That is a nice start.

You can keep the TNT2 for Direct3D and as a very good 2D card in DOS and Windows. Voodoo3 have problems with alot of very early Glide games which you state you want to play. Nascar 2 for example is DOS and there you are outta luck unless you have a Voodoo 1 or Voodoo 2. I would recommend going for a Voodoo 2 and maybe later down the line expand it to SLI. The Voodoo2 can play all the early Glide games (with batch files) while also keeping up in the 99-00 Glide supported games if used in SLI mode. Also Glide support after 1998 didn't matter that much as Direct3D was on par with it in most cases, thus your TNT2 can do the job. EDIT: I see it's a Vanta, actually Voodoo2 in SLI might be quicker in Direct3D in some cases.

For sound there are no ultimate soundcard that does everything. That have been discussed to death here on Vogons, and nobody can come to any consensus. Since you will be covering the MIDI period I would recommend getting either a Roland Sound Canvas device (internal or external) or the Yamaha db50xg daughtercard. The Yamaha have NEC XR385 clones that are of good quality while also being easy and cheap to get hold of compared to a Roland. Also I personally think that Yamaha sounds better in Duke Nukem 3D and Doom 😉

If you decide to go for a real Soundblaster, it depends alittle on what kind of MIDI device you are using. If you get an internal device, like the NEC XR385 then get a Soundblaster 16 without the midi hanging note bug. This depends on the modelnumbers, and people have reported the early CT17XX to be more or less safe. My own CT2230 and CT1770 both are bug free. If you go for an external MIDI device then the AWE64 is a worthy card to take a look at. The benefits of using a AWE64 is that you get support for AWE synth and better SNR quality than on a SB16, though it lacks an internal Waveblaster connector for MIDI. Also some here live and die that the card must have a OPL-3 chip for FM sounds (which the AWE64 lacks), but this again depends on what kind of games you are going to play.

If you can live with a clone card, then the Yamaha YMF 719 and CMI 8330 (Audio Excel 3D) are very good choices. The PCI route is also a possibility, with the added benefit to get EAX and A3D 3D sound support in Win9X games. Here I and others will recommend the Aureal Vortex2 Superquad (which can be aquired brand new really cheap here).

blaker1983 wrote:

My question is, Should I go with a Glide card, i.e. a Voodoo 3 or keep the TNT 2? I want to play older Glide supported games such as Janes F15 and Longbow 2, Nascar 2 etc. the TNT 2 doesn't support it, or can I run both cards?

If between only those two, I'd choose the Voodoo3 (for both 3D and 2D/DOS). But if you have/can find a Voodoo3 PCI, usually you can run it along an AGP card and choose which one to boot with from the BIOS menu. For the AGP card a 1GHz P3 can be paired well enough with, say, a GF4 Ti 4200.

(@mods: Don't we have a sticky about this somewhere? No?)

Also, for best compatibility should I ditch that ESS for a Soundblaster? if so, which one would be recommended for best midi output as well as the support?

Also, this topic has been discussed to death (no, really, it just won't die, hehe). A thread has been stickied on the PC subforum, please read that first if you haven't: Sound cards - from best to worst