Deibit's Retro PC - Year 1998 -Win98 - Voodoo2

[deibit]

Another 90s project, this time I will focus in the time where Win95 died, and Win98 and Voodoo2 raised.

I used pretty much the same combo back in the time, I will just upgrade some components.

Games: Half-Life, Starcraft, Baldur's Gate, Fallout2, Unreal, Thief, Commandos, Dune 2000, Forsaken, Caesar III, Falcon 4.0, Age of Empires, Sgtar Wars: Rogue Scuadron, Anno 1602, Collin McRae Rally.... etc...

Case: not yet decided
Motherboard: Iwill XA100 Plus--> https://www.anandtech.com/show/144 , http://www.motherboards.org/files/manuals/57/xa100plus.pdf
CPU: Currently with a K62-400 (plan to upgrade it to a K6-2+ or K6-3+)
Memory: my plan is to upgrade the current installed memory to 768MB
Soundcard: Plan to install a AWE64 (probably I will take it from my Y2K build that will get a SBLive instead)
MPU401: still to be decided
Graphic Card: Matrox G200 AGP + Creative 3dfx Voodoo2
Ethernet: 3Com Etherlink III
HDD: not yet decided
OS: WIN98SE (I see no practical reason why I should use Win95 instead)

 

[Gakman]

I still have a "retro PC" too.
I use Pentium 3 1.2GHz, SCSI HDD RAID, Voodoo SLI, AWE64, Etherlink3. Works quite well !

 

[deibit]

Those tualatins P3 where great! Much better than sub-2ghz P4s..

I have two DL360G2 rack servers with dual tualatins in them... maybe one day I should start some retro server restoration project

 

[xodaraP]

Slightly off topic but saw it in the post. The first Unreal was such a beautiful game at the time, the flyby intro is amazing to just sit and watch. Looks especially good on 3dfx hardware thanks to the lighting effects it produced.

And the reflections/mirrored surfaces were awesome too, so far ahead technically at the time.

You've got pretty much the best PC setup you could buy at the time to run it there too

 

[deibit]

That's exactly the topic

Half-Life was the game I enjoyed the most at that time fully immersive and technically brilliant.. was the beginning of a new era for me.

This PC was the first enthusiast PC I ever built by myself, I choosed every component carefully and spent months planning it. To revive this machine again makes me feel very emotional (I know, I'm sounding weird now)

 

[PascalP]

Awesome stuff @deibit
Epic game list as well!

But on which monitors are you using your PC’s?

 

[deibit]

thanks! Somehow I find retro PC gaming as satisfying as console or arcade

I have a Philips Brilliance 201p monitor (21 inches CRT 1600x1200 max.). I use some Belkin Omniview Pro3 KVM 8 port switches (I have three of them), and a wonderful mechanical Cherry G80-300 keyboard (cherry MX switches)

 

[PascalP]

Sweet setup! You really have me tempted to dig up some old stuff from my childhood

 

[PascalP]

is a 109mp decent you would say?
19” and also does 1600x1200@85Hz

But what’s the difference between the P and MP models?

 

[deibit]

sure, I used to have a 17 inches monitor, so 19 its already better than the average monitor at that time. You are going to play at 800x600 at most with a Voodoo2 (1024 in SLI mode or with Voodoo3), so it's not that you need super high resolution or something like that.

The p variant is supposed to be the "professional" line, it has for example bnc connectors instead of just db15. The mp I think it's the multimedia version.. with speakers and mic (I might be wrong) and I'm not sure if it has the bnc connectors...

Anyway , ust pick the one in better shape and cheaper price. I got mine for free for example.

My preferred monitors of that era are the Eizo ones anyway.

 

[PascalP]

Cool thanks!

The 109MP I found also has BNC and audio inputs, but the tube is curved.
From the info I found the P should have a flat tube right?

I’m not going to spend tons of money on this stuff, I’m sure I still can find a few working PCs in either my own stuff or in the storage from my parent’s company.
But I’m sure we replaced all CRT monitors back then with LCD and none CRT survived...

Edit:
Checked my local ‘craigslist’ and it is pretty hard to find anything over 17”...

There are 2 19” for sale
- Philips 109MP
- Sony HDM-A420

 

[deibit]

well it's not what I would call flat... trinitons were flatter for example... looks semi curved to me )

Maybe the only difference is the multimedia part?

I've seen pictures in internet and there seem to be at least two models of 201p.. some of them look indeed flat.. mine is this one:

This retro PC thing is not really expensive if you start with the 90s era.. it gets more expensive with 386, 286 and XT parts.. or if you look for very specific hardware.. look for example the prices for a Gravis Ultrasound...