The Post Your Old/Retro Builds Thread

70 Polara said:
I may have mentioned this system in a thread about ISA overclocking awhile back, but here is the 486 system I have been using several months now. The particular motherboard I chose (after a lot of research) for my signature ALL ISA 486 build will run DOS/Windows 95 rock solid stable at 13.2MHz ISA and DOS but not Windows stable at 16.5MHz ISA. Hence I settled on IBM PC-DOS 7.0 as it's slightly lighter on resources then DOS 6.22, and I normally run 13.2MHz ISA when I'm gaming on the system (16.5MHz only when benching). Using a modified exe called FastDoom, my system will push 50-60fps in most areas of the original Doom levels and 52.6fps at 13.2MHz ISA and 55.5fps at 16.5MHz ISA in the 3DBench VGA benchmark. I credit the relatively unknown Symphony chipset and the WD90C31A video card for this performance. From my testing I think the WD90C31A (at least my DFI manufactured one) may be faster then the Tseng Labs ET4000AX, which is considered one of the fastest ISA cards. Overclocking the ISA bus definitely wakes up the VGA performance! When I built this system I set out to see if an all ISA 486 could compete with a VLB 486 system, and in my various benchmarks it is quite competitive with VLB systems based on the benchmarks I have seen on the internet. I'm using an Evergreen upgrade CPU which is basically an AMD 5x86 133MHz adapted to an interposer with a voltage regulator on it to allow it to work in older 5 volt only 486 motherboards. Interestingly I also have an Intel DX4 100MHz OverDrive CPU that benches about the same as the AMD at 133MHz using common 486 era benchmark programs. Where the 133MHz helps is in Build engine games - Duke Nukem 3D runs quite smooth at 320x200, on the 100MHz CPU Duke 3D can have some minor stuttering. Another game that benefits from the 133MHz is Chasm: The Rift.

One of these days I'll finish restoring the case the system is in, as it is the build runs fine but I have no front panel installed.
Click to expand...
Just out of curiosity what possessed you to snub VLB boards? They were the superior option for i486 systems...

You're leaving performance on the table, but you already know that. Lol

Unrelated, I've ordered an 8800 GT 512MB and a Q6700 for period correctness. In thinking about it, G92 is a much better choice for what I want to do with this system. More to come.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
Just out of curiosity what possessed you to snub VLB boards? They were the superior option for i486 systems...

You're leaving performance on the table, but you already know that. Lol
Click to expand...
I actually have three VLB 486 systems in my closet, and therefore I wanted to see what an all ISA system could do in comparison. In my particular case the all ISA system benches better then any of my VLB systems, so it has become my favorite 486 lol. Probably because my various VLB video cards and motherboards are mostly mediocre performers and "good" VLB cards and motherboards are too expensive these days for me to build a really nice VLB system. The ISA system plays what I'd play on this era of hardware quite well, anything newer I use more period correct systems.
 
70 Polara said:
I actually have three VLB 486 systems in my closet, and therefore I wanted to see what an all ISA system could do in comparison. In my particular case the all ISA system benches better then any of my VLB systems, so it has become my favorite 486 lol. Probably because my various VLB video cards and motherboards are mostly mediocre performers and "good" VLB cards and motherboards are too expensive these days for me to build a really nice VLB system. The ISA system plays what I'd play on this era of hardware quite well, anything newer I use more period correct systems.
Click to expand...
That makes a lot of sense. If it were me though I'd bite the bullet and pay the money for a very fast VLB card, hence why I'm not in a rush to do so. I'd get far more out of a Pentium II or III setup that can do so much more, and costs a fraction of a good VLB 2D card.

Unrelated, got things more or less running, just a couple component swaps to go.

c75ea2cd-fec3-475e-9f3a-92198f5f0df0.jpg
Apologies for the mild spaghetti going on. Things aren't 100% final in there.
 
The Q6700 and 8800 GT will be here on Thursday and Friday respectively. Down the line I'll get a 5.25">3.5" bay adapter and 1.44MB floppy so I can make disks if necessary. Until then I have a 500GB drive I'm going to fill with images and installs of many of the period games I used to play. It's been a long time since I've romped through S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Call of Duty WaW/4, F.E.A.R., Doom 3, Escape From Butcher Bay/Assault on Dark Athena, and Crysis... I'm kinda meh on Half Life 2. Was neat at the time but since it was left on a cliffhanger I don't have a lot of desire to revisit that game. I have no illusions running Crysis on anything higher than high settings at 1360x768.

Question: So I get some ideas what did you guys play from that time period, save for MMOs? (2005-9)
 
Last edited:
Found this beauty in storage and popped the side panel off. It definitely worked before it was put away but don't recall much. DFI UT nF4 Ultra-D with a replaced NB fan, Antec High Current Gamer 400W PSU for sure. Athlon 3200+ and Geil 2 x 1GB or 512MB memory IIRC? No idea on GPU. Might fire it up one day™
 

Attachments

  • IMG20230908124110.jpg
    IMG20230908124110.jpg
    642.5 KB · Views: 0
Mr. Bluntman said:
Question: So I get some ideas what did you guys play from that time period, save for MMOs? (2005-9)
Click to expand...
In addition to the games that you already mentioned, Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Bioshock were a couple more games that I enjoyed from that time period. Thanks for asking and making me think about it. I had a lot of fun gaming then.
 
Dopamin3 said:
Found this beauty in storage and popped the side panel off. It definitely worked before it was put away but don't recall much. DFI UT nF4 Ultra-D with a replaced NB fan, Antec High Current Gamer 400W PSU for sure. Athlon 3200+ and Geil 2 x 1GB or 512MB memory IIRC? No idea on GPU. Might fire it up one day™
Click to expand...
Find an Opteron 180 and 2x1GB DDR-400 for it to make it sing. Pair it with a 7800 GTX for good measure. Looks very low end on the GPU side.
 
I know it's not build it however is very classic laptop Compaq Armada 7790DMT

Intel Pentium 233mhz mmx
13'3 lcd

Everything works expect the battery
It's in dang near mint shape
Have original Compaq hdd works, changed it out for 4gb win98.
 

Attachments

  • 20230913_201514.jpg
    20230913_201514.jpg
    146.1 KB · Views: 0
  • 20230913_201630.jpg
    20230913_201630.jpg
    350.6 KB · Views: 0
  • 20230913_201612.jpg
    20230913_201612.jpg
    317.4 KB · Views: 0
  • 20230913_201546.jpg
    20230913_201546.jpg
    317.9 KB · Views: 0
  • 20230913_201531.jpg
    20230913_201531.jpg
    254.3 KB · Views: 0
Dopamin3 said:
Found this beauty in storage and popped the side panel off. It definitely worked before it was put away but don't recall much. DFI UT nF4 Ultra-D with a replaced NB fan, Antec High Current Gamer 400W PSU for sure. Athlon 3200+ and Geil 2 x 1GB or 512MB memory IIRC? No idea on GPU. Might fire it up one day™
Click to expand...
A DFI LanParty mobo, now that's sexy! :cool:

img-50f13cfb.jpg
 
Gulkor said:
I know it's not build it however is very classic laptop Compaq Armada 7790DMT

Intel Pentium 233mhz mmx
13'3 lcd

Everything works expect the battery
It's in dang near mint shape
Have original Compaq hdd works, changed it out for 4gb win98.
Click to expand...
I will be posting this in FS section tonight or tomorrow. I hope i may post this.
 
bd154110-d63a-4848-927a-f14550accdf5.jpg
Now, aside from some more cable management the system is done. The Q6700 is in as well as the 8800 GT for period correct goodness. The GPU runs a couple degrees hotter at idle than my now 1 working 9800 GT. Perhaps when I can get some new thermal pads I'll repaste it with some NT-H1.
 
Work in progress. Only thing powered on is the argb. This is the Voodoo 5500, Soundblaster AWE 64 gold, and AMD Thunderbird 1.3 ghz.

1. Find a Socket A heatsink/fan
2. Get IDE Cables, Compact Flash to IDE HD converter
3. 3D Print and paint 3Dfx logo. If someone has a 3D model they can send me, I super appreciate it!
4. Find a small USB power with VGA input LED Screen and mount it inside the case. I'll use a SATA to USB converter to power the LED screen.
 

Attachments

  • 20230917_150352.jpg
    20230917_150352.jpg
    483.4 KB · Views: 0
I have a cyrix and a IDT winchip, got them both back in the day from super socket systems I got cheap.
 
RecentlyAdded said:
omg , IDT I imagine that's a rare collector's item now
Click to expand...

Id imagine so as it was a really terrible proc and pretty much made the cyrix look good. It really never got any traction and pretty much got cancelled in a short period of time. Pretty much only the K6's were good procs for super socket 7 and all the others were bad.
 
Cyrix up to the MII was great. Better integer performance than equivalent Intel. I recall Cyrix had the best integer but worst fp. Intel had the best fp but worst interger. AMD was in between. Cyrix had it though because they had to reverse engineer all the instruction set, amazing they lasted as long as they did.
Cyrix MX, run all the old 2D games smoothly. Warcraft2, diablo, and even starcraft.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/return-jedi,26.html
 
Last edited:
RecentlyAdded said:
Cyrix up to the MII was great. Better integer performance than equivalent Intel. I recall Cyrix had the best integer but worst fp. Intel had the best fp but worst interger. AMD was in between. Cyrix had it though because they had to reverse engineer all the instruction set, amazing they lasted as long as they did.
Cyrix MX, run all the old 2D games smoothly. Warcraft2, diablo, and even starcraft.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/return-jedi,26.html
Click to expand...
But throw a 3D game requiring an FPU at it and it would collapse to the floor, sieze, and shit itself in that order. It scared me off buying non-Intel until the Socket A Thunderbird CPUs hit the market.
 
OH yeah, the Cyrix def was not a 3D gaming cpu. Even windows 3D screensaver it struggled. I kept it purely Diablo1,2, WC2, and Starcraft
 
I found that out the hard way. Salesman said it was faster than a Pentium clock-for-clock. INT? Sure. Float? Fuck no. That was the first and last time I ever trusted a rep.
 
fhe first machine a built was a cyrix pr 200 with guidance from a computer savvy friend. He broke down the exact difference between intel, amd, and cyrix. Would the p2 be a better chip? Yup but it was 2.5 time the cost so l i went with cheapest option and i was a broke student who needed a computer for school. Cyrix def ran hotter and probably caused it to blue screen once in awhile.

Next cpu was a Celeron 300A then thunderbird
 
I started with Cyrix 166. I think I went to an AMD 233, AMD 3d now 350 to a celeron 366, P3 450, P3 750, Athlon 1ghz, Dual Athlon 1600, P4 2.4, P4 2.8, and I don't remember after that.

I was always happy with the Cyrix, didn't know any better back then. It played everything I wanted to play back then. 3d cards didn't really hit mainstream at that point. Remember ordering everything from the cheapest place I could find using giant computer shopper books, back when they were like phone book sized things.
 
See, I had a Pentium system before I had my Cyrix one. Even though both parts were 120MHz, in many 3D games that Pentium would trounce the Cyrix 6x86 part. In old 2D stuff that only used INT instructions? Cyrix was fine. If it at all touched the FPU your experience was shit compared to Intel.
 
So I have this old Nvidia Quadro4 agp video card I used to troubleshoot my old retro athlon system. Yesterday for fun I checked on ebay to see how much it's worth and saw people were asking 300-500 for it! Here I was using it as a toy. Anyone know why it cost so much?
 
RecentlyAdded said:
So I have this old Nvidia Quadro4 agp video card I used to troubleshoot my old retro athlon system. Yesterday for fun I checked on ebay to see how much it's worth and saw people were asking 300-500 for it! Here I was using it as a toy. Anyone know why it cost so much?
Click to expand...

Supply and demand. :p
 
RecentlyAdded said:
Work in progress. Only thing powered on is the argb. This is the Voodoo 5500, Soundblaster AWE 64 gold, and AMD Thunderbird 1.3 ghz.

1. Find a Socket A heatsink/fan
2. Get IDE Cables, Compact Flash to IDE HD converter
3. 3D Print and paint 3Dfx logo. If someone has a 3D model they can send me, I super appreciate it!
4. Find a small USB power with VGA input LED Screen and mount it inside the case. I'll use a SATA to USB converter to power the LED screen.
Click to expand...
Love the contrast of new case with the old hardware. Like a reverse-sleeper build!

What motherboard did you end up going with for this? Looks like SD Ram, so KT133? Looking to build a machine for 3dfx card testing, but not sure if I should go all out with a KT266 or KT333/DDR setup. I already have 256gb of SD ram, case, psu, options for drives (via IDE conversion), and voodoo 3 2000 + voodoo 5 5500 cards.
 
rufio said:
Love the contrast of new case with the old hardware. Like a reverse-sleeper build!

What motherboard did you end up going with for this? Looks like SD Ram, so KT133? Looking to build a machine for 3dfx card testing, but not sure if I should go all out with a KT266 or KT333/DDR setup. I already have 256gb of SD ram, case, psu, options for drives (via IDE conversion), and voodoo 3 2000 + voodoo 5 5500 cards.
Click to expand...
Depends on the goal... KT133A is more than fast enough for the Voodoo 3.... for a Voodoo 5 5500 you might get a little more out of it with a DDR setup on KT333. Another consideration is games you plan to play and if you need an ISA slot (which KT133A has).
 
rufio said:
Love the contrast of new case with the old hardware. Like a reverse-sleeper build!

What motherboard did you end up going with for this? Looks like SD Ram, so KT133? Looking to build a machine for 3dfx card testing, but not sure if I should go all out with a KT266 or KT333/DDR setup. I already have 256gb of SD ram, case, psu, options for drives (via IDE conversion), and voodoo 3 2000 + voodoo 5 5500 cards.
Click to expand...

I got the Abit KT7A and the 3Dfx off here from the same seller. The KT7A is the KT133 chipset. Seems like a good fit as the KT133 wasn't released long after the 5500.. I think KT266 chipset with DDR also be a decent fit. I have one running 1ghz athlon...coin toss which one to use for the 5500
https://www.anandtech.com/show/580/5
 
RecentlyAdded said:
I got the Abit KT7A and the 3Dfx off here from the same seller. The KT7A is the KT133 chipset. Seems like a good fit as the KT133 wasn't released long after the 5500.. I think KT266 chipset with DDR also be a decent fit. I have one running 1ghz athlon...coin toss which one to use for the 5500
https://www.anandtech.com/show/580/5
Click to expand...
The Abit KT133A is a Solid mobo for a retro build and the ISA slot is perfect if you care to dive into ISA sound cards! :) If you have a Rev 1.3 board and the latest bios, you can run Athlon XP chips as well, which gains you SSE and higher clocks. ;)
 
Overclocking 24+ year old tech? Sure, why not! The memories! :D

Sadly no matter how much voltage I throw at the SDRAM, I can't get it to run at CAS 2 stable at these speeds (if it even really matters). I don't want to risk more voltage than 3.5V though as the IO rail for the ram is tied to the AGP slot and I am NOT looking to fry my perfectly working Voodoo 3... lol. So back to 3.3V it went.

The main goal (and was achieved via overkill) was never to limit my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP. I had this running fine on a 1333Mhz AMD chip, but I felt having SSE support and the extra speed (using a Athlon XP2100+ with minor OC as this chip was a horrible overclocker) was worth it to ensure no limitations, although I don't know if any true Glide games even used SSE or required it. As my Abit KT7A is a Revision 1.3, I could get a Mobile Barton core to work in it, but have not tried yet and not sure if it would gain me anything with the extra Cache to make it worth it in Glide games.

The Voodoo 3 I have has the 5.6ns memory too, so I can hit 200Mhz+ on the card without artifacts, but I need to get active cooling on it to run it that high (another side project someday). I do have a fan on the side of the case blowing air that way though, so better than nothing or anything I had back in the day. I run it at 183Mhz for now (3500 speeds, which also used passive cooling).

Most Glide games I am rocking at 1024x768 or 800x600. I can actually run UT99 pretty well at 1280x1024, averages around 40+ FPS and looks nice, but at 1024x768 it is pretty much flying in that specific game.

3DMark 99 at Default 800x600 nets me a graphics score of 7428 and 27814 CPU score... lol.

Config.jpg
 
Back in the day I got some crazy PC-150 Sdram, it came with some BGA chips instead of the old legged ones. Im sure it is now unobtainium though, heck I dont even remember where I got it. I never really used it as most of the Sdram boards I had were P3 and they would not take a FSB high enough to take advantage of these sticks.
 
Now it is annoying me, I wonder where I put these sticks. Ill have to do some searching through my hoard to try and find them. When I find them Ill post a pic of them so there is at least a record of them on the internet. With all the stuff I have it is easy to loose track of stuff for decades. I just refound my 9500 Pro the other day after looking for it on and off the last 5 years.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top