Well several of us would agree that P133s are the shit 😉 you can swap the 200MMX overdrive for more demanding games.
S3 virge is good. It should probably be plugged into a voodoo or voodoo2.
256mb ram probably overkill, 64 should suffice unless you're willing to try some windows 2000 experiences ?
AWE64Gold is the next best thing IMHO after a pre CT3990 AWE32.

Hello! Welcome to vogons!

Considering your build, I think you should review it a little. 256 MB EDO RAM is insane for a Pentium 1 PC. It might work not as well as expected on all intel chip sets except for HX. Moreover, it's a total overkill and a waste of a large sum of money (64MB EDO sticks cost a lot).

What I would suggest is:
1) Start with the motherboard. Find a good one with a solid chip set (usually 430HX or 430TX, both have their own pros and cons)
2) Find the CPU
3) Equip your motherboard with 64MB of RAM. When it comes to 430TX, more would slow the computer down (it has only 64MB cacheable range), HX can cope with up to 512MB, FX and VX - 32 MB (or 64? I don't remember exactly). Note that if you go for TX or VX, RAM is dirt cheap (SDRAM), while the same 64 MB of RAM for HX (EDO) are much more pricey.
4) Think of all the expansion cards you need.
You're going to need at least a 2D video card, a sound card, a network card. I would recommend to buy a cheaper AWE-series Sound blaster, something like CT3670 I like very much. AWE64 Gold is great, yet it costs a lot and does not sound that much better if better at all. For the saved money I would get a 3dfx Voodoo card if I were you.
5) HDDs, floppy, PSU, etc...
6) Peripherals. Do you have DIN5 keyboard and COM mouse? If you're getting an AT PC, you'll need those (or at least a COM mouse and an PS/2 to DIN5 adapter), and there is a thousand AT Pentium I PCs for every ATX Pentium I.

If you have already got that S3 Virge card, then that should be totally fine for your build, if not, I'd say that the most "bad ass" card of the early 90's was the Matrox Millennium. That's the one that all the major computer magazines were writing about, saying it was the "world's fastest Windows accelerator" and "world's fastest graphics card" and all that. Truth be told, it wasn't necessarily the fastest DOS gaming card, but it was still the most desirable card back in the days.
I agree with the others here, 64MB should probably be the memory amount to aim for. Don't really see why you'd need more, and there's those limits to cacheable memory sizes.
SB AWE64 was launched in November 1996, so it's not really what a 1995 system would have, but it's a good sound card, so I don't see why you shouldn't use one. Another alternative would be a Gravis Ultrasound Max or PnP (if you can find one as are willing to pay the price). Both cards are correct for the era, and were considered among the best cards at the time.
Sounds like it will be a fun project no matter which parts you end up using though. I can only wish you the best of luck with it 😀

Racoon : 64 for 430FX AFAIK.
That's the reason I'v got 64 in my P5-133.

Thanks so much guys for all the responses - wow how little I know about all this ( I thought I was some gun techie back in the day hah!)

So if I understand correctly 64MB is a motherboard limit rather than a DOS one? I was planning to run most of the games through OS/2's command prompt - which from memory worked pretty well. My original machine I think had 16MB then I upgraded to 24 somewhere along the line.

LunaG: I totally agree AWE64's came out a year or so later, here in Australia, after I got my PC. I spent a lot of time salivating over one though! 😊 But it seems finding an AWE32 non-value ISA variant on ebay is a bit tough.

RacoonRider: thanks for the welcome and the very detailed response. Got a few follow up questions if I may (1) does the max cachable amount of ram matter noting the whole OS/2 thing above (2) from recollection my old PC did have an AT power supply but I was definitely using PS/2 keyboards and mice. Was the whole AT / PS2 thing definitive?

I'm not sure what the MB is as I'm buying a complete setup off ebay from about $50 and it comes with a P133 so when I get it I'll open it up and see whats in there.

Thanks again for all your input I'll look into the Matrox cards as well.

Kind regards,

S

sunaiac wrote:

Racoon : 64 for 430FX AFAIK.
That's the reason I'v got 64 in my P5-133.

Thanks! Never worked with it for long enough to remember 😀

stevemagin,

1) I don't know. I ordered a copy of OS/2 Warp and I'm waiting for it to arrive, yet that's the only experience I ever had with it. What I know is: Windows 9x uses last pages of memory first, so if they are uncached, things run terribly slow. DOS, however, uses first pages first, so it runs great until it hits the limit. No idea how OS/2 works though. Does anybody here know?

2) Some AT motherbards have 5-pin PS/2 header. If your motherboard has one, all you need to do is find/craft a PS/2 backplate to use PS/2 mouse. It's fairly easy. To use PS/2 keyboard you need to find/craft a PS/2-DIN5, which is a bit harder, but with some soldering skills you'll do just fine.

Could you show us the pictures from the listing? We can tell you a lot about the stuff you're going to get.

Considering Matrox stuff, look for Millenium, Millenium II, Mystique, Mystique 220. They are all great. There is also a great resource on early 3D graphics here: http://www.vintage3d.org It might give you the idea of what you actually need and want. By the way, all the material is original and the author appears on this forum.

If you want to run a Pentium 133, go for a HX board. They are built for heavy users and workstations. They also have the fastest performance of all Socket5/7 motherboards I've tested, included the Super Socket 7 boards. The most important thing is getting 512kb Pipeline burst cache for Intel boards. That have alot to say for performance.

Here are my current results (On a Pentium 100, Matrox group cards (Mystique versions, Millennium II, G200). Tested using Phil's VGA Benchmark test:

When I've tested all the boards I own I will make a own thread for it. Hopefully someone else wants to join in.

I'd agree that 256MB is silly for a machine from 1995 - if it's coming with that much memory in the $50 purchase than I'd at least test it out, and remove memory modules if you run into problems.

On the hard-drive - unless you already have a working drive in hand, you might want to consider a CF card or a more modern drive instead; this is more of a reliability/availability concern than anything else.

On the differences on Intel chipsets, this was/is very informative:
http://www.motherboards.org/articles/tech-pla … ations/7_2.html

obobskivich wrote:

On the differences on Intel chipsets, this was/is very informative:
http://www.motherboards.org/articles/tech-pla … ations/7_2.html

Some errors in that info, like saying 430FX doesn't support EDO and PB cache. It does. I like this comparison better:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/chip/pop/g5i … mparison-c.html

vetz wrote:

obobskivich wrote:

On the differences on Intel chipsets, this was/is very informative:
http://www.motherboards.org/articles/tech-pla … ations/7_2.html

Some errors in that info, like saying 430FX doesn't support EDO and PB cache. It does. I like this comparison better:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/chip/pop/g5i … mparison-c.html

I don't see where it actually says FX doesn't support EDO, but will entirely agree that your link is much more complete (and easier to read!). 😀

Vetz table shows that performance is more motherboard dependent than chipset.

I think you'll be happy whatever. 5FPS more or less in doom won't change your life.
Pentium 133 came on socket 5 as the high end one, and ended its life on socket 7 as the entry level CPU, so whichever will be period correct.

Mine is in a P5-133 gateway, so a high end end of 1995 system. That means I could get a bit more juice by goind 430HX, and a bit more again going Millennium II instead of Millennium. But as often, the conclusion is that if I want more juice, I just have to fire up the core i7, so ... 😀

If you want the ultimate pentium, it's gonna be 233+ MHz MMX.
The only point in going HX + Mill 2 + whatever on a 133 is to get the ultimate ... P133 ^^

You could always buy an OEM Pentium desktop. Cheapest solution.

sunaiac wrote:

But as often, the conclusion is that if I want more juice, I just have to fire up the core i7, so ... 😀

🤣

Very true though - after a point it doesn't make sense trying to "soup up" an older machine; newer parts always exist when you're talking about Pentiums or K6s. 😀 (Also, are we actually sure this machine is based on an Intel 430 or is that just "most likely scenario" for an unknown?).

With the Pentium chipsets, it boils down to maths and percentages. A percentage increase of something very small isn't going to make a difference 🤣

A few basics:

Slowest MMX beats the fastest Pentium.

P233 MMX is very fast.

If you need anything faster go either straight to a Slot 1 / Socket 370 system or at least an AMD K6-2+ or III+ with around 500 MHz on a 100 MHz FSB capable board.

Also, depending on the version of OS/2 you want to run, anything post-486-non-intel, might cause problems. For example, I was not able to run OS/2 Warp 3.0 on a K6 200MHz back in the days, because the K6 instruction set is slightly different from the Intel one. Just thought I'd mention it.

Wow thank you to all of you for a very comprehensive set of considerations. It took me a day just to digest it all.

Reflecting on what you've all said, maybe I've gone about this the wrong way. Leaving aside my nostalgia to recreate my very first PC, I think there are a few things I need to reconsider. Let me explain my logic and I would be grateful for anyone to point out where I might have gone wrong

I had assumed that I would need an AT power supply for a PC of that vintage and that modern ATX versions would not be backwards compatible. Because AT power supplies are a bit hard to come across in my part of the world I decided to buy a complete system (basically for the PS) and then if needs be buy additional bits I might need including a better MB etc..

So this is what I am bidding on at the moment:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/251518069399?ssPag … 984.m1426.l2649

Its basically working P133 but I'm not sure what MB/Graphics etc I am getting with it. Once I got it I would take stock and then add in stuff I needed - based on what you guys would tell me. But it seems most of the discussion here has been about choosing a decent MB (true today as it was back then). The 256MB memory is from another local supplier who just happens to have them going cheap - but I hear what you've all said about that.

So say I wanted a P233MMX (which seems to be the best for retro gaming) would any socket 7 MB suffice or are there specific ones for MMX chips?

Also would dos games circa '95-'97 even run on a 233MMX? I though there were speed problems if the PC was too fast.

Also is my assumption about modern ATX PSU's correct i.e not backwards compatible with AT MBs or early revision ATX MBs? I thought I read somewhere that this was the case. I've got a 600W floating around - perhaps I could just build a 233 MMX from scratch. Still have to make good on my bid of course (assuming I'm not outbid) but that's ok.

Don't worry too much about the OS/2 thing. Embarrassingly I was actually certified by IBM on OS/2 warp 3.0 back in the mid-90s but I've forgotten so much about that stuff including the memory model it uses - which from recollection is quite different to DOS / Win 3.11 or 95. Part of the reason for all of this is to relearn some of this.

Thanks again for what is easily the most useful and comprehensive help I've ever received on a forum. Great to see a fantastic retro PC community - I don't feel so weird anymore for liking these older PCs and games now.

Kind regards

S

MMX needs to be supported by the motherboard. It uses split voltage design and older boards don't support it.

There are late Super Socket 7 boards for ATX. These are my favourite because you have the option of installing a very fast K6-2+ or K6-III+.

Good choice to buy a complete system to start with. It can easily get very expensive otherwise. 😀

Some boards from the late 1990s (including Socket 7 models) will support ATX; some will not (and there are boards that support both - you connect one or the other). If it has the ATX 20pin connector it will work with an ATX PSU.

Now, as far as an AT-only board - that would require an AT power supply.