Sphere478 wrote on 2023-01-27, 19:17:

Okay, test with audigy :p probably will still tell us something!

I needed to install Win98 as it looks there is no drivers for Win95?!

So testing on Windows 98SE, Pentium Pro 1MB 233Mhz, 128MB EDO, Voodoo5 5500 PCI

Q3A demo, max settings @ 800x600:

27.3 ... No sound
25.1 ... Audigy SB0230
24.7 ... AWE32 CT3980
24.5 ... SBlive! SB0060

ChrisK wrote on 2023-01-27, 15:07:

Sure, a P3 is always better than a PPro, but a P3 everyone can have. And there isn't something like a Pentium 3 Pro, is it?
In the end it's just something a little more uncommon to have some fun with and when you are done you put it back in it's boxes for the next years to come.

It sort of is: a Pentium III Xeon 2MB L2 version. To have Slot 2 is very rare nowadays, still have my Asus XG-DLS with dual large cache PIII Xeons.

Paadam wrote on 2023-01-30, 18:09:

It sort of is: a Pentium III Xeon 2MB L2 version. To have Slot 2 is very rare nowadays, still have my Asus XG-DLS with dual large cache PIII Xeons.

Something for me to maybe aim for in the future! (As far as I know, the SGI Visual Workstation 540 can slot four of these beasts!!!)

I already have a Visual Workstation 320 dual 1GHz PIII, and if I had to get a 540 I'd still bee stuck with the same old Cobalt graphics system, so in that case I'd rather build up a PC version allowing me to slot the graphics card of my choice!

This video shows this system's setup and performance as it currently stands:

The card reader came today and it's installed and works perfectly! So I now have USB!!!! 😀

I have ordered the following badges for the front of the case: (they're coming via the snail mail, so it will be a long while before they arrive!)

I have removed this badge from the case and will have a badge of the same dimensions made up with "OverDrive" written on it in an appropriate font!

Now all the machine really needs is its RAM upgrade and then it will FINALLY be complete!!!

This system has been de-modded to having a Matrox G450 and two CANOPUS PURE 3D II's (Voodoo2's), as I couldn't get this graphics setup to work in my other build! (I plan to use the Voodoo5 5500 in a much more exiting and appropriate build!)

This is how it now stands: (It's now more period specific though! 😀 )

Here's the rear panel:

Here's the front panel:

Here's the graphics setup:

Here's the list of installed devices:

Here's the Quake II (timedemo) Performance:

These are the settings that were used:

The Voodoo2 SLI setup doesn't perform that badly when compared to the voodoo5 5500 in this system! (The Voodoo2 SLI setup obtaining an acreage of 40,8FPS in the Quake II timedemo and the Voodoo5 5500 obtaining 53FPS, making it 23%faster!)

The Voodoo2's were kind of temperamental (I literally had to do a Voodoo dance to get them working each time I wanted to run Quake II!), so I swapped the Matrox Millennium G450 out with the Matrox Millennium II and the Voodoo2's are now performing perfectly!!!

It appears that they were in conflict with the G450!!!! (Maybe the AGP to PCI bridge on the G450 has something to do with this!?)

Damn, these machines are temperamental!!!! (Well all's good now 😀 )

Looks tight. Good job.
I wish Dell builds were of this quality.

Btw, about dual xeon in slot 2 - well oiled 2x tualatin system is the better place in general.
But i think your angle is owning one for the collection first and foremost.

pshipkov wrote on 2023-03-05, 17:19:

Looks tight. Good job. I wish Dell builds were of this quality. […]
Show full quote

Looks tight. Good job.
I wish Dell builds were of this quality.

Btw, about dual xeon in slot 2 - well oiled 2x tualatin system is the better place in general.
But i think your angle is owning one for the collection first and foremost.

This is exactly what I will do once source a board which suits my requirements!

I already have the case and the Voodoo5 ready!!! (The Dual Pentium Pro build will get a beige case, as it's going to be running Windows NT4, rendering it pretty much useless besides being a collectors item!)

The Voodoo5 will be much better paired with a Dual 1.4GHz PIII!
In which case, I'll more than likely end up using the AGP slot to fit one of these via an AGP to PCI adapter:

As every system is ultimately limited by its lowest common denominator, which in this case is drive speed!!!!

Why not the black-top PPros ?

V5 with Oxygen. Okay. That's unusual. : )

Never tried PCI models from 3D Labs.
How is the 202 guy ?

---

As for good dual Slot 1 motherboard for a graphics workstation - late model Asus P2B-D with few simple mods. Look no further.
Maybe consider a 4x or 8x Slot 2 server board as a sidekick node to take on offline computation tasks from the main PC.
That will be really cool combo.

The Dual Pentium Pro board doesn't support the PPros's with 1MB of cache, only up to 512KB maximum!!! (It does support Overdrives though, but I want to keep it as a PPro!)

The Oxygen 202's a pretty cool card with excellent board compatibility, but there are ONLY NT4 drivers for this card!!!! (I have got the driver to run in XP, but not without issue! It seems to work however Windows keeps on moaning that it's an outdated driver that doesn't work, resulting in problems!!!)

Irinikus wrote on 2023-03-05, 19:36:

The Dual Pentium Pro board doesn't support the PPros's with 1MB of cache, only up to 512KB maximum!!! (It does support Overdrives though, but I want to keep it as a PPro!)...

Yea, that sounds like you have a rev 1.21 mainboard. I had a couple copies of the board and found that incompatibility out the hard way.

I suspect there is just a missing or disabled address line that Asus cheaped out on thinking; "nobody is ever going to use 1mb cache."

I'm super happy with my matrox G250/voodoo 1 in my board.

Here's the latest on this system:

I messed around with this system today for the first time in a long time, as I ran it up to test a new benchmark that's just become available: (SAF_BENCH)

I ended up being able to sort out all the 3DFX driver issues that I previously had with the Canopus Pure3D II's, so I now have Quake II, Quake III and Unreal up and running as well as Doom 95 (Enabling me to run both Doom 1 and 2), Hexen 95 (Enabling me to run Hexen, it's expansion pack as well as Heretic) and Duke3D (The win32 executable version)

You can see that both of the Canopus cards are lit up!

I'll hopefully be able to capture some footage from this machine one of these days, as it's currently setup and performing pretty well!

Here's the result from SAF BENCH for 3DFX:

Here's the current system drive performance:

I also benchmarked the Dual PIII as well as the Dual P4, to see how they compared:

Here's how these machines compared performance wise:

obviously that single CPU is holding you back. 😉
you defiantly need to upgrade to dual CPU's like those other beautiful builds.

Here's an overview of this system: