A lot of people here have thought they could do it "one ring to rule them all" only to end up back where they started with a couple of systems. Personally when it comes to DOS I always prefer the real thing and have an actual 386/486 system or some P1 system that can be gimped to emulate slower speeds. Jumpers are not a big thing to me until it is just one big large block with like 50 or 60 pins and no way to decipher where they go.

Finding a V3 has gotten harder with more and more people scrounging ebay almost every possible way so there are less cheap ones to run away with though getting a V3 2K agp for $4 shipped was awesome.

There is no one way to do it all, I understand that. I'm going for as close as I can without having too many PCs and doing it the best I can with what I got currently. Really, the only reason why I would go true DOS pre-Pentium PC is if I could get my hands on a Tandy like the 1000 RLX I had way back when.

nforce4max wrote:

A lot of people here have thought they could do it "one ring to rule them all" only to end up back where they started with a couple of systems. Personally when it comes to DOS I always prefer the real thing and have an actual 386/486 system or some P1 system that can be gimped to emulate slower speeds. Jumpers are not a big thing to me until it is just one big large block with like 50 or 60 pins and no way to decipher where they go.

Finding a V3 has gotten harder with more and more people scrounging ebay almost every possible way so there are less cheap ones to run away with though getting a V3 2K agp for $4 shipped was awesome.

i got my voodoo3 2k for 6dollars
and i left it some minutes in dos BIOS and that thing is hot, touched the heatsink and was very very hot

but the epoxy is so hard its difficult to take out

So why a Voodoo3 2000? Is it enough? Back then, I had a 3000 and then later a 3500 but never a 2000.

GiSWiG wrote:

ASUS P3V4X seems to work better than P2B-F because of Jumper Free CPU/BUS Speed setting which works nicely with P2-400 and underclocking plus it has no trouble using a USB mouse and keyboard. The P2B-F is the 440BX requires using jumpers to set speed and the USB mouse doesn't work under DOS. In either case, I might just stick with 200 or 233MHz speed.

Wouldn't count the P2B-F out just yet.

If you can handle a soldering iron, you could always get a bunch of SPST switches, and wire them up to the FSB/multiplier jumper headers. Flicking a few switches is even easier than fiddling around in the BIOS settings. Using that setup on my P200 rig, posted a few pics of it here.

You might of course have other reasons to use an USB mouse, but if it's just compatibility woes, you might be interested to know that there are modern mice supporting PS/2 through a "dumb" adapter. Using a Logitech MX400 laser mouse with my retro rigs. You don't have to use an old ball mouse if you don't want to.

kaputnik wrote:

Wouldn't count the P2B-F out just yet. […]
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GiSWiG wrote:

ASUS P3V4X seems to work better than P2B-F because of Jumper Free CPU/BUS Speed setting which works nicely with P2-400 and underclocking plus it has no trouble using a USB mouse and keyboard. The P2B-F is the 440BX requires using jumpers to set speed and the USB mouse doesn't work under DOS. In either case, I might just stick with 200 or 233MHz speed.

Wouldn't count the P2B-F out just yet.

If you can handle a soldering iron, you could always get a bunch of SPST switches, and wire them up to the FSB/multiplier jumper headers. Flicking a few switches is even easier than fiddling around in the BIOS settings. Using that setup on my P200 rig, posted a few pics of it here.

You might of course have other reasons to use an USB mouse, but if it's just compatibility woes, you might be interested to know that there are modern mice supporting PS/2 through a "dumb" adapter. Using a Logitech MX400 laser mouse with my retro rigs. You don't have to use an old ball mouse if you don't want to.

I understand most would consider the 440BX as the go-to chipset, but I have not had issues with VIA chipsets in a really long time. I bought AMD since the K6 to the Phenom II. Any Intels during that 15-year time span have been free and used for utility uses like file servers and HTPCs. Other than the Phenom IIs, maybe the Athlon X2, all my motherboards have been VIA or Nvidia.

I'm not wanting to get side-tracked here; I can ask in a new topic about why 440BX vs the VIA chipset or find an existing topic. I'm also mostly interested in the main PC 98SE/XP hybrid right now. Probably the biggest thing to work out is the sound across DOS, Win98 and WinXP.

P.S. I really don't want to solder retro hardware.

This question keeps coming up 😀

Personally I see DOS and Windows 9x gaming going well with one machine. And XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 with another machine.

The cross-over between 9x and XP is more challenging and you need very specific parts.

If authenticity is less of a concern I would build a Windows XP machine and use DOSBox and dgvoodoo2 😀

I have a bunch of half assembled systems and a few parts going back to 8086 CPUs.

My three main era specific computers I'm working on and use are a 486 EISA/VLB 128MB RAM MS-DOS 6.22 Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (early to mid '90s), Pentium 4 PCI/AGP 8x 2GB RAM Windows XP Pro 32bit (early to mid 2000s), and i7-3930K PCIe 16x Gen. 3 64GB RAM Windows 7 Pro 64bit (early to mid 2010s).

Other than being era specific, I think the main distinguishing characteristics would be the expansion slot card types. Other things seem to fall into place around that such as OS types, CPU, RAM, video cards, drives (SCSI, Floppy, IDE, SATA, HDD, SSD), ports, and so on. This seems to give me some of the widest coverage and versatility.

I'm also looking forward to seeing what new computer tech the 2020s hold. 🤣

Cheers.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

This question keeps coming up :) […]
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This question keeps coming up 😀

Personally I see DOS and Windows 9x gaming going well with one machine. And XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 with another machine.

The cross-over between 9x and XP is more challenging and you need very specific parts.

If authenticity is less of a concern I would build a Windows XP machine and use DOSBox and dgvoodoo2 😀

Playability > authenticity. For example, Kinq's Quest V under DOSBox with MUNT sounds great. Under true DOS w/o an actual MT-32 device, some sounds are terrible. Under General MIDI, bird chirps are random brass horn instrument sounds. Under Sound Blaster using the Audician 32, chirps just sound like tones that don't really sound like chirps. Under MUNT, they are true bird chirps. I've tried using the AWE64 w/ MT-32 emulation and I don't remember being impressed. On the other hand, Monkey Island w/ AWE64 MT-32 emulation sounds pretty good. KQ6 with General MIDI using the Dreamblaster under pure DOS sounds awesome as well as Hexen and Heretic games. Duke3D is fine too. The PC would be way too fast for Descent. This is an example where hardware accuracy wins hands down. Descent works OK under DOSBOX but under hardware, it works as intended. Using the P2 @ 200MHz, Descent plays as it should and Sierra games don't need patched for sound issues. I get good results using 'Throttle on the P3 933MHz. Throttle under a 2.0 GHz PC... well, I'll find out. Another point for DOSBOX is early Sierra games that take advantage of the Tandy 3-voice.

As so many others have commented on this in the past..... One system to do it all can't be done, and will never be build.
You can get close to that goal, by emulating dos in DosBox, and still you get into trouble down the road.
Basically speaking. One system will never cut it.

A simple lineup of systems that can do ńearly everything up to Win98se/ME will be something like the list in the bottom.
If you want XP and newer systems for gaming, then I am not really the one to turn to.
As I have absolutely no knowledge of gaming hardware past 2006. My knowledge stops at GF-6800 cards.

- 386sx33
- K6-III+ 400
- P-III-1400

My knowledge after 2006 is much more extensive than before 2006. Before 2006, I have to really research what I'm looking to do.

When it comes to XP, the GeForce 6800 can pretty much do most early XP era games that do not work on Windows 7 and should do well but there are exceptions. A heavily modded Oblivion would struggle. There is the issue of 32-bit vs. 64-bit. You'll get errors stating that the program cannot run on this architecture. I haven't come across anything that only works on Vista.

When it comes to a straight XP PC, I have enough spare parts to whip one up. I could do a Core2Quad Q6600 or Core2Duo E8400, Geforce GTS 250 and 4GB DDR3. I have a GTX 460 but I'd have to steal it back from my son. I'd add an Audigy 2 ZS for $15 but on-board sound is decent and most support up to EAX 2 or 3. A heavily modded Oblivion is no problem depending (it has less to do with horse power and more to do with the rendering tech used). Oblivion, moderately modded worked fine on a Radeon HD 6670.

I think the topic is badly worded. It would be more accurate to say 'If I were to build a system to do as much as possible with what I have, what do you think about this...'

Dos box and vmware on you're modern pc or multiple machines like I have one for every os. You could do a deal boot of xp and 98se on a mid range p4 and throw dos box on the xp side. I use dosbox for every dos game that i play and so far no problems and no hassle of setting up a 386/486.

Oldskoolmaniac wrote:

Dos box and vmware on you're modern pc or multiple machines like I have one for every os. You could do a deal boot of xp and 98se on a mid range p4 and throw dos box on the xp side. I use dosbox for every dos game that i play and so far no problems and no hassle of setting up a 386/486.

I don't believe there is a VMware version that runs on Windows 10 and supports Windows 98 guests. Virtualbox 5.x doesn't support Windows 98 guests. VBox 4.x does support Win98 guests but 4.x doesn't run on Windows 10. I tried putting Win98 in DOSBOX but it is much easier to build a Win98 PC. I do have Win 3.11 in a DOSBox setup that runs fine but I don't see the benefit beyond impressing your friends.

Otherwise, DOSBox on Windows 10 works great. I usually use the SVN DAUM for glide and MT-32 emulation.

I use dos box for all my games and vmware i had windows 3.11, 95, 98SE, ME, 2000 pro, XP, Vista, 7, 10 and a few Linux distro's all perfectly running in VM with all drivers installed.

Oldskoolmaniac wrote:

I use dos box for all my games and vmware i had windows 3.11, 95, 98SE, ME, 2000 pro, XP, Vista, 7, 10 and a few Linux distro's all perfectly running in VM with all drivers installed.

What version of VMware and on what host?

To get back on target, I think I'll just have to try the main PC with the Vortex2, Dreamblaster on the wavetable and the Extigy.

Second PC, I still lean toward the P3V4X because of the more convenient features. Performance wise, the 440BX has a lead but would it be that noticable with 4x AGP and either an ATI 9600XT (or slightly better) or a GeForce 5500? Audician vs AWE64 is still up in the air. Dreamblaster would be on the winner.

Actually, I might have a better idea...

Machine 1
Win98/WinXP (DOS = DOSBOX Daum)
ASUS K8V DLX w/ Athlon 64 3000+
1 GB RAM, 2x512mb use Win98 memory hack
3 HDDs for dual-boot and share drive
Geforce 6800
TB Vortex2
SB Extigy

Machine 2
DOS/Win98
ASUS P2B-F
Pentium II 400, underclocked to 233MHz
512MB RAM
Geforce FX5500 or ATI 9600 or 9700/9800 (9700/9800 requires extra power plug)
SB AWE64 Value
Audician 32 Plus
Dreamblaster connected to either sound card

For Machine 1, hardware MIDI wouldn't bee needed. Using the Vortex2 and SBExtigy give A3d and EAX in theory.

For Machine 2, it looks like I can have both the AWE64 and Audician available at the same time or loaded on demand. Not sure if it is overkill, redundant, brilliant or stupid. (Can't really claim brilliant but I can claim stupid!) Also, not sure if it would be best to put the Dreamblaster on the Audician or the AWE64.

What do you think?

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

This question keeps coming up :) […]
Show full quote

This question keeps coming up 😀

Personally I see DOS and Windows 9x gaming going well with one machine. And XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 with another machine.

The cross-over between 9x and XP is more challenging and you need very specific parts.

If authenticity is less of a concern I would build a Windows XP machine and use DOSBox and dgvoodoo2 😀

So do you think a PIII 933MHz would cover anything that XP would not play? Reason for the 933MHz is that my ASUS P3V4X has a PIII 933 and still has an ISA slot. I'm thinking Audician w/ Dreamblaster and Vortex2 w/o DOS drivers should be fine. THROTTLE works pretty good slowing down some DOS apps I've tried.

I can build a core2duo or core2quad for XP.