About
This site is a place for me to share my hobby of collecting, tinkering and building old computers. I like to gear my systems for a given period in time, often using each year as a dividing line for which parts to include. A simple definition might be to call my builds “period correct”, but there is a bit more nuance to period correct builds, beyond just the year the parts were released. I will elaborate as I share my builds. The ultimate goal is to game on the final result, but I often find myself moving on to the next project before I can ever finish a game.
My collection spans from the late 80’s into the late 2000’s. My favorite era is probably the formative years for 3D accelerators: The late 90’s and into the early 2000’s. I have an endless fascination with the technologies vying for supremacy in those years. Many consider 3dfx to be the pioneers that brought 3D acceleration to the mainstream consumer. Indeed they were pretty quick out the gate, but there were so many other companies working hard to carve out their corner of the market. Some of those companies had real potential, and I love exploring other options of the day alongside the venerable 3dfx.
Beyond the hardware, there are a multitude of tweaks and optimizations that I have learned over the years. Some are simple no-brainers, while others include information lost to time. That’s where the “arcane” comes in, for Arcane Hardware. I have scoured the depths of archive.org, and other resources to revisit topics that may not have been discussed, or documented in decades!
Not only unearthed topics. I have a lot of very hard to find video driver files in the Files section. I am excited to share, as many took a lot of digging to recover.
This site is a hobby among many hobbies for me. Please bear with me as I continue to add content. I hope you enjoy your stay at Arcane Hardware.
Thanks,
John