Well, I pulled the trigger on an AOpen AX59Pro from ebay. It's SS7 but that's ok, I wanted to be able to use an AGP video card anyway. It has some kind of cpu in it already, but I couldn't identify it from the pictures. As long as it works, I'll be able to test the board so that's good enough for me for now. I have everything else I need as spares, at least enough to test the board and make sure everything works. For $30 shipped, I figured it's worth the risk of a dead board.

So, any suggestions on the video card? I've only got a spare TNT2 M64 to play with, and that's horrible overkill for what I want to do with this sytem.

I've got my eye on a Voodoo Banshee though, so maybe that'll do for now?

That's a lot of money for a "i don't know if it works" motherboard... For the price i bet you could buy a better and tested SS7 motherboard.

Live and learn. I guess I'm just a little too anxious to get this started. I haven't actually bought any parts for any of my old systems yet. Everything so far has been given to me from people dumping stuff or finding systems in the trash to pull parts from.

What do you mean by better board though? From what I can tell, this has everything I'd need in a board for the vintage I'm looking at, plus tom's hardware reviews at the time seemed to love it.

I'd suggest using Riva TNT2 and a Voodoo Graphics(not Banshee). So that you can either get excellent D3D performance, or excellent Glide.

Will I be able to keep a V2 fed or should I leave it at a V1?

I personally like my Matrox Mystique 220 / 3Dfx Voodoo1 combo on my Pentium MMX, however I also have another system with a Pentium 3, TNT2 M64 and Voodoo2 SLI for more demanding stuff. If you're going with just the one system then a Voodoo2 wouldn't be a bad idea to give you more headroom (not to mention they seem to be way easier to find than a Voodoo1).

Alright, sounds like the TNT2/M64 I already have will be more than enough for what I need, so that'll fill up the AGP slot nicely. I guess I can pair it up with at least a single V2. Any particular brands I should look for? Maybe one of those single card SLI dealies if I can ever find one?

How about the sound card? I've got a SB16 coming in from a friend. What else would I need? MIDI? I have no clue with these older systems. I'm used to either crap built in audio or my SB Live! which I think would be overkill for this thing, especially when it comes to the huge list of DOS games I intend to play.

for the record, I have a dual pentium 2-333mhz feeding my voodoo 1. I have a 1ghz slot a amd chip for my voodoo 2's and dual 2800+'s for my V5.

You need a 450+ to keep a v2 happy.

See, that's where I'm getting hung up. I'm not going to be playing anything too 3D intense on this thing. Maybe Jedi Knight, Mechwarrior 2, Descent, shit of that level. I can live with just a V1, just to have an option for glide games. I'm kinda liking the idea of just using the TNT2 I have because of the supposed awesomeness in DOS it allows. It's a bit overkill, but it gives me DX6 options at least.

For the chip, with this board I have the option of going up to K6-2/3-450 so that's a possibility in the future.

Also...if I just leave the p233mmx on there...do I need a heatsink/fan of any kind?

I would recommend the Aureal Vortex2 Superquad card along with a NEC XR385 daughtercard for MIDI. Both a quite cheap on ebay. I have this setup on my 440BX system and it works very nicely. These are the two Ebay sellers I used:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TechWorks-Power-Vor … 6#ht_715wt_1397 (This is brand new)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DB60XG-MIDI-Wavetab … =item3a72720b08

That card will ofcourse benefit you more if you upgrade to a K6-II or the like. You can also use the XR385 on your SB16, but then you might experience the hanging note bug.

How's the DOS compatibility with that card? I have zero experience in this area. The daughtercard is the one that everyone here got boners over awhile back right?

senrew wrote:

How's the DOS compatibility with that card? I have zero experience in this area. The daughtercard is the one that everyone here got boners over awhile back right?

I would say it is pretty good. I base this on my own experience and what other users have said here on Vogons.

The daughtercard is the one almost everyone have here on Vogons. It's the cheapest MIDI synthesizer card you can get reliably and I would say it is great value. Prepare to pay significantly more to get a Roland SC-55, SCB-55 or similar.

senrew wrote:

Also...if I just leave the p233mmx on there...do I need a heatsink/fan of any kind?

Yes you do. A heatsink is enough though.

vetz wrote:

senrew wrote:

Also...if I just leave the p233mmx on there...do I need a heatsink/fan of any kind?

Yes you do. A heatsink is enough though.

the proper terms is "graphite forest". The 233 was probably the last chip to be able to use a heatsink without a fan. If you dont have a heatsink, one from a socket 370 or even a small socket 462 will work. They were all the same size.

Were I to move up to the K6s, I take it I'd need to add a fan on top of that same heatsink?

senrew wrote:

Were I to move up to the K6s, I take it I'd need to add a fan on top of that same heatsink?

Depends on the size of the heatsink. If it's pretty big I think you will be fine (designed for P-III's). I'm just basing this as the heatsink on my 400mhz K6-II is very small with a small fan. I doesn't look like it requires heap of cooling.

Also I would recommend you to get 64MB of RAM, it makes Windows usage alittle more smooth, and it doesn't cost that much either.

Before I upgraded my 200mhz processor in my Compaq to a 400mhz K6-II, I did see a slight performance increase going from a Voodoo 1 to a Voodoo 2, but the biggest benefit as I see it is that you can run supported Glide games in 800x600. The downfall with a Voodoo2 is the Glide DOS games which will then require a batch file to be run (not hard to create) for you to start the games.

senrew wrote:

Were I to move up to the K6s, I take it I'd need to add a fan on top of that same heatsink?

problem solved: http://www.ebay.com/itm/160842293913

Its overkill. But cooler = better. And the price is reasonable.

Very nice.

So, Vortex 2 with the daughterboard, or my SB Live!?

Will the SB take the daughterboard, or is that connector just for the midi daughter card that the original gold version came with?

I know I'll get good use out of either for the later windows games I may use this machine for, but at the start it'll be primarily a dos machine. Worst case, I've got the SB16 at the very least.

After pouring through the pile of games on my list, I think the most demanding game I'd want to play is Klingon Honor Guard. Assuming I go with a K6-2/3, will I be able to go dual V2s in SLI and get any kind of decent performance with this game? How would this handle Unreal engine stuff?