Jury's still out for storage but power supply and cooling are moot points because they don't affect driver/soft situation and in particular how the system runs games.

I still stand by my point. A fully period correct build is one that uses exclusively parts from that year. This means mechanical drives, period correct PSU, period correct optical drives, as well as original fans from that era.
Otherwise it's not a period correct build.

A compromise can be made however in the following conditions:
- one or more parts may have faults that are hard to fix (e.g GPU artefacts that may not be easily fixable)
- one or more parts can impact performance. (e.g SB Live 5.1 and the VIA686 latency bug.).
- availability of parts (e.g the same part may be easily available in a country but not in the others)
- incompatibility that may arise with certain mainboards, depending on how the manufacturer implements their devices.

For my case, I chose the closest card I could find to substitute the Geforce 2 Pro I had which would constantly black-screen, even when left idle at the desktop.
While I could reuse the MX440 I mentioned of, it was of no help because of being the SE revision, which is considerably lower quality (equivalent to ~GF2 MX200).
It wasn't until last year that I had got a GF2 Ultra equivalent, which would be the MX460. However, by the time I had managed to get the 460, the original Duron build was dismantled in favor of a Pentium 4 HT.

No such thing as the "Period correct PC Law"
Just as people disagree what counts as retro everyone can have a different opinion on what is period correct.
makes no sense arguing about it.