wolf
Better Than Native
- Joined
- May 7, 2007
- Messages
- 8,196 (1.28/day)
| System Name | MightyX |
|---|---|
| Processor | Ryzen 9800X3D |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte X650I AX |
| Cooling | Scythe Fuma 2 |
| Memory | 32GB DDR5 6000 CL30 |
| Video Card(s) | Asus TUF RTX3080 Deshrouded |
| Storage | WD Black SN850X 2TB |
| Display(s) | LG 42C2 4K OLED |
| Case | Coolermaster NR200P |
| Audio Device(s) | LG SN5Y / Focal Clear |
| Power Supply | Corsair SF750 Platinum |
| Mouse | Corsair Dark Core RBG Pro SE |
| Keyboard | Glorious GMMK Compact w/pudding |
| VR HMD | Meta Quest 3 |
| Software | case populated with Artic P12's |
| Benchmark Scores | 4k120 OLED Gsync bliss |
Hey folks, its been mentioned on and off in other threads but I am well into setting up a 2004 era retro PC.
It's now the year 2024 so why not take a look back a nice round 20 years, plus or minus one or two because hey, it's my project and I'm having a absolute boatload of fun. 2004 is the year I graduated high school (year 12, age 17 in Australia) and while I had a pc for years before this, decent ones even, it was the year I started really pouring myself into the hobby, including buying my first ever top of the range GPU on release. I remember visiting TPU for a perhaps multiple years and lurking before finally signing up in '07. This year and era in general holds a very special place in my heart, and attending LAN's (while I have continued on and off, but overall dwindling since that era) was a defining social event of the 21st century, gosh I miss them, what I'd give to go back and get lots of copies of games that I want to install right now!
The rig itself is a mixture of era specific and era appropriate, with hopefully more and more specific parts joining the fray as time goes on. It's also set up with ease of use and hardware in mind, hence a newer pci-e board.
It is a distinct mission objective to have the box remain totally offline, I want this to be set up as a standalone experience to last the ages, just to be able to dust it off, plug it in, and play whatever I want again.
Hardware.
Right off the bat, there's things I'd love to share or get help with from the brains trust.
It's now the year 2024 so why not take a look back a nice round 20 years, plus or minus one or two because hey, it's my project and I'm having a absolute boatload of fun. 2004 is the year I graduated high school (year 12, age 17 in Australia) and while I had a pc for years before this, decent ones even, it was the year I started really pouring myself into the hobby, including buying my first ever top of the range GPU on release. I remember visiting TPU for a perhaps multiple years and lurking before finally signing up in '07. This year and era in general holds a very special place in my heart, and attending LAN's (while I have continued on and off, but overall dwindling since that era) was a defining social event of the 21st century, gosh I miss them, what I'd give to go back and get lots of copies of games that I want to install right now!
The rig itself is a mixture of era specific and era appropriate, with hopefully more and more specific parts joining the fray as time goes on. It's also set up with ease of use and hardware in mind, hence a newer pci-e board.
It is a distinct mission objective to have the box remain totally offline, I want this to be set up as a standalone experience to last the ages, just to be able to dust it off, plug it in, and play whatever I want again.
Hardware.
- Intel Q87 M-ATX / i5 4590 / 2x4G DDR3 1600 / Sata SSD 256g- the most egregiously non era specific parts, however I am A'ok with this, it makes the system snappy to use, and importantly basically eliminates any CPU bottleneck, allowing any card I can throw in to operate at it's fullest potential (GPU bottlenecked is where I want to be). I actually have recorded benchmarks from when I mained a 6600GT, and 3dmark scores/fps can be within 5% of original, incredible!
- Antec 1080 Soho server tower - released in 2002, but like a sign from above, it's build date is in 2004.
- Nvidia 6600GT (any so far several other era cards being tested, because why not, although my endgame cards are 2004 high end
) currently as of today messing with a 7600GT. I have (or they're ordered) likely a half dozen or more cards that'll get a run in this box. - Hyundai ImageQuest Q770 - 1024x768 @ 85hz and 1280x960 @ 70hz are the interesting and useable resolutions, may consider better CRT if it isn't eleventy billion dollars.
- MS optical mouse and Wave keyboard, likely will be chasing some cool era peripherals.
- Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS is on the way.
- Windows XP. I've gone for 64-bit which ultimately may be something I need to revisit and go to 32 and start again, but so far I've gotten the vast majority of what I wanted working well.
- Winamp - it really whips the lama's ass!
- Daemon Tools [Lite] - where would we be without it
- GPU-Z
- Fraps
- MSI Afterburner/Rivatuner SS/Kombustor
- A growing list and benchmarks, 3dmark 2001-through-06, Aquamark 3, various canned benches like street fighter 4 and DMC4
- Many of the games worked first try, many required significant time, trial and error etc with patches, nocd cracks and so own. I either currently own or purchased and lost physical copies of everything I am using. No i don't feel bad.
Right off the bat, there's things I'd love to share or get help with from the brains trust.
- The CRT has scratches in the anti glare coating.. not sure how to deal with that, but I'd rather not open it up
- Worth disabling cores down to a single or dual for either better performance or hitting era appropriate better? I'm content with it as is, but want opinion.
- So far no attempt to get Half Life 2 running will work, I get a 128MB system memory error after the launch screen with valve face
- 3dMark 2001 wont launch either citing me not having 128MB system memory. - I suspect this and HL2 are related to XP64.
- Anyone remember how to pencil mod cards of this era? 6600GT/7600GT so far.
- Star Wars Republic commando just won't launch, halp (send error report)
- What would be the best way to take a full system backup? if windows ends up breaking somehow or corrupting I don't want to manually have to do it all again if it can be avoided, it's currenly humming along.
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All theses games in a 256 Go SSD ?
what a time it was.
Not to mention, I got my first ever AMD rig in the form of an Athlon 64 3000+, 512 MB RAM (that I upgraded to 2 GB) and a Radeon 9600 XT. I was drooling over reviews of the 6600 GT, but then I got a good deal on an ex-display X800 XT which was just as good, if not better. Sweet memories! 
