VOGONS


First post, by TamaMan

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Dear Forum Members,

I am currently testing out my friend's "CC Power" Pentium 90MHz build for replacing my current main retro build, an i486/DX2@66MHz with plain ISA slots only. The P90 came a CT6610 (Permedia 2) and an UltraSound PnP w/1MB.

Previously, I've been interested in early 90s era stuff but since I had saved my old Matrox and Voodoo cards, I am planning on switching to the P90 machine to support a wider usage range from DOS/Win3 to Windows 95 and titles like Duke 3D, Quake, Tomb Raider, GTA, Half-Life, etc. Luckily, the BIOS has options for "Deturbo" (slowed down to 25 MHz) and "System Cache Disable" (required for some games when AdLib card inserted). Will need to test Test Drive III, Ultima VII and Wing Commander I how they perform with deturbo.

"CC Power"
* P544C@90MHz
* Intel ADVANCED/ZP
* 64MB EDO
* WDC AC21000H 1GB HDD
* 36x CDROM
* Matrox Mystique MGA-1064SG 4MB
* Diamond Monster 3D 4MB
* Sound Blaster 2.0 + CMS Chip upgrade OR AdLib Music Synthesizer Card
* Roland SCC-1 + any of my external modules (MT-32, SC-55, SC-7) via MIDI Out.

Any comments on setup or games to tests? Thanks.

"High fidelity recordings of 90s PRO MIDI music and DOS/Windows game soundtracks on real hardware (AdLib, Sound Blaster+CMS/Pro 2/16/AWE32/AWE64, Roland MT-32/SC-55/SCC-1/SC-7)"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiSJ_UFogOYTKcBKHwXz3lA

Reply 1 of 3, by waterbeesje

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The basics seem nice socket 5 always feels a bit Spartan to me, and I like it 😀 Are you planning to make it time correct?

1GB hard disk would be affordable at the time this board was launched, around 1995.

The CDROM might be a bit modern. Some 8x would be what it originally could have been shipped with. On the other hand: this drive gives you a lot more compatibility. I assume it will read burned CDs fine if the session is closed when burning.

A Pentium 90 system with 4 MB Matrox would be unlikely, because who could afford the Matrox, would also go for a 66MHz FSB CPU. (Myself I'd look into OC my Pentium to 100MHz, if the board supports it)
It surely would be possible I guess... This card gives you high resolution and colour depth, and very clear picture. Also quite fast for DOS.

Also for DOS games the sound blaster and AdLib would be great, but personally I'd stick to an ISA based SB16 compatible card for period correctness... But that's me 😀

64MB of ram would have been Santa's list, as 16MB was standard for a typical Socket 5 system. Putting this much memory in will definately make sure you won't need your swap file in Windows 😀 Also Himem will be able to utilize it fully.

The voodoo may be dated 1997, but will definitely upscale performance when using 3D. (Can the CPU utilize it fully?)

Looking forward to pics 😁

Ps. I'd also add an IDE compactflash reader for easy data transfer.

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 2 of 3, by TamaMan

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Thanks for the comments.

My i486/66MHz setup is time correct, this setup is a mixed bag of components I currently have to get 3D accelerated games working.

The Mystique and Voodoo1 cards come from my old P200 MMX setup from 1998.

All my SB16-compatible cards are equipped with a CQM synthesis chip instead of the Yamaha licensed one.

The P90 came with 24 of RAM (8+16) but the 16 ones cause HIMEM's testmem and CTRL+ALT+DEL to fail (causes a continuous beep). The 64 is something I had free.

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"High fidelity recordings of 90s PRO MIDI music and DOS/Windows game soundtracks on real hardware (AdLib, Sound Blaster+CMS/Pro 2/16/AWE32/AWE64, Roland MT-32/SC-55/SCC-1/SC-7)"
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiSJ_UFogOYTKcBKHwXz3lA

Reply 3 of 3, by waterbeesje

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Bad memory... Can take up a lot of time!

For a mixed bag this is a nice little machine. The case with the big grey button remind me of the 386 era. It looks nice and clean 😀

A nice game for this lower end Pentium might be Need for Speed II SE.
With this game your Matrox will be just fine to run it, slightly overkill, but graphics look nice.
After some races exit the game and restart with 3DFX enabled, then look at the differences in image quality! No more hard lines or counting pixels 😀

Since you're not going for time correctness I'm not gonna suggest a dull fax modem. I tend to put one in every one of my systems because it was the most common way too connect to the internet in '95.
Not sure if you have a Lan that is separated from the internet, but any rj45 adapter would then be nice.

Stuck at 10MHz...