sliderider wrote:

That seems strange since the Soyo Dragon motherboards with the KT8x0 chipsets were always got good reviews as performance motherboards. Compared to nforce, they were sometimes a little faster in some tests and a little slower in others but they were always competitive, as I recall. Those were the boards to have as far as I was concerned back then.

I know what you mean. The reviews do tend to look good. But in my experience with these VIA chipsets, you can literally feel the sluggishness compared to nForce2 (like Jaqie says).

Around a year ago I ran a GUI benchmark called Tom2D on a K8T800 board, because it was the usual sluggish and I wanted to get numbers. I compared a video card on that board and my Shuttle NF2U400 board. The NF2 came in about 50% faster in the bench, I think it was.

I also used a Abit KW7 (KT880) a couple of years ago and while that chipset is loaded with nifty features like NF2 has, it was similarly slow.

Now this GUI speed issue may not affect 3D or disk transfers. Games may be fine.

F2bnp wrote:

Sure, but I really don't see the advantage of putting a V5 on an Athlon. For playing games up to 2001 a fast Pentium 3 is more than suitable and you get some kickass chipsets.

There is a clear performance advantage to using a Athlon cpu over Pentium 3. 3DFX supported 3DNow, and in general you eliminate any bottlenecks the Pentium 3 could create compared to a fast Athlon, XP, Duron, or Sempron. At the end of the day, I will just let performance results speak for themselves:
Professor Professorson's AMD 3DFX Voodoo 5 5500 rig

The problem with the tualatin pentium 3's is the FSB. PC133 ram was a limiting bottleneck. There exists TRUE SERVER chipsets for the tualatin, the serverworks HE-SL if memory serves me correctly. They not only have 3 pci busses, but they also come with 2 processors and they implement dual channel pc133. Have a look at the Tyan http://www.tyan.com/archive/products/html/thunderhe.html However FINDING one thats affordable is the REAL trick...

Don't forget the supermicro P3TDE6. 😀

ProfessorProfessorson wrote:

There is a clear performance advantage to using a Athlon cpu over Pentium 3. 3DFX supported 3DNow, and in general you eliminate any bottlenecks the Pentium 3 could create compared to a fast Athlon, XP, Duron, or Sempron. At the end of the day, I will just let performance results speak for themselves:
Professor Professorson's AMD 3DFX Voodoo 5 5500 rig

I... don't get. I can't compare these results with a PIII 1.4GHz, because I don't have any scores with the PIII. And I wouldn't run 3DMark anyway, I'd probably test specific games, like Quake III.
According to Hwbot though, a PIII-S 1133 @ 1615 MHz scores quite similarly to an Athlon XP 2000+ with an overclocked Voodoo 5.
http://hwbot.org/submission/732737_alex.turov … 5500_2342_marks
http://hwbot.org/submission/1031246_freakezoi … 5500_2435_marks

But, even these scores aren't really close to reality, since overclockers tend to run their systems completely stripped of unnecessary processes just to get the highest possible score.

But I don't see a reason to move to an Athlon XP platform. Games that are going to run slow on a PIII-S will also be slow on an Athlon XP and games that are smooth on the PIII-S will be smoother on an Athlon XP, but what's the point? 50fps vs 70fps(and this an extreme example)? Who cares, it's already smooth enough!

It's all a matter of preference in the end. I've never been an Athlon fan, whenever I tried to create Athlon systems, they were plagued with problems. Never had any sort of problem on PIII systems on the other hand, except for that one time when the AGP slot needed some cleaning!

Guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the NF2 (at least Abit NF2 Ultra v2.0) does *not* support AGP 1.0. As far as I remember, my V5 5500 would not *fit* in my new MoBo, when I went for the upgrade (upgraded from Asus A7V133-c).

...and I love NF2 chipset, especially the soundforce. Much better sound then SB Live!, but in this retro case, I would go for a proven Abit KT7a V1.3, it can bring mobility athlons or t-breds up to 2.4-2.6Ghz whats more then enough for V5 5500.

For chipset compatibility the following might be usefull;
http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=119

Also check out this link;
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/v6k_faq.htm
Scroll down and you'll find a list of motherboards and if they work with a V5 6000. If the 6000 works, the 5500 will work too.

F2bnp wrote:

But I don't see a reason to move to an Athlon XP platform. Games that are going to run slow on a PIII-S will also be slow on an Athlon XP and games that are smooth on the PIII-S will be smoother on an Athlon XP, but what's the point? 50fps vs 70fps(and this an extreme example)? Who cares, it's already smooth enough!

It's all a matter of preference in the end. I've never been an Athlon fan, whenever I tried to create Athlon systems, they were plagued with problems.

It matters when the cpu jump will take you from 20-30 fps to 35-45. Again, the purpose is to eliminate any cpu bottle neck and maximize/squeeze all the performance you can get from the Voodoo 5, including FSAA support. You cant do that with a Pentium 3 when concerning later titles like Undying and NOLF, which run on the VooDoo 5 fine when maxed out as long as the cpu is up to snuff. And to state the obvious, the faster the cpu, the faster UT99 is going to run, since it scales with cpu power

A higher end Pentium 3 and a Voodoo 3 and below are a good match however, since the V3 will about max out on a higher end P3. Either way, your biased stance you have taken due to your own admitted failures with the Socket A series do not change the fact that a Socket A platform is the superior one for the Voodoo 5. If you want to use a Socket 370 or Slot 1 though, I mean sure, go ahead, who cares. If that's all you know how to set up well, then go with what you know. You just have to make the most of it.

I'd also like to point out, I beat both the scores you linked to with my V5 system, and I did not do any overclocking or tweaking on either the cpu, or the gpu. Just a standard setup with official drivers.

Woah I totally forgot that the NForce 2 didn't have a universal AGP connector. Scrap that then, move as far away as you can from Athlons!

Edit: NOLF ran just fine on my Voodoo 5 on a PIII at 1GHz last time I checked. Probably something around 40 fps.
I'd also never play UT on such a machine, I'd much rather play it on my main PC with UTGLR and play online! 😁
You do bring an interesting point with FSAA though, although I always found the performance hit on pretty much every CPU (I used to run a Voodoo 5 on an Athlon XP 2600+) is way too big and generally I don't notice that much a difference in quality to enable it. I guess 2x AA might be ok for most games and 4x AA for those really old ones like Dark Forces 2 - Jedi Knight (amazing game btw 😁 ).

I just realized that many of the motherboards don't have Ethernet controllers. What's a common solution?

back in the day almost nothing had onboard ethernet. 3com etherlink II and III and intel pro/100 were the good ones, there were others out there too.

jaqie wrote:

Don't forget the supermicro P3TDE6. 😀

It seems the ServerSet III HE-SL on which the P3TDE6 is based had big AGP performance problems. Unfortunately there is not much known how the ServerSet III HE chipset (the top version, with the MADP memory controller) performed with AGP - I know only one motherboard with it - Tyan Thunder 2500 (The Intergraph/SGI Zx10 workstation and the Quantum3D AAlchemy TX PC-IG are based on it).

swaaye wrote:

820 can run 1GB RAM. There was a SDRAM conversion chip for it early on (MTH) but it was bugged and slow so it was recalled and was never fixed.

If someone wants a high-end Intel chipset for the P3 without RDRAM, there is always the 840 with MRH-S - it seems those were not affected. I really liked the look of the Supermicro PIIIDME - it looked cool with these two MRH-Ss.

silikone wrote:

I just realized that many of the motherboards don't have Ethernet controllers. What's a common solution?

I use either Intel Pro 100 or Pro 1000 GT. 98 has Pro 100 drivers built in so you're ready to go immediately. On the other hand, on a fast machine, the Pro 1000's gigabit is nice. Intel makes Pro 1000 GT 9x drivers. I install most of my games through a network share.

3Com 3C905(b/c) were popular but I prefer Intel NICs. I've found the 3Com cards more fussy about PCI IRQ/INT sharing.

I perf the Realtek NIC before that was original DEC 21140 and could not forget NetWare NE1000/NE2000 stuff

Does it have to be retro??

How about this for a Win98SE system!!
Asrock 775 mobo, Wolfdale E7500 2.93GHz, PCI Voodoo 5 5500, PCI SB Audigy 2ZS, Fast Sata HDD. I wonder where the bottleneck will be 😀 😀

RogueTrip2012 wrote:

Does it have to be retro??

How about this for a Win98SE system!!
Asrock 775 mobo, Wolfdale E7500 2.93GHz, PCI Voodoo 5 5500, PCI SB Audigy 2ZS, Fast Sata HDD. I wonder where the bottleneck will be 😀 😀

LGA 775 platforms wont have drivers for Windows 98/Me I suspect. There is already a lack of solid drivers for the later Pentium 4 chipsets as it is.

"Retro" is anything that's 10 years old or older that run under Win9x and Dos yours would be more of Modern Retro Game System where some Game will not work rigth or will not run under compatibility under mode all option "Win9x,NT,2000,XP,Vista" try and really need fast Pentium 4 processors.
Intel 865 chipset that last chipset that can be use with Windows 9x OS and AGP Bus
With nVidia nForce 3 series that last chipset that can be use with Windows 9x OS and AGP Bus
With VIA check there Driver Package on the chipset you have
With SiS check there Driver Package on the chipset you have
Best to stick with motherboard with AGP and IDE
Just becare full in which Video card you get for pentium 4 and AGP Slot it must be a 4x/8x compatibility
1: nVidia GeForce 6 series, ForceWare ver 81.98 was end of the line driver
2: 3dfx Voodoo 4 4500 downlaod 1.04 or 1.04.01 beta was end of the line driver
3: ATI Radeon X1900 series, Catalyst ver 6.2 was end of the line driver
And Sound Blaster Audigy 2
And if want you could also add one or a pair Voodoo 2 for SLI with nVidia or ATI for Glide Support Games
I going to rebuild one of my old Intel 865 system for Win9x with a faster 3.2GHz processor with 1GB system memory and get faster NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra for me that cover lot game that start from 2000/2006 on up that where made for Win9x and DirectX, OpenGL and Glide.
Like for Example some Myst Series Game

ProfessorProfessorson wrote:

RogueTrip2012 wrote:

Does it have to be retro??

How about this for a Win98SE system!!
Asrock 775 mobo, Wolfdale E7500 2.93GHz, PCI Voodoo 5 5500, PCI SB Audigy 2ZS, Fast Sata HDD. I wonder where the bottleneck will be 😀 😀

LGA 775 platforms wont have drivers for Windows 98/Me I suspect. There is already a lack of solid drivers for the later Pentium 4 chipsets as it is.

MSFN Shows a few boards working with W98SE...
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/97588-modern- … ith-windows-98/

One listed board is a ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 or ""-VSTA and see a few on ebay for under $30 shipped (refurb). I'm pretty tempted but see the cpu's seem to still be over $30. Sounds like sound is the only thing that doesn't have proper drivers so supply your own.

Heck, I'd even try using my XP.Pro rig in sig if there were 98 drivers for i915 chipset (Albatron PX915P4C Pro)

EDIT: looks like there maybe drivers for i915 after all!!! Mainly GM version. May have to try it out in future.

The glorious Asrock 775i65G works with 9x. I had it up and running once. It won't take an AGP 2x card though.

swaaye wrote:

The glorious Asrock 775i65G works with 9x. I had it up and running once. It won't take an AGP 2x card though.

That becuses it 8x AGP Slot