That's good to know. I am not sure if it would work or not. The monitor is rather old and I have used with my old pc over VGA to dvi converter already. It worked well. And with my new rig I use the monitor over a HDMI Vga converter and ti also works. I could try it out as soon as my rig is finished. But I still hope that my old CRT is still working to have accurate monitor for the time period. A CRT should also be better to enjoy games like UT and Quake 3 in higher frame rates.

@Joseph_Joestar I have checked out the EAX thread and watched the demo videos in the meantime and I really like what I have heard. I will try to get sound card that can use EAX for sure.

Huh, lots of recommendations for an Athlon XP or a Pentium 4, paired with a Geforce 4XXX or 5XXX for the period of 1997 to 2000. That's... aggressive. Especially if the cutoff period is late 2000.

For a small sanity check, in the Dec 2000 issue of Computer Gaming World, this is their "Power Rig". A Pentium III 1Ghz, a Geforce 2 Ultra, a Sound Blaster Live Platinum and 256 MB of RAM. It had a 300W PSU. I recall at the time, from 2000-ish until 2003 I did all my gaming on a PII 700 with a Geforce 2 GTS and was more than happy. Was actually one of the better rigs at the LAN parties I went to in highschool.

I built a PIII 1Ghz system ridiculously cheap a year or two ago. Got a Socket 370 motherboard for $20, the CPU for another $17.50, 512 MB of PC133 for $10.99, the Geforce 2 GTS for $25, SBLive CT4670 for $14.60. I probably spent the most money on a new PSU.

Namrok wrote on 2023-05-15, 14:56:

Huh, lots of recommendations for an Athlon XP or a Pentium 4, paired with a Geforce 4XXX or 5XXX for the period of 1997 to 2000. That's... aggressive. Especially if the cutoff period is late 2000.

Depends on how much one wants to crank up the resolution and AA/AF. Even some of the games from 1999 or 2000 can be quite demanding with those turned up. See if you can hit a stable 60 FPS in Deus Ex at 1600x1200 on Liberty Island (first level). Or if Quake 3 lowers the frame rate when approaching portals and mirrors in Q3DM0 using the same resolution.

But if we're talking about period correct resolutions like 1024x768, with no AA/AF, less powerful hardware will be more than enough.

Namrok wrote on 2023-05-15, 14:56:

Huh, lots of recommendations for an Athlon XP or a Pentium 4, paired with a Geforce 4XXX or 5XXX for the period of 1997 to 2000. That's... aggressive. Especially if the cutoff period is late 2000.

For a small sanity check, in the Dec 2000 issue of Computer Gaming World, this is their "Power Rig". A Pentium III 1Ghz, a Geforce 2 Ultra, a Sound Blaster Live Platinum and 256 MB of RAM. It had a 300W PSU. I recall at the time, from 2000-ish until 2003 I did all my gaming on a PII 700 with a Geforce 2 GTS and was more than happy. Was actually one of the better rigs at the LAN parties I went to in highschool.

There is a distinction between building a period-correct system versus building a general purpose system designed for optimal performance.

I had a similar system at that time (Athlon 800 + GeForce 256). While it could run games of the early 2000's, there were notable trade-offs with performance and certain graphical features. I remember this especially when Morrowind came out.

So when it comes to having a good gaming experience, we have the advantage of picking and choosing hardware that we know can deliver a no-nonsense performance and compatibility with titles for particular era. Typically that hardware will have come out at least a few years later than the era we're targeting.

It's the like the difference between building a period correct 1993-era 486 DX2-66 versus a later Pentium for DOS gaming. The 486 may be period correct for a game like Doom, but a 1997-era Pentium MMX 200 will run Doom a lot smoother, along with everything that came after it.

Namrok wrote on 2023-05-15, 14:56:

Huh, lots of recommendations for an Athlon XP or a Pentium 4, paired with a Geforce 4XXX or 5XXX for the period of 1997 to 2000. That's... aggressive. Especially if the cutoff period is late 2000.

For a small sanity check, in the Dec 2000 issue of Computer Gaming World, this is their "Power Rig". A Pentium III 1Ghz, a Geforce 2 Ultra, a Sound Blaster Live Platinum and 256 MB of RAM. It had a 300W PSU. I recall at the time, from 2000-ish until 2003 I did all my gaming on a PII 700 with a Geforce 2 GTS and was more than happy. Was actually one of the better rigs at the LAN parties I went to in highschool.

I built a PIII 1Ghz system ridiculously cheap a year or two ago. Got a Socket 370 motherboard for $20, the CPU for another $17.50, 512 MB of PC133 for $10.99, the Geforce 2 GTS for $25, SBLive CT4670 for $14.60. I probably spent the most money on a new PSU.

This might seem strange but there is some reason to recommending at least some of the newer hardware options. If the aim is to play games and not to tinker you want stability and an otherwise more or less issue free experience. Back then the hardware development was fast, the players making the hardware many and issues that got fixed with BIOS updates and hot-fixes were common. Issues that didn't crop up until the hardware in question went out of production rarely got fixed at all.

The best way to avoid as many issues as possible today when we can pick and choose the hardware is to use hardware that is known to just work.

More or less issue free chipsets for a fast Windows 98 rig.

1998. Intel 440BX. This chipset is fast and extremely stable, Motherboards usually have 1-3 ISA slots. Best used with something like a P3 1000(100).

2000. Intel i815. Not as fast as 440BX but support 133 MHz FSB. Motherboards do not have any ISA Slots. The easy to get boards are best used with a P3 1000(133) .

2003 . Intel 875p/865p. Fast and super stable, supports USB2, supports a wide range of CPUs . No ISA slots, no AGP 3.3V. Best used with any Norhwood P4 CPU.

If you need the system to handle DOS games in real DOS the choice is obvious, go for 440BX. If you do not need good DOS support the choice isn't as easy. I my self use a pin modified overclocked Tualatin P3 1400-S on an Asus CUSL2 (i815) with a FX5900 Ultra. A system like this can max out (almost) any game (best played) in Windows 98 but the same result can be obtained much easier and cheaper by using an Intel 865 or 875 series chipset motherboard and a fast P4 CPU.

When it comes to Socket A (all of it), VIA, SIS, RDRAM, and other Intel P4 chipsets than the 875/865 series these are fun and have their uses for sure but most also have their quirks. I love to tinker with it all but that isn't the same as saying I would recommend any of it as a first retro build. Keep it simple! 😁

The timeline of minimal head ace! 😁

DOS 1992- ................... Windows 98 1997- ...................... Windows XP 2001-

Intel 430xx ---> Intel 440BX/Intel i815/i865P/i875P ---> X58/P55/P68/Z68/Z77

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-15, 15:36:

Namrok wrote on 2023-05-15, 14:56:

Huh, lots of recommendations for an Athlon XP or a Pentium 4, paired with a Geforce 4XXX or 5XXX for the period of 1997 to 2000. That's... aggressive. Especially if the cutoff period is late 2000.

Depends on how much one wants to crank up the resolution and AA/AF. Even some of the games from 1999 or 2000 can be quite demanding with those turned up. See if you can hit a stable 60 FPS in Deus Ex at 1600x1200 on Liberty Island (first level). Or if Quake 3 lowers the frame rate when approaching portals and mirrors in Q3DM0 using the same resolution.

But if we're talking about period correct resolutions like 1024x768, with no AA/AF, less powerful hardware will be more than enough.

Namok has a point of course. I have checked the System requirements and even if I consider the most modern game I am interested in to play which would be Max Payne from 2001 a more period correct geforce gts 2 would be good enough. I also feel that most games of that time frame look the best in 1024x768.

But I still feel it is nice to have some more power reserves left for playing around with higher resolutions and AA and AF. So I am more in the camp of the people that suggest to aim higher power-wise. In the end it is all about the cost.

I want to play save for my first build like it was recommended to me and just not go over the top.

I will research the costs of the lower-spec system and compare the prices with the higher spec and then I will make my final decision.

Potential specs for lower spec system would be p3 1000 MHz and the Geforce GTS 2 or something like that right?

Edit Thanks a lot for the other answers and many more valid points.

Is it DVI-D or DVI-I?

DVI-I supports the analog VGA signal natively. As for how good the quality will be... anyone's guess. For a Win98 system I'd recommend a card with DVI output if you intend to use a TFT screen. Things will look most authentic with a late good-quality CRT though (enough to allow that 1280x1024 you are aiming for at at least 85Hz vertical refresh rate. 75Hz is still sort of doable, but gives me suqare eyes after a while. Anything less and I start to get headaches.

This by the way is another item that can be specific to a period. I've used a beautiful Iiyama 17" flatscreen Diamondtron monitor for the past few years, and it's objectively great for Windows at high resolutions - but for DOS it's just too flat and too sharp. Low-res DOS games actualy look better on a slightly fuzzy shadow mask screen over later aperture grille ones. So this week I bought an old 1994 15" Highscreen MS1570LE. Objectively, it's a worse screen, but for my DOS (and 99.9% VGA, not SVGA) purposes it's a better match.

dionb wrote on 2023-05-15, 17:49:

Is it DVI-D or DVI-I?

DVI-I supports the analog VGA signal natively. As for how good the quality will be... anyone's guess. For a Win98 system I'd recommend a card with DVI output if you intend to use a TFT screen. Things will look most authentic with a late good-quality CRT though (enough to allow that 1280x1024 you are aiming for at at least 85Hz vertical refresh rate. 75Hz is still sort of doable, but gives me suqare eyes after a while. Anything less and I start to get headaches.

This by the way is another item that can be specific to a period. I've used a beautiful Iiyama 17" flatscreen Diamondtron monitor for the past few years, and it's objectively great for Windows at high resolutions - but for DOS it's just too flat and too sharp. Low-res DOS games actualy look better on a slightly fuzzy shadow mask screen over later aperture grille ones. So this week I bought an old 1994 15" Highscreen MS1570LE. Objectively, it's a worse screen, but for my DOS (and 99.9% VGA, not SVGA) purposes it's a better match.

Thanks for the info. I do not have the adapter with me but I will check if is DVI-D or DVI-I.

And yes I have already suspected that Dos games might look better an older monitor.

My plan A would be to use the above-mentioned .19. Philips CRT monitor. It served me well during it's heyday and the last time I have used it was 3 or 4 years ago for playing on the Sega Dreamcast with a VGA box. it still worked well und made a nice picture.

if is not working anymore I would consider getting another used crt. Using my rig on my main modern pc monitor would only be plan C. While some games look okish in 1024x768 or 1280x768 other games just look off. Especially some old strategy games like C&C, and Age of Empires look just off. While some more modern 3d games look well enough.

@all Thanks a lot for you help again. You really helped me out a lot tom make my final decision. After some further research I relased that DOS games are more interesting to me then I initally thought. That's why i am going with

Intel 440BX chipset. As cpu I am going for Pentium 3 100 with 100 fsb. Price wise a athlon xp cpu would be also interesting. Is one preferable over the other or not?

Concerning the sound card I have not made a final decision yet. Which one would you recommend?

GPU wise I am going to pick either a normal GF 3 or one the GF 4 ti cards.

In case I can find a Vodoo 2 for Glide at a good price I might add one too. But if I do that I will just go for the 8mb version. The 12 mb vodoo2 is too expensive.

What do you think about that idea for a good DOS/Win98 gaming machine?

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-05-16, 09:59:

What do you think about that idea for a good DOS/Win98 gaming machine?

You should be able to play later DOS games (from around 1995 and onward) without too much trouble. However, some of the earlier ones are speed sensitive and may not run correctly on a system that fast. See this page on the Vogons wiki for more details.

For best DOS game compatibility, it's also recommended to use an ISA sound card. Any PCI sound cards will have to employ workarounds and/or emulation to provide DOS compatibility, which is suboptimal. Note that you can have both an ISA sound card (for DOS) and a PCI sound card (for Windows) in the same system, as long as they are configured to use different resources.

Now, which DOS sound card to choose is huge topic and there are many factors to be considered. There is no single perfect ISA sound card, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I would recommend an ESS AudioDrive 1868F as a possible starting point, but again, there are many things to consider.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-05-16, 09:59:

In case I can find a Vodoo 2 for Glide at a good price I might add one too. But if I do that I will just go for the 8mb version. The 12 mb vodoo2 is too expensive.

What do you think about that idea for a good DOS/Win98 gaming machine?

Both are too expensive and you can get good deals on either if you are patient enough and look at the right places.

As for what's a good DOS/W98 gaming PC, that depends on what's your exact plans (starting and endpoint, budget, specific games that might be problematic, form factor, etc).

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-05-16, 10:39:

You should be able to play later DOS games (from around 1995 and onward) without too much trouble. However, some of the earlier […]
Show full quote

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-05-16, 09:59:

What do you think about that idea for a good DOS/Win98 gaming machine?

You should be able to play later DOS games (from around 1995 and onward) without too much trouble. However, some of the earlier ones are speed sensitive and may not run correctly on a system that fast. See this page on the Vogons wiki for more details.

For best DOS game compatibility, it's also recommended to use an ISA sound card. Any PCI sound cards will have to employ workarounds and/or emulation to provide DOS compatibility, which is suboptimal. Note that you can have both an ISA sound card (for DOS) and a PCI sound card (for Windows) in the same system, as long as they are configured to use different resources.

Now, which DOS sound card to choose is a huge topic and there are many factors to be considered. There is no single perfect ISA sound card, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I would recommend an ESS AudioDrive 1868F as a possible starting point, but again, there are many things to consider.

Thanks for the info. Yes, I have figured that out as well. To get a good sound card for Dos games an ISA card would be the way to go. And for the Windows gaming aspect, I would need separate PCI cards like one of the creative lab sound blaster cards for example.

@RandomStranger Yes in order to get good vodoo 2 card patience is really needed because most of them are quite expensive under normal circumstances.

The area for windows 98 gaming I am into is rather limited. 1997 until late 2000.

The DOS area is bit vast. I am interested in some earlier DOS games like Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, Mortal Kombat 1, 2 Terminator Future Schock. The newest Dos Game I am into is the first Tomb Raider.

If price is a factor, you may be better off building a 1997-2000 pc and a separate DOS pc. The sorts of motherboards that supports CPUs for intensive late 2000's games, AGP and ISA, and can also be downtuned for early DOS games gets pricey, IMHO. With enough patience, and the right ebay alerts, you might get lucky. But if you wanted to just buy something today to get building, you might be shocked at the sticker price.

If it were me (and it has been), I'd get a Socket 370 board with an AGP slot. Ignore Tualatin support since that goes for a premium, and a PIII 1Ghz is ample for any game through 2002 unless you intend to crank it to anachronistic settings. For the dos games, now that you don't need to worry about AGP, nearly any old Socket 7 will work fine, and I'm looking at one right now that's only $33. For maximum flexibility for DOS, you want a CPU that you can set the multiplier in SETMUL. That tends to be the Via C3 (which is a Socket 370 chip, bringing us back to the expense of ISA slots on S370 motherboards), or a K6-2+/3+. But the K6-2+ has a pretty low voltage setting which a lot of motherboards don't support, once again making motherboards that support it marginally more expensive.

Still, being able to turn off the cache in a Pentium can work well enough in a pinch.

You can also get a pretty slick setup with a single monitor, kb/mouse and speakers hooked up to two or more retro computers with the right KVM switch.

Namrok wrote on 2023-05-16, 13:57:

If price is a factor, you may be better off building a 1997-2000 pc and a separate DOS pc. The sorts of motherboards that suppo […]
Show full quote

If price is a factor, you may be better off building a 1997-2000 pc and a separate DOS pc. The sorts of motherboards that supports CPUs for intensive late 2000's games, AGP and ISA, and can also be downtuned for early DOS games gets pricey, IMHO. With enough patience, and the right ebay alerts, you might get lucky. But if you wanted to just buy something today to get building, you might be shocked at the sticker price.

If it were me (and it has been), I'd get a Socket 370 board with an AGP slot. Ignore Tualatin support since that goes for a premium, and a PIII 1Ghz is ample for any game through 2002 unless you intend to crank it to anachronistic settings. For the dos games, now that you don't need to worry about AGP, nearly any old Socket 7 will work fine, and I'm looking at one right now that's only $33. For maximum flexibility for DOS, you want a CPU that you can set the multiplier in SETMUL. That tends to be the Via C3 (which is a Socket 370 chip, bringing us back to the expense of ISA slots on S370 motherboards), or a K6-2+/3+. But the K6-2+ has a pretty low voltage setting which a lot of motherboards don't support, once again making motherboards that support it marginally more expensive.

Still, being able to turn off the cache in a Pentium can work well enough in a pinch.

You can also get a pretty slick setup with a single monitor, kb/mouse, and speakers hooked up to two or more retro computers with the right KVM switch.

Thx for your input. Yes maybe putting the dos activities on hold and just making a windows 98 machine for the beginning sounds like a decent price. Getting the needed parts can be tricky indeed. For simple windows 98 machine on the other hand the parts are not hard to come by and are not super expensive minus the potential Vodoo 2 of course.

I am not sure yet if I need to Vodoo 2. It would be cool to have one, always wanted a 3dfx card but could not afford one and the few glide games I have tried out with nglide online looked nice I still have the find out if these games would look that much worse direct 3d or open gl when they are running via GeForce 3 or 4.

I will do some further research in that regard.

Thanks for the advice as well to ignore Tualatin. This late-gen Pentium 3 seems to be good but they are rather expensive. The coppermine Pentium 3 1000 mhz is obtainable at a better price and should be more than enough for the 97 to 2000 area as you said.

DOS / Win98 is a different beast, but agreed that the ISA sound card is the biggest requirement. That impacts which motherboard you can choose. i440BX is good for compatiblity, but doesn't offer great slowdown features. You could compromise by choosing a CPU that does (Via C3), but that is a lot slower than P3 or Athlon.

Big question: which WIn9x games do you want to play exactly? If they are late, high-end games, you need all the speed you can get and have to sacrifice downward options. If not too challenging you could try that C3.

As for ISA sound card: I'd generally recommending the first you can find cheaply. Most low-end stuff is actually less buggy than SB16 & co. Once you have the system working and figure out what your preferences are and what irritates you the most, you can look at replacing it with something more specific.

dionb wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:04:

DOS / Win98 is a different beast, but agreed that the ISA sound card is the biggest requirement. That impacts which motherboard you can choose. i440BX is good for compatiblity, but doesn't offer great slowdown features. You could compromise by choosing a CPU that does (Via C3), but that is a lot slower than P3 or Athlon.

Big question: which WIn9x games do you want to play exactly? If they are late, high-end games, you need all the speed you can get and have to sacrifice downward options. If not too challenging you could try that C3.

As for ISA sound card: I'd generally recommending the first you can find cheaply. Most low-end stuff is actually less buggy than SB16 & co. Once you have the system working and figure out what your preferences are and what irritates you the most, you can look at replacing it with something more specific.

I am into vast array of games. Want to play Real time strategy games, like Age of Empires, Warcraft 2, 3, Dune 2000 for example,) some racing games like the Need for Speed, Bleißfuß (I think in the English-speaking world the series is called screamer or something like that) I believe ), fps games ( Quake 2, Quake Arena, Half Life, HL Oposing Force, Blue Shift), Thief 1, 2, Deus Ex, System Shock2 and also curious about trying out the console ports of Resident Evil. Just RE 2 and Re 3 though and Dino Crisis too.

Resident Evil 1 would be interesting too but I have read that this game is running bes ton PowerVR cards that are not really an option for a retro gaming rig if compatibility is concerned.

The most recent game I would be interested in trying out would be a 2001 game. The first is Max Payne.

You know, another thing I'd point out, is that even if you, for example, put together a Pentium III 1Ghz with whatever graphics card and put a Sound Blaster Live in there, you could still play a lot of DOS games. The SBLive dos emulation isn't the best, but it's adequate for a lot of games. You'd be just fine in most early to mid 90's DOS games, with a few notable exceptions. But I wouldn't overly worry about it until you hit them. Likewise with the speed sensitive ones. You'll have plenty you can play, and keep that second PC as a back burner project in the meantime.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:24:

dionb wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:04:

DOS / Win98 is a different beast, but agreed that the ISA sound card is the biggest requirement. That impacts which motherboard you can choose. i440BX is good for compatiblity, but doesn't offer great slowdown features. You could compromise by choosing a CPU that does (Via C3), but that is a lot slower than P3 or Athlon.

Big question: which WIn9x games do you want to play exactly? If they are late, high-end games, you need all the speed you can get and have to sacrifice downward options. If not too challenging you could try that C3.

As for ISA sound card: I'd generally recommending the first you can find cheaply. Most low-end stuff is actually less buggy than SB16 & co. Once you have the system working and figure out what your preferences are and what irritates you the most, you can look at replacing it with something more specific.

I am into vast array of games. Want to play Real time strategy games, like Age of Empires, Warcraft 2, 3, Dune 2000 for example,) some racing games like the Need for Speed, Bleißfuß (I think in the English-speaking world the series is called screamer or something like that) I believe ), fps games ( Quake 2, Quake Arena, Half Life, HL Oposing Force, Blue Shift), Thief 1, 2, Deus Ex, System Shock2 and also curious about trying out the console ports of Resident Evil. Just RE 2 and Re 3 though and Dino Crisis too.

Q3A sounds like one of the benchmark games here. It will run on a slower CPU, but to actually enjoy it takes at least a 1GHz P3/Athlon.

Resident Evil 1 would be interesting too but I have read that this game is running bes ton PowerVR cards that are not really an option for a retro gaming rig if compatibility is concerned.

Just as with the Voodoo2 cards, PowerVR cards are add-in, they don't even need a VGA passthrough. So you can have one next to your Gf3/4 and Voodoo if you so desire. They're just rather hard to come by / expensive and the experience can be underwhelming. I was stupidly lucky in finding a dumped, damaged old computer case outside my house with literally shorted out PC Chips motherboard, but a perfectly working PowerVR PCX2 card in it. Unfotunately I still haven't found any game that uses it that I actually enjoy playing.

The most recent game I would be interested in trying out would be a 2001 game. The first is Max Payne.

Similar to Q3A, maybe even a bit more demanding. [url=https://www.anandtech.com/show/811/8]This review[/quote] shows it doing 71fps with a GF3 on a 1.2GHz Athlon MP.

Should be nicely playable with a P3-1000 or indeed any Athlon Thunderbird provided you have that Gf3/4.

Namrok wrote on 2023-05-16, 17:52:

You know, another thing I'd point out, is that even if you, for example, put together a Pentium III 1Ghz with whatever graphics card and put a Sound Blaster Live in there, you could still play a lot of DOS games. The SBLive dos emulation isn't the best, but it's adequate for a lot of games. You'd be just fine in most early to mid 90's DOS games, with a few notable exceptions. But I wouldn't overly worry about it until you hit them. Likewise with the speed sensitive ones. You'll have plenty you can play, and keep that second PC as a back burner project in the meantime.

Even better suggestion: there's nothing stopping you using two sound cards. Windows supports as many as you want, DOS doesn't know about the card if you don't tell it that it's there. SBLive is one of the best period options for Windows, but it sucks at DOS - not only is OPL sound bad, but the TSR requires specific memory configurations and that's bad news with some games. Yes, it's possible to get a lot to work, but it's fiddly which is not what you want on your first build. Once again, any cheap ISA card will be far better suited for DOS.

Hearing this, I'd suggest going for an Athlon Thunderbird on a Socket A motherboard without Via chipset (as that conflicts with SBLive), but with ISA slots. Leaving out unicorns that basically means you want an AMD 750 chipset, which limits you to 100MHz FSB - but you can get Athlons up to 1.4GHz with 100MHz FSB (look for the 'B' designation, i.e. 1400B, not 1400C, which is 133Mhz). To name a board, I'd say the Gigabyte GA-7IXE4 would be the best choice, but as always with retro stuff, focus on what you can easily find, not something ideal that is unobtainium (or just currently unavailable0.

theiceman085 wrote on 2023-05-16, 11:13:

The area for windows 98 gaming I am into is rather limited. 1997 until late 2000.

The DOS area is bit vast. I am interested in some earlier DOS games like Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, Mortal Kombat 1, 2 Terminator Future Schock. The newest Dos Game I am into is the first Tomb Raider.

If you haven't seen it already, I recommend taking a look at this list: List of CPU speed sensitive games (edited: whoops, just noticed that Joseph_Joestar had linked the same list already).

It will give you an indication of games you might run into issues with running on a faster Windows 98 machine.

FWIW, I have used my own Athlon XP build with some DOS games like Doom, Duke 3D, etc., without issues. But that's not to say that all games would be problem free.

Generally for maximum compatibility, a separate DOS gaming PC is ideal.

@Shponglefan Thanks for the link. I have already seen it after @Joseph_Joestar has posted it already. It was an interesting read. I have to agree that in general, a separate DOS Pc would be the best choice. That's a project for the future though.

@dionb Thanks for your detailed answer.

PowerVR cards are indeed to rare and expensive for considering them seriously. I am a fan of the tech behind PowerVR though. I am also big Dreamcast fan which also had a PowerVR Gpu but have never considered getting one for myself.

A Vodoo 2 on the other hand might be a option but not sure about that. It depends on if I can find one at a good price or not.

Your suggestion with the Athlon Thunderbird sounds really good. I will go for that and look into available motherboards like the Gigabyte GA-7IXE4.

I have also checked into the gpu have even found a local seller in my city that would sell a Leadtek Geforce 3 Ti 200 at a good price. Have not heard about the Ledtek graphics cards but the reviews are quite good so I might be an option. I still keep my eyes open for other options though like the classic geforce 3 or gf 4 4200 in case a good offer might pop up.

But It's good to have the specs list complete.

@all Thanks a lot for helping me out.