I really like the Millennium because of it's awesome speed and output quality, but I guess I'm in the minority. I think people will suggest the Riva128 to you.

You need a fan on that CPU heatsink. I'd use the 4MB Matrox Millennium card along with a Voodoo 1 or 2 if you can get one 😉.

It doesn't matter if it's a PCChips motherboard as long as it's working fine 😎

The Millenium is fast but has compatibility issues with older DOS games. I would pair the Riva128 or one of the S3 cards with a Voodoo1 or 2. Depends on the signal quality of the VGA output.

as for the CPU, I think you can still put a fan it. i've seen many 233 pentiums 1's and they always look like normal chips of the era but I have seen pictures of that heatsink on the 233 before.

since your still planning to use DOS I would go with the Virge that way you get the same excellent and compatible 2d core for DOS as the Trio plus some 3d acceleration for windows. the virge wasnt the fastest or greatest card for early windows but it was widly used. maybe pair it with a voodoo II eventually? the Virge alone though will probibly show its age with some later windows 9X games.

my windows 95 machine is acually a 233 pent 1 with a virge/GX and a voodoo1

I have a spare Voodoo 2, and I can use it of course. But anybody knows where can I get that damned VGA male to VGA female pass thru cable? Used many different searches on ebay, and still nothing yet.

For the fan issue, this heatsink looks like an original (never seen retail MMX before) and cannot be separated. Any idea what type of fan I could put on that thing?

Another question. The board came with two 64MB SDRAM sticks, one is PC100 and the other is PC133. The board has a RAM voltage selector jumper, for 3.3 and 5V. It is jumpered for 5V but i got this board from a non reputable guy, so I have no idea if it is correct or not. The system booted nicely without any hassle while breadboarding (just VGA card). How can I anuderstand which voltage the RAMs require?

tayyare wrote:

I have a spare Voodoo 2, and I can use it of course. But anybody knows where can I get that damned VGA male to VGA female pass thru cable? Used many different searches on ebay, and still nothing yet.

For the fan issue, this heatsink looks like an original (never seen retail MMX before) and cannot be separated. Any idea what type of fan I could put on that thing?

Voodoo pass through cable easy & cheap way:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/400323007425?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649
and
http://www.ebay.com/itm/310512148694?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649

The Matrox Millennium not being compatible with DOS games is exaggorated in my view. I've not encountered a single problem with my games

Commander Keen 4 is a game that always comes up as problematic with the Matrox cards. I'd call it unplayable due to the stutter.
Jazz Jackrabbit 1 is also supposed to be problematic AFAIK.
Just got for S3 + Voodoo 1/2 and you'll be fine.

F2bnp wrote:

Commander Keen 4 is a game that always comes up as problematic with the Matrox cards. I'd call it unplayable due to the stutter.
Jazz Jackrabbit 1 is also supposed to be problematic AFAIK.
Just got for S3 + Voodoo 1/2 and you'll be fine.

I know I have an opinion that differ against most of Vogons on the Matrox Millennium card, but you won't bend me! Nevah!!

Matrox all the way, they look great and are fast - why would he need to play Keen on a Pentium when he's building a 386?

S3's are boring!

I personally chose the Asus 3DP-V3000TV 4MB (Riva 128) , I use rivas on my p1 builds and never failed me! and their DOS compatibility+speed is AWESOME!
Keen plays fine on a riva and rivaZX btw, either PCI or AGP 😉

It's almost done. I just screwed a small 486 fan onto the CPU heatsink and now I can at least touch it. I choose (for the moment - Might go for Matrox at a later time) S3trio64V+ and inserted a Diamond Monster 3D 8MB for good taste. Sound card is a AWE64 value with SIMMCONN+32MB, NIC is a 3c900 combo. Since I2m a big fan of unnecessarily populated slots, ports and trays, added a 2xCOM port card, too. 🤣

Two 20GB IDE Quantums, a 1.44 Mitsumi floppy, an ASUS CDRW. I'm waiting for an Adaptec 2940UW, 2MB RAM chips for S3 and a PS/2 mouse/USB barcket and a Vodoo pas-tru cable to arrive. A 33.6 GB SCSI Fujitsu is also waiting to be installed after I get the SCSI card.

With the opening screen almost everything looks fine. It recognized all the PCI cards, assigned separate IRQs to them and also recognized AWE64.

Only problem is, BIOS has 8GB HDD limit. It rcognizes the IDE drives corectly by their name (Quantum blah blah 20GB) but see them as 8GB drives.

What's your opinion (most practical and reliable) on making it work nicely with 20GBs? I Believe BIOS update is out of question with such an old mobo.

Wonderfull!... 🤣

I was not expecting that, but found a new version BIOS, flashed the mobo, and now it has no problem with 20GB drives!... 😏

As a side bonus, the old BIOS was that stupid AMI winbios, and new version has the classical text menu...Double win!!!... 😁

Nice, you lucked out there!

Can't really go wrong with the Trio; I probably would have picked the Millennium simply because I have a similar setup (MMX200, Mystique 220 and Diamond Monster 3D) and because since you have older systems, compatibility with those early DOS games probably wouldn't be a big concern.

I side up with Keropi - for 2D only, riva128 PCI, riva TNT PCI do a really great job. S3 Trio / Virge is excellent as well. IMHO the greatest advantage of the rivas is their VBE 3.0 support - they can be easily configured for optimal refresh rates on CRT monitors. S3 cards have their own VBE 2.0 compliant utility which is a bit more limited. Yet, VBE 3.0 compliance came with the price of pushing a certain portion of the VGA BIOS out to make room for the new code, so nvidia cards need that font filter TSR for some games... Correct me if I am wrong.

Jolaes76 wrote:

Yet, VBE 3.0 compliance came with the price of pushing a certain portion of the VGA BIOS out to make room for the new code, so nvidia cards need that font filter TSR for some games... Correct me if I am wrong.

I don't know about the font filter thing, but I agree that VBE 3.0 has reduced compatibility with some things. They removed the 15bpp modes, which affects maybe two or three games, but breaks a lot of scene demos.

My tip: Use whatever card you like best, but keep one of the S3s ready in case something doesn't work.

tayyare you should use the 3.3v selection for your ram, or you risk unneeded burnout of your sdram the 5v is used for when used simm edo or fpm.

some sdram can handle up to 5v if you need it to mixing up with simms, some texas instruments ram if i recall correct.
look at the ram chips datasheets.

JaNoZ is correct, SDRAM works at 3.3v.

As for the VGA card, I'm with badmofo 😀 S3s are indeed uninteresting.

Please, run Speedsys 4.78 on your new PC! The data you collect with the infamous TXPro chipset would be very useful for Vogons Wiki. If you could use different bus/multipliers (for 166MMX, 200MMX, 233MMX) or classic Pentium processors as well, it would be even better!

vetz wrote:

Voodoo pass through cable easy & cheap way: http://www.ebay.com/itm/400323007425?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649 and http://www.ebay. […]
Show full quote

tayyare wrote:

I have a spare Voodoo 2, and I can use it of course. But anybody knows where can I get that damned VGA male to VGA female pass thru cable? Used many different searches on ebay, and still nothing yet.

For the fan issue, this heatsink looks like an original (never seen retail MMX before) and cannot be separated. Any idea what type of fan I could put on that thing?

Voodoo pass through cable easy & cheap way:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/400323007425?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649
and
http://www.ebay.com/itm/310512148694?ssPageNa … 984.m1497.l2649

The Matrox Millennium not being compatible with DOS games is exaggorated in my view. I've not encountered a single problem with my games

Thanksa lot, indeed!... happily ordered a set... 🤣

JaNoZ wrote:

tayyare you should use the 3.3v selection for your ram, or you risk unneeded burnout of your sdram the 5v is used for when used simm edo or fpm.

some sdram can handle up to 5v if you need it to mixing up with simms, some texas instruments ram if i recall correct.
look at the ram chips datasheets.

Before I changed, they were running at 5V, and were quite hot to touch. The sticks on it are just some noname parts. I changed to 3.3 and things get cooler... 😏

The board allows you to use a combination of 72pin EDO and SDRAM sticks. The manual I found says the jumper must sit in 3.3 position for SDRAM, and says nothing about the combination use. I will try and see when 72 pin 64 Megs arrive.