First post, by foil_fresh
In the photo, going from left to right, top to bottom:
"Fairly good XP machine with overpowered graphics" AKA the Doom 3 and Quake 4 PC
- Antec P160 Aluminum ATX case
- Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe Socket AM2
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
- 2GB DDR2
- Geforce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
- 256GB SSD
- Onboard sound
- DVD burner
- Win XP SP3
"486 that wants to be a Pentium" AKA I mainly use this for the awesome sound card
- AT Mid tower case
- Biostar MB-8433UUD-A Socket 3
- AMD-X5-133ADW
- 16MB 72 pin EDO
- Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro (S3 Virge DX) 4MB PCI
- Orpheus ISA & Roland UM-ONE Mk2
- Creative 40x CD-ROM
- GoTek floppy emulator
- MS-DOS 6.22
"My PCI video card got put in a 486" AKA I'm going to put a Voodoo 1 inside this PC one day...
- Black P4 era ATX case
- Shuttle HOT-591p (Super) Socket 7
- Pentium MMX 166MHz
- Matrox G100a AGP
- 64MB PC100 SDRAM
- Sound Blaster 16 CT2830 ISA
- NEC USB2.0 PCI expansion
- Gotek Floppy
- Win95 first release
"My CPU, GPU and Sound card are all new old stock" AKA the P4 does everything this does but better
- Asus badged Beige ATX case
- Soyo SY-7VBA133 Socket 370
- Pentium III 866MHz @ 950mhz
- 128MB PC133 SDRAM
- Asus V7700 Geforce 2 Pro 32MB AGP
- Aopen AW744L-2 PCI
- NEC USB2.0 PCI expansion
- Windows 98 SE
"Very compatible DOS and W98 PC" aka the DOS BOSS
- 2002 Beige and Silver ATX case
- Intel D845 Socket 478
- Pentium IV Northwood 2.4GHz
- 512MB DDR266
- Leadtek Winfast A280LE (Geforce 4 Ti4200 with 128MB, 128bit)
- Aureal Vortex 2 & Dreamblaster X2
- Windows 98 SE
"Flexible Voodoo W98 and DOS PC" AKA I play Screamer 2 and NFS2 on this PC
- Ritmo P4 era Beige ATX case (barely in the photo)
- Asus P2B rev 1.10 Slot 1
- Pentium II 400MHz
- 128MB SDRAM
- 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
- Aopen AW744L-2 PCI
- Creative AWE64 Value CT4520
- NEC USB2.0 PCI expansion
- Windows 98 SE
"I built a PC around a nice GPU my friend gave me" AKA It's Dark and Hell is Hot
- Corsair Carbide 270R ATX case
- Gigabyte GA-8S655FX Socket 478
- Pentium IV Prescott 3.2GHz & Thermaltake Pipe101 Copper cooler
- 1GB DDR400
- EVGA Geforce 6800GT AGP
- Sound Blaster Audigy PCI
- Windows XP SP3
These PCs are what I've spent my time on the last 2 years since getting into the hobby. I've kinda got a way to play games on almost any tech that's come out in the last 30 years. The only thing I'm really missing is a GUS but that doesn't really fuss me. I've got one Geforce of each tech era (that matters) as well as a way to play Glide games and even some primitive 3D on the Virge DX. I've not really focused on getting the highest of high end gear, but nothing is really -that- budget quality.
Each of the PCs have been made to replicate older PCs i've had, but with more power/utility. I never had a good sound card (I was an onboard-only gamer) and it was only in 2003 when I finally got a "good" video card (Radeon 9600). So now I've branched out to get a feel for Voodoo, EAX and nice quality MIDI. Not to mention cpu speeds are higher than I had in those older PCs of the same era.
Some thoughts and notes:
The Pentium 4 2.4 was previously an Athlon XP 2200+ system but the Nforce2 boards suck when it comes to DOS compatibility (no SB audio). Now that it's got a Geforce 4 and can play DOS titles extremely well, it's becoming my most used PC. I'm contemplating a Voodoo2 and then I can almost put every other PC away and solely use this thing. Loving the Dreamblaster X2 more than I anticipated too.
The 486 (586) still gets used often for those speed sensitive games and if I want to load up any MT32 titles to run via Munt. I never had an MT32 and honestly using Munt makes me grin from ear to ear whenever it's playing something. I was using a VLB system for a few weeks before I got this PCI board, I just couldn't handle the serial mouse. USB mice with PS/2 adapters are for me. I did try the USB2SERIAL from serdashop but tbh there was far too much input lag for me to be happy with it.
The P2/Voodoo 3 PC is still a choice machine, almost fast enough to max out the Voodoo 3's capabilities and I'm only missing out on about 6 dos based glide games without having a Voodoo 1 or 2. It's got the AWE64 which is iconic for the Duke3Ds/DarkForces/Doom-alikes and honestly, I will evangelise the Yamaha XG Midi on the AW744 til the day I die. It's really amazing sound for under 40 bucks.
The P4 prescott is something I don't really load up too often (I think it's been unplugged for a year) because the AMD / Geforce 9800 GTX+ is such an overkill system with mainly the same function. The 9800GTX+ is special to me as it's the only "plus" variant nvidia have ever made. It's also really cool looking with tons of copper heat pipes.
The P3 is very special considering it's made with nearly all new parts (apart from the case and optical drives). A fun system, but the 2.4ghz P4 is slowly taking away it's appeal.
Things I want to do in the future: Connect all PCs to a NAS, Get a table/desk to store all the PCs better, Get a working Voodoo 1 / repair my broken one for the P166MMX machine, get a nice EAX4 sound card to go into the AM2 build. I've got a CRT that's waiting at the post office for me to pick up tomorrow (unused in box 15" IBM black CRT from 2003) which needs its own spot as I don't want to be shuffling around a CRT and 25" flat screen all the time (my desk is tiny!). I'm also thinking about adding in an SB Live/Audigy into the 2.4 Pentium IV for better EAX support as well as putting one into the P3.
I'll take some more photos when I'm home tonight. If you're interested in getting close ups of something let me know 😀
Cheers
