I'm not sure about the SSE support thing, but I think I saw some information that might be useful in this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions

and maybe here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_XP#Athlon_XP.2FMP

I personally would always prefer an intel chip as I found it to be more compatible in most cases (maybe not faster in this case), but I do not have much experience with AMD Thunderbird and I am a little ignorant when it comes to this topic.

I just have a comment on your selection of machine though: As I recall, the GX200 has both PCI and ISA slots while the IWill does not if I'm not mistaken. It would be nice to have the option of using an ISA gamecard and/or legacy soundcard with the Dell. I have a GX100 and I haven't scrapped it yet just because it has the ISA slots...maybe something to consider.

Also, I think I remember reading somewhere that the GX200 has a 'hidden' option (well it may be in a manual somewhere, but I don't thinkI've seen it) to slow down the processor or disble the cache by just pressing CTRL-ALT- - and CTRL-ALT-+. Not sure if that was for the Dell GXa model (which I also own) or the GX series?? But anyway, the reason I mention this is that it is nice to have the ability to slow down your computer (if possible) and have ISA slots available for a more 'retroish' experience. Just my two cents.

yes, the GX200 does have ISA slots, and I do have a SB Vibra16 in my bin (as well as a 3com ISA nic) so that was a consideration. There's a third machine I considered using but the 145W power supply limits the types of video card I can use.

Gateway E3200
Slot-1 P3-750MHz
768MB RAM (I would reduce it to 512MB for Win98)

It has a Rage 3D Pro built-in, but it's really unstable. I have an 8MB Rage3D Pro Turbo installed in the NLX AGP slot which works fine. What I mean by being limited with the video cards is that it works fine with NLX AGP cards up to a TNT2. I have an Elsa Gloria II NLX card which has the original Nvidia Quadro on it but any time I've ever tried to use it in that machine it becomes horribly unstable. It's not the card, because its running rock solid right now in my IBM PC 300PL tower. The sound card on it is some Crystal ISA bus on-board thingy, the exact same as the IBM 300PL.

The Gateway e3200 (and your 300pl for that matter) are "great looking and solid machines as they stand, but they are certainly limited in terms of expansion.

retrofanatic wrote:

The Gateway e3200 (and your 300pl for that matter) are "great looking and solid machines as they stand, but they are certainly limited in terms of expansion.

Very true. The 300PL is at it's limit in terms of "official" processor speeds with a P3-850. The absolute fastest NLX AGP video card I know of is the one it has in it: The Elsa Gloria II (though it could be said that it's Geforce256 based twin is faster depending on the application). Anything else has to be PCI based.

This is why I was eyeballing the GX200 as a suitable machine although I may have run into a wall as far as processor speed is concerned with the 933MHz proc. I did have a 1GHz proc in it at one point, but it was significantly SLOWER than the 933.

I do have a 1.4GHz P3-S Tualtin core processor handy, but the i820 chipset in the GX200 doesn't recognize it.

You can't go past a decent Slot 1 machine IMO.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

You can't go past a decent Slot 1 machine IMO.

I was just debating on what to do with the Gateway E3200. Second retro machine or OpenBSD box.

Could you post some pictures? Especially PC-300PL, I've never seen the tower version except for a drawing in the manual.
As for the build, I would go with Thunderburd if I were you. Hell with SSE, the CPU is legendary.

RacoonRider wrote:

Could you post some pictures? Especially PC-300PL, I've never seen the tower version except for a drawing in the manual.
As for the build, I would go with Thunderburd if I were you. Hell with SSE, the CPU is legendary.

Sure. I just took the pics and I'll upload and post them in the morning. The 300PL is what my wife uses from time to time, but she hasn't really touched it much since she got her laptop a few years ago. It has some important software she needs periodically that doesn't run well under Win7-x64, so I keep it running for her.

This is the 300PL tower:

I had 3 of them, I'm now down to this last one and parts salvaged from one. I'll take the cover off and post a pic of the board tonight.

This is the inside of the Gateway E-3200 SFF desktop.

Right now it has:

750MHz Slot-1 Pentium 3
768MB RAM
6GB Quantum Hard drive
64MB Sapphire Radeon 7000 PCI video card
Sound Blaster Live
HP CDRW drive.

Working on the Optiplex build right now. Completely forgot that I had a second drive in it, so I'm going to do something I always did back in the Win98 days. I repartition the second drive to have two partitions instead of one and copy the contents of the Win98 disc and all of the drivers I need to the little 1GB partition. This way I can install the OS from the hard drive and it finishes much faster than reinstalling from CD and I always have drivers handy.

Not all Durons had SSE, the 1st gen Spitfires (600-950 MHz) did not.
The 2nd gen Morgan was released at about the same time (slightly earlier) as the Athlon XP.

Regarding speed missing SSE probably won't matter since the Athlon is clocked higher, has better FPU performance per cycle anyway, and has better memory bandwith to make it faster.
And SSE usage wasn't common at first anyway. I think Unreal is an exception (uses SSE for sound mixing) but the CPU should be fast enough for this not to matter.

Regarding compatibility with drivers I would think that SSE only became a requirement much later. You would only have to make sure that you don't use newer components which would require newer drivers. Geforce FX might be the best option anyway for older 3D games.

so after having run the Optiplex GX200, I've decided to build the Athlon machine after all. The deciding factor was Hardwar. I installed it last night on the Optiplex and it runs HORRIBLY. I don't remember it running this bad but it's been so long since I've played it that I just might not remember it.

I've started on the build. I'm using the 256MB Geforce FX5500 video card, 512MB of Mushkin PC133 RAM, and a random 3Com NIC. I'm going to use the on-board CMI8738 audio instead of an SBLive or one of my other sound cards.

Pics in a bit.

Hardwar has a hardcoded low framerate cap. It's designed to "run bad" - but more on with keeping the parity of the game with the lower system specs. It's just as playable on a lower-end P5 (with a Voodoo2 of course)...

leileilol wrote:

Hardwar has a hardcoded low framerate cap. It's designed to "run bad" - but more on with keeping the parity of the game with the lower system specs. It's just as playable on a lower-end P5...

really? Never knew that. I coulda swore it had better frame rates when I played it back in the day on my old Savage 4 Pro card (Diamond Stealth S540). On the Radeon 7200, it's pretty much a slideshow.

Already made a change to the machine: Replaced the 3Com nic with an Intel Pro 100.