This build started with me wanting to play a few dos games in DosBox - XCOM/TFTD, Monkey Island, Descent and a few other titles I've never played like Sam and Max and Theme Park. I dont remember what tipped me over the edge, but I do remember distinctly hating on the Adlib/Soundblaster in DosBox, thinking that the music was surely better on my old computer. The software graphics was also irking me. I then ran into problems loading Theme Park and also Descent wasn't quite right. At this point I thought "screw it, i know how to build a pc" and "i've had a few dos/win3/win95 machines how difficult can it be?"

My PC history starts in 1992, my Dad bought a 486 DX 33Mhz which I played my first PC game, Monkey Island on. I used Dos and Dosshell. 2 years later in '94 we bought an add-on pack from Creative which came with a PnP SB16, a quad speed CD rom, speakers and a big stack of CD roms filled to the brim with games. This is the era I miss the most - because I actually missed most of the games from this era. It was rare to get a new game and little 8 year old me didn't have the skill or mind to tackle most. I still enjoyed the heck out of FMV sequences, intro themes, the music, the animation. I was a little noob but loved every second of it.

So looking back, I decided to build a PC that could play all of these old DOS games from roughly '91 to present. I knew I wanted a few things: Soundblaster 16 compatiblity, FM music, PS/2 mouse input (i REALLY hate ball-mice and wanted optical), a solid state/flash drive (i really hate seek-time and platter spin up), USB 2.0 for transfer speed, enough RAM to run everything, a decent enough 2D PCI video card, running on a motherboard with a CPU at about 100 to 166mhz. After watching some videos reviewing Voodoo cards I decided something like that needed to be installed to try Glide games. Also was enticed to buy a few soundcards with Phil's reviews as advice as I had some ideas floating around to test.

Here's the hardware:
• Shuttle HOT-591p - Baby AT super socket 7 board with the VIA Apollo MVP chipset (PS/2, USB headers available)
• Pentium MMX 166Mhz (it came with the motherboard)
• 128 MB SD RAM
• InnoVision Voodoo Banshee 16MB (PCI)
• Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Value ISA (CT4520)
• Aopen Cobra AW744L PCI (Yamaha XG/Yamaha YMF744)
• NEC USB 2.0 PCI card (i could not handle the "speed" of 1.1)
• GoTek floppy emulator (tbh i havent actually used this yet properly)
• LG DVD-RW
• 16GB CF and 32GB CF cards for OS and storage (2x rear PCI brackets for easy eject)
• Some less than impressive black ATX case
• Running Win98se (but primarily operating within DOSSHELL via DOS 7.1)

He's seen better days.

The guts

More guts

The majority of this stuff was bought via ebay, some bargains,some full price (the Yamaha card and a few accessories). I got a PCI and AGP banshee (InnoVision branded) in the same deal, as well as getting a Voodoo 3 3000 to use in another build, deciding on using the PCI card (i hear AGP can be buggy on socket 7). The motherboard came with some RAM and a Pentium 166 mmx and has been working perfectly.

I bought a few soundcards as I kept learning more and more about audio like Midi, FM, Soundblaster/Pro/Live/AWE. I knew what adlib music sounded like but didn't know what FM actually was – Growing up I always thought MIDI and Adlib were the same thing but different hardware, and had no idea about Gravis or Ensoniq, and didnt understand the technical differences between SB/SB2/Pro/16/AWE/Live etc.

The PC had been set up for about 2 months without the Yamaha PCI card. I had been enjoying the soundtracks of XCOM ufo defense and a few others with the AWE32/64 synth option. I originally had an idea to run the AWE64 and the Yamaha side by side but was a bit scared of all the inevitable headaches and configuration nightmares until Friday night I knuckled down to get them working.

The Yamaha card was plugged in and drivers installed through Win98se. I plugged a small 10cm 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack from the line-out of the AWE64 to the Line-In on the Yamaha. Installation went fine and I set the Yamaha as the primary audio device in Windows, adjusting the line-in levels from the SB AWE64 to reduce the buzzing/noise. The Yamaha has a much cleaner signal than the AWE64 which was a very pleasant surprise. Also had to set the Midi device to the XG within multimedia settings. I tested out Doom 2 with all the different SB effects options and then the XG midi, AWE music, FM music - all with pleasing results.

the sound cards installed in 98se

I then rebooted into MS Dos mode as usual (thx Phil for the Dos options menu PIF), let the ISA PnP card configure and initialise itsself, and then running only SETUPDS to initialise the card (or no pass-thru / line-in audio will work) and the FM address/port. This too kills the ability of the AWE64 to do CQM just like in Windows. The signals only go to the Yamaha no matter what address I try. Even though I dont want to use CQM i kinda would prefer if i had the option to use it, mainly for comparison/testing. I can use the AWE64 if I don't initialise the Yamaha but I need to physically change the audio plug from the Yamaha to the AWE64. I found that SETUPDS/S will not just initialise the FM chip, it will try to initialise the SB legacy at 220/5/1 (it wont work because I don’t have DSDMA started). Running the SETUPDS.EXE normally, won’t initialise the SB legacy, just the FM.

I tested out a bunch of games to test, XCOM, Jazz Jackrabbit, plus the game that made me hate CQM synthesis - Return of the Phantom. When I was using the AWE64 the CQM made my ears bleed. The FM from the Yamaha is clear and warm, much much better than before. Job done.

I’ve spent the last 10 months on and off getting this fairly average pc all prepared and it’s a dream come true, thanks to all of you guys (I have used the search feature a fair bit!) who have given info or have just participated in discussing. Cheers to Vogons admins for running a tight ship, the people who upload drivers, PhilsComputerLab for the guides/reviews, Victor at Retro Machines for the enthusiasm and ideas, High Treason for the lovely soundcard and system videos, j33oldnew (?) for the AWE64 setup videos and testing, plus the other Socket 7 builders for testing the waters before me so I can learn from some of your mistakes/advices. Thanks!

Return of the Phantom - i ended up liking this game more than i should. i thought it was just gonna be a 'whodunnit' story but its quite good!