First post, by PLB-389
Hi All,
Not sure if this is the right subforum so apologies in advance if I've posted incorrectly. I'm building my old 486 system which has been in storage for years. The goal is to max out every option possible on it and turn it into the mean machine I wanted it to be in my youth. I used to be able to run Need for Speed SE at about 4 frames per second in DOS, so my goal is to see if I can get it to run at a playable frame rate.
The machine is a Dell OptiPlex 4100/L. It's got a lot of goodies already but here's the gist of it:
CPU: Intel DX4-100 CPU
Video: Tseng Labs ET4000/W32i onboard (integrated with mobo) with 1mb ram
Expansion: Mobo seems to have EISA (or is it VLBus?) but only has one slot. The installed riser is ISA only.
Cache: There's a small slot-type connector for an external cache card. The cache card isn't installed and I'm actively looking for one.
Memory: I've maxed out the memory - 64mb FPRAM installed, up from 16.
Hard drive: 341mb IDE drive installed with Win95 taking up a significant portion of that. 2.1gb drive on the way.
Sound: Soundblaster 16
External media: Installed a 32x CD-ROM. Also just bought a Teac FD-505 off ebay for a ridiculous amount of money only for it to be DOA. Trying to fix it.
Questions:
Does anyone know of a better ISA video card than the integrated ET4000 that I can get? I've been doing my research but without going to a VLBus card (which would mean finding a new riser) the ET4000 looks to be about as good as it gets.
Does anyone know anything about a cache card to suit the optiplex 4xx/L and 4xx/LV machines? Part number? Possible sizes? Any leads at all?
Does anyone have any other suggestions for improvements to make to the machine?