Okay I've kinda shown off my build a few times on Vogons , but might as well.

Most used retro rig:

[The Swiss Army Knife Tier Retro PC]

Peripherals:

21" Sony Trinitron G500
Data Mini keyboard with Cherry MX Blues
Logitech Mechanical mouse
Roland MA20 Speakers
Original Roland MPU 401 Breakout box
Roland MPU 105 MIDI Switchbox
Roland MT32
Roland CM32L
Roland SC55 MK1 Ver 1.21
Roland SC55 MK2 Ver 1.01
Roland SC88 Pro
Yamaha MU80
LPT Mechanical Switchbox
CMSLPT Sound Device Phillips SA1099 based Sound Device
TNDLPT SN76489 based Sound Device
Microsoft Sidewinder 3D pro
2x Gravis Gamepads

Software:

DOS 6.22
Windows 3.11
Windows 95

Specs:

Pentium 223 MMX CPU
MSI 5148 Motherboard
32MB RAM via DIMM socket
10 GIG LEMIWEI CF card
20 GIG Phison SSD
200 WATT Delta PSU
STB Velocity 3D S3 Virge based card with 4mb VRAM onboard and 4MB EDO daughtercard ram add on(3d only)
Diamond Monster 3dfx Voodoo based card w/4mb ram
NEC PCX1 Imagination Technologies PowerVR based card with 4mb of ram
Sound Blaster 16 CT1740
Sound Blaster AWE64 GOLD with 28mb of ram via a 32mb simm on a SIMMCONN Revival add on board
Primax Soundstorm M16C GF1 Gravis Ultrasound based card with 1mb of ram.
MIF IPC-B made by TexElec(Roland MIF Interface Clone card)
1.2mb floppy drive made by Panasonic
1.44mb floppy drive made by Sony
NEC 8x CDROM drive
Throttle Blaster CPU Speed Adjustment Mod

So uh in a nutshell the idea was to have a bit of dream system that covered as many bases as possible.
Now obviously accounting for every niche expansion option is impossible so i got most of the well known ones plus a few i thought were cool.
It also has a Throttleblaster that lets me adjust the speed between 1 and 233 mhz for those games that rely on the clockspeed being at particular values.

I've run everything on this system from Police Quest 1 in EGA with Tandy sound to Myth on Windows 95 with a 3DFX voodoo and AWE64.

Retro Rig Number 2:

Now the other system I've been using a lot of is the original sharp X68000 ,
its a really cool and novel system and has some neat arcade ports and some exclusive titles.

Also some interesting things to note are :

Has a pop up carry handle
Some games like Cotton make the keyboard led lights dance.
It comes with two 1.2 mb 5.25 drives by default.
A handful of games use the expansion card slot of the CM32P/CM64 midi module to add in extra sets of drums or guitars so you can go even upgrade crazy.
It comes with a pretty potent 2151 Yamaha FM chip built in (earlier version of the same chip as the FB01 and IMFC).
You can upgrade the ram to 12 megabytes via expansion slot.
You need a TRI sync monitor to run all the games.

There are also 2 more neglected systems I'll mention in passing

Windows 98 SE Rig

Asus P3BF 1.04 motherboard
Pentium 3 800mhz 100fsb
384 mb of ram
Canopus Spectra Geforce DDR 256
Matrox Mystique 220 4mb
Creative DXr2
Sound blaster live SB0060
Diamond monster mx 300 based on the Aureal Vortex 2
Two 12MB Voodoo 2s in SLI
250 Watt Dell Newton Power Supply.

Amiga System

Amiga 1200 REV 1A
TerribleFire 1260 w/ REV 5 68060 @66mhz
EIDE IDE addon
Gotek
CF card + Interface w/ Amiga OS 3.22
CM8833 Mk2 monitor

Erm probably should dust those off more tbh.

Excellent Amiga setup AppleSauce I have almost the same - except I use a indy MK1 for shared VGA output with the DOS pc 😁

keropi wrote on 2025-05-30, 12:23:

Excellent Amiga setup AppleSauce I have almost the same - except I use a indy MK1 for shared VGA output with the DOS pc 😁

Thanks.
The indy , is that the indivision scandoubler thingy?

AppleSauce wrote on 2025-05-30, 13:24:

keropi wrote on 2025-05-30, 12:23:

Excellent Amiga setup AppleSauce I have almost the same - except I use a indy MK1 for shared VGA output with the DOS pc 😁

Thanks.
The indy , is that the indivision scandoubler thingy?

yep, it is the 1st version that got released that only had VGA output : https://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/Indivision_AGA_MK1
the manual video switch is visible in my photo below, to select between pc/amiga , with such low resolutions I cannot detect any kind of signal deterioration

might as well add my most used retro-rig, it is the Amstrad MegaPC - I am a sucker for it's dual nature 🤣
before that I used mostly a 200mmx system - that is still hooked up under the desk for things that the megapc cannot run

keropi wrote on 2025-05-30, 15:52:

might as well add my most used retro-rig, it is the Amstrad MegaPC - I am a sucker for it's dual nature 🤣
before that I used mostly a 200mmx system - that is still hooked up under the desk for things that the megapc cannot run

that is one cool machine and setup 😀 Looks like a great screen too from the pic

keropi wrote on 2025-05-30, 15:52:

yep, it is the 1st version that got released that only had VGA output : https://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/Indivision_AGA_MK1 the manual […]
Show full quote

AppleSauce wrote on 2025-05-30, 13:24:

keropi wrote on 2025-05-30, 12:23:

Excellent Amiga setup AppleSauce I have almost the same - except I use a indy MK1 for shared VGA output with the DOS pc 😁

Thanks.
The indy , is that the indivision scandoubler thingy?

yep, it is the 1st version that got released that only had VGA output : https://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/Indivision_AGA_MK1
the manual video switch is visible in my photo below, to select between pc/amiga , with such low resolutions I cannot detect any kind of signal deterioration

might as well add my most used retro-rig, it is the Amstrad MegaPC - I am a sucker for it's dual nature 🤣
before that I used mostly a 200mmx system - that is still hooked up under the desk for things that the megapc cannot run

Handy bit of kit that.
Also that MegaPC is pretty sweet.

I mean.. how do we define retro in this context? 🤣

Because my Windows XP retro-rig, is also my Windows 10 daily driver, courtesy of Ivy-Bridge. I do have a pure Windows 98 machine also though.

Wurenji wrote on 2025-05-29, 17:53:

It looks very generic, but it's different than other X800 XT, as it have PCIe 6-pin power connector and DDR memory at 700MHz eff […]
Show full quote

It looks very generic, but it's different than other X800 XT, as it have PCIe 6-pin power connector and DDR memory at 700MHz effective instead of GDDR3. I think this combination is also China exclusive.

Btw, the fan is extremely loud, always runs at full speed and makes my case vibrate. I have been considering of buying an aftermarket cooler, but prices are not very friendly and many of them do not support this board

The attachment 5A98B283B9B636792737938379F87CC6.jpg is no longer available

The attachment F980E79193368CA04266AD569F0845E0.jpg is no longer available

Very nice card!
And it looks very much like Gainward cards of 2005-2006 era. Perhaps they were made in the same factory 😁 Also at the time I believe Gainward was Nvidia only brand, which makes even weirder.
Check this GF 6800 GS and 7800 GT.
https://hw-museum.cz/vga/311/gainward-geforce … 0-gs-agp--nv41-
https://hw-museum.cz/vga/307/gainward-geforce-7800-gt-512-mb

havli wrote on 2025-06-02, 21:48:

Very nice card! And it looks very much like Gainward cards of 2005-2006 era. Perhaps they were made in the same factory :D Also […]
Show full quote

Wurenji wrote on 2025-05-29, 17:53:

It looks very generic, but it's different than other X800 XT, as it have PCIe 6-pin power connector and DDR memory at 700MHz eff […]
Show full quote

It looks very generic, but it's different than other X800 XT, as it have PCIe 6-pin power connector and DDR memory at 700MHz effective instead of GDDR3. I think this combination is also China exclusive.

Btw, the fan is extremely loud, always runs at full speed and makes my case vibrate. I have been considering of buying an aftermarket cooler, but prices are not very friendly and many of them do not support this board

The attachment 5A98B283B9B636792737938379F87CC6.jpg is no longer available

The attachment F980E79193368CA04266AD569F0845E0.jpg is no longer available

Very nice card!
And it looks very much like Gainward cards of 2005-2006 era. Perhaps they were made in the same factory 😁 Also at the time I believe Gainward was Nvidia only brand, which makes even weirder.
Check this GF 6800 GS and 7800 GT.
https://hw-museum.cz/vga/311/gainward-geforce … 0-gs-agp--nv41-
https://hw-museum.cz/vga/307/gainward-geforce-7800-gt-512-mb

Beautiful cards! I have never seen any Nvidia card with heatsink latching mechanisms similar to my X800's.
Yes they are from the same ODM - Palit. In the early 2000s there were 5 common brands that made by Palit, called "Palit's Five Tigers" in Chinese PC DIY community: Colorful, Unika, Onda, Yeston and Maxsun, so you can see many similar cards bearing different brands from the five. (I have a PC DIY book from 2009 with a picture of a Yeston X800 Pro, very similar to mine, but it was a PCIe version.)
Later Gainward was acquired by Palit because the bad capacitors on their Ti4200s made it in trouble.

Alexraptor wrote on 2025-06-02, 21:27:

I mean.. how do we define retro in this context? 🤣

Because my Windows XP retro-rig, is also my Windows 10 daily driver, courtesy of Ivy-Bridge. I do have a pure Windows 98 machine also though.

Time machines are good! I also have an Ivy Bridge rig (see my signature) which is capable of XP to Win11. Was my dorm PC in uni for several years, and it's packed in a fancy Jonsbo D30 aluminum case with glass side panels.
Windows 11 is not so snappy on Ivy Bridge, so I downgraded to Win10 last year. I'm planning to make it an ultimate Vista rig but I'm just too lazy😂

Wurenji wrote on 2025-06-03, 15:06:

Alexraptor wrote on 2025-06-02, 21:27:

I mean.. how do we define retro in this context? 🤣

Because my Windows XP retro-rig, is also my Windows 10 daily driver, courtesy of Ivy-Bridge. I do have a pure Windows 98 machine also though.

Time machines are good! I also have an Ivy Bridge rig (see my signature) which is capable of XP to Win11. Was my dorm PC in uni for several years, and it's packed in a fancy Jonsbo D30 aluminum case with glass side panels.
Windows 11 is not so snappy on Ivy Bridge, so I downgraded to Win10 last year. I'm planning to make it an ultimate Vista rig but I'm just too lazy😂

Time Machine is a pretty apt description. So far I've had zero problems with running DX9 games on the hardware, and the just released Stellar Blade Demo runs like a dream on max 1600x1200, near-max settings. So that's over two decades of gaming right there. Granted many 90's games will run too, but results may vary with DX8 and 7. 😉

Titan X is an amazing GPU!

I'll post my hardware gore:

What's really curious is - i have a few builds. Period correct stuff, fun platforms i just wanted to play around with, etc. But most of the time when i want to do something not related to hardware itself, like open old document, play a game, whatever i end up using this system. This came to be during 2020... mess as dedicated "work from home" PC, because i needed XP with weird custom VPN/encryption software for that and did not want to mess with it on my main system.

The hardware is: C2D E8600/ECS G31T-M3/2x2GB DDR2/GTX660 2GB/3x256GB SSD+500GB HDD/pci-x intel dual port gigabit server nic, because integrated one is dead.

At this point it runs WinXP for old games, office 2003 stuff, said VPN, etc. Win7 for nvidia 3dvision kit i still have, which annoyingly does not work on XP and basically requires vista/7. Linux for modern stuff like browsing or doing things which work better in linux in general like messing with openwrt, messing with HDDs and whatnot. Since it is connected to separate monitor if i am not using it for retro stuff i am commonly using it to watch videos or listen to music in background while i am doing something else on modern system. Interestingly enough with decent/modern enough GPU and hardware acceleration for the browser it handles modern internet very well.

Having linux is also useful for running TRIM on SSDs since XP does not support it - it is configured to run TRIM for empty space on all the SSDs once a day on boot which helps maintaining performance on XP.

This was thrown together in a hurry from random parts and ended up being surprisingly useful and reliable system used almost daily. It makes some other builds feel a bit... redundant.The only downside is lack of soundcard/EAX for XP games, but that NIC makes this impossible. I probably need to rebuild it with another motherboard which has working NIC (i have a few of this boards) and add something like audigy4, but honestly... works well as it is and i rarely care all that much about sound anyway (and if i do i have other systems). Integrated realtek something works well enough.

I also never understood whole idea of obsessive cable management and making PCs look "pretty" inside. My builds always end up like this - all cables easily accessible and only "managed" enough to not interfere with fans. Intended to be used in closed case with no windows 😀