A few 3dfx games look directly for the 2nd card (Xcar, EF2000, Whiplash/Fatal Racing) instead of Glide2x.ovl. So, if you're playing these, you'll need a Voodoo Graphics or Voodoo2.

good to know ! I am sure I could probably find a list of games that look for the second card exclusively on here somewhere. This place is great for that kind of information from what I gather. I am hoping a few of you hardware guys will chime in with some ideas on what to put with what to make a decent system.

I love those old 3com isa and pci cards, IIRC there are drivers in 9x for them already and they have great DOS drivers even. The Voodoo5 is an amazing score, that deserves a fast cpu so the Athlon xp would be a good fit. The ECS board lacks an ISA slot but either that Santa Cruz or AW724 would be a good pair with it. Try both out and see which one is more compatible and sounds best!

V5 is a nice card 😀

I've got some benchmarks and you can see how much faster it is: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/3dfx-voodoo-s … ut-project.html

I don't have much experience with Athlon systems, sorry. But I know quite a bit about Slot 1 machines with BX440 chipsets and setting up and configuring a DOS and Windows 98 SE hybrid gaming beast 😀

You really want an ISA sound card. So many options so I won't discuss it to much detail. I always go with an AWE64 because they just work and do the job.

Will you be interested in MS-DOS at all? Because if not, a PCI sound card will do. And if you just play newer DOS games, an Aureal Vortex 2 PCI card has excellent DOS compatibility.

Congratulations! What an awesome find!

This card's main strength is rendering games from 1998-2000.

I recommend a good KT333 Board with a guaranteed AGP current of 3.3v. Otherwise the card will fry 🙁
Alternatively a good 440BX System with a Celeron 1400 😀

thanks for the input!
I can throw a current gen system together with my eyes closed so assembling this old type setup Is a refreshing change.
I am thinking I will go with whatever sound option is good for both dos and win9x gaming If it seems that I stay more with the win9x side I may use the L7VTA board. Do I use the geforce 6800 in this board? Or maybe the voodoo 5. or if possible the geforce6800 with a passthru to the voodoo2?

So I do think I may run the SD11 due to the chance of utilizing the most slots (pci). My previous question however still doesn't seem to clear.
Do I run the voodoo5 with the voodoo2 with a pass through? Or does the voodoo 5 cover all bases for glide in dos and win9x?
Should I keep the ram at 512 or hit the 786 max?
I keep wondering if the dos legacy mode on the turtle beach santa cruz will suffice or maybe use the awe724. I think Ill try it out tonight as a test.
I am checking ebay out for a awe64, anything in particular I should be looking for?
The only issue I still have is the fact my sidewinders don't get detected on the SD11. From what research I can gather, it has to do with the bus speed, maybe?
I do however have a topgun fox 2 pro usb from thrustmaster, that seems to work fine for the windows games. Have yet to try in in the dos window of win98, and doubt I can get it working in real dos.

Please keep the recommendations coming.

And Phil, I love your site and tutorials. I most likely will be grabbing one of the floppy emulators you reviewed.
Have you did any videos or a writeup on using CF based storage on these old systems? I like the flexibility of flash storage.

As far as sound cards for your ISA slot:

-Yamaha OPL3SAx -YMF-71x card; -- Excellent Sound Blaster and SB Pro 2 compatibility, MPU-401 UART and 44KHz Stereo capability;
-Pro Audio Spectrum Plus or 16; -- These have the Thunderboard chipset for Sound Blaster 2.0 compatibility.

Thanks Carlos! Ill give them look.
And forgive me Phil, I just noticed the storage options video on your site 😀 http://www.philscomputerlab.com/hard-drive-op … -retro-pcs.html

For 9x keep it at 512mb because you don't need any more and you have to mess around to get over that to work good. Is your Sidewinder the USB model or the gameport model btw? For whatever reason the motherboard may not like one or the other. That SD11 should be a great pair with that Voodoo5 😁 I am not sure if using the V2 with the Voodoo5 would be very straight forward. Looks like the ECS athlon xp board is only agp 4x and 8x so be wary and research the voltage before using the V5 with it (if you were to) thanks Arctic for pointing that out! I forgot all about agp voltages for a second there, I would keep the Geforce6800 in it and max out the cpu 😀 looks like it supports the 400fsb chips!

Hehe there are so many videos, easy to get lost 😀

Yes CF are great, also work fine for Windows 98 but writing performance is the weak spot. But then I use CF cards. But I prefer SATA drives. Decent CF cards aren't that cheap and a 500 GB SATA can be had for little. With a SATA to IDE adapter you are good to go.

But for gaming it works very well, no complaints 😀

On a whim I bought a sata to ide bidirectional adapter, think ill try it out this evening after work. I also think ill keep the voodoo5 in the sd11 board since it seems to work with no issues. The other ECS system maybe win9x gaming only. Still not sure. Hell, I may even turn the old Pavilion into a win95 beast 😀

As for the sidewinders they are identical Sidewinder 3d pro game port versions. Still bothers me I cant use them with the sd11 board. I keep researching.

This evening I'll grab a Monster (energy ambrosia of the gods) drink after work and make a night of putting it all together.
Do we recommend win98 over dos 6.22 or stick with the dos 7 that ships with my win98. I even have my windows Me upgrade disc, however I see a lot of negativity for that as a gaming os.

Congrat's with the V5 card. Personally I would not go for a V5 at all. (GF4/FX5XXX is my choice for high-end gaming)
All in all... A great haul of hardware you got there.... Congrat's again. 😀

Nottah wrote:

On a whim I bought a sata to ide bidirectional adapter, think ill try it out this evening after work. I also think ill keep the […]
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On a whim I bought a sata to ide bidirectional adapter, think ill try it out this evening after work. I also think ill keep the voodoo5 in the sd11 board since it seems to work with no issues. The other ECS system maybe win9x gaming only. Still not sure. Hell, I may even turn the old Pavilion into a win95 beast 😀

As for the sidewinders they are identical Sidewinder 3d pro game port versions. Still bothers me I cant use them with the sd11 board. I keep researching.

This evening I'll grab a Monster (energy ambrosia of the gods) drink after work and make a night of putting it all together.
Do we recommend win98 over dos 6.22 or stick with the dos 7 that ships with my win98. I even have my windows Me upgrade disc, however I see a lot of negativity for that as a gaming os.

stick with Win98 and the DOS that comes with it , try to make sure its Win98SE and youre good to go , WinME has its issues and won't do anything Windows 98SE won't do as far as games go.
heck with some unofficial service packs you can make Win98SE look just like WinME if you like the look of it (one of the things that did improve was the looks, WinME used the Win2000 theme)

thanks for the input!

Darkman wrote:

stick with Win98 and the DOS that comes with it , try to make sure its Win98SE and youre good to go , WinME has its issues and won't do anything Windows 98SE won't do as far as games go.
heck with some unofficial service packs you can make Win98SE look just like WinME if you like the look of it (one of the things that did improve was the looks, WinME used the Win2000 theme)

me supports directx a little further to oct. 27, 08': http://www.falconfly.de/directx.htm

Though, a franken98me setup might be the way to go: http://www.mdgx.com/upd98me.php

Though #2, according to this: http://www.techspot.com/drivers/driver/file/i … formation/2098/ the last dx 9.0c, dated june 2010, supports 98se/me, so..

OK almost got it together, however can't decide about the monitor? I have a 17inch mag crt or a couple of Samsung syncmasters also 17 inch but flat screen still 4:3 ratio. I seem to remember the flat screens seemed very bright unless I am doing something wrong. The CRT is huge and most likely would be better for the era of the hardware.. or will I notice to much of a difference.

Nice that you have some CRT monitors!

Just try them out and use the one you think has the best picture 😀

I like the 1024 x 768 resolution. If you notice the 60 Hz flicker, set the refresh rate higher to 75 or 85.

thanks again, ill be getting it all installed and running soon.

awgamer wrote:

me supports directx a little further to oct. 27, 08': http://www.falconfly.de/directx.htm […]
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Darkman wrote:

stick with Win98 and the DOS that comes with it , try to make sure its Win98SE and youre good to go , WinME has its issues and won't do anything Windows 98SE won't do as far as games go.
heck with some unofficial service packs you can make Win98SE look just like WinME if you like the look of it (one of the things that did improve was the looks, WinME used the Win2000 theme)

me supports directx a little further to oct. 27, 08': http://www.falconfly.de/directx.htm

Though, a franken98me setup might be the way to go: http://www.mdgx.com/upd98me.php

Though #2, according to this: http://www.techspot.com/drivers/driver/file/i … formation/2098/ the last dx 9.0c, dated june 2010, supports 98se/me, so..

sure, but in the context of the PC he is building , they are both the similar, with Win98SE having less issues.

I mean , if DX9 was the target, a different machine would be in order, and frankly I would have skipped Win9x for that purpose and gone with Win2k/XP.