Senrew's Socket A Rig \ VOGONS

Senrew's Socket A Rig

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First post, by senrew

Posted on 2014-03-13, 20:05

senrew Offline

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Joined: 2008-10-15, 02:48
Location: Dania Beach, FL

I need to do a write up for my other machines at some point, but since this is the one I'm currently building, I figured it'd be appropriate to start here.

Pics to come.

Purpose:
The purpose of this machine is to run DX7 and DX8 games only. I've pretty much built all of my rigs based on the need to support certain games as per their DirectX requirements. Seems kinda silly, but this has led to the least problems for me so far.

Hardware:
MSI KT4V (MSI-6712)
Athlon XP 1800+
RAM will be whatever maximum I can finagle out of my box o' ram
GeForce4 Ti 4600
XP SP1

Thoughts:
I have a Barton 2800+ chip I might be tempted to swap for the chip that's currently on the board. I'll make that decision once I explore a bit and see how this performs with whatever games I have that happen to fall within this machine's purview.

Questions:

1) I haven't decided on a sound card as of yet. The board itself contains a "RealTek ALC650 6-channel audio" controller onboard. From what I've read, this seems to be decent for the time period. I also have an Audigy SE, and some Phillips sound card that I pulled out of another salvaged machine. I've never even heard of the Phillips-made card, but reviews seem to favor it I guess? It's a PSC604. I think I still have my SB Live! 5.1 card lying around somewhere as well too, but I think that may be a bit too old for the period of games this is supposed to run. Any suggestions for picking one of the options listed so far?

Halcyon: PC Chips M525, P100, 64MB, Millenium 1, Voodoo1, AWE64, DVD, Win95B

Reply 1 of 5, by senrew

Posted on 2014-03-17, 01:01

senrew Offline

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Question 2:

Win98 or XP for this purpose? I figure it'd be XP since it was pretty much standard by the timeframe of this build, but all the parts are Win98 capable, and most of the games from that era still run just fine on 98. Any opinions?

Halcyon: PC Chips M525, P100, 64MB, Millenium 1, Voodoo1, AWE64, DVD, Win95B

Reply 2 of 5, by Tetrium

Posted on 2014-03-17, 02:34

Tetrium Offline

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senrew wrote:
Question 2:

Win98 or XP for this purpose? I figure it'd be XP since it was pretty much standard by the timeframe of this build, but all the parts are Win98 capable, and most of the games from that era still run just fine on 98. Any opinions?

An Athlon XP 1800+ is really borderline when it comes to picking an OS.

I think it will depends on how much memory you intend to use.

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Reply 3 of 5, by senrew

Posted on 2014-03-17, 02:40

senrew Offline

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Joined: 2008-10-15, 02:48
Location: Dania Beach, FL

I replaced it with the Barton 2800+ (The 2122mhz model). The board itself will only take 3GB so I loaded it to the max. I've been having issues with this board. None of the caps look bad but the guy I got it from told me it had been giving him issues so I may have to go with my backup s478 board and go Pentium 4 instead for this machine.

Halcyon: PC Chips M525, P100, 64MB, Millenium 1, Voodoo1, AWE64, DVD, Win95B

Reply 4 of 5, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2014-03-17, 08:40

Mau1wurf1977 Offline

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I know that the Audigy SE isn't a "real" Audigy.

I would go with Windows XP. I don't see any DX8 or OpenGL games causing issues.

3GB is HEAPS. I think most people had 1 GB or maybe 2 at the most back in those days.

PS: S478 with Intel 865 chipset is as good as it gets for this periods. At least that is my opinion 😀

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Reply 5 of 5, by senrew

Posted on 2014-03-17, 14:02

senrew Offline

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Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 754
Joined: 2008-10-15, 02:48
Location: Dania Beach, FL

This particular board is a P4C800, so Intel 875P chipset? Anyway, it's already got 4GB in dual channel so it should be perfectly fine ram-wise. I think it has a northwood 2.8HT in it. It's already got XP SP3 going and it's perfectly fine at the moment. It has an HD2600 Pro card in it at the moment. I'll need to wipe and reinstall XP so I can keep it at DX8. Don't want any of the DX9 stuff poisoning this system.

Halcyon: PC Chips M525, P100, 64MB, Millenium 1, Voodoo1, AWE64, DVD, Win95B

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