Retro Gaming Builds

[MichaelAwkward]

Watching a fair amount of YouTube on retro gaming has inspired me to start a little project of my own.

My Windows 10 machine is great... still. I built it when I first went to uni and it's gone through some iterations (mainly case and cooling upgrades) but it's still basically the same as it was back then except for the 970 which came about because the original GTX 670 died - thanks OcUK for that nice little upgrade! Doubled the memory along the way and added an SSD. It's still great - plays everything I ask it to and probably will for a few more years yet.

I'm a child of the 90s, so my first PC was some horrible gigantic desktop thing running Windows 95 that my grandad had purchased new a few years earlier but I don't remember doing much gaming on it beyond the included ones and some early educational stuff. By the time I was doing any real gaming, I was running Windows 98SE on an Athlon based machine that was my dad's main computer. I remember fighting with my brother to use it - he just wanted to play Half Life whilst I was more interested in RollerCoaster Tycoon, Age of Empires, SimCity, etc.

So my plan is to build a machine of that era... and something else.

I think my gaming golden years were around when XP was the dominant OS. Most of the boxed games I still have are from the 2000s. Me and my brother went through several different graphics cards, GeForce 4 Ti 4200s, ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, I remember being distinctly disappointed by NVIDIA's GeForce FX series. However for this machine I'm going with what's easily available - stuff from around 2009 (which seems really recent... but is nearly 9 years ago!?!).

Before anyone questions why I'm bothering to do this when basically all games are playable in some way using a modern system like I already have - that's not the point. Nostalgia is the motivation behind this, and I'm a bit of a collector of things at heart. If I didn't want to tinker with things I'd just get a console or something (I have several of those) or stick with my current PC. I could never afford these things at the time but now they're relatively dirt cheap.

So I went on a bit of a spending spree on eBay yesterday and I'll update this with pictures when things arrive.

Specs are going to be what I dreamed of owning around the time but as a child/young teen, never could.

Windows 98SE
Pentium III 1GHz
512MB RAM
GeForce 2 GTS
3DFX Voodoo 3 PCI
An ISA sound card TBD
Sharp 17" LCD (with speakers) although currently waiting for a reply on a free 15" CTX CRT
Wyse PS2 Keyboard
Logitech PS2 Three Button Mouse

Windows XP SP3
Intel Core 2 Quad 9550
4GB DDR2
GeForce GTX260
This will just be used with my current peripherals, although that does include a Logitech MX518.

Using web archive, the Windows XP machine would've cost around £1000. I have no idea what the Windows 98 machine would've cost, but I imagine possibly a fair bit more than £1000?

Anyway, I'm sure I'm going to have fun.

 

[LewisRaz]

Sounds like a couple of nice builds mate. Look forward to seeing them.

 

[jaybee]

Intel Core 2 Quad 9550

My current CPU is a q9450! Although it is a "yesteryear" CPU, it's still usable today if you aren't running the latest GPUs.

 

[almoststew1990]

This sounds like a nice couple builds but we need PICTURES it's the law!

The GeForce 2 GTS / P3 1GHz combo will be leagues ahead of the Voodoo 3 although I suppose it's for Glide games only...

If you're interested, have a look at old reviews of these components on Anandtech. Go to the reviews section for CPU or GPU or whatever and go to the very last page for reviews of kit from 1997!

 

[MichaelAwkward]

My current CPU is a q9450! Although it is a "yesteryear" CPU, it's still usable today if you aren't running the latest GPUs.

Ha! It's crazy to think that a CPU approaching a decade old is still so usable. Hell, my own 4670K is now almost 5 years old. Would a Pentium 2 from 1995 still have been more than usable for everything in 2000? No way.

This sounds like a nice couple builds but we need PICTURES it's the law!

The GeForce 2 GTS / P3 1GHz combo will be leagues ahead of the Voodoo 3 although I suppose it's for Glide games only...

If you're interested, have a look at old reviews of these components on Anandtech. Go to the reviews section for CPU or GPU or whatever and go to the very last page for reviews of kit from 1997!

As soon as my stuff starts to arrive I'll be updating this with pictures and maybe video as I go along. I envisage a fair amount of cleaning and disassembly will be required.

Exactly the reason for grabbing the PCI version rather than needing a separate machine.

Sadly a lot of internet material of the day for older hardware has lost the lovely pictures that often accompanied them.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

Received a USB floppy drive today, just plugging it in and hearing the sound was awesome.

I also cancelled the order on the Q9550 machine, got an E6600 dual core machine for a third of the price instead and an 8800GTS for £10. That would put it around 2006. Makes more sense to have a single core Windows 98SE machine, dual core Windows XP machine, and my quad core Windows 10 machine too.

 

[Finners]

Which 8800 GTS did you get? loved my 8800GTS 512mb

 

[MichaelAwkward]

It's an XFX one, 320MB version. Should be plenty fast enough. Seller wasn't sure if it worked but for £10 it's not a great loss if it doesn't. Visually looks fine.

Just ordered a GeForce 4 MX440 instead of the GeForce 2 MX400 for the Windows 98 machine too. Should be about as fast as the GeForce 2 Ultra but much cheaper and widely available.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

A couple things arrived today:







Will have to wait until tomorrow to test the graphics card. UPS tried to deliver the computers today but I'll have to pick them up in the morning.

 

[LewisRaz]

Mouse drivers on CD! Thats a distant memory haha

 

[MichaelAwkward]

A few more things arrived today... gonna be a fun weekend.



17" Sharp LCD, from 2002.



Wyse PS/2 rubber dome keyboard, from unknown. Probably Windows 98/ME era judging by the Windows keys.



And the stars of the show. Two of the beige ones are just for harvesting parts. Seems appropriate to build the Windows 98 machine in the Gateway tower. All need a good clean and dust inside I'm sure. Will sell on what I can't use.

What's the best way to clean old PC parts? Compressed air?

 

[LewisRaz]

I use compressed air and an anti static brush, works well enough

 

[MichaelAwkward]

Few more parts:



IBM KB-8296 rubber dome keyboard from 1996 (according to the box). It weighs a tonne compared to the Wyse keyboard, must have a proper steel backplate in it. Lovely to type on, must be one of the better rubber dome keyboards around. Going to use this with both my Windows 10 and XP machines.



New and sealed pack of 10 floppy discs.



MSI GeForce 4 MX440 - fan needs a good cleaning. May look to replace the cooler.

For the XP machine I think I'm going to order some more memory to bring it up to 3GB and also a new HSF - I read that the Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 Pro is a good replacement for the stock one. Today I'm going to test out all of the machines and parts I have to make sure they all work. May have a go at installing 98 on one of them later.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

A few pics:



The XP machine, in the lovely Antec NSK4480 (bizarre that they thought it would be better to have to remove the top before you can take the sides off).

Full Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz,
Asus P5L-MX,
2GB DDR2 667MHz,
XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320MB,
Seagate Barracude 7200.10 250GB SATA,
LG DVD-RW, Floppy Drive,
Windows XP Professional (CoA on the side activated this morning - didn't need to ring up the phone line either).

It's in great condition really, barely needs any attention, but I intend to fully disassemble it, clean out the case, replace the stock HSF with an Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 Pro. Decided against upgrading the memory.

Next up there's the desktop Advent Pro:



The HSF definitely needs attention. It says it's a CoolerMaster but it sounds like a bag of spanners at the moment. Which probably explains this:







The cards included were a 3dfx Voodoo 3 PCI 16MB, an LSI PCI SCSI controller which may come in handy as I'm sure I have some 15,000RPM HP drives at my mothers, and a D Link Gigabit Ethernet PCI card which should also come in handy.

Boot screens:




Oh, and yes that is a Qtec PSU... which will definitely not be coming in handy.



Next there's the machine in the beige Antec case:



This is pretty tidy in comparison to the other two, no worrying noises and pretty clean inside... except for the naf ColoursIT PSU.



The motherboard uses the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset which should be fairly decent. I'm thinking of using this board in the Windows 98 system.

Finally the Gateway machine:







This is a mess inside and needs a full disassembly and clean. The dust around the CPU shroud is black. The card I've taken out is a STB Velocity 4400, a OEM variant of the NVIDIA TNT. I tested the MSI GeForce 4 MX440 and as expected, the cooler definitely replacing. But hey, it works.



I don't remember Zip drives being that popular but two of these machines have them. Perhaps I'll look out for some cheap discs to test them out.

 

[cee-S-dee]

The QDI board is the T revision which means it will accept Tualatin CPU'S. I have a P3 1400S and they are a really nice fact CPU!

 

[mistersprinkles]

Nostalgia!

When I was 14 I got

Pentium II 300Mhz
440LX board of some sort (I don't remember)
64MB!!! of RAM at a whopping 66Mhz
Voodoo Banshee (This card=good times for me)
Sound Blaster (a crappy one)
2.1GB HDD (upgraded to 6.4GB)
Crummy KTS 15" monitor (15" was big at this time)

Fav games: Quake II, Incoming, Heavy Gear

When I was 17 I got

Athlon 1000Mhz
Crappy VIA chipset board
256MB (originally 128MB) of RAM at a blistering 100Mhz
Geforce 2 GTS 32?MB
20GB HDD
Soundblaster Live!
Viewsonic (actually quite decent) 17" flat CRT

Fav games: Black and White, Quake III, Mechwarrior 4

Both of these machines were generously provided by my mom, as were an Amiga 500, NES, SNES, N64, and a Dreamcast. <3

 

[MichaelAwkward]

So the Dell CRT I won on eBay for £25 (incl. postage) arrived today... broken.

Seller thought that a box with some paper padding would be adequate. Casing is all cracked, had fully detached from the front part, can't even get the power cable to fit in as nothing lines up properly anymore - not that I want to test it in this condition really. What a shame.

Dell P790 Ultrascan, I hardly knew you. There's a guy in Oxford giving away boxed CTX CRTs though so I'll hold out to grab one of those.

On a plus point I've now disassembled all three of the Pentium machines, cleaned and reassembled and they're working great. Installed Windows ME on one of them yesterday but I'm struggling to find sound drivers for the onboard AC97 audio.

Just ordered a couple of replacement PSUs (I don't trust those shiny Gold boxes and the Qtec is making a strange whine), two new Akasa HSFs, and a few cables.

 

[ALXAndy]

Wow a QDI motherboard. I had loads of those. Medalist was it? I also had a dual P2 board. I used to do the buying when I worked at a computer shop and we dealt with QDI right up until they went bust. Shame.

 

[!bluetonic!]

This is great to see. Well done.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

So I spent most of the day yesterday finding and installing the drivers for all three machines, all running Windows 98SE now. Was a bit of pain, especially the audio drivers (thank God for the wayback machine!).

Just completed running 3DMark2001SE (at 1024x768x16 to support the TNT) on the QDI motherboard with Pentium III 1GHz machine with all of the graphics cards I have to hand, results below:



GeForce FX5200 128MB - 4539
GeForce 4 MX440 64MB - 4111
Voodoo 3 3000 PCI 16MB - 1423
NVIDIA TNT 16MB - 1117

Definitely need to attach a fan to the Voodoo because christ it gets hot. Almost burnt my hand taking it out of the system just now.

Replaced two of the PSUs with FSP250W units which should be fairly solid. Can't replace the one in the Gateway machine though as it's some proprietary form factor so I've ordered a new fan and will give it a good clean out instead.



Have yet to play any actual games! Ha.

What I might actually do now is keep two of the machines, the Gateway Pentium III 500Mhz with the Voodoo 3, and the Chieftec Beige QDI Pentium III 1GHz with the GeForce 4 MX440 and have both running Windows 98SE with my favourite selection of games for D3D and Glide. Bit annoyed about the CRT monitor still but the Sharp LCD is actually quite decent and the integrated speakers are handy. The Gateway has a nice Intel motherboard with an onboard Creative ES1373 chipset too, as well as being Slot 1 so it's quite a bit different to the other machine and probably more suitable for any DOS stuff I want to do.

For the third machine, I've harvested quite a lot from it including the Voodoo 3 3000 PCI, a D-Link Gigabit Ethernet PCI card, LSI Logic SCSI PCI card (although that only supports Windows 2000), a Seagate 10GB IDE drive which I trust more than the Excelstor that came in the Gateway, floppy drive (one in the Gateway doesnn't read anything), and I'll probably swap out the DVD-ROM too as the QDI machine only has a 52X CD-ROM. So I should have enough to sell it on as a working system on integrated graphics, and with a better PSU.

I quite fancy getting something older/slower to run exclusively DOS (something with a Turbo button ) but it's not really an era of gaming that I ever experienced being born in 1991. On the look out now for a soundcard, both PCI and ISA.