chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-11, 15:28:Don't know how much space you have but for me this is the perfect excuse to have multiple PC's […]
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Don't know how much space you have but for me this is the perfect excuse to have multiple PC's
#1 Late dos/early 9x PC build around the Voodoo 1.
#2 All rounder PC with the V2's and say a GF4 Ti or FX card for strong Glide and D3D performance
#3 Glide focused V5 build.
Benefit of your Slot 1 motherboards is that gives you 3 different systems to have 3 different ISA sound cards as well. You could have all of the "big three" represented Creative, ESS, Yamaha, or go slightly crazy with Midi.
Also allowing you to have a EAX and a A3D build for Windows side of things.
Realistically you could probably combine build #1 with either 2 or 3 if needed.
Just an idea, I get the wanting to have the "Ultimate 3DFX" so to speak, but if your having to compromise then will you really be satisfied with it?
or if you do want to keep the 1 PC to rule them all approach I like the idea of having multiple cards and swapping out, that's the beauty of cards. You could say have three 64GB cards with he first having all your V1 games, 2nd having V2 games, etc
Facing compromises makes me research things to figure out new approaches. It is how I learned about the Xircom pocket ethernet adapter, and looked into serial modems, and found a usb/ethernet combo card that I am looking at. It allows me to try and experience "new" things that I never got to try out , back in the day. However, I have considered moving the Voodoo1 to another system, as I can put a Pentium II back on the P2B, or in the 2nd Gateway, or in a Pentium 60 machine I have. I have a ton of options. I have a 5200 FX 64MB that came with one of the Gateways (I haven't looked at which card is with the other one, though it is probably a TNT,) and I can always buy more components. However, if I do that, it will probably be down the road after I "win" with the Ultimate Voodoo Gateway, and use it for a while.
I used to do stuff like this and slap old computers together a lot, and then I was in the motorcycle accident and then experienced a couple of other accidents, and I had stopped doing a lot of this stuff, and I ended up losing MANY spare components, from graphics cards to RAM sticks of all kinds to stacks of optical, floppy, and hard drives, and I had given it up as a hobby. The drive to work on these projects came back along with a strong wave of nostalgia (I blame the state of our world for that, from how people are behaving to the loss of older technologies in favor of "progress," and the loss of many businesses and institutions that I used to believe would be around, forever.) It has lead to me learning about all sorts of things, both old and new.
I was heavy into emulation, through DosBox and 86Box, though it just isn't the same (though when we can mount physical drives in 86box and emulate Pentium IIIs and they fix the dynarec and solve the crackling sound in Win98 problem, and hopefully emulate the AWE64, the Live!, and Voodoo5 cards, I may build an 86box specific PC in a beige desktop or mini-tower and experiment my building all sorts of virtual systems. There is just nothing like playing games and using apps on original hardware. I even replaced my 4DPS motherboard; I found an awesome Russian who was selling one on ebay. It took almost 2-2.5 months to arrive, but it was worth it (I hope to visit Russia someday and visit with the seller and have a beer, we had similar experiences with computers in our youth.) So I rebuilt my 486DX2 66, and even though I will use an SD card with a strict MS-DOS setup and bought moslo deluxe (and will probably buy moslo 4biz for Windows,) I will still use the 486 more often to run games up to early 1995 on real hardware (and SD/CF cards.)
Another thing I have considered, is adding other voodoo cards to systems, if I find them at good deals. My first 3d accelerated experience was on my Pentium 90 (overclocked to 100Mhz because if I didn't, the intro speech from Veil of Darkness was screechy and scratchy - I have no idea how as a teen, I figured that out.) I bought a 3d card which was trash - some Creative Labs card, and I was able to convince a clerk at Electronics Boutique (ah, remember that place?) to let me exchange it for a Diamond Monster 3d card, and I bought Myth - The Fallen Lords. My mind was blown, and so I promptly bought Dark Forces II - Jedi Knight, and that was the first 3d game I ever played from start top finish with a 3fdx card. It was why I selected the Voodoo3 (never had a Voodoo2 back in the day) when I bought my Gateway in 1999, and why the recreated Gateway 99 will have a Voodoo3, despite arguably better cards being available. So I may build a Voodoo1 based Pentium 90/100. It won't be the same, because I have no idea what the components were - it was a CTC computer (I can't find any info on the company,) with a Televideo 2d card, and a Sound Blaster Pro compatible card that I have no idea what it was, though if I can find video examples of the set up program, I remember how the music sounded when testing the port, irq, and dma set up. I can put any Voodoo1 in there, it doesn't have to be a Diamond, as they were all the same except for the Canopus cards.
I digress, yet again, hehehe! I hope that my walls of text aren't a bother. Writing is another hobby, I have many experiences to share, and I love providing details for proper context.