Want to build retro gaming PC (Win 98) suggestions/ideas for hardware

[phill]

Must have been a different Phil.....

 

[OlderSchool]

I have Windows 98 and Windows XP computers with keyboards and monitors.
I am the original owner and only used for personal use. All have factory Windows installed.
All in working condition.
In Houston, Texas metro area.

 

[dorsetknob]

I have Windows 98 and Windows XP computers with keyboards and monitors.
I am the original owner and only used for personal use. All have factory Windows installed.
All in working condition.

Welcome to the Forums of TPU
whats the spec's on those PC's

 

[eidairaman1]

I have Windows 98 and Windows XP computers with keyboards and monitors.
I am the original owner and only used for personal use. All have factory Windows installed.
All in working condition.
In Houston, Texas metro area.

He lives in the UK

 

[argon]

why dont just use virtualbox and windows 98 ?

 

[eidairaman1]

why dont just use virtualbox and windows 98 ?

Because virtualization is slower

 

[NoJuan999]

why dont just use virtualbox and windows 98 ?

Building a retro PC is definely more fun and way cooler.

 

[silentbogo]

For a monitor you should definitely get a SyncMaster 710N. They are unkillable (some just need capacitor replacement). And you can probably get one for like $10-15 used in a decent condition.
I'd give you one for free, but shipping from Ukraine to UK is gonna cost more than a few of those in mint condition )))
I had one 710N which my cousin bought for school back in 2003, retired to my workshop 10 years later, and now it's still kicking at my friend's house.

 

[mashie]

If you are looking at what hardware was available which year I did some research years ago when I was planning on building a "Time Machine" mod holding 10 systems where a KVM switch would let me switch between the years. I never got around to collect all the hardware in the end, nor assemble it. The idea was to get the highest spec released hardware for each year between 1997 and 2004, this was the list I built up:

Gaming box 1997:

CPU: P2 300
Mobo: Abit BX6
RAM: 128 MB Azzo Cas 2 SDRAM
HDD: 6.4 GB
Video 3D: Canopus Pure3D (Voodoo1 6MB)
Video 2D: ???
Soundcard: AWE64 Gold?


Gaming box 1998:

CPU: Celeron 300A @ 450
Mobo: Asus P2B
RAM: 196MB PC100
HDD: 6.4 GB
Video 3D: Diamond Monster 3D2 (Voodoo2 12MB SLI)
Video 2D: Diamond Monster FireGL 1000 Pro AGP
Soundcard: Diamond Monster Sound MX300


Gaming box 1999:

CPU: P3 733/800EB
Mobo: Abit BE6
RAM: 256MB PC133
HDD: ~20GB
Video 3D: Diamond TNT2 Ultra 32MB
Soundcard: Diamond Monster Sound MX300


Gaming box 2000:

CPU: Athlon4 1.2Ghz
Mobo: ??
RAM: 512MB PC133
HDD: ~40GB
Video 3D: Visiontek GeForce2 Ultra
Soundcard: Diamond Monster Sound MX400


Gaming box 2001:

CPU: XP1800
Mobo: Epox 8K7A
RAM: 2 x 256 Corsair XMS PC2400
HDD: Western Digital Caviar WD1000JB
Video 3D: GeForce 3 Titanium 500
Soundcard: SB Live!


Gaming box 2002:

CPU: P4 3.06B
Mobo: Intel D850EMV2 (D850EMR)
RAM: 1GB PC1066 -32P
HDD: Western Digital Caviar WD2000JB
Video 3D: 9700Pro 128MB
Soundcard: SB Audigy


Gaming box 2003:

CPU: AMD FX51 (940)
Mobo: Asus SK8N
RAM: 1GB PC3200 ECC
HDD: RAID0 2 x Western Digital Raptor WD360GD
Video 3D: 9800XT
Soundcard: SB Audigy 2


Gaming box 2004:

CPU: AMD FX55
Mobo: Asus A8N-SLI
RAM: 1GB PC3200
HDD: RAID0 2 x Western Digital Raptor WD740GD
Video 3D: 2 x BFG 6800 Ultra (256MB SLI)
Soundcard: SB Audigy 4 Pro

 

[argon]

Because virtualization is slower

defenitely not, i use virtualization for mac os and its more heavy than win 98, or why dont just use old game on windows 10 ? lots of old games, are on gog.com

 

[Susquehannock]

defenitely not, i use virtualization for mac os and its more heavy than win 98, or why dont just use old game on windows 10 ? lots of old games, are on gog.com

Either you feel the nostalgia factor using old hardware or you don't. Simple as that. Some people may not understand me driving a 50+ year old classic when my modern car will do 100-mph too. To each their own.

 

[Grog6]

I have a Win98 machine running now.

I don't use it for gaming, it's running a set of Tennelec PCA3 Multichannel Analyzer cards.
(It's a Gamma Spectroscopy system)

It's a Socket 7 system with a K6-III/450 processor, which was pretty nice for playing Q2 back in the day.

The biggest problem you run into with old mobos is the capacitors are all dead by now, or will die soon.

I had to go thru and replace all of the electrolytics on the board and the video card; a TNT2.

I did find that in the days of the cache memory being on the mobo, only the first 128MB is cached, so it doesn't help to load it full with all 768MB, lol.

The Athlon system mentioned above is actually faster; I also have an A7N8X mobo, and an Athlon XP-2500M processor will run on it with a 400MHz FS bus and 2700MHz clock (Real clock, stock on that processor is 1800), and run very cool.
(200MHz *13.5, chip seems picky on which multipliers it will run.)

The fan on the processor failed, as it was a very buried TV server at the time; it wouldn't do 1080p in MP4 files fast enough to run video anymore, so it had to be replaced.
I noticed the fan had been dead for years, and it never gave me any issues, lol.

It ran WinXP for many years with no issues at all.

 

[RichF]

How about most notorious?

Pentium III 1.13 GHz
AOpen AX6C
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 75 GB hard drive
Matrox Parhelia-512 GPU
Windows ME
Generic PSU

— so unreliable it was recalled
— for PC-800 RDRAM which was overpriced and underperforming
— "deathstar"
— didn't actually have Shader Model 2 support, so not true DX 9 compatibility, among other problems
— unstable
— literal flames

If you are planning on spending the money on RDRAM, then the AX6C is a perfect combination for the $500 - $1000 you would spend on a single stick of RDRAM at the time of publication.

Intel kept completely quiet after the release of my second article. I finally received the special VC820 motherboard that was tailored for the Pentium III 1.13 GHz and the testing on this platform confirmed my accusations. My Pentium III sample was still flaky on this platform as well. Obviously I decided against publishing another article about this dreadful CPU, since I didn't want to upset even more of my unbelieving readers. In the meantime Intel had asked me to send my processor sample back, so that they could scrutinize it. Unfortunately my faith in Intel's words wasn't big enough to dare giving away the one and only proof I had. I decided to hang on to it and asked Intel to send me a working sample instead.

In a crazy act of retaliation against my article about the faulty Pentium III 1.13 GHz processor, an Intel official had decided to suddenly take Tom's Hardware out of the loop. Almost any other hardware website reported about the Pentium 4 architecture except of us, because we had never received the information.

 

[Grog6]

I can throw one of those out there, lol.

P4 3.06GHz with hyperthreading. Ran 80C with stock cooler, 60C at idle with a thermatake heat pipe cooler.
P4T533 RAMBUS 32-bit memory (Only 256MB sticks available, and only fits 2, $300 each)
Maxtor 200GB hard drive (When patches not installed, would overwrite from the beginning after ~128GB, lol.)
MS Bob, then Windows 2000
Thermatake PurePower power supply, that dripped goo put of the caps all over the GPU and killed it.

Worst computer I ever had, bar none.
MS Bob lasted about 10 minutes before it got replaced with Win2k, and it took 3 reinstalls, with 23 reboots to get it working on the last reload.
(The process was so frustrating, I put hashmarks on the side of my filing cabinet to keep track of how pissed off I was. They're still there, 20 years later, lol.)


I love Win7; I've never had to reinstall it on anything that wasn't a drive fail.

 

[RichF]

Maxtor 200GB hard drive (When patches not installed, would overwrite from the beginning after ~128GB, lol.)
MS Bob, then Windows 2000

How could I forget Microsoft Bob? I bow to you, sir.

I forgot about the Maxtor problem, too. Lol.

 

[Tartaros]

I would go for the best thing you can get with compatible drivers, probably an Athon or Athlon XP with an ati 9800 pro would be the best for DX games, late PIII are fine too but avoid P4, specially early williamette, because it was hot garbage. If you want to get more specific with 3dfx games, probably a k6 II with a Vodoo.

Abit boards used to be the rage back then, with nforce chipsets.

 

[NoJuan999]

LMAO @ MS Bob
I Never ran that POS.