vintage gamer box. how new can I go?

matt167

[H]ard|Gawd
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The FX5200 thread got me thinking about rebuilding my old Athlon XP machine for which I have all the parts left. ( mobo/ Sempron 2500 which clocks to an Athlon XP 2600 ). FX 5200 and 2gb of ram . But I don't have a power supply.

My current plex server ( SD resolution stuff ) is an Optiplex 755 with 4gb of ram and it has a Geforce 8400 GS 512mb thrown in it. It's a Core 2 Duo 2.6 ghz.. I'm going to be putting the Plex on a laptop that's slightly faster ( no battery, and I5 processor )

Will the Optiplex serve well for a vintage/ retro gamer? I know it should have enough power to run Doom 3 better than the FX 5200, and it even can do Bioshock although that's best left to my modern system.. I plan on putting XP 32 bit on it which is supported by Dell for that model. I want to play pretty much all the old games right now I can't. Doom 3, Quake/ Quake II, Monster Truck Madness II and a few others. Any reason I shouldn't go for this?
 
The FX5200 thread got me thinking about rebuilding my old Athlon XP machine for which I have all the parts left. ( mobo/ Sempron 2500 which clocks to an Athlon XP 2600 ). FX 5200 and 2gb of ram . But I don't have a power supply.

My current plex server ( SD resolution stuff ) is an Optiplex 755 with 4gb of ram and it has a Geforce 8400 GS 512mb thrown in it. It's a Core 2 Duo 2.6 ghz.. I'm going to be putting the Plex on a laptop that's slightly faster ( no battery, and I5 processor )

Will the Optiplex serve well for a vintage/ retro gamer? I know it should have enough power to run Doom 3 better than the FX 5200, and it even can do Bioshock although that's best left to my modern system.. I plan on putting XP 32 bit on it which is supported by Dell for that model. I want to play pretty much all the old games right now I can't. Doom 3, Quake/ Quake II, Monster Truck Madness II and a few others. Any reason I shouldn't go for this?
The 8400 GS will probably choke on Doom 3. But it should be great for that older stuff.
 
Depends on what is vintage for you.. Some consider it their first PC, or a sweet spot in their mind.

I have two systems. One has a p3 600, 1gb of pc-133 ram, voodoo3 2000 pci card and Windows 98SE. I used the voodoo3 because its the exact card I had growing up, right after a TNT2. I also have a 1.4tbird, 2gb of ddr ram, Elsa GeForce 3 (before the ti's launched). If I was lucky with finds, I would rather the first have a 300a in that 440BX board, like I did growing up.

The first because it was during my childhood and has that place and the second because it is a replica of the first system I purchased when I went to college.
 
I have a C64 with a 1541, a dataset recorder and also have an X1541 serial adapter hooked up to an old Compaq Deskpro with a pentium II so that it can write programs to disk.. So I have the very early era covered.. My main machine handles Dosbox just fine for the old shooters and side scrollers..\

But right now, I can't play Doom 3. Even with the Vista patch, my computer refuses to run it. BFG edition I know will work, but it's also different. Basically the 1997-2002ish games where I never actually played them since I did not get a card that would do " Accelerated Graphics " until 2003 when I built my first PC for myself. My dad built multiple computers for me, the best was an AMD k6 400hmz but he never believed in gaming on computers so never a graphics card till I had a job and saved enough to build..

If I want to re create my exact first PC that I built myself, I can because I still have all of the parts. The old beige case is missing a side panel, housing a different, now dead P3 mobo. But everything else, I still have. It needs a new power supply ( blew it up mining ). I was under the impression that a 8400 GS had more power than an FX 5200, while still supporting the older architecture for the older games, since it was still in the XP/ Win 98/ ME generation
 
It should run on your 8400. What kind of issues are you having? Like, desktop crash or what?
 
On my main rig ( sig rig ) it just crashes when I try to start it. comes up with some error. I have not tried to install it on the Optiplex/ 8400 GS rig ( win 7 pro x64 on that one too )
 
Oohhh, you want to know if it will work on that. I would say yes. BUT, just so we are clear, I can run DOOM 3 on my i5-4690k and 760gtx on Windows 10 with no modifications.

So the error would be helpful.
 
I'll have to reinstall it to get the error.. I have the original release of Doom 3 on 3 cd's

My GTX 1060 6gb should run it well enough, if I can get it to run
 
Mine was a download, as my dvd is scratched all to hell. I don't recall if my original install worked on this setup, unfortunately.

But, to answer your question, yes, the 8400 is much faster than the fx5200 and shouldn't have an issue with older games.
 
cool.. I'll probs just install XP on the Optiplex when I get a chance. That way I can take advantage of even older games, and Doom 3 without buying another copy. Even Nascar Racing 2003 would be cool to get back into. Have not run that game in years

I have a Quadro FX 200 or something that is slightly faster than the 8400 GS but based on the same architecture, but I don't know if that's a good idea.
 
What resolution are you trying to run Doom 3 at? The 8400GS will certainly run the game, probably just fine at 1024x768 and medium or high settings. I used to run the game on very high 1280x1024 with a 6600GT years ago.
 
Most of those older games were ported to Steam if you want to buy them again. Then again it would be more fun to have them running on a older system.
 
The FX5200 thread got me thinking about rebuilding my old Athlon XP machine for which I have all the parts left. ( mobo/ Sempron 2500 which clocks to an Athlon XP 2600 ). FX 5200 and 2gb of ram . But I don't have a power supply.

My current plex server ( SD resolution stuff ) is an Optiplex 755 with 4gb of ram and it has a Geforce 8400 GS 512mb thrown in it. It's a Core 2 Duo 2.6 ghz.. I'm going to be putting the Plex on a laptop that's slightly faster ( no battery, and I5 processor )

Will the Optiplex serve well for a vintage/ retro gamer? I know it should have enough power to run Doom 3 better than the FX 5200, and it even can do Bioshock although that's best left to my modern system.. I plan on putting XP 32 bit on it which is supported by Dell for that model. I want to play pretty much all the old games right now I can't. Doom 3, Quake/ Quake II, Monster Truck Madness II and a few others. Any reason I shouldn't go for this?

For years I got the itch to build a retro box but I ended up making them work on my gaming PC. Currently its a Corei7 4790 + Geforce GTX 1070Ti. I have yet to find a game that just won't work on windows 10, plus many of them can be tweaked/patched to support widescreen, 1080p and even 4k

I've tried all the games you listed, except monster truck madness. But I've played NFS2SE, Rogue Squadron, MGS, Max Payne, X-Wing Alliance, Citizen Kabuto, Unreal GOLD and MDK just to name a few.
 
There is an issue with Hawaii and other GCN AMD gpus on doom3, it won't play.
The best win98 gpu that's easier to find is an x800 family I think the 850 also. They do play doom 3 too :)
 
The thing is, I don't have to build it. It's currently running in the other room as a Plex server, and when the new external hard drive I have coming comes in, I'm setting up Plex on a laptop and then this Optiplex computer which is otherwise fairly worthless will be free to do whatever with.

I also have a Dell Win XP pro install disc and I know the computer was optioned with Win XP and the string for it is in the bios so I'm good there
 
Should i grab an 8600GT? I see they are about $15 now. 8600 would be the newer version comparable to the 6800 recommend by Doom 3. Not sure its worth it even at $15
 
I had both a 6800gt and a 8600gt.

Doom 3 was a lot better on the 8600gt
 
I guess I'll see how cheap I can get one, just cause I don't want to spend a lot. I do want to play through Doom 3 once more and it would be nice to do it with a capable computer from the era. Last played some multiplayer in about 2009ish with my Athlon X2 6000+ box running 2gb of ram, and a Palit Geforce GTS 250 with Win XP. It rocked, but sadly the Optiplex only has room for a single slot card, so 8600 is about it, as far as this computer is needed.
 
Would anyone have an otherwise useless DVI- VGA adapter? I must have discarded any that I may have had.
 
I guess I'll see how cheap I can get one, just cause I don't want to spend a lot. I do want to play through Doom 3 once more and it would be nice to do it with a capable computer from the era. Last played some multiplayer in about 2009ish with my Athlon X2 6000+ box running 2gb of ram, and a Palit Geforce GTS 250 with Win XP. It rocked, but sadly the Optiplex only has room for a single slot card, so 8600 is about it, as far as this computer is needed.
BTW

On a side note, Doom 3 Ultimate HD Mod looks and runs great @4K on my rig. It may choke a 8600GT depending on the resolution.
 
Got XP running on the box after downloading all the right drivers. Thankfully, Dell had all of them since the 755 did support XP.. Doom 3 runs great but will need to adjust the config file into a custom resolution to support 16:9
 
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