j^aws wrote:

Regarding the bold: […]
Show full quote

vetz wrote:

As j^aws suggest, those two builds would work, but I don't have the hardware for it and I can easily have three builds in my setup:) I have no experience with VIA C3 systems, and finding an LGA775 board with Core2 and Win98 support which also supports the unlocked X6800 is hard. I do own the X6800, but my LGA775 board Asrock 775Dual-VSTA do not allow multiplier changes. It's also the problem to find a video/sound card that covers all the periods well.

Regarding the bold:

Video: A multi-card setup with Tseng ET4000AX for ISA and S3 ViRGE DX-GX /Voodoo 5500 for PCI are extremely compatible for VGA. For 3D, Voodoo 5500 and Vodoo 1/2 combo with a GeForce 2/3/4/5/6 are extremely compatible. And for good measure, chuck in a PowerVR PCX2.

Sound: A multi-card setup with a SBPro 2/ AWE32/ GUS for ISA, and YMF 7x4/ Vortex 2/Live 5.1/ Audigy 2/4 setup for PCI should cover the entire aforementioned range very well. You can use SoftMPU or a hardware Intelligent MPU solution with external MIDI modules to round off the sound setup.

Does anyone know any Win9x or newer era games that don't run properly on a high clocked CPU? I haven't personally found any, but I think it's an important question to answer for the purpose of this topic.

You don't require a C3 for good CPU scaling, a K6-2+ or K6-3+ will work great for a classic retro time machine build if your socket 7 board can supply the appropriate CPU voltage. I'd even check your POD system to see if that CPU supports test register settings with SETMUL. It wouldn't have the top end performance of a K6-2, but would certainly handle P5 and 486 duties. With those performance ranges taken care of, you can use your PT880 board for both Win98 and WinXP as well as DOS games requiring maximum CPU performance. I wouldn't even worry about downclocking that machine subject to feedback from my question above.

The faster machine can have a good 3D accelerator card supporting both OpenGL and Direct3D (probably an nVidia card) as well as an SLI setup and perhaps a PCX2 card, as suggested above. You can further tune your requirements if you have specific games in mind, like Splinter Cell. The more moderate machine can have a card with good DOS 2D compatibility and perhaps a Voodoo 1 if you want to run one of the more difficult games like Alain Prost Grand Prix.

gdjacobs wrote:

Does anyone know any Win9x or newer era games that don't run properly on a high clocked CPU? I haven't personally found any, but I think it's an important question to answer for the purpose of this topic.

NFS Porsche Unleashed comes to mind. It won't give you high-detail textures when your CPU has a higher clock rate than 2GHz, thanks to a messed up CPU speed check in the game's executable. This can be corrected by modifying the executable accordingly, but out-of-the-box, this game won't work correctly on a CPU faster than 2GHz.

Hmm, interesting. Any downsides to the patch or is this a 100% resolvable issue?

Some Star Wars game has a camera glitch. Incoming benchmark stops working past 2 GHz. Wipeout 2097 and Sega Rally Championship run too fast.

There are likely a lot more, I guess not many play on such machines so we don't know about them. Often issues can be not obvious like unbeatable AI and things like that.

gdjacobs wrote:

Hmm, interesting. Any downsides to the patch or is this a 100% resolvable issue?

No downsides I know of. The modification just corrects the CPU speed check, nothing else is touched. It works just fine on my i7-4960X @4GHz.

Okay, so it sounds like downclocking would be a very useful feature. Any thoughts on finding an LGA 775 board with AGP, Core 2 Duo downclocking, and Win98 support, or is it going to be easier (cheaper?) switching to the S939 platform?

All* Core 2 Duo compatible MB's should be able to downclock CPU to "x6" mulitplier (ie. forced [x6] from BIOS). With [6x] multi, only 1333MHz/1600MHz FSB CPU, can go above that 2GHz clock.

*maybe some OEM's can't do that, but I don't own/heared about any MB that couldn't forced a lower multi (after C1E/SpeedStep were disabled).

It sounds like a BIOS limitation in the case of OP's board.

gdjacobs wrote:

...
You don't require a C3 for good CPU scaling, a K6-2+ or K6-3+ will work great for a classic retro time machine build if your socket 7 board can supply the appropriate CPU voltage. I'd even check your POD system to see if that CPU supports test register settings with SETMUL. It wouldn't have the top end performance of a K6-2, but would certainly handle P5 and 486 duties. With those performance ranges taken care of, you can use your PT880 board for both Win98 and WinXP as well as DOS games requiring maximum CPU performance. I wouldn't even worry about downclocking that machine subject to feedback from my question above.
...

A K6-2/3+ works great on a SS7- agreed, but the C3 is better on a SLot 1 / S370. There is a gap in its speed range which causes issues for a game like Magic Carpet (Pentium 60-90MHz range), and the C3 (Ezra-T) can easlily fill that gap. The DOS version of Ultima 7 doesn't work with the cache trick on a K6-2/3+ because it re-enables L1 cache when the game starts, for example. This doesn't affect the C3 (Eztra-T) as you can use ICD (Instruction Cache Disable).

Some DOS games, like CyberMage, need a faster CPU than an Pentium 233 MMX to run smoothly. A speed sensitive DOS game needing a SpaceOrb 360 controller, e.g. Alien Trilogy, needs a faster DOS CPU than a P233 MMX, and so on.

The other solution better than a C3 (Eztra-T) is a K6-3+ on a Turbo-switched Socket 7 board. This fills all the gaps that the C3 fills (except the very top), but goes even slower into 286, 8086 and 8088 XT territory. But requires extra physical switches to get the full range - both of which the OP is not interesrted in.

I agree with you regarding the C3 CPU -- it's the best option, really, although he seems reluctant to test the platform. Another good option I mentioned would be a fast Intel S7 (perhaps even an MMX) CPU with TR12 support in SETMUL. That does require a bit of cherry picking to find one where the registers are enabled, though.

That controller is cool enough looking that it's almost worth building a system around it!

gdjacobs wrote:

I agree with you regarding the C3 CPU -- it's the best option, really, although he seems reluctant to test the platform.

C3 has little coolness... on a scale of zero to Voodoo2-SLI, and especially on a scale of zero to 'Dual-P3-S-1400MHz with AWE64-Gold'. 😁 To be fair; I usually lose interest whenever I discover a VIA chipset on a motherboard. Fortunately C3 is more IDT/Centaur then VIA.

j^aws wrote:

Regarding the bold:

Video: A multi-card setup with Tseng ET4000AX for ISA and S3 ViRGE DX-GX /Voodoo 5500 for PCI are extremely compatible for VGA. For 3D, Voodoo 5500 and Vodoo 1/2 combo with a GeForce 2/3/4/5/6 are extremely compatible. And for good measure, chuck in a PowerVR PCX2.

Sound: A multi-card setup with a SBPro 2/ AWE32/ GUS for ISA, and YMF 7x4/ Vortex 2/Live 5.1/ Audigy 2/4 setup for PCI should cover the entire aforementioned range very well. You can use SoftMPU or a hardware Intelligent MPU solution with external MIDI modules to round off the sound setup.

I'm fully aware of those compatibilities, but the issue is more about compatibility with Windows 98/XP than previous operating systems. I have the 486 and Socket 7 builds for those eras.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Some Star Wars game has a camera glitch. Incoming benchmark stops working past 2 GHz. Wipeout 2097 and Sega Rally Championship run too fast.

There are likely a lot more, I guess not many play on such machines so we don't know about them. Often issues can be not obvious like unbeatable AI and things like that.

I agree, it's little information to be found running these games on faster systems. All the games you mention, and also those I can think of are early Win9x games, in the 1995 to 1998 timeframe. All those games will run fine on my AMD K6-III system. I'm thinking my faster Win98/XP system will cover the 1998 to 2005 timeframe.

All* Core 2 Duo compatible MB's should be able to downclock CPU to "x6" mulitplier (ie. forced [x6] from BIOS). With [6x] multi, only 1333MHz/1600MHz FSB CPU, can go above that 2GHz clock.

My board also supports 6x multiplier on Core2 CPUs, so should be fine to downclock if needed.

j^aws wrote:

A K6-2/3+ works great on a SS7- agreed, but the C3 is better on a SLot 1 / S370. There is a gap in its speed range which causes issues for a game like Magic Carpet (Pentium 60-90MHz range), and the C3 (Ezra-T) can easlily fill that gap. The DOS version of Ultima 7 doesn't work with the cache trick on a K6-2/3+ because it re-enables L1 cache when the game starts, for example. This doesn't affect the C3 (Eztra-T) as you can use ICD (Instruction Cache Disable).

Some DOS games, like CyberMage, need a faster CPU than an Pentium 233 MMX to run smoothly. A speed sensitive DOS game needing a SpaceOrb 360 controller, e.g. Alien Trilogy, needs a faster DOS CPU than a P233 MMX, and so on.

The other solution better than a C3 (Eztra-T) is a K6-3+ on a Turbo-switched Socket 7 board. This fills all the gaps that the C3 fills (except the very top), but goes even slower into 286, 8086 and 8088 XT territory. But requires extra physical switches to get the full range - both of which the OP is not interesrted in.

If you run Magic Carpet in SVGA resolutions, then a Pentium 90 won't cut it. To get good framerates you need 233MMX atleast, again something that would be covered by the SS7 system. I do know that some games with very high resolution options will not run good enough on the SS7, like late DOS Build engine games. Hopefully the faste Win9x/WinXP system can take over here.

I got hold of a Creative Soundblaster Titanium HD PCI-Express card locally which works on my modern Windows 10 rig. I installed some of the games I was planning on playing, like Prey, FEAR, Condemmed Criminal Origins, Halo 1&2, and all of those games run (thanks to PCgaming WIKI) and sound fine (with Creative ALchemy). That cut down on the need for the Windows 98/XP machine as it doesn't need to handle the very late XP games.

Based on that I think I'll go with the Scenario #2 with a AGP card that supports both XP and Win98.

gerwin, I know what you mean about loosing interest anytime you see a VIA chipset on the board. I have made an exception list: VIA 481/495 for running 386, PGA-132 CPUs, particularly SXL2-50. [side note: It does some hidden magic, probably with wait states, when using a 25 MHz FSB and makes the SXL2-50 more like an SXL2-60]; VIA 266T for dual Tualatin III-S. Even still, it is VIA and it always makes the system feel cheap.

vetz, I'm not sure how much time you have to play games but seems many people stuff their systems in the closet and pull 'em out on demand. I have about a dozen setup systems, mostly for hardware interests, and I can pull it out of the closet and have it running in less than 60 seconds. At one point I thought I'd set them all up with 3 KVM's and 3 monitors and design a wrap-around office desk for the purpose. However, I realised how impractical this was for space considerations and due to the lack of time to use them. Having them stuffed in the closet inside a case is just a very fast way to get a testbed going.

feipoa wrote:

gerwin, I know what you mean about loosing interest anytime you see a VIA chipset on the board. I have made an exception list...

Good to know thanks! Yes I suppose the KT600 Athlon XP chipset was OK too. But it took VIA several questionable KTxxx chipset revisions to get to that one.

All good for the Socket A platform.
KT133, KT133A, KT266A, KT333, KT400A, KT600, KT880

The KT266 was poor and the KT400 was mediocre. The KT133 did have the PCI problem, but otherwise it ran great.

gdjacobs wrote:

All good for the Socket A platform. KT133, KT133A, KT266A, KT333, KT400A, KT600, KT880. The KT266 was poor and the KT400 was mediocre. The KT133 did have the PCI problem, but otherwise it ran great.

I encountered a power saving bug on the KT400, which I still hold against it. Info here. No such problem on my KT600 board. ( Way off-topic by now, sorry. )

Back on topic (sorta) - it would be fun to design a case of minimum dimensions which could house, say, 4 or more computer configurations at a time and would allow you to toggle between them. Ideally, such a case should be at least 50% smaller than 4 cases stacked together. Each system in the case would share the floppy/CD/PSU/mouse/KBC. The drawback is that no two system could be run at a time. Maybe some ID people here will pickup on this endevour.

Update here:

I've installed Windows 98 on my Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA board with Core Duo 2 X6800, 512MB RAM, Nvidia 6800GT and a 150GB WD Raptor harddrive. Things to notice when doing this:

- Must use a IDE optical drive if you want to boot directly from Windows 98 CD, or else you must have a DOS SATA driver as bootup.
- Windows 98 setup crashed quite often, but continued were it left off every time it restarted.
- Could not get onboard sound to work, but I was planning on using an external card anyway (currently Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS installed). For external sound card to be detected, I had to disable onboard.
- Set SATA to non-RAID in BIOS, or else performance is extremely slow.
- Have a CD ready with the drivers from here: Asrock 4coreDual-SATA2. Win98 Compatible, but cannot find drivers?, or install a PCI ethernet card that have drivers on the Win98 CD or floppy.

There are two warnings I can't get rid of in the device manager, but they don't see to create issues.

So far installed:
- Rogue Squadron
- Aquanox
- Sacrifice

All have worked with no issues. Going to test more games.

Yesterday when I booted up the system crashed right after I came into Windows. When I hit reset the mouse was gone (with no popup message that PS/2 was not connected or anything), the sound was creating errors and the video driver was back to 16 colors. Loading into safe mode and trying to troubleshoot, but I couldnt figure it out (the mouse was fine here). This is the kind of problems I feared when using a setup like this for Win98.

Seriously considering going further with the S478 system as it should be more than powerful enough to run Sacrifice, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Mechwarrior 3&4, Descent III, Aquanox and other demanding games in full 1600x1200.

I would, I think. Win9x in general is witchety, but then, maybe I'm biased against it.

The games you're planning to play - do they work right in Win2k/WinXP? If they do, I'd put something NT-based on the Core 2 Duo and run 98 (or maybe ME?) on the P4. From my experience, 98 played nice enough on most P4 and Athlon hardware, but stuff newer than that got screwy. It can work, but it'll be a lot of headache, which is really not worth it if the games either run well on a P4, or run well under 2k/XP.

One thing I'm not all that sure on, though, is WinME. Does ME play a little nicer with the later end of 9x-era machines than 98SE does? I never used it very much, and when I did see it, it was usually people who were having problems (who usually got sidegraded to Win2k or upgraded to WinXP instead).