I'd recommend adding a second stick of memory for a total of 256MB.

As for graphics card, consider using a GF2MX. It's much faster then TNT. Imo TNT1 isn't really that great and sounds a little underpowered for your rig. I got one new when I bought my brand new P2-350 which is less then half as fast as your CPU.

If having SLI isn't one of your main concerns, consider swapping the V2's with a Voodoo3 3000/3500 AGP so you can omit the TNT altogether 😉.

For harddrive, it's hard to figure out what brands and models were quiet in those days.
I'd say try to find something at least 20GB's or so.
U Series X was quiet (at least the one I got new) and I also found the old IBM Deathstars to be quiet and fast, but are notorious for crashing.

Try to find a drive with fluid bearings, that kinda was the next thing in that era and both old fashioned loud bearings and fluid bearings were made side by side as the old type of bearings were slowly being phased out.

So are you going for a mid 99 - 2000 era PC?

I actually have the same motherboard (bought off ebay) but I haven't done anything with it yet. I've also got an 800MHz Athlon to throw in there 😀

I'm also looking to track down one of the 'Gold fingers' devices that attach to the connector on the side of the CPU and let you change the multiplier, haven't had any luck yet.

I have and SLI setup and made my own internal cable:

just hack up an old floppy cable. Easier than trying to find a real one.
For external cable all you need is a VGA extension lead, shorter the better. You might need to by a gender changer though (shouldn't be more than a few dollars).

For video card... Voodoo 3 probably is the easiest thing to go with and is correct for the era as well. (voodoo 2's were starting on the way out when the athlon came around...) Otherwise, TNT2, Geforce 256, Geforce 2 MX are all good options too.

For hard drives from that era, I like Quantum drives, anything around 5-15GB is correct for the era and the old Quantums seem to go forever. Of course you could just use whatever you can get your hands on. Some of those old games can take up a bit of space, and newer drives are queiter and less likely to fail.

For games... Definitely check out System Shock 2 and Deus Ex (2 of the best games ever made IMHO), also Battlezone, and Unreal if you like shooters (still looks great today running in Glide mode). Total Annihilation is a great RTS. If you like stategy, Caesar 3 and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 are brilliant game from that era. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is also woeth checking out, one of my favourite games. Kingpin was fun for a while, and also Half Life just to see what all the fuss is about.

Ok, so a Geforce 256 seems to be more fitting (gonna look for the DDR version, maybe even one with DVI on it).

The Voodoos are there to see what the hype was about (can't really say nostalgia considering I wasn't gaming back in 98 (had no clue about computers really, that didn't happen until around 2002, but I enjoy the history of things).

SLI Voodoo 2's are pretty cool for the geek factor but you are limited to 1024x768 resolution, and 16 bit colour. Voodoo 3 is less painful to acquire/setup, has 32-bit rendering (internally anyway, there was a lot of hoohah about this back in the day) and higher resolutions.

Geforce 256 is faster in direct3D/OpenGL games but there are some games that only support, or look better in 3dfx Glide mode than any other mode. It depends what games you intend on playing, eg Unreal, you are better off with the Voodoo.

You could always use the Geforce as your primary and use the Voodoo 2's for games that prefer Glide.

DonutKing wrote:

You could always use the Geforce as your primary and use the Voodoo 2's for games that prefer Glide.

Knowing the limitations of Voodoos 2, this is what I'm planning. The voodoos for any Glide games, and the Geforce for 2D and any non Glide games.

Also, how will games like the Half Life run on a Geforce 256?

I know games like Starcraft and AoE and the like will be fine considering they are 2D.

Private_Ops wrote:

Also, how will games like the Half Life run on a Geforce 256?

Like CRAZY. Geforce T&Ls it throughout OpenGL transparently though I recommend playing it in Direct3D since Valve actually pulled off overbrighting which is missing in their OpenGL renderer.

Private_Ops wrote:

I know games like Starcraft and AoE and the like will be fine considering they are 2D.

yep, nothing more than a Tseng ET4000 necessary for those.

Private_Ops wrote:

The Voodoos are there to see what the hype was about (can't really say nostalgia considering I wasn't gaming back in 98 (had no clue about computers really, that didn't happen until around 2002, but I enjoy the history of things)).

Ah, I can see where you're coming from 😉
I've build a Voodoo 2 rig for basically the same reason. It uses a single Voodoo 2 on a Super 7 board and wanted to know how this 3D card was like.

The Geforce DDR may be a bit harder to track down though, I found the GF2 and TNT2 to be much more available, but that may depend on where you live.
Voodoo 3 is recommended over the other 2 as Voodoo 3 gives somewhat equal performance as the other 2 as well as supporting Glide, 2 for the price of 1.
The Voodoo 3 has only 1 drawback, it only supports 16 bit (at least in Windows anyway) but in practical terms I find this fact to be irrelevant.
The Voodoo 3 has good image quality, very good compatibility and the Voodoo 3 AGP is still quite easy to get (unlike the PCI version, which is a bit harder to find for cheapz 😜).

May I ask, what is your reason/motivation for building a retro rig? I'm asking this purely out of curiosity btw 😉

Tetrium wrote:

Private_Ops wrote:

May I ask, what is your reason/motivation for building a retro rig? I'm asking this purely out of curiosity btw 😉

Not many modern games I really enjoy. Why not play the few old ones I have played (as well as ones I haven't played) on hardware of the era?

Also, I just like old things (especially when it comes to vehicles, much simpler).