It's been a bit of a head scratcher, I was so new to PCs and Windows back then, I can't quite pin down the CPU. In my head it was always a 223MHz CPU as well but that's not right. The system itself was slow, it ran C&C Tiberium Sun well enough but struggled with UT99. It's why I'm so interested to see how far I can push a similar system now. I want to know what it was truly capable of.
I've actually got a Socket A system set up right now with an Athlon XP 2100+ in an Abit KT7 motherboard with 512MB RAM that has an ISA slot housing a Soundblaster 16 for DOS compatability paired with two Voodoo 2s in SLI connected to a Geforce 6800GT running Windows 98SE. It's a bit of a frankenstein machine and complete overkill tbh but it was fun to put together and runs everything from that era without breaking a sweat
We”ll have to start a retro PC hardware thread in here, I have just put together a new windows 98 machine for myself, went with a Pentium 3 1.4 but also used a geforce 6800 GT ! But I have it paired with a PCI Voodoo 5 5500 for glide games and Aureal vortex (Diamond Monster MX300) sound card for those awesome A3D soundtracks
Couldn”t use my isa soundblasters as the motherboard I used was PCI only.. but the Vortex works surprisingly well with dos, even if the OPL3 emulation sounds a bit wacky..
Picked up Corocoro kirby (tilt and tumble) and Game and Watch Collection 2 for the DS. Pretty pleased with the kirby pick up as its a game I always wanted to play that didnt get a release in the uk.
I'm embarking on a new project to rebuild my first PC and see how far I can push it. To start off with I picked up a PII 233MHz CPU but after discussing it with a few people I think I may have actually had a Socket 7 CPU and not a Slot 1. The reason being my first PC had an integrated GPU my Voodoo 2 plugged into which was not a feature present in early PII systems.
I'm still going to continue with this build but I may get a Socket 7 setup going as well and compare the two.
Go for a motherboard with the BX chipset. Should give you plenty of flexibility and overhead for overclocking. I used the same Chaintech BX based board for years. Saw me through from a PII 333Mhz with a Voodoo 1 to an overclocked PIII with a Voodoo 3.
We”ll have to start a retro PC hardware thread in here, I have just put together a new windows 98 machine for myself, went with a Pentium 3 1.4 but also used a geforce 6800 GT ! But I have it paired with a PCI Voodoo 5 5500 for glide games and Aureal vortex (Diamond Monster MX300) sound card for those awesome A3D soundtracks
Couldn”t use my isa soundblasters as the motherboard I used was PCI only.. but the Vortex works surprisingly well with dos, even if the OPL3 emulation sounds a bit wacky..
I'm jealous of that Voodoo 5! I could never justify the cost even before the prices went a bit crazy buy I'd love to own one.
A dedicated thread sounds good, we'll have to cook something up.
Go for a motherboard with the BX chipset. Should give you plenty of flexibility and overhead for overclocking. I used the same Chaintech BX based board for years. Saw me through from a PII 333Mhz with a Voodoo 1 to an overclocked PIII with a Voodoo 3.
I'm jealous of that Voodoo 5! I could never justify the cost even before the prices went a bit crazy buy I'd love to own one.
Damn that’s a lot of dough for an old graphics card! I had one BITD and it was a cracker. Replaced it with a Kyro then a Kyro 2. Night and day difference in image quality if I’m honest.
I recently backed this book on 3dfx history as I’m a sad old tech head - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...legado-de-3dfx
I'm jealous of that Voodoo 5! I could never justify the cost even before the prices went a bit crazy buy I'd love to own one.
When I picked mine up you really couldn’t give them away, evereyone was only interested in the latest Geforce or Radeon I got an agp one and a pci one, bought them from a stall at a computer fayre new old stock..
When I bought it was just intending to keep it as a bit of history, as I loved that 3DFX box art and it was going to be the last of its kind.. but it’s served me really well in retro rigs..
I recently sold my voodoo 2 for fifty quid! Gonna dig all the rest if my old pc stuff and flog it, I think! I have a dual p3 mobo and cpus, some old amds, etc.
I recently sold my voodoo 2 for fifty quid! Gonna dig all the rest if my old pc stuff and flog it, I think! I have a dual p3 mobo and cpus, some old amds, etc.
I never knew they went for that much. I still have my Pentium II with the Tomb Raider 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 PCI 16MB card bundle
Picked this up at a local game store. It's the mintiest Megadrive accessory I have seen in a while. They had one unboxed and rather rough looking on the shelf and then i saw the store clerk wrapping this one for the display cabinet for the same price! No brainer
Been hording Megadrive controllers as of late as noticing them getting slightly ever more difficult and more expensive to pick up here.
Damn that’s a lot of dough for an old graphics card! I had one BITD and it was a cracker. Replaced it with a Kyro then a Kyro 2. Night and day difference in image quality if I’m honest.
I recently backed this book on 3dfx history as I’m a sad old tech head - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...legado-de-3dfx
I'll keep an eye out in June for that 3DFX book. I've never actually tried using a PowerVR card before but I'm sure that won't last
When I picked mine up you really couldn’t give them away, evereyone was only interested in the latest Geforce or Radeon I got an agp one and a pci one, bought them from a stall at a computer fayre new old stock..
When I bought it was just intending to keep it as a bit of history, as I loved that 3DFX box art and it was going to be the last of its kind.. but it’s served me really well in retro rigs..
Absolutely, I got my Orchid Righteous 3D for free and my Voodoo 2's together for pennies but that was years ago now.
[MENTION=1211]tokyochojin[/MENTION]
Have you noticed that the Japanese pads are smaller than the western ones. The shape is also different. The western ones are more banana looking IMO.
I have two Japanese 6 button MD pads. One original and one I modded with a new cable. I tried extention cables but they never bloody work I found. So now one of my pads has a nice long 2 meter cable in white. The socket is white too
[MENTION=1211]tokyochojin[/MENTION]
Have you noticed that the Japanese pads are smaller than the western ones. The shape is also different. The western ones are more banana looking IMO.
I have two Japanese 6 button MD pads. One original and one I modded with a new cable. I tried extention cables but they never bloody work I found. So now one of my pads has a nice long 2 meter cable in white. The socket is white too
Yeah, I have a couple of the western ones too. To be honest, I think I actually prefer the western ones (I have a euro red start button one). Cable length is a bit annoying, I have a few extension cables but yeah sometimes there are lags and such. In my current set-up it's not too much of an issue though as my sofa is pretty close to the TV(although not NES mini close).
I tried extention cables but they never bloody work I found.
I bought a couple of Chinese extension cables from eBay and they didn't work properly. Then I managed to get an official Sega cable and it works perfectly. So I can always use my Japanese MD pads.
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