reserved

reserved

Family PC ?
Thats funny.
NO more Family phone
NO more family TV
NO More family radio
NO more family size meals
NO more family car
Etc…..
It’s all gone away for Security and Privacy.
Merchants can make more money selling you individual plans and sizes.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-09, 00:48:

Initial planned specs are as follows: […]
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Initial planned specs are as follows:

• Pentium MMX 166
• Gigabyte GA-586ATV motherboard (Intel 430VX)
• 24MB of RAM (8MB FPM / 16MB EDO) - this is to mimic the original janky RAM install we had
• Matrox Millenium (4MB)
• Diamond Monster 3D
• Sound Blaster 16
• 3.5" floppy drive
• 8x Mitsumi CD-ROM
• CF-to-IDE adapter + 4GB CF card
• AT case + PSU

Had a very similar system for my parents back in 1997 as well. While it was not the first computer of our family, it was the first one that my parents started to learn about the Win95 interface (I tried to teach them some basic Win31 operations but they were not interested a single bit). For some reason it became the least memorable computer in my life: the make and model of its motherboard was long forgotten, and neither me nor my parents remembered the exact date of its recycling. The spec I could remember include:

• Pentium-MMX 166
• 16 MB (2 x 8 MB) of 72-pin EDO RAM*
• S3 Trio64 V2/DX with 1 MB DRAM*
• Quantum ST4320AT 4.3 GB 7200 rpm HDD*
• 3.5" FDD*
• CD-ROM
• AT case + PSU

The RAM, graphics card, HDD, and FDD are still part of my spare parts. Note there was no sound card as my parents thought it was unnecessary for computers to have sound other than simple beeps from the PC speaker. Now they watch streaming videos on computers for hours every day. 😅

Rebuilding a 1997 budget computer is a waist of time for a PC gamer.
You should put your time and money into a computer that plays games in good quality

Pentium MMX 200mhz or better
AMD K6-2, 333mhz or better
32mb RAM or more
Win95
Sound Blaster Pro
8x CDROM or Faster. 52x preferred or DVD
S3 trio64
Voodoo 3
CF card

Quality Audio and Video , Speed and Reliability.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-10-09, 11:12:

Rebuilding a 1997 budget computer is a waist of time for a PC gamer. You should put your time and money into a computer that pla […]
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Rebuilding a 1997 budget computer is a waist of time for a PC gamer.
You should put your time and money into a computer that plays games in good quality

Pentium MMX 200mhz or better
AMD K6-2, 333mhz or better
32mb RAM or more
Win95
Sound Blaster Pro
8x CDROM or Faster. 52x preferred or DVD
S3 trio64
Voodoo 3
CF card

Quality Audio and Video , Speed and Reliability.

Your list is about the same specs as the other builds in this thread so I'm not really getting the point of your post.

The difference between a 166 and 233 MHz MMX is not huge... and if something needs more powerful, play it on another computer 😀

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-10-09, 11:12:

You should put your time and money into a computer that plays games in good quality

I already have other computers for that. The purpose of this build is to relive some nostalgia and do benchmarking to compare what we had back in 1997 with other systems.

dormcat wrote on 2024-10-09, 10:17:

The RAM, graphics card, HDD, and FDD are still part of my spare parts. Note there was no sound card as my parents thought it was unnecessary for computers to have sound other than simple beeps from the PC speaker. Now they watch streaming videos on computers for hours every day. 😅

No sound card? I couldn't even trying to imagine using a computer in the late 90s with only PC speaker. 😅

My parents used the computer mainly for typing letters and emails. They probably would have stuck with the 486 we had, if not for relentless hounding by their children. 😁

OSkar000 wrote on 2024-10-09, 13:17:

The difference between a 166 and 233 MHz MMX is not huge... and if something needs more powerful, play it on another computer 😀

One thing I am interested to see is how much of a performance difference there would have been between the 166-200-233 MMX processors. Not to mention the difference between the Pentium Pro 200 used in CGW's ultimate gaming PC for Jan 1997.

This build is going to be all about nostalgia and benchmarks. 😀

to me, pentium mmx most meaningfully benefitted 1997 games. comparing a pentium 133 with a 200 mmx, the latter was able to push a quite playable 400x300 in hexen ii, while the game was unplayable on the former even in 320x200. but FX vs TX differences may have played into that a bit as well.

by 1998, both setups would feel outdated for demanding new games, despite what the requirements suggested. paying top money for a 200 mmx in early 1997 meant getting one of the worst setups in terms of longevity, IMO. the only benefit was the ability to put in a cheap K6-2 upgrade later on - if the board's regulator allowed it, that is.

Back in 1997 people were using

Pentium 90 and 100mhz CPU
Pentium Pro CPU
AMD k5
486 CPU
Win95
5400rpm IDE hard drives
8 or 16mb EDO RAM
Matrox video cards
ISA Sound blaster 16
PCI sound blaster
Win NT 3,5,1
WinNT 4.0
3com 10base-t network cards. But most people only had 5mb/s or 10mb/s network cables and equipment

These computers were fast enough for basic office/home use but NOT internet portals
I worked at an internet portal startup company and we had a fast network with a 1-gigabyte cat-5 network.

We mainly used expensive UNIX computers but we had an New HP PC
The PC had pentium CPU
32mb RAM
IDE hard drive
Win95

Well, No one used it because it would Choke on the Network.
It could NOT handle the large data files.
They were only about 10gb but the computer would choke and Freeze up trying to open them..
So no one used it.

I assume it was the Slow hard drive causing it to crash or maybe it was the network card driver.
Or Win95 not sure. Never tried to trouble shoot it as it was an I.T. corp computer responsibility.
We were supporting the UNIX computers and NOT the PC’s;

Back in 1997 people used dial up modems ( 33k and 56k )
Having a home network or high speed Ethernet internet was not common.

Set up the motherboard on my test bench to confirm everything works. I had previously recapped this board, so I'm hoping it should be good and reliable.

I tested the three older SB 16's I have (CT1740, 1750, 1790).

While the CT1750 and 1790 worked fine, the CT1740 failed to output any digital audio. It worked fine with FM, but not digital sound. I chucked it in the repair bin and will use the CT1790 instead.

From what I've read, the 1740 and 1790 are identical except for the CD-ROM interface, which I'm not using anyway.

auron wrote on 2024-10-09, 20:35:

to me, pentium mmx most meaningfully benefitted 1997 games. comparing a pentium 133 with a 200 mmx, the latter was able to push a quite playable 400x300 in hexen ii, while the game was unplayable on the former even in 320x200. but FX vs TX differences may have played into that a bit as well.

by 1998, both setups would feel outdated for demanding new games, despite what the requirements suggested. paying top money for a 200 mmx in early 1997 meant getting one of the worst setups in terms of longevity, IMO. the only benefit was the ability to put in a cheap K6-2 upgrade later on - if the board's regulator allowed it, that is.

I remember the Pentium MMX 166 being pretty good for gaming at the time. We mostly played Build-engine games (Duke 3D, Blood, etc.) and GLQuake, and it was a solid performer for those.

By 1998, I agree, an MMX system went obsolete pretty quickly. It was around that time I bought my first computer myself, an AMD K6-2 333 with a Riva TNT graphics card.

The pace of technology was pretty crazy back then, and you needed to upgrade about every 2 years just to keep up.

Third PC by '97! We only replaced the Apple IIe in '95 with a 486 which was the only PC till I got my very own (as in not the family) PII 400 in '99.
I love the secret upgrades though. I doubt my parents would have noticed either but luckily I didn't have to hide the fact, just as long as they could still use MS Office.
I still have that 486 and can't bring myself to upgrade it as that IS my memories. Instead I have faster better equipped 486's but the original is still my favourite.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-10-09, 22:24:

I remember the Pentium MMX 166 being pretty good for gaming at the time. We mostly played Build-engine games (Duke 3D, Blood, etc.) and GLQuake, and it was a solid performer for those.

Yeah, 3D titles from 1997 aren't too demanding. I also have a Pentium MMX 166 + Voodoo 1 system, and most games from that year run fine on it. That said, Quake 2 dropped in December of 1997, which did make people want a more powerful setup. However, it still runs reasonably well at 512x384, almost hitting 30 FPS in the stock timedemo benchmark on my rig. This would have been considered decent performance at the time.

But in 1998, we got some heavy hitters like Unreal and Half-Life, which needed more powerful hardware to run smoothly.

Just for perspective, the minimum specs for UT99 is PMMX 233 with 32mb RAM. So I wouldn’t write off PMMX too quick. It remained a very popular choice all the way up to the end of 1998.

Nice build. Many such towers had teal/mint colored power button I guess it’s factory option.

did you actually try it on that hardware? fortunately, a video of this is available. for reference, this is the beta version with unreal's less complex models and animations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJTgMUqxqQ0

for a fast multiplayer focused game like this, at least 30 fps should be a fair target. a p2 300 is needed to attain this - coincidentally, that's what they listed as a "typical system" in the included documentation. with 5 bots on high difficulty, this will still often dip well below 20 fps.

UT99 maybe not so much, but Unreal was played on many PMMX systems in 1998.

The views on what minimal system requirements are and what is considered playable were also different back then.

Bruno128 wrote on 2024-10-12, 09:07:

The views on what minimal system requirements are and what is considered playable were also different back then.

Yeah, back in the day some companies were "overly optimistic" about minimum system requirements to sell more copies of their games.

I certainly wouldn't build a retro rig based on that info. Not when there are actual game benchmarks out there on sites like Anandtech.