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Sad looking ACT 386 DX year mfg.1991 ?

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Reply 60 of 69, by chinny22

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Easiest way to test the CD drive is use a Win9x boot disk, or if you don't have one you can download one from somewhere like bootdisk.com
If your unlucky you may need to modify the startup files, but you have a 50/50 chance that the defaults will work.

Even a DVD drive should work, as long as its IDE The only annoying thing is faster drives waste more time spinning up and down, but that's a problem for later.

For now I would just worry about the CD drive, I wouldn't worry about the soundcard until we know if you need it to have ISA or not.

Reply 61 of 69, by canthearu

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I've thrown together an old 386 SX-25 for fun.

Specs:
ARTEK OPTI-386SX25 motherboard - https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/A … PTI-386-SX.html
8meg RAM
120meg Connor IDE Hard drive
52speed IDE CD-ROM
Prime 2C Multi-IO card - https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy … E-2C-MKIII.html
Trident 9000i VGA card
NE2000 Clone network card with XT-IDE bios.
Aopen ATX Power supply with -5V rail.

Testing sound cards
Sound Blaster 2.0: expensive, needs -5V rail to work right
DOS - works fine
Windows 3.1 - works fine

ESS1869: Cheap and cheerful
DOS - works fine, but stops working after you exit windows, so reboot is required after exiting windows
Windows 3.1 - works fine. Leaves card in partially misconfigured state after exiting.

Yamaha YMF-719:
DOS - works fine.
Windows 3.1 - works OK after playing with the WSS emulation settings and reducing ISA bus speed. Results in a 5% video performance drop. MPU-401 and software sync caused computer crashes

Bonus Content - ET4000 vs Trident 9000i in WinTach (VGA driver)
Trident 9000i Overall Score - 1.05
ET4000 Overall Score - 1.09

I actually expected a higher score for the ET4000 ... I guess the computer is too slow to really stress the graphics card out on the VGA default driver

Edit: between the ESS card and the Yamaha Card, I would recommend the yamaha card if you have a pure DOS machine. The ESS card is just a smoother experience with windows 3.1, but doesn't have true OPL3 and audio quality is slightly less.

Reply 62 of 69, by user33331

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+ I'm still waiting for the CMOS 3xAA battery Holder from China.
+ I have created the 8pcs Windows 3.11 installation diskettes and 4pcs MS-DOS 6.22 diskettes.

In the end I'm still not sure if I want to spend much money on an old sound card. The 386 only plays like very basic games pre1994 and nothing that close to my heart.
* Wolfenstein 3D -Seen it and it is not that good for repeatability.
* Warcraft 1 -Maybe a couple tries to play.
* Street Rod -Kind of the best but still hmmm...old.
* Wacky Wheels -Not aged beautifully but kind of good.
* BC Racers -Same as Wheels but not as good.
* Ski or Die -Ok I quess.
* Curse of Enchantia -Boring and hard.
* Lotus III -Boring and graphics bad 😀.
* Simcity. -Very hard. Never liked.
* Something else...

I can't play good games like: C&C95, One Must Fall 2097, Jack Jazzrabbit, Descent, KKND 1, Doom, Heretic, Destruction Derby, Fatal Racing, Hexen, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Sviw 3d... 😵

Reply 63 of 69, by chinny22

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your "good game" list is close to mine.
Really for those games you want a Pentium class machine, good news is none have speed issues so really anything with an isa slot would be fine.
at least 2 games (C&C95 and KKND) are Win9x games, and while not demanding I'd be happier playing those games on at least a Pentium 2 (still with isa slot)

the 386 is desirable for the early to mid 90's games, alot of those did have speed issues, but the games in your list work fine on newer PC's.
I'm thinking your better off selling the 386 and get something more suited to your tastes.
If you do want to keep it though, as long as the sound card is sound blaster compatible it'll do the job

Reply 64 of 69, by user33331

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Ok. I bought a ESS 1869F mfg. about:1996-1997.( 2 weeks wait to arrive.)
- I loved Cobra Mission and Knight of Xentar. Those are the 2 oddly good reasons.

Do those high density 80-wires "modern 2000+" blue colored Ultra ATA133 IDE cables work on 386 ?
Or do they have to be old original 40-wires IDE cables( 1.) ?
I have only a 1pc spare old original 40-wires IDE-cable that does not have a slave connector( 2.)...
Would it work for sound card's 2nd CD-drive IDE connector ? It might be some kind of special cable I can't remember.

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Reply 66 of 69, by gdjacobs

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user33331 wrote:

Do those high density 80-wires "modern 2000+" blue colored Ultra ATA133 IDE cables work on 386 ?

Yes, as long as you're not dealing with a keyed IDC cable in a non keyed header.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 67 of 69, by user33331

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I'll attach the CD-drive as master to sound card's IDE-port. So HDD will function at it's max.speed.
Seagate ST3144A: https://redhill.net.au/d/123.php
Data rate= 15 MB/sec
CD-drive:
Data rate= 5-7 MB/sec