Looks like a fine choice of components! The 486 I put together recently also has white ISA slots, which I found cool as well. There are some interesting slot brackets on those IDE connectors on your motherboard. Haven't seen those before.

64 megs of RAM is more then enough for an MMX system and the Voodoo card generally gives you great compatibilty with older DOS games too.

What is that ESS audiodrive onboard chip?

Very nice build! I use something similar for most of my DOS gaming as well.

Concerning SDRAM, you don't need a pair of sticks, but these old motherboards can be picky with regards to RAM density. Often, newer SDRAM sticks are either detected at half capacity or don't work at all. You might need something old, like this double-sided two row 64 MB module that I ended up using.

Hezus wrote on 2021-12-10, 18:01:

Looks like a fine choice of components! The 486 I put together recently also has white ISA slots, which I found cool as well. There are some interesting slot brackets on those IDE connectors on your motherboard. Haven't seen those before.

64 megs of RAM is more then enough for an MMX system and the Voodoo card generally gives you great compatibilty with older DOS games too.

What is that ESS audiodrive onboard chip?

Yeah, I have seen those types of connectors on other hardware like hard drive caddies, but not on a motherboard, as far as I remember at least. The ESS Audiodrive chip is the 1869F. Certainly seems like a nice option, even if I am planning on using the sound card.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-12-10, 18:11:

Very nice build! I use something similar for most of my DOS gaming as well.

Concerning SDRAM, you don't need a pair of sticks, but these old motherboards can be picky with regards to RAM density. Often, newer SDRAM sticks are either detected at half capacity or don't work at all. You might need something old, like this double-sided two row 64 MB module that I ended up using.

I did see on the Wiki about memory density issues with these old motherboards, that's why I was thinking of the 2x32 MB option. According to the page they link on there, if you use 32-MB double-sided DIMMs, it should work fine and recognise all the memory. Well, I managed to get a pair for a tenner. So, while there's no reason they shouldn't work, it's not exactly a great loss if they don't.

According to the datasheet, the SiS 5598 actually supports 64-megabit memory chips, but only up to 32 MB memory modules. That would explain why it wasn't playing ball with the 64-MB DIMM I tried using.

EddieHimself wrote on 2021-12-10, 19:30:

The ESS Audiodrive chip is the 1869F. Certainly seems like a nice option, even if I am planning on using the sound card.

The ESS11869 is lovely. I definitely prefer ESFM synthesis rather than the CQM modulation you'll get from the AWE64.

I also noticed quite a few of the SIS 5598 drivers are missing from the usual places. I found this set from an Argentinian site. Hopefully it works for you.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16S_C6 … SUL?usp=sharing

gdjacobs wrote on 2021-12-15, 18:16:

EddieHimself wrote on 2021-12-10, 19:30:

The ESS Audiodrive chip is the 1869F. Certainly seems like a nice option, even if I am planning on using the sound card.

The ESS11869 is lovely. I definitely prefer ESFM synthesis rather than the CQM modulation you'll get from the AWE64.

Well, I can always enable the on-board sound again and use it for the FM synthesis, if the mood takes me. I agree that the AWE 64 doesn't have ideal FM synth emulation. As I say though, this is for later DOS/Windows 95 games, where the wavetable synthesis is what I'm more interested in anyway. And thanks for the links. Fortunately, Windows 95 OSR 2.1 seemed to have all the drivers I needed out of the bat, but this might be useful if I decide to put other operating systems on it.

So, I managed to get some SDRAM, and while the PC booted, it kept crashing and giving errors, so I suspect they were faulty in some way. I'll have to get some more.

Well, I managed to get some SDRAM that isn't broken. Now, I've got 64 MB of SDRAM, and everything up and running with Windows 95 and real-time DOS mode (remember, kids: MSCDEX is not a CD-ROM driver!)

NGL though, the Voodoo Rush patched version of Tomb Raider is awful. The lighting is terrible, there is no under-character shadow, and you often get wireframe boxes around objects. Imagine if 3Dfx had just made it so the Voodoo Rush and later versions were backwards-compatible with the original Glide mode. Crazy. As I say, the case isn't really what I want for this era of PC, but it's fine for now.

EddieHimself wrote on 2021-12-20, 13:11:

NGL though, the Voodoo Rush patched version of Tomb Raider is awful. The lighting is terrible, there is no under-character shadow, and you often get wireframe boxes around objects.

Yeah, the Voodoo Rush patch for Tomb Raider is pretty disappointing.

After acquiring a proper Voodoo1, I instantly noticed that the lighting was much better using the original 3DFX patch. I still needed to turn off mipmapping, since it's somewhat buggy, but it works great otherwise.

EddieHimself wrote on 2021-12-20, 13:11:

NGL though, the Voodoo Rush patched version of Tomb Raider is awful. The lighting is terrible, there is no under-character shadow, and you often get wireframe boxes around objects. Imagine if 3Dfx had just made it so the Voodoo Rush and later versions were backwards-compatible with the original Glide mode. Crazy. As I say, the case isn't really what I want for this era of PC, but it's fine for now.

That's why I prefer the Voodoo 2. Not only is it generally faster (for multitextured games, where that actually counts), but it's the last card that still works with the original Tomb Raider 3dfx patch! Nonetheless, the Banshee is still very good when paired with the Pentium MMX.

Yah I'm hoping the 3D Monster II 8MB that exists in my head turns up for a rig like this. The 16MB V2s which I can physically locate want to be a pair in something faster. The Banshee wants to be in something between them.