VOGONS


First post, by craig26283

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Hello all,

My first post here, since asking for help with a Slot A motherboartd I have.

I have a lot of hardware (I think so, but I bet it's nothing compared to others!).

I'm plagued by indecisiveness about what to build and why to build them.

I loosely think 486, Pentium, Pentium 2/3, Pentium 4 and Athlon XP.

Last one I built was a bit of a missmatch, but I wanted to play Carmageddon 2 Glide... Tualatin P3 1.26 and a Voodoo 3 2000.

So I was looking for help to build some ultimate systems! (well as good as my hardware allows!)

Also, thought some people just like to see what I have... feel free to amend the document, I have backups 😀

Perhaps I'm asking too much and a bit too unguided.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1__TRs … dit?usp=sharing

Kind Regards,

Craig

Reply 1 of 9, by Horun

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Nice collection of video cards. No ISA or VLB ??

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 9, by dionb

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You are - we can offer all kinds of practical tips, but you're the only person who can actually decide what you want.

The good news is that with that immense pile of hardware, just about anything newer than a 486 is possible, although your collection really starts in the P2 era. There are some errors in the sheets (you have Slot 1 and Slot A reversed, for instance, some dates are clearly out and and I'm not convinced all the RAM numbers in the video cards tab are correct), but no show stoppers.

I would suggest looking at a Win98 build of some kind, but you can do everything from (late) DOS to Window 10 with what you have here, with some really high-end stuff and some more mainstream and OEM things, and the odd bottom-scraping low-end thing (PC-Chips...). If presented with this pile, I might be tempted to try to make the ultimate Netburst system, with the P4 651 and the i975X motherboard, running XP. But my tastes skew older and I'd probably conclude that it feels too much like my Ryzen system, just slower. So I hope you like WIn98 and XP. Otherwise you have the wrong hardware 😉

Reply 3 of 9, by dormcat

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That's an impressive list! I've made a similar list as well but I've only got half of your CPU/GPU and 2/3 of your motherboards.

FYI: There are free online and offline decoder tools for Seagate HDD date codes.

Reply 4 of 9, by BitWrangler

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You should be able to do the ..
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/136-in-1-pentium-mmx.html
system with the MSI 430TX board so that goes all the way back to 1990 or a little earlier for the less sensitive stuff.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 5 of 9, by ciornyi

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Lots of hardware leads to lot confusion unfortunately. When you have a lot of potential configurations you always end in thought that it might be improved with different component. Recently I got slot a mb with athlon 700 model4 I build win98 system with dx 6 only in mind. Little bit later I installed nfs5 and it required dx7 ... it was disappointing as I have already system for dx7. So I would stick with voodoo system

DOS: 166mmx/16mb/Y719/S3virge
DOS/95: PII333/128mb/AWE64/TNT2M64
Win98: P3 900/256mb/SB live/3dfx V3
Win Me: Athlon 1333/256mb/Audigy2/Geforce 2 GTS
Win XP: E8500/4096mb/SB X-fi/Quadro fx 4500

Reply 6 of 9, by MikeSG

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Put the Voodoo 2 & 3, as well as anything fancy looking in display cases as a retro display.

Use anything plain looking in P1, P2, P3 systems... so you can run games on period correct machines.

Sell the rest. IMO

Reply 7 of 9, by BitWrangler

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Display casing production model voodoos is missing the point. IMO.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 8 of 9, by soggi

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What is wrong with this docs.google.com stuff? I can understand that the notebook (IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60, C2D T5600, 1 GB RAM with WinXP SP3 POSReady "hacked" running latest New Moon 28) is nearly exploding while loading...but also my iPad with latest iPadOS shows scrambled data (when scrolling the list), so I can't read the list. Do you have a HTML or .xls list (compatible with Excel 2003)?

BTW I'm also working on such a list...it will be integrated into my website...but it takes so long to list up everything correctly... xD

kind regards
soggi

Vintage BIOSes, firmware, drivers, tools, manuals and (3dfx) game patches -> soggi's BIOS & Firmware Page

soggi.org on Twitter - inactive at the moment

Reply 9 of 9, by chinny22

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of course it's all upto personal taste but many of us have at least 3 rigs.
Dos, Win9x, WinXP

DOS would be something along the lines of your P233MMX, S3 Virge, ISA soundcard.
Win9x you have covered with your PIII/Voodoo 3.
WinXP would be LGA775, 9600GT, SB0460.

Then you have speciality builds, aka I need an excuse to build more PC's. 3 I can see right away.

486, just because you can even though the MMX will do most things better.

A Win9x D3D build to complement your existing Glide build would be something like
S370 or either a Slot 1 or A motherboard, GF4 Ti, SB Live

A SLI build around your pair of GF 8800GT
Pick your Favorite SLI board and go from there