1. good pci socket 3 boards are few and far between. 486's were never designed to make use of PCI, thus most boards with PCI have it tacked on. I believe there was ONE chipset that did pci properly, and I want to say its the UMC 8888 (or something like that) feipoa hits it on the head with this post: allround best 486 chipset/motherboard?

2. dos can only use 64mb, and the 64mb cache bug is with pentiums. WB cache is faster, but requires more cache to umm... cache the memory. 256kb of L2 in WB can handle 32mb, you need 512kb to cache 64mb, and so forth.

3. voodoo 3 would be overpowered. The banshee would be a nice choice. That or use a nice 2d card (matrox or ati) and get a voodoo 1 (that's what I would do)

4. I'm not a fan of CF cards, but w/e.

5. no complaints

6. I found a mid-tower AT case that opened up like a clamshell. Well, staple remover would be more accurate. That said, "technician friendly" cases were exceedingly rare until pentium 3 era

7. pentium OD is the fastest in most cases, there is a program that will slow things down for you.

8. NO. use ISA. the less you have on PCI, the better. Save what little bandwidth you have for video/hard drive. in fact, there is really little reason to have a network card at all. even less if your going to have a removeable cf card as a hard drive.

9. no point. usb is a royal PITA until win 2000.

luckybob wrote:

1. good pci socket 3 boards are few and far between. 486's were never designed to make use of PCI, thus most boards with PCI h […]
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1. good pci socket 3 boards are few and far between. 486's were never designed to make use of PCI, thus most boards with PCI have it tacked on. I believe there was ONE chipset that did pci properly, and I want to say its the UMC 8888 (or something like that) feipoa hits it on the head with this post: allround best 486 chipset/motherboard?

2. dos can only use 64mb, and the 64mb cache bug is with pentiums. WB cache is faster, but requires more cache to umm... cache the memory. 256kb of L2 in WB can handle 32mb, you need 512kb to cache 64mb, and so forth.

3. voodoo 3 would be overpowered. The banshee would be a nice choice. That or use a nice 2d card (matrox or ati) and get a voodoo 1 (that's what I would do)

4. I'm not a fan of CF cards, but w/e.

5. no complaints

6. I found a mid-tower AT case that opened up like a clamshell. Well, staple remover would be more accurate. That said, "technician friendly" cases were exceedingly rare until pentium 3 era

7. pentium OD is the fastest in most cases, there is a program that will slow things down for you.

8. NO. use ISA. the less you have on PCI, the better. Save what little bandwidth you have for video/hard drive. in fact, there is really little reason to have a network card at all. even less if your going to have a removeable cf card as a hard drive.

9. no point. usb is a royal PITA until win 2000.

You have some good points, using a usb drive would be rather pointless with the CF adapter, and I probably don't need a high performance network card, if any. I was originally thinking of using it for file transfers, but the CF card once again makes that idea pointless, so it may just go in for playing old LAN games. 😁

I personally don't mind the idea of using a newer case, as long as it's reasonably well-built and has the right mounting holes for an AT motherboard.

Using just a Pentium OD would probably simplify things a bit, though I would like to know how much I could potentially slow it down by disabling cache or whatever. I would probably be switching between the POD and the DX33 the most, since the POD could handle everything the other CPUs could reasonably well, while the DX33 might be good for approximating a 386 system for games such as the original Wing Commander.

I was also just thinking, would I be better off with a Super Socket 7 rig instead? Granted, it's not as oldschool as a Socket 3 rig, but it can probably achieve the same results.

Your requirements are closer to the Time Machine concept than to a 486 all-arounder.
PCI, USB, 3dfx - in my book they all really start with Socket7. Far, far less hassle - no swapping hardware, it just works.

It'll be funny to see how people react when you are running say Wolf3D one minute, then reboot that K6-III+ with a different multiplier/cache enabled, and load Starcraft. Or MAX PAYNE 😎

I couldn't get Banshee or Voodoo3 BIOS to startup on a 486er. (works fine on Pentium)
I suspect it is the code, but i can not exclude that it is some chipset/mainboard incompatibility.

Why switch CPUs and CF card when Wolfenstein 3D and Starcraft both run on perfectly normal Pentium/late 486 systems?

Also "period accurateness" is really a fuzzy and in my opinion nonsensical concept. I know plenty of people including me who played Wolfenstein 3D, Transport Tycoon etc. on the exact same PC they played Unreal or Starcraft on. Playing Wolfenstein 3D on a Pentium 133 is not "period accurate", but I first played it on such a system and enjoyed it very much despite already having much more "modern" games.

@micha
The chipset is a deciding factor.
My Diamond Monster Fusion PCI (Banshee with 16 MB RAM) works on the SiS based 486 boards (Zida, Lucky Star etc.) but on none of the UMC boards I have.

usb+pci+dos really needs something on the pentiumII range... I've made tests with my p200mmx and usb transfers were too slow... a NIC solution runs circles around it

Maybe an early socket 7 board that predates AGP would be better.

sliderider wrote:

Maybe an early socket 7 board that predates AGP would be better.

This is what I want to do. Not S7 but S4. use one of those 5v pentiums. if i needed more cpu power i'd drop in an Overdrive chip. That said, I can't find a motherboar OR a od chip. 😜 maybe someday.

luckybob wrote:

sliderider wrote:

Maybe an early socket 7 board that predates AGP would be better.

This is what I want to do. Not S7 but S4. use one of those 5v pentiums. if i needed more cpu power i'd drop in an Overdrive chip. That said, I can't find a motherboar OR a od chip. 😜 maybe someday.

You do realize that going for a Socket 4 system is even more expensive and the Socket 4 Overdrives are worth several hundred dollars? Socket 4 boards don't allow for much BIOS tweaking either. Socket 3 and Socket 7 were much better on the boards.

luckybob wrote:

This is what I want to do.

nobody said anything about it being cost effective or a GOOD idea. The holy grail would be to find one of these motherboards: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/M/M- … ml#.Uij7tcasiG4

2mb l2 cache and a 5v pentium....

M-tech Pentium 1 boards? I have a couple HX chipset M-Techs I purchased new back in the day here somewhere.

486 setups are one of my favorites, I have then in ISA , VLB, EISA, MCA and PCI. The PCI version has a Cyrix 5x120 in it. The only reason to bother with a 486 PCI is to have a kick ass PCI video card with 4MB or more for 2D games. Anything 3D is better off with a Pentium 1 or better.

Unknown_K wrote:

M-tech Pentium 1 boards? I have a couple HX chipset M-Techs I purchased new back in the day here somewhere.

486 setups are one of my favorites, I have then in ISA , VLB, EISA, MCA and PCI. The PCI version has a Cyrix 5x120 in it. The only reason to bother with a 486 PCI is to have a kick ass PCI video card with 4MB or more for 2D games. Anything 3D is better off with a Pentium 1 or better.

That's mainly what I want to do actually. Anything 3D would be more for laughs, since I know that I can easily do 3D much better on a newer machine.

I don't even use the PCI 486 much, mostly I stick to the VLB machines for games and the EISA/MCA ones for apps. Oh yea, I also have a 486/133 handheld touchscreen portable for playing solitaire in W95, Norand Pen Key 6622, look it up.

Despite the fact that an SS7 box may be more practical, I still think I'll go with a PCI Socket 3 build just because I can. That, and I believe it fits the main games I'll be playing on
it much better. If it's cost prohibitive though, I do have an old Packard Bell sitting in storage with a Socket 7 board, which currently has a 300-350MHz K6-2 (can't remember the exact speed), onboard sound and video, and I believe 128MB of EDO RAM. I remember booting it up and seeing that the previous owner had 98SE with the unofficial service pack 2.1 installed, which ran quite nicely.

Plus, I like the idea of the added challenge. For compatibility and performance sake though, I think i'll go with a PCI Voodoo 1 card and a fast 2D PCI card instead of a combined unit. I am somewhat tempted by the idea of a Voodoo 2, but I don't think the performance of a Socket 3 system would make good use of it, plus I actually have a Voodoo 1 somewhere in storage.

Here's what I wonder though, even though it may seem like a waste, would a Voodoo 2 have any noticable gains over a Voodoo 1 in a Socket 3 box, even just for things like signal quality?

even a voodoo 1 would be starved for cpu power. There would be nothing of significance to gain.

The only reason I can see to put a Voodoo 2 in a Socket 3 build would be if you didn't have much other options of cards laying around. Few Glide games run well on a Socket 3 system, and they all work well on a Voodoo 1 card.

I'll save a few bucks and use my Voodoo 1 then.

I use my PCI based 486 daily. Socket 3 all the way.

grab a Cyrix 5x86 100 and a proven quality ISA/PCI motherboard. Try a bunch of PCI video cards and find one that works well in that particular motherboard.

There is plenty of room to tinker with cyrix enhancements and an ÒC or if your not that way inclined with a bit of tinkering you can have a machine that will play old games like Leisure suit larry EGA plus newer titles like Quake extremely well.