Well, the games I am having trouble with are Wolf3d, XWing (tried the SBPro timing patch - still lockups), Warcraft 1 - just off the top of my head. This motherboard (and I think the KT7a after reading the manual) does not have options for disabling any cache that I am aware of. I've already invested in socket A and would not like to switch over to Intel - that's the easy answer and I'm stubborn. So is a SBPro only useful in an older socket 7 then? Should I have gotten a SB16 w/OPL3 instead, or am I stuck with CQM (AWE64) for a faster machine?

I was thinking that the KT7a has adjustable multipliers, but now that I think about it maybe 600MHz is still too fast for the SBPro.

I'll continue to search and tinker. Thanks for the help guys.

Put simple, it's the wrong kind of machine for these games. Way too fast.

Do you have issues with newer games like Doom, Quake?

Yeah, I begrudgingly agree. Makes me sad, as I probably should have gone for a socket 7 and k6-2 or something. Oh well. No, newer DOS games seem fine. I mean, the point of all this is not to run dosbox, right? Is there a good slow down program for DOS that may work, or is my bus speed still to fast?

So, I have some good news. I got most of my problem games working flawlessly! Here's what I did.

First, I tried MoSlow for DOS. Lowered my CPU several different modes by up to 87.5%. Wow, things load so slow, but still get garbled FM and crashes.

Forgetting that, I took out my SB Pro and inspected it. I remember a thread on here where someone cleaned the contacts of their card, so I took some rubbing alcohol to mine, stuck it in, and now 3 out of 5 times the 2-OP option in TEST-SBP works without static! I tried some of my problem games - nope same.

Next I took out one memory module, leaving me with a *paltry* 256MB, just in case. Tested everything - same. I did, however, get a bit further along in Day of the Tentacle, Wolf3d, and XWing CD before the garbles/crashes started. Could have been cleaning the contacts though.

Frustrated but hopeful, I took the SB Pro out and polished the contacts with an abrasive cleaner, then wiped them down again with alcohol. Tests seem a little better still, I can play the 2-OP options most times correctly, but no real fix in games.

Next I tried turning off Legacy USB options in the BIOS. Rebooted, and voila! I can now play Day of the Tentacle through the entire intro without issue, I played through the entire 1st level of Wolf3d, and XWing CD went through the intro and played a mission flawlessly. I went into the TEST-SBP program, and the 2-ch option now plays correct every time! What a relief - I was THIS close to ordering a SB16 or AWE64, but I think I'll stick it out a bit longer and see what happens when my KT7A arrives.

So the KT7A-RAID came today. I took the time to clean the old gunk off of the northbridge chip and CPU/heatsink, and applied fresh MX4 to lower temps. Plugged everything in and configured the BIOS. It came with an Athlon 1.2 Thunderbird, which is overpowered, but the multipliers are unlocked which gave me something to test with. The fastest I could get away with is 1.0GHz (100/10). A faster bus than 100 makes the OP=2 test all garbled no matter what. I even clocked it down to 600(100/6), and it was better, but still wrong notes. Anyway, back at 1200 (133/9), I could still play xwing cd most of the time without issue and wolf3d without issue all the time, but now Day of the Tentacle is a no-go (ScummVM?). System is overall pretty snappy, and I haven't tested Win98 games out yet but I'm not worried.

Funny, after resinstalling Win98 all sound came through my SB Pro without loading anything. My Gigabyte mobo didn't do that.

Question - if the OPL FM is that speed sensitive for 1+GHz, should I get a CT3930 SB32 with onboard RAM but still OPL3, or should I just cut my losses and put in a CQM AWE64 Gold? I have heard that the AWE64s aren't that speed sensitive with ISA, but I was thinking of putting also a SB Live! in place of the Audigy 2. Why? Well, it might be a pain to configure but it's more period correct, plus I have the option for DOS emulation for either digital effects or MIDI should I choose.

Just need a recommendation for sound card (SB32 w/OPL3 or AWE64 w/CQM) and video card (ti4200, nVidia have good VESA DOS support for SVGA). Thanks.

This all seems like a lot of bother to me... why not just get an older rig for those games? A 100MHz pentium should do, and with any luck you should be able to underclock it. They're rather cheap and easy to find, and lack the headaches associated with building some 486 systems or configuring newer socket 370 / socket A systems to run old software.

I managed to get a pentium 133 running at 66MHz in my Jetway J-656c (33MHz x 2X, PCI clock 1/1). Scores about 60-something points in speedsys, about as much as a 586. Older games run great on it, including Day of the Tentacle and Goblins 2. Not all socket 7 motherboards and Pentium chips will run at 33Mhz FSB tough, but all will run at 50Mhz, so you could get 50Mhz x 1.5 = 75MHz.

You seem very focused on Adlib games so I would get a true OPL card. If your not going to load your own sound fonts, even the AWE32 value cards are fine. Yamaha is a good alternate but only supports SB Pro for FM

If your mainly playing FM games, personally I like the AWE32 Value. I don't load sound fonts and the very few games that did (Dungeon Keeper) fit within the 512 on board, and I get true OPL (depending on the model)

I should point out I mainly play mid-late 90's Dos games, off the top of my head I think Ironman Offroad and Street Rod 2, Rampart, Warlords2? and maybe 1 or 2 I cant think of are the only adlib games I play but most my games SoundBlaster at the very least. All the above games work on my P3 1Ghz fine (fastest PC I've ever used true OPL on)

there are a few video's on Youtube if you want to hear the difference just search opl vs cqm. Of course opl will most likely win every time but that's casue your comparing the 2 together, after a month or so ask your self will you notice?

That same P3 had a Ti4600 plays all my dos/Win9x games fine. Its the CPU holding things back

Yeah thanks guys. I am looking at a SB32 CT3930 - true OPL, RAM expansion and AWE32/SB16 for the games that support it. I went through all the DOS games I was trying to play last night, and most of them had an AWE32/SB16 option, leading me to this decision. Curiously, I can play OPL3 Warcraft I, XWing CD and Wolf3d all just fine with my Thunderbird at a full 133FSB (1.2GHz), so I think the key to this build is in the BIOS tweaks. It took some fooling around, but I enabled both delay options that made all the difference.

Hopefully this card tolerates speeds a bit better, since I read that it's 16-bit ISA and a bit newer than the SB Pro 2.0 (still ISA though, I know).I am looking at benches, and a Ti4600 would definitely hold things down a bit better than the Ti4200, but are there any overheating problems? I was thinking it may be nice to run everything at like 2/4x antialiasing without slowdown. Either card I get I plan on replacing the stock thermal paste anyway like I did with every other cooled chip in the system. I also got an SB Live! in case I want to try GM in DOS mode (the PCI128 worked reasonably well for some games).

So quick update - I received the following in the mail:

Sound Blaster 32 (CT3930) w/ 2x256KB SIMMS
GeForce Ti4600 AGP
Sound Blaster Live! Platinum w/ Live drive and original accessories

After installing everything, I installed the AWE32 drivers from the Vogons drivers library. Tried some games, and at first in games like Doom and Doom 2 the music is so soft that I basically can't hear it. I tried the SB16 utility to set mixer levels and it seemed to help a bit, but I wonder if there are updated files for the SB32 that would be better.

Next, I tried Tie Fighter, set the FX and music to AWE32 and wow - I can't believe how good the music sounds now. So much more symphonic and vibrant than the SB Pro 2.0. With XWing CD though I can't get any music unless I set the sound to SB16, and even then it's not as good as Tie Fighter.

I noticed that my DOS games run so smooth in VESA modes with the Ti4600. The card is pretty silent too, as I was worried about reading reviews on it. But I scrubbed the old dried thermal gunk off (ultimately resorting to using a hefty razor on the heatsink) and applied fresh MX4 which I think made a difference.

All-in-all I am impressed with the jump to the SB32, and plan on upgrading the RAM to 32MB and try loading a soundfont in DOS, then perhaps Win 98. Is it better to run this card in GM or GS mode, and in extended midi or general midi? It seemed that general midi worked a bit better.

Oh, and now I can play Day of the Tentacle again without buzzing or lockups. Sounds great too, but I have to set the sound buffers to 8 for it to work.

Unfortunately I have to reinstall Win98 because when installing the AWE32 drivers I also did the windows drivers, not thinking that they were for Win 3.1, which hosed my install. Oh well. I really want to get through it and start trying some Win98 games with the Ti4600 though. I hope Undying works better.

I should post a picture of the Live! This thing came practically brand new, and with full Descent and Thief discs (which I didn't expect) in a seemingly unopened accessories bag! Really excited about that. Question - if I use some kind of y cable to put both sound cards to output to my speakers, will there be feedback? I want to have sound in DOS (SB32) and Win98 (Live!) without switching the cable out every time.

RetroBoogie wrote:

All-in-all I am impressed with the jump to the SB32, and plan on upgrading the RAM to 32MB and try loading a soundfont in DOS, then perhaps Win 98. Is it better to run this card in GM or GS mode, and in extended midi or general midi? It seemed that general midi worked a bit better.

Loading sound fonts in DOS is an exercise in frustration in my experience, compatibility is poor. I'd stick to AWE or OPL music in DOS, and save the sound font loading for Windows - it works very well there.

badmojo wrote:

RetroBoogie wrote:

All-in-all I am impressed with the jump to the SB32, and plan on upgrading the RAM to 32MB and try loading a soundfont in DOS, then perhaps Win 98. Is it better to run this card in GM or GS mode, and in extended midi or general midi? It seemed that general midi worked a bit better.

Loading sound fonts in DOS is an exercise in frustration in my experience, compatibility is poor. I'd stick to AWE or OPL music in DOS, and save the sound font loading for Windows - it works very well there.

That's what I was thinking too. Then again I could try to use the Live! for soundfonts and run in a DOS window. Not that big really, the CT3930 has a true OPL3 on board which sounds great.

Quick update for anyone who may find this information useful.

So I ordered a 2400+ Thunderbird after much research about my KT7A-RAID v1.0. When it arrive, I tried it out and the system wouldn't post. According to the Athlon cross multiplier table, the 2400+ runs at a 7.5 (x15 HI) with 133FSB, giving 2.0GHz. Well, for the life of me it wouldn't work. If I reset the BIOS, it boots up as unknown CPU at 20x100 (2GHz), but I want my 133FSB!

To cut a long story short (and the frying of my Thunderbird 1.2 GHz 🙁 ), I found a site that had an interactive pin modding tool. You select the CPU, voltage, FSB, and desired multiplier, and it told you which pins on the CPU, socket, or mainboard to jump. In the end I found the socket wire mod the easiest for me, and using kynar wire I constructed 9 small jumper wires that I carefully inserted into the socket according to the diagram. Success! Boots at 2GHz, (15x133) and after reinstalling Win98SE from scratch everything seems great and really fast. Here's a screenshot of the interactive tool:

In the BIOS, I had to change the multiplier manually to 12andabove, CPU/FSB clock to 133/33, and CPU drive strength to 2. Really breathed new life into the system and definitely takes advantage of the Ti4600's extra horsepower. I also installed the Via 4in1 v4.35 pack, Via Latency Patch, and Detonator 43.45.

Perhaps useful for anyone looking to put an XP into an old KT133A board.