Impressive configuration 😀 But why you ignore GUS?

Good choice!
The P2B is one of the most famous BX chipset boards, it will provide a good base for the rest of the hardware. At work I still use a P2B-LS (a model with integrated SCSI controller and network interface), it has been running non-stop for six years and never crashed 😉

Nice soundcard lineup! Many people go for the Roland devices (at least it seems so if you look at Ebay prices), but the Aureal SQ2500 with the DB50XG is a nice touch, and the IBM Music Feature Card will make it into a rare gem 😀

But why you ignore GUS?

Only because I haven't found one for sale at a decent price. Also, it really be an original or preferably an ACE so I wouldn't have to be bothered with Sound Blaster clone chips on the MAX, Extreme or PnP.

The P2B is one of the most famous BX chipset boards, it will provide a good base for the rest of the hardware. At work I still use a P2B-LS (a model with integrated SCSI controller and network interface), it has been running non-stop for six years and never crashed

ASUS boards are solid, sound devices. I had a ASUS CUBX that ran for years without trouble even though a non-essential circuit blew out on it. I thought of obtaining a P2B-F (four DIMM slots) or a P2B-L (network onboard), but they only had two ISA slots and three is the magic number. When I obtain a slower PC, those three ISA slots will house the following:

Sound Blaster 16 ASP SCSI-2 + ?
Roland MPU-401/AT + Roland SCB-55
Gravis Ultrasound or Ultrasound ACE (to be purchased)

I don't know if I will put a daughtercard on the SB16 at that time, I already have two and no other card comes close to the notoriety of the Roland or Yamaha.

I have three unuseful (for me) gravis ultrasound cards (revs 2.4, 3.73, 3.74) and one 16-bit recording daughterboard. But i live in russia 🙁

I don't think there are soundblaster clone chips on the MAX? Though it can emulate a variety of cards (it's roland emulation is pretty good actually).

The MAX basically performs identically to the original GuS, but with more ram (up to 1MB), a 16 bit recording option and a cd interface as standard. There really is no downside to using the MAX. I wouldn't touch an Ace with a bargepole however.. even though nothing really uses more than 512k of RAM.. why settle?

I don't think there are soundblaster clone chips on the MAX? Though it can emulate a variety of cards (it's roland emulation is pretty good actually).

The MAX basically performs identically to the original GuS, but with more ram (up to 1MB), a 16 bit recording option and a cd interface as standard. There really is no downside to using the MAX. I wouldn't touch an Ace with a bargepole however.. even though nothing really uses more than 512k of RAM.. why settle?

The ACE allows you to upgrade to 1MB, and the MAX is supposed to come with 512K. The only issue with the Ace is the lack of recording capabilities, but what game cares about that?

have three unuseful (for me) gravis ultrasound cards (revs 2.4, 3.73, 3.74) and one 16-bit recording daughterboard. But i live in russia

I hope they allow you to ship internationally, because I would take the 3.74 and recording daughterboard if you could get it to the States.

sherlock holmes can not play on 19 inch flat panel

its an old dos game (addictive - 16,000 combinations at least)

tried compatability mode and setting screen.
but it goes to dos and ignores screen settings

anyone have success?

j1076366@hotmail.com
computer virus removal

Great Hierophant wrote:

Only because I haven't found one for sale at a decent price. Also, it really be an original or preferably an ACE so I wouldn't have to be bothered with Sound Blaster clone chips on the MAX, Extreme or PnP.

It is absolutely no problem to have both a GUS and SB. The SB emulation is only initialised after you run SBOS. And you really don't want to do that if you have a real SB.

Great Hierophant wrote:

The ACE allows you to upgrade to 1MB, and the MAX is supposed to come with 512K. The only issue with the Ace is the lack of recording capabilities, but what game cares about that?

I don't know about the ACE (but if I remember correctly is does not allow for an upgrade in memory as it was a cheap card), but the MAX allows for a maximum of 1MB. I know because I have one, this is not info from some site.

The ACE was made as an add-on board Soundblaster users could buy so they could have wavetable sound.

Back in the day I can understand buying one to save money, but now there is no reason at all to buy such a lite "thing".

This is what is currently contained in the machine:

Pentium II 450MHz
128MB PC100 SDRAM
ASUS P2B
24x CD-ROM
1.44MB Floppy
nVidia Geforce 256 32MB AGP (ELSA w/DVI)
3Com PCI NIC 10/100 card
6GB Quantum Fireball HDD
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
Gravis Ultrasound ACE

I am unsure about many things. This machine is designed to do play the old games that DOSBox cannot play, i.e. Windows games.

DOSBox can play most of the early Glide games that require a Voodoo 1, so I think a Voodoo 2 SLI may be more appropriate for the system than a Voodoo 1.

I am also coming to the conclusion that the ACE is too old for the games this system is designed to run. Also, as this system is going to be running Windows games, why on Earth should I use a Sound Blaster AWE64 instead of a Live!, Audigy or Vortex2?

I also have doubts of whether the processor is suitable for Windows games? Perhaps it is too slow? Or perhaps a second processor, like a P3 750 (100MHz) would also be useful. I could overclock that to 1000MHz by running the memory at 133MHz, or underclock it to 500MHz by running the memory at 66MHz.

Finally, I don't like the motherboard at all. It has too many ISA slots, only 3 RAM slots (I intend this machine to have 512MB of RAM), and requires jumpers to change CPU/Memory speeds. A P3B-F would solve all those problems.

The newly improved machine would have the following specs:

Pentium III 750MHz (100MHz)
512MB PC133 SDRAM
ASUS P3B-F
24x CD-ROM
1.44MB Floppy
nVidia Geforce 256 32MB AGP (ELSA w/DVI)
2 x Voodoo 2 12MB SLI
3Com PCI NIC 10/100 card
6GB Quantum Fireball HDD
Aureal Vortex 2 SQ2500 (rev. B)

It should run any Windows 9x game, but it is not designed for games that would especially benefit from DirectX7 and Win2K/XP

My particular card also comes with a DVI-D connector for my flat panel

What kind of flat panel do you use? How about your experiences with it - do you need a CRT alongside?
I ask because using "native" dos mode instead of dos-box means that you have no control over the way expansion/interpolation is done (by the drivers), resulting in the well known problems of streched resolutions (i.E. 4:3 to 5:4 a.s.o.) and loss of sharpness.