Mechwarrior 2 -Best hardware?

[Shadowknight]

I'm building an old school computer to play Mechwarrior 2 3dfx, but I understand that if the computer is too fast it can create problems with the jump jets recharging. I'm planning to use the computer to play other ledger games, and would like to make the best computer possible while still maintaining compatibility with MW2.

I know about mechvm, but I'm concentrating on being able to use voodoo based games natively instead of using a wrapper, and I've heard mechvm has a few problems on its own. I'm guessing a p4 might be too fast... Can anyone give me recommendations on a processor speed and type to look for on eBay?

 

[BrightCandle]

Mechwarrior 2 was released around the original pentium days, 66-166Mhz. So presumably you want something that is really slow. Even an atom would likely be too fast, but that is one modern possibility that is at least closer than anything else that you can get new. Maybe go dumpster hunting on old business machines and you might finds a pIII around 500Mhz that is also a possibility.

 

[Cerb]

Voodoo2?! What kind of futuristic PC are you talking about?

:biggrin:

MW2 was best with plain software rendering. If you can get it running in whatever OS you try to use, that's really all there is to it. It should work fine up through Windows XP, but hardware with Windows 98 driver support would be a good thing to look for, just in case. Anything newer than an Athlon XP or Pentium 4 may be suspect, and it will run plenty fast enough on any post-Pentium CPU, save for VIA/Cyrix ones, and no-L2 early Celerons.

There is no, "too fast," but rather, possible OS incompatibilities. If you must do 3Dfx, look for an old Matrox or S3 Virge or Trio, and Voodoo 2 12MB, or Voodoo 3 (the Voodoo 3 will not need the 2D card, while the Voodoo2 will).

 

[jaqie]

pci s3trio s3vision or s3virge 1MB or more video card
hard to find a cpu older than pentium 2 233MHz, you can usually underclock them.
Windows 95 (any of ors0, osr1, osr2, ors2.1)
sound blaster 16 or sound blaster pci(16-128) or ensoniq audioPCI sound card (all the same card, all extremely good for the time and very cheap and also very dos compatible for other classic games)

I have tons of PCs including many from that era and after... starting with my 386 dx 40mhz.

 

[Shadowknight]

Voodoo2?! What kind of futuristic PC are you talking about?

:biggrin:

MW2 was best with plain software rendering.

*shudders* No. I had to rebuy it recently as the Windows version I had before didn't work, and I tried the DOS version. I remembered it being an ugly game, but it's even worse than I remembered. That's why I'm trying to build a system to run the 3dfx version. If I could find it, I'd be tempted to get a PowerVR version of Mechwarrior 2 and a PowerVR, but those are kind of rare.

If you can get it running in whatever OS you try to use, that's really all there is to it. It should work fine up through Windows XP, but hardware with Windows 98 driver support would be a good thing to look for, just in case. Anything newer than an Athlon XP or Pentium 4 may be suspect, and it will run plenty fast enough on any post-Pentium CPU, save for VIA/Cyrix ones, and no-L2 early Celerons.

There is no, "too fast," but rather, possible OS incompatibilities. If you must do 3Dfx, look for an old Matrox or S3 Virge or Trio, and Voodoo 2 12MB, or Voodoo 3 (the Voodoo 3 will not need the 2D card, while the Voodoo2 will).

Actually, I just purchased a matched set of 2 Voodoo 2s with the SLI cables today (Creative, supposed to be as good Diamond). I think I read somewhere SLi doesn't work on MW2, and I have to do some finagling to get it to work with A Voodoo 2. I still have my Hercules Voodoo/2D hybrid card, so I can use that as a backup.

Anyway, my main concern is that if you use really fast hardware, jump jets will recharge very slowly, or won't recharge at all per here: http://www.mech2.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=806 . I already orderd parts for a P4 last week, a mistake in retrospect, but it'll work with Windows 98 system. I may go ahead and track down an old P2 off Ebay to be on the safe side, but I'll probably wait until the P4 parts get in at the end of the week to see how it does first. If I have jump jet problems, I'll just get a P2 CPU and Board for maybe $50 off ebay.

 

[jaqie]

I actually built a win98 era top of the line gaming system I have in the closet right now.

P2 400mhz, 1GB PC100 ram, dual v2 8MB (could only afford those), dvdrom and cdrw drives, sb16isa, s3virge/gx 1mb video, internal LS120 superdisk floppy drive, zip100 internal drive, ultra33 promise ide card, ide 8GB HDD.