how are the drivers for the 8500 ati had a bad rep at that time
wouldnt a gf4200ti be better

ps: socket 478 - supports agp and pci-e
http://www.asrock.com/mb/VIA/P4Dual-880Pro/

edit: forgot you wanted hardware to be period

Yes. You have a point there. The drivers for ATi have always had issues as far as I can remember. Thus far, I haven't had any major issues with this one though, and I'm hoping that performance streak continues.

I think that I've been able to rule out the use of any Voodoo products in these hypothetical builds due to it's lack of conformity. I haven't really been impressed with the image quality that Voodoo produced anyway, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't really see a whole lot of use for Glide around the year 2001 (or even a few years prior). That would be the only reason for me to put a Voodoo card in (though if I do, I'd put a PCI one in).

My research on the Hard Disk Drives leads me to believe that the Seagate Barracuda IV 80 GB @ 7,200 RPMs is my best choice for PATA interface drives. The other option being SCSI interface connected to a Seagate Cheetah X15 36 GB @ 15,000 RPMs.

I'm always torn on OS selection. I'm tempted to try to set up a multiboot with 98SE (or a patched ME), and Windows XP Pro. I tend to think that this machine would be overkill for DOS, but in the past I did set up an Athlon system with a DOS partition, so I've not completely ruled that out.

8500 has problems with some KT266A and KT333 boards. The drivers were terrible early on but a year in and they had improved. It is still quirky with some games. R300 class chips have much better texture filtering quality and anti aliasing of course.

I wouldn't dwell on crazy aspirations of perfection. 😁 The definition changes for almost every game.

My Socket A box that I've been using occasionally consists of;
XP-M 2500+ (133 FSB)
MSI KT3 Ultra 2 (KT333 with USB2 via VT8235)
512MB PC2700
Video card choice of the day (often 5900U, 9800 or Voodoo5)
Vortex 2 or Audigy
160GB WD with silent FDB
Intel Pro 1000GT NIC
98SE + XP
Dell 2405FPW LCD (so I need pixel pushing power)

That's a nice rig there. I always had good luck with AMD chips back then.

Of course I need to dwell on crazy aspirations. How else do I cling to my insanity?

I'm not looking for perfection... There's no such thing. I just mean to sort out a variation of "Best in Slot" for a period specific system. Perhaps I'll just use an nVidia on the AMD rig... I loved how well they got along back in the day.

I'm probabaly not even going to be able to afford the whole project, but I have fun just trying to pull it together.

I do it more for the interest of doing it. For me, it's a hobby.

No I understand the desire to build all sorts of configurations and try for perfect period correct setups. I've been there.

And then you just say "fuck it" and drop the fastest CPU (or even ditch the platform entirely) and a 6800 Ultra in there and crank up resolutions and AA+AF.
I've been there too hahaha.

🤣 yup I think that is the inevitable stance people arrive at. I usually just try my modern machine first before any old stuff. It basically comes down to whether the game doesn't run or if an old 3D card is ideal.

F2bnp wrote:

And then you just say "fuck it" and drop the fastest CPU (or even ditch the platform entirely) and a 6800 Ultra in there and crank up resolutions and AA+AF.
I've been there too hahaha.

I have already done that... several times infact. I think I have gotten that out of my system. I'm not even worried about actually playing games on it. I literally have a dozen other computers with which to do such a task.

I understand that I may not even end up making any more of these builds, but I like to think about them and theorize about what system would be best in what situation.

Another reason that I like to do this is because I have this irrational fear that knowledge of vintage computers will fade. I fear the loss of any knowledge. I don't know if I'm explaining this correctly, but that's how I feel. I want to learn about the history of computers and experience it. Even if it was before my time.
Those that fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. Those that learn history are doomed to watch everyone else repeat it.

nemesis wrote:

Another reason that I like to do this is because I have this irrational fear that knowledge of vintage computers will fade. I fear the loss of any knowledge. I don't know if I'm explaining this correctly, but that's how I feel. I want to learn about the history of computers and experience it. Even if it was before my time.

I think it's a phase you go through. 😀

"Mom! It's NOT a phase! This is really who I AM!" (I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.)

Perhaps... but it's a fairly long phase for me. We have learned so much from over examining vintage computers. Some consider that knowledge useless but I see potential in it.

Why are we all here on Vogons in the first place?
Some are here to run their vintage games on new computers with dosbox (awesome software).
Some are here to learn about vintage hardware and relive the glory days with period specific systems.
Some are here to play the old games on "correct" hardware.
Some are here simply because they thought it was a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fanpage.
Some are just here to interact with like minded people and share their experiences.

I'm here more for the hardware than anything else, to be perfectly honest. I try to convince myself that it's all about the games, but that's only secondary.

Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction came out in 2001 a year after Diablo 2.
The Direct3D acceleration was an after thought and as such is far from optimised.
Glide support however was designed from the ground up as THE 3D acceleration for the game.
It is my favorite game of all time and one of the reasons for all my retro/old school systems to have a 3dfx card or two or three.

Cannula wrote:

Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction came out in 2001 a year after Diablo 2. The Direct3D acceleration was an after thought and as such […]
Show full quote

Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction came out in 2001 a year after Diablo 2.
The Direct3D acceleration was an after thought and as such is far from optimised.
Glide support however was designed from the ground up as THE 3D acceleration for the game.
It is my favorite game of all time and one of the reasons for all my retro/old school systems to have a 3dfx card or two or three.

First: welcome to vogons 😁
Second: thank you for the input. I did not know that about Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. I respect a good game like that and you have helped me rethink my idea to leave Voodoo out of the running.
Can you suggest which card would have best support? I seem to have bad luck with 3DFX in general and I've learned that certain cards are better at certain tasks than others. I think I have a PCI Voodoo 3 2000 somewhere and a Voodoo 1. I could probably get my hands on certain other versions fairly easily. (Not the Voodoo 5 6000 though 😖 but I've actually heard a lot of bad about it anyway... something to do with voltage or whatever).

Do you know of any other games from that era that would work better in Glide?

Voodoo3 2000 is good for any Glide game as long as you're talking around 1024x768. It is a better solution than Voodoo2 SLI. Voodoo5 5500 is needed for good speed above that rez.

Voodoo1 has some extra sentimental value as the original 3Dfx product. At least it does for me because that was the only Voodoo card I bought new. 😀 It certainly isn't a good choice for Unreal engine games though because of speed and memory capacity limits.

Thanks for the welcome, and yeah Swaaye has the same opinion as me when it comes to 3dfx card choice. I have a V5 5500 in my 1.4GHz P3 baby AT machine and a V3 in both my K6-2+ and P2 Overdrive baby AT machines.
The beauty of having a PCI V3 like you already do is that there is almost no difference in speed to an AGP V3 as most of the AGP features are missing from 3dfx cards. As such you can have a different AGP card such as a Geforce 3/4, Radeon 7900 etc and simply select in the BIOS to boot from PCI or AGP as the primary card.
As for other games around 2k that "prefer" glide, I can only think of UT 99 (built on Unreal engine from memory), unpatched the game "prefers" glide but there are patches that bring other APIs up in performance.
As 3dfx filed for bankruptcy in October of 2002 I believe there will be alot more games that were designed to favor 3dfx up to this time as game development can takes a few years and 3dfx may of still been king when development of such games started.

Actually 3dfx imploded in November of 2000.

Thanks for the info. As much as I'd like to use a Voodoo 5 5500, I can't find any Voodoo cards around me anymore for a decent price. I guess I should have bought them when they were cheaper. Or maybe they'll come down in price again.
Until then, I'm left hunting for my Voodoo 3 PCI.

The beauty of having a PCI V3 like you already do is that there is almost no difference in speed to an AGP V3 as most of the AGP features are missing from 3dfx cards. As such you can have a different AGP card such as a Geforce 3/4, Radeon 7900 etc and simply select in the BIOS to boot from PCI or AGP as the primary card.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I had read somewhere that PCI and AGP have little to no difference in 3DFX cards. (I probably read that here.)
That and from what you guys said, I really wouldn't make much of a gain from having anything over a Voodoo 3. But I guess if I were really making a BiS 2001, I'd have a Voodoo 5 5500 in a PCI port.