VOGONS


First post, by candle_86

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So with my wife's health further declining, I want to put together my best parts to cover the right era's and sell off the rest, and I've come to realize I have a lot of overlap

Here is the CPU list * means I don't have a working board for it
Pentium 66*
Pentium 133
5x86 133
Pentium 166MMX
K6-III 450
Athlon 700
Athlon 4 900
Pentium III 933
Athlon 1133
Pentium 4 1.7
Pentium 4 1.6
Athlon XP 1600
Pentium 4 2.8C
Athlon XP 2800
Athlon 64 3200
Pentium 4 3.4C
Athlon 64 3400
Athlon 64 3700
Athlon 64 X2 5000
Pentium E2160*
Athlon 64 x2 3600
Athlon x2 4450E
Pentium E5200*
Phenom II X4 955 BE
Athlon II X4 640

Motherboard List
Socket 3 Board unknown model, 6 ISA and 1 PCI slot
3 Socket 7 Boards, 1AT 430FX, 1ATX 430TX, 1 Epox MVP3C2 Super7 AT board
1 Socket 370 ASUs CUSL2
1 Slot A HP Branded ASUS A7M
3 Socket A Boards, 1 A7a266 AliMagik1, 1 Soyo KT400 Dragon, 1 HP Nforce2 400
1 Socket 423 Intel 850
1 Socket 478 MSI 865PE Neo
1 Socket 754 Compaq board with SIS Chipset
1 Socket 939 Nforce4 SLI board
3 Socket AM2, 2 Compaq, 1 HP, all 3 are VIA Chipsets
1 Socket AM3 785G chipset

Video card list number before indicates quanity
2 Trio64+
1 Riva 128 AGP
1 Voodoo 3 2000 PCI
1 Rage 128 Ultra
1 Riva TNT2 M64
1 Geforce2 GTS
1 Geforce 2 MX
2 Geforce 2 MX 400
1 Geforce 4 MX 420
1 Geforce 4 Ti 4600
1 Gefore 4 MX 440
1 Radeon 9700 Pro
1 Radeon 9800 Pro
1 Geforce FX 5200
1 Radeon 9250 PCI
1 Radeon X1600 Pro AGP
2 Quadro FX3450
2 Geforce 7950GT
1 Radeon X1550 PCI
1 Radeon HD3870
1 Geforce 8800GTS 512
1 Geforce GTX 470

I want to cover Dos Gaming, Windows 9x gaming, and XP gaming, but i need to also pair down the inventory and hopefully make some money back when it's done, so with this list what 4-5 computers would yall build

Reply 1 of 16, by BitWrangler

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I wish you greater success than I'm having.... my problem is partly high distraction coefficient and ooh shiny.... since I seem to want to build a rig for every 10% increment of performance, I'm trying to get myself to put together one of the "Philscomputerlab" multi variable K62/3 systems at first, just to check out if I like doing it like that, and killing 6 or 7 birds with one stone. Or might help me gain focus on an era of particular interest, such that I target a build top that, instead of buiilding 5 to cover the same ground and only using one of them. Likewise, I'm hunting out my 486 board that had 16,20,25,33,40 clocks on and I can put my best intel DX/2 in there and have the classic DX2/66, have a big sink on it to do dx2/80 for anything that's a tad sluggish, and clock it back all the way to DX2/32 which should be crawly enough to pretend it's a fast 386, or a slow one with cache disables etc. Then I think the same with a decent PIII get a higher speed 133 bus one, and then I can visit the 700s or 500s on 100 or 66 if I want... I think the XP times can be satisfied with the fastest of what you've got that still has XP support, possibly by then, programmers had finally finally finally finally not relied on clock dependant timing loops and I've not heard of anything "too fast" on XP

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 2 of 16, by candle_86

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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-05-27, 02:27:

I wish you greater success than I'm having.... my problem is partly high distraction coefficient and ooh shiny.... since I seem to want to build a rig for every 10% increment of performance, I'm trying to get myself to put together one of the "Philscomputerlab" multi variable K62/3 systems at first, just to check out if I like doing it like that, and killing 6 or 7 birds with one stone. Or might help me gain focus on an era of particular interest, such that I target a build top that, instead of buiilding 5 to cover the same ground and only using one of them. Likewise, I'm hunting out my 486 board that had 16,20,25,33,40 clocks on and I can put my best intel DX/2 in there and have the classic DX2/66, have a big sink on it to do dx2/80 for anything that's a tad sluggish, and clock it back all the way to DX2/32 which should be crawly enough to pretend it's a fast 386, or a slow one with cache disables etc. Then I think the same with a decent PIII get a higher speed 133 bus one, and then I can visit the 700s or 500s on 100 or 66 if I want... I think the XP times can be satisfied with the fastest of what you've got that still has XP support, possibly by then, programmers had finally finally finally finally not relied on clock dependant timing loops and I've not heard of anything "too fast" on XP

issue with XP is some games and multi core caused bugs, but i had thought the phenom II + Gtx 470 would cover 2005-the end of XP gaming just fine

Reply 3 of 16, by bZbZbZ

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It might help if you noted any particular nostalgia you have for specific hardware, and how important you feel it is to be period-correct. Maybe another thing to consider is how much money you really want to make... the Voodoo3 and the Radeon 9700 Pro could probably net you more than the other cards if you are willing to let them go.

Ignoring the above, I'd suggest that anything Socket A is probably unnecessary. Single core Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 tend to be compatible with Windows 98 (overkill, but maybe that's nice). If you hang on to the Pentium III you can use that for Win 9x too. The nice thing about the single core Athlon 64 / Pentium 4 is you could dual boot XP on it and use that for XP games that have multi-core issues.

DOS & Win9x:
K6-III? Can this be slowed down enough for old DOS games?

Win9x primary:
Pentium III on Asus CUSL2
Voodoo3 or TNT2

Win9x overkill & low end XP:
Athlon 64 (whatever fits into the mobo that supports Win9x, which is probably not the nForce4... or if none of them work maybe use the Pentium 4 2.8C with HT disabled)
Radeon 9800 Pro

High end XP:
Phenom II X4 955 BE
GeForce GTX470

Reply 4 of 16, by Warlord

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Based on my preferences ill just lower the list. To 4 computers.

My picks
Config 1
Geforce 4 Ti 4600 + Soyo KT400 Dragon + Athlon XP 2800

Config 2
Radeon 9800 Pro + MSI 865PE Neo + Pentium 4 2.8C

Config 3
Slot A HP Branded ASUS A7M + Geforce2 GTS + Athlon 700 ( I believe you meant a K7m which is a actual board I can find) Has a ISA slot.

Config 4
Epox MVP3C2 + Voodoo 3 2000 PCI+ K6-III 450

Config 5
Theres no point in making a super high end rig with that parts list. Anything the fastest parts you have you can make are modern enough that any modern computer will run them,

Reply 5 of 16, by candle_86

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sorry yes K7M.

As for wish to hold onto, the only im attached to is the K6-3, its very similar to my first computer at its final upgrade point with super7 and K6-2+, originally it was a Super7 board with a Pentium 133 my dad built me for Christmas from machines tossed out of a building during a tornado. GPU wise im not especially attached to anything, also the 2.8C from how intel specified it as far as i can tell, its the 2.8ghz 533mhz chip, no HT on it, the 3.4C is the 800mhz HT chip

Reply 6 of 16, by Warlord

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Ya Id hold on to the K63 also and of all the boards you have that can run it the epox is the best. PS the KT400 should have DDMA on the south bridge so it could have some decent win 9x compatibility if you want dual boot

I was a bit torn between the CUSL2 and the Slot A becasue I love intel but no ISA so ya no go.

Reply 7 of 16, by candle_86

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oh yea DOS games i play arn't from the 80's, DOS games would be things like Doom, Wolf3d, Colonization, Command and Conquer, Duke3d, Dark Forces, Warcraft, and Oregon Trail 2nd edition, from i think 1991 or 1992, final note a few games i have like Fallout3 and GTA IV are the original DVD release with Games for Windows Live, which im told doesn't work right on anything newer than Windows 7, dunno if there are fixes for them, its basically all i used the Phenom II for, was Fallout3, GTA IV, and Oblivion 🤣

Reply 8 of 16, by soggi

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Apart from the K7M issue I agree to Warlord's list in most points, but maybe would add Config 5 with the fastest parts for WinXP gaming, if needed -> Phenom II X4 955 BE / socket AM3 board / GeForce GTX470.

And if you want to hold on to the 486 then keep -> 5x86 133 / Socket 3 Board / Trio64+.

Warlord wrote on 2021-05-27, 03:59:

I was a bit torn between the CUSL2 and the Slot A becasue I love intel but no ISA so ya no go.

As far as I know there's no ISA slot on the OEM K7M for HP, it misses several connectors/parts and has a special OEM BIOS (which fortunately can be upgraded to the original one). I have some information about that on my ASUS K7M page.

kind regards
soggi

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

soggi.org on Twitter - talent borrows, genius steals...

Reply 10 of 16, by Warlord

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I see so you don't have a 1999 ish era motherboard with isa. welp. neither the hp/k7m or the cusl2 are what i would build then. Rest of the configs I posted are solid though.
Idk if you are any good with soldering, or if this is your board but this pic of and I850 appears to have solder pads for pci/pci
Could be interesting if it worked.

download/file.php?id=80366&mode=view

Reply 11 of 16, by bZbZbZ

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If you're going to use an older system (K6-III, Pentium 1, etc) for DOS gaming.... why would you worry about ISA expansion on your CUSL2 / Slot A / HP boards? Wouldn't you just put your ISA sound card into the K6-III (MVP3C2) system?

Reply 12 of 16, by cyclone3d

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candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-27, 02:38:
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-05-27, 02:27:

I wish you greater success than I'm having.... my problem is partly high distraction coefficient and ooh shiny.... since I seem to want to build a rig for every 10% increment of performance, I'm trying to get myself to put together one of the "Philscomputerlab" multi variable K62/3 systems at first, just to check out if I like doing it like that, and killing 6 or 7 birds with one stone. Or might help me gain focus on an era of particular interest, such that I target a build top that, instead of buiilding 5 to cover the same ground and only using one of them. Likewise, I'm hunting out my 486 board that had 16,20,25,33,40 clocks on and I can put my best intel DX/2 in there and have the classic DX2/66, have a big sink on it to do dx2/80 for anything that's a tad sluggish, and clock it back all the way to DX2/32 which should be crawly enough to pretend it's a fast 386, or a slow one with cache disables etc. Then I think the same with a decent PIII get a higher speed 133 bus one, and then I can visit the 700s or 500s on 100 or 66 if I want... I think the XP times can be satisfied with the fastest of what you've got that still has XP support, possibly by then, programmers had finally finally finally finally not relied on clock dependant timing loops and I've not heard of anything "too fast" on XP

issue with XP is some games and multi core caused bugs, but i had thought the phenom II + Gtx 470 would cover 2005-the end of XP gaming just fine

Can't most/all of those be worked around by setting the CPU affinity of said games to a single core? Disabling core parking was also another fix for games as well as USB latency when dealing with USB MIDI adapters.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 13 of 16, by candle_86

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cyclone3d wrote on 2021-05-28, 05:33:
candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-27, 02:38:
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-05-27, 02:27:

I wish you greater success than I'm having.... my problem is partly high distraction coefficient and ooh shiny.... since I seem to want to build a rig for every 10% increment of performance, I'm trying to get myself to put together one of the "Philscomputerlab" multi variable K62/3 systems at first, just to check out if I like doing it like that, and killing 6 or 7 birds with one stone. Or might help me gain focus on an era of particular interest, such that I target a build top that, instead of buiilding 5 to cover the same ground and only using one of them. Likewise, I'm hunting out my 486 board that had 16,20,25,33,40 clocks on and I can put my best intel DX/2 in there and have the classic DX2/66, have a big sink on it to do dx2/80 for anything that's a tad sluggish, and clock it back all the way to DX2/32 which should be crawly enough to pretend it's a fast 386, or a slow one with cache disables etc. Then I think the same with a decent PIII get a higher speed 133 bus one, and then I can visit the 700s or 500s on 100 or 66 if I want... I think the XP times can be satisfied with the fastest of what you've got that still has XP support, possibly by then, programmers had finally finally finally finally not relied on clock dependant timing loops and I've not heard of anything "too fast" on XP

issue with XP is some games and multi core caused bugs, but i had thought the phenom II + Gtx 470 would cover 2005-the end of XP gaming just fine

Can't most/all of those be worked around by setting the CPU affinity of said games to a single core? Disabling core parking was also another fix for games as well as USB latency when dealing with USB MIDI adapters.

Games for windows Live games are another headache, also things like COD UO tend to act up when i alt tab out to set affinity

Reply 15 of 16, by CoffeeOne

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.....
Motherboard List
Socket 3 Board unknown model, 6 ISA and 1 PCI slot
.......
I am really curious about the first board on your list.
Really?
6 ISA and 1 PCI slot? What 486 board is that??? I don't think such a board exists.

Reply 16 of 16, by BitWrangler

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He'd probably know what it was if it turned up on Stason or TH-99 etc. Back in the day I'd seen them with 2. Thinking would be it was just for fast graphics if I/O was onboard and ISA was plenty for sound and modem, 100Mbit NICs were still server class back then I think.

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