Hi all,

Well my secret project has been completed, I also made pics along the way so here is my 3dfx build, from a 11 year old setup I used in the past, the motherboard is the famous EPoX EP-BX3, I think some of you do remmeber this one all too well.the system is actually from 1998, although the mobo was replaced in 1999 wutha more upgraded version with Pentium !!! support

So here is how I began, By stripping the case to a steel frame, and by removing all the parts and cleaned them with numerous bruhes and the vacume cleaner to suck away the dust and dirt, as you can see the parts look like new, including them capacitors on the 11 year old motherboard!


Then after this I laid the clean hardware parts on my glass top Table and filled a basin filled with hot water and mixed with Dreft, and I literally scrubbed every plastic and metal part clean, the system was so dusty that there were 3cm blankets of gray wool on some places, as being this system was never cleaned since Q3 2000, so you can imagine why I was coughing here and there hahaha

here some pics on how I began this job, to resrect this old king of 3D, one oof the pics shows a good idea of befor and after treatment:


Here is the entire case cleaned, this is after treatment, it used to be one mass of gray wool and piles of dust which looked like gray soil


Here is a stage when I just installed the CPU, Mobo ram, drives and needed cards


PSU installed, an A-Open 350 Watter btw, + cables tie-wrapped for a neat look and better airflow, later pics show that some of the hull plating has been placed:


Here the system nears completion during the final construction stages:


Anyways more to come soon, on how this thing performs, I plan to go for Win 98 SE USA + Un-Official Service Pack 3.0, since this system is typically made for such an OS.

System specs are the following:

Avenger M99

Intel Pentium !!!/E 650Mhz Coppermine S.E.C.C. 2 / Slot 1
3x 128MB PC-100 CL3 Hyundai / Samsung
EPoX EP-BX3 Intel BX440 Chipset
3dfx Voodoo3 3500C AGP 16MB + TV-Out Rev.A 2100
Intel Pro 100/S Desktop Adapter
Philips FM/AM Radio Card 8Bit ISA
Creative Labs AWE64 Gold CT4390
1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 40GB ATA 100

Windows 98SE + UOSP 3.0a
AmigaMerlin 2.9 for V3-3500C

hehe The idea was to make it look new, is if I took it withme with a time machine and yeah it really looks like as if it was just purchased from a store, the 4 hour careful cleaning really paid off.
 
My sister used it from 2000 to now, and it wasa real mess, so the only way to do this right was to take it all apprt and clean it bit by bit, which did pay off big time.
 
Anyways after it is installed I'll run 3D mark 99MAX and 3D Mark 2000 Pro, also some Q3A, UT GOTYE 1999, and Descent 3 benchmarks with it, games of it's age will only be playeon it, this was something I always wanted to do, but it never came up to me until my ister wanted a new system because this one was too slow, I was able to get an AthlonXP 2700+ with ASUS A7V333-R and1x 1GB PC-3200 Kingston HyperX from a friend witha 120GB HDD , it was compelte so what I did is trade that AXP 2700 system for this one, then I gave it a good cleaning treatment and now it's the way it is :)

heheyeah you have a good point there, hwo ever I didn't remove the CPU, since alot of force would be needed to remove it, I was like better leave it alone, Overclocking was fun with this board back when I bought it in 1998, you could OC via the jumpers on the mobo bottom right

 
Multipliers of 3.5 to 7.0 and FSB's from 66Mhz to 124Mhz afaik lol, so with the jumpers you could OC a P3 450 to a P3 700 for example or faster haha  this was before mobo's with Dip Switches came around and if you had a Mobo with Dip Switchers you were the man because they even gave you slightly more OC potentials and better results too rofl

Heh I wish I still had all my old gear. I was thinking of doing this too, but I couldn't find enough of the stuff... I must have gotten rid of my old Athlon T bird and Voodoo3 card :P
 
I still have some Samsung TCCD ddr that has timings of 2-2-2-5 though!
 
 
 
Now that you have the system for it, you need to play some Tribes in GLide :)
 

Here a video of it in action, I found some lovely Midi songs to give you an idea on how the AWE64 Gold sounds like!

 
Excuse my heavy breathing , renovating oldies like this one takes away my energy a bit xD

Outstanding nostalgia build. Brings back lots of memories!

A little before my time messing with computers. But still a cool build.

That is a beautiful build. I've been thinking about doing the same thing with my first "gaming" machine which consisted of:

Pentium Pro 200MHz 512k
Voodoo Monster 3d add in card
4GB 10k rpm cheetah
256MB EDO ram

This was back like in 97 or so.

Here this system with a 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP 64MB Rev.A 2500 as main 2D/3D VGA card

Avenger M99

Intel Pentium !!!/E 650Mhz Coppermine S.E.C.C. 2 / Slot 1
3x 128MB PC-100 CL3 Hyundai / Samsung
EPoX EP-BX3 Intel BX440 Chipset
3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP 64MB 256Bit SDR Rev.A 2500 [Inpractical 2x 32MB 12Bit SDR]
Intel Pro 100/S Desktop Adapter
Philips FM/AM Radio Card 8Bit ISA
Creative Labs AWE64 Gold CT4390
Samsung 3.5" Floppy Drive
LG 40x/16x CD/DVD RW-Drive
1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 40GB ATA 100
1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 25GB ATA 100

Windows 2000 Professional UK + Service Pack 4
x-3dfx Community Driver 1.08.00b for the V5 5500 AGP


Here an other nice pic of the Voodoo5 5500 AGP:


3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP 64MB Rev.A 2500 top:



3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP 64MB Rev.A 2500 rear:



3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP 64MB Rev.A 2500 headshot:

 
Here it's updated MR +1 page
298.) Gold Leader - Avenger M99

Yus they are, even I learned most of building computers during the Pentium !!! Age :) 1999-sih I think, this was also my first Pentium !!! system which had a Coppermine Core, it's L2 Cache also ran at full die speed of 650Mhz :)
 
The older Katmai Pentium !!!'s had half speed L2 Chache even that it was twice the size from that of the later Coppermines.
A Pentium !!! Katmai 600Mhz has 512KB L2 @ 300Mhz  as where a Pentium !!!/E 600Mhz has 256KB L2 but at 600Mhz.
 
The Die of the Katmai is 25 Micro as where the Coppermine is 18 Micron, this with the improved faster L2 Cache made the Coppermine a good improvement over the older Pentirum !!! Katmai's.

Well I upgraded my oldest PC from 1999 with a Diamond Viper II Z200 AGP 32MB, so here the final specs:

Avenger M99

Intel Pentium !!!/E 650Mhz Coppermine S.E.C.C. 2 / Slot 1
3x 128MB PC-100 CL3 Hyundai / Samsung
EPoX EP-BX3 Intel BX440 Chipset
Diamond Multimedia ViperII Z200 AGP 32MB 128Bit SDR [S3 Savage 2000 AGP 32MB]
Quantum3D Obsidian2 X-24 PCI 24MB 384Bit Edo
Intel Pro 100/S Desktop Adapter
Philips FM/AM Radio Card 8Bit ISA
Creative Labs AWE64 Gold CT4390
Samsung 3.5" Floppy Drive
LG 40x/16x CD/DVD RW-Drive
1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 40GB ATA 100
1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 25GB ATA 100

Windows 2000 Professional UK + Service Pack 4
Latest S3 Savage 2000 Drivers for Win2K
Latest Quantum 3D Obsidian2 Drivers For Win2K from NuAngel's Archive

Here some pics of the upgraded main VGA card:




And here me playing some Descent 3 1.4 with it:


I'll post some screenshots from Descent 3 as well
Just felt like going back to 1999 when I had 2x Skywell Magic 3D II 12 MB's in SLI, this X-24 fills in that gap just fine.
It's the X-24 Venturi gifted me 


Back in the day my friend InsaneMST had a Dual P3 Katmai 600Mhz on a Tyan Thunder 2500.
that with 4x 256MB PC-100 ECC Reg from Samsung Original and a GeForce 256 Deuluxe from ASUS

And he kind of got me in to 2CPU computers, thereby being Gradinko SMP 2000 my first attempt for 2CPU computers;
The Dual P3/EB 1Ghz on the ABiT VP6.

Was quite the setup back then

Here some pics of this oldie running Descent 3 with patch 1.4 in 3dfx Glide API with the X-24.
Here the three ships you can fly:

Pyro-GL Medium Attack Fighter:


Phoenix: Light Attack Fighter:


Magnum-AHT aka "The Tank": Heavy Attack Fighter:


Here some ingame pics I ran @ 1024x768x16 in 3dfx Glide API:










D3 runs butter smooth on this system with the X-24 in there
Even when playing D3 with this system it feels as if time never changed... it feels good to be back for that sense.

I got the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500C TV-Out AGP 16MB Rev.A 2799 back in the system and I plan to play more games with this card
The Quantum3D Obsidian2 X-24 was fun that for sure but this is sooo much faster ad the image quality is also improving, a well known aspect when it comes to Voodoo3 boards alike.

yet I did find out that Voodoo3 3500 doesn't like using HSR ak Hidden Shader Removal, this made my games crash every 10 to 20 minutes of game time, with it disabled all such issues are gone.

Here the specs of the current 3dfx test setup:

Avenger M99

Intel Pentium !!!/E 650Mhz Coppermine S.E.C.C. 2 / Slot 1
3x 128MB PC-100 CL3 Hyundai / Samsung
EPoX EP-BX3 Intel BX440 Chipset
3dfx Voodoo3 3500C TV-Out AGP 16MB 128Bit SDR Rev.A 2799
Intel Pro 100/S Desktop Adapter
Philips FM/AM Radio Card 8Bit ISA
Creative Labs AWE64 Gold CT4390
Samsung 3.5" Floppy Drive
LG 40x/16x CD/DVD RW-Drive
1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 40GB ATA 100
1x Maxtor Diamond Max 9+ 25GB ATA 100

Windows 2000 Professional UK + Service Pack 4
AmigaSport 3.0 for Win2K for the for the V3 3500C (By AmigaMerlin from 3dfxzone.it)

Here the test system with the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500C TV-Out AGP 16MB 128Bit SDR Rev.A 2799 in action with perfect image output

Game being run is Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith @ 1024x768x16 in 3dfx Glide API at max settings.

Here the V3 3500C installed:


Here a view of it's heatsink, yeah back in a time that your high end graphics card used a heatsink, a fanless life xD


As for the CPU I actually am looking for a Pentium3/E 933Mhz S.E.C.C. 2 / Slot 1 CPU, I may buy one on ebay aftrr my bithday Dec 08.
Even though trying to find a Thermaltake Golden Orb for Slot 1 is much harder :X

Okay! Here some screenshots from Star Wars: Mysteries of the Sith layed @ 1024x768x16 in 3dfx Glide API, max ingame settings, HSR disabled:

 

 

 

 

 


After playing Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II & Mysteries of the Sith I noticed that these games are much harder to play than the new-gen games like Battlefront II as single player goes or Wolfenstein II alike, these classic games don't have a simplified AI, it's made for die-hards, easy mode in these games is like medium mode in new-gen games and normal mode is quite a lot harder than their hard mode.

I blame the console market for this change, nowadays new games are first released on the Console and then released on PC with a degraded AI system and tons of bugs.
Game quality is just bad in the end.

All the new-gen FPS games are mainly Multi Player orientated as well and the focus for making a good single player game is being phased out.
Gladly in the 1990's games had both great single player & multiplayer game modes with LAN & IPX/SPX & VPN multiplayer modes as well, you had more choice and a much richer and complete game content.

Anyways I will post more pics to add to this thread later on 
The Voodoo3 3500C is a lot faster than the X-24 that I did manage to find out xD
Rediscoving these old relics is fun actually  Love this stuff
 
Here a video of my P3/E 650's AWE64 Gold playing some Midi music 

Yeha I am surprised it still works, even though I do keep it clean from dust  and such things, may have been it's savior
It's using the X-24 again I managed to get it running better, it had remains of old drivers on it, now it runs much better