VOGONS


First post, by Taylor7108

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Hi all!

I was recently given a Compaq Presario 6310US and monitor for free, and I was considering transforming it into a Windows 98 gaming rig to play mostly 3DFX games from the era. Specs are below:

Athlon XP 1800 @ 1.53Ghz / 233mhz
512MB RAM
https://www.cnet.com/products/compaq-presario … e-series/specs/

If I can find Windows 98 drivers for the mobo and grab a nice 32MB graphics card, would this be a good candidate to play things like AVP2, Serious Sam, Diablo 2 Alice, No One Lives Forever, Kingpin, etc.?

I was somewhat concerned about possible timing issues with mid-90s DOS games, but with a 233mhz bus, I suppose I could use a clock modifier if necessary.

Also, would it best to find a 32MB card and pair it with a Voodoo 3D graphics card? Or, would just a 32MB card be sufficient for 3DFX compatible titles?

Current Build: 486 DX2 66 / 16MB RAM / 2GB CF / CL5428 VLB 1MB / Aztech 2316 Sound / DOS 6.22

Reply 1 of 5, by skitters

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Finding Windows 98 motherboard drivers might be a problem.

The computer doesn't seem to have an AGP slot, so you'll need a video card that fits a PCI slot.
You'll probably need a new power supply if the computer is still using the original one.

Of the games you listed, none of them absolutely need 3dfx.

Alien vs Predator 2 -- DirectX 8

Serious Sam -- Open GL compliant

Diablo II -- Glide or Direct3D

Alice -- OpenGL

No One Lives Forever -- Direct3D

Kingpin -- Open GL or Glide

(I got the 3D video requirements from the pictures of the back of game boxes at Mobygames)

Reply 2 of 5, by Tetrium

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May I suggest you get a proper sA board which does have an AGP slot? I haven't played most of these games but AVP2 runs fluently on a vanilla Radeon 9600 and AGP cards in the performance bracket of R9600 should be very easy to find.
It would save you the trouble of finding a compatible PCI graphics card and will be much easier and flexible to work with down the road (but do keep in mind that many of these boards have problems with their caps).

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My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
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Reply 3 of 5, by nforce4max

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Got worse systems but if you don't mind the expense you could just settle with a Voodoo 2 and something to go along with it as pci Voodoo 3 on up are fairly expensive. For raw speed and flexibility just go along with what Tetrium suggested.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 4 of 5, by Taylor7108

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Thank you for the suggestions!

This PC actually does have an AGP slot, which surprised me. I was thinking of pairing something like a Geforce2 GTS (32MB) with a 12MB Voodoo PCI card. Would having a Voodoo card make sense in this setup? Seems that the primary card would be more than sufficient, but I am not sure.

Current Build: 486 DX2 66 / 16MB RAM / 2GB CF / CL5428 VLB 1MB / Aztech 2316 Sound / DOS 6.22

Reply 5 of 5, by Jorpho

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Taylor7108 wrote:

Seems that the primary card would be more than sufficient, but I am not sure.

I would be inclined to agree, but of course it depends on what you end up getting.

I would also be inclined to go for a GeForce 4 Ti, assuming it's not much more expensive.