For really cheap but somewhat powerful GPU, you could also consider GeForce4MX. They are generally disliked, but good models (440/460 with 128bit memory bus) are on par with the best models from the GeForce 2 line, and for what matters the card basically IS GeForce 2. And DOS compatibility is also good, see https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

My PIIIS-1400 and Ti4200 64MB combo would do great for you -- you may want something with a VIA board that has an ISA slot for DOS sound, though. Warcraft III can chug even on that if I'm not careful though, so maybe manage your expectations just a little. Any faster and you're really going to start compromising on DOS compatibility -- not very many Pentium 4 or Athlon XP boards have ISA and PCI sound in DOS is a very dicey subject. More than one machine is also maybe a good strategy to go for -- I have my Pentium Pro-based machine for DOS games (it can do Duke3D in 640x480 pretty much fine if I use MTRRLFBE) and late 90s Glide stuff, and the PIII for those same late 90s Windows games in Direct3D and higher resolution and stuff on up to about 2005.

Just tested Warcraft 3 (Reign of Chaos, no Frozen Throne) on my Pentium III 933 MHz (256MB RAM, ECS P6BAP-ME with VIA chipset, GeForce4MX440) and it runs smoothly in 1024x768 on high details (at least in the first 10 minutes od gameplay, some minor fights...)

Warcraft 3 won't work flawlessly on a PIII <1Ghz. When it comes to skirmish and multiplayer games/replays with many players and/or huge armies - performance will tank quite heavily.

Warcraft 3 really wants an athlon 64 or Pentium 4 above 3ghz to be smooth, but this would hamper dos.

Two machines would do better, that's why most of us have at least 2-3 machines though I think some folks have hundreds

My treshold for "smooth" must be really low - in simulated LAN game (4 computers, me as observer, medium map) it still looks OK, even with some bigger fights taking place over the map 😀 Version is 1.00 - I guess in its current state, after many patches, the game is way more taxing then it once was. Framerate will definitely drop in big LAN matches with hundreds of units, but for single-player experience 1GHz P3 is imho good enough.

sledge wrote on 2020-01-11, 16:37:

My treshold for "smooth" must be really low - in simulated LAN game (4 computers, me as observer, medium map) it still looks OK, even with some bigger fights taking place over the map 😀 Version is 1.00 - I guess in its current state, after many patches, the game is way more taxing then it once was. Framerate will definitely drop in big LAN matches with hundreds of units, but for single-player experience 1GHz P3 is imho good enough.

Your threshold is not low. The game plays fine at a low or medium res on a slow processor with a decent video card. I played version 1.0 War3 on a K6-III 333 on release day (on linux even), and it was fine in multiplayer up to around 6 players. I think some custom maps were slow. I have no idea about current versions or remakes.

Saying the game required a P4 3.0 GHZ or Althon 64 is silly. That class CPU didn't exist then, and P4 was super expensive. These are the game reqs.
400 MHz Pentium II or equivalent
128 MB of RAM
8 MB 3D video card (TNT, i810, Voodoo 3, Rage 128 equivalent or better) with DirectX® 8.1 support

Recommended
600 MHz processor
256 MB of RAM
32 MB 3D video card

I'd say you'd be fine with any 2002 P3 or Athlon and equivalent era graphics. If you want a K6-III class processor for the advantages it gives for old and new games, that would be a nice sweet spot, if you don't push beyond casual War3 gaming, have decent cards to help.

Edit: One minor point. Warcraft III probably is fine on modern systems anyway, and I don't think you'd notice the difference. So if you have a modern system, why not just build another high enough enough system for pre-XP?

the3dfxdude wrote on 2020-01-11, 21:21:

Your threshold is not low. The game plays fine at a low or medium res on a slow processor with a decent video card. I played ver […]
Show full quote

sledge wrote on 2020-01-11, 16:37:

My treshold for "smooth" must be really low - in simulated LAN game (4 computers, me as observer, medium map) it still looks OK, even with some bigger fights taking place over the map 😀 Version is 1.00 - I guess in its current state, after many patches, the game is way more taxing then it once was. Framerate will definitely drop in big LAN matches with hundreds of units, but for single-player experience 1GHz P3 is imho good enough.

Your threshold is not low. The game plays fine at a low or medium res on a slow processor with a decent video card. I played version 1.0 War3 on a K6-III 333 on release day (on linux even), and it was fine in multiplayer up to around 6 players. I think some custom maps were slow. I have no idea about current versions or remakes.

Saying the game required a P4 3.0 GHZ or Althon 64 is silly. That class CPU didn't exist then, and P4 was super expensive. These are the game reqs.
400 MHz Pentium II or equivalent
128 MB of RAM
8 MB 3D video card (TNT, i810, Voodoo 3, Rage 128 equivalent or better) with DirectX® 8.1 support

Recommended
600 MHz processor
256 MB of RAM
32 MB 3D video card

I'd say you'd be fine with any 2002 P3 or Athlon and equivalent era graphics. If you want a K6-III class processor for the advantages it gives for old and new games, that would be a nice sweet spot, if you don't push beyond casual War3 gaming, have decent cards to help.

Edit: One minor point. Warcraft III probably is fine on modern systems anyway, and I don't think you'd notice the difference. So if you have a modern system, why not just build another high enough enough system for pre-XP?

Yes the system requirements say that, but play with massive armies and it crawls, blizzard system requirements are like crysis you need what comes out in 2 years to Max it out.

I was up late last night with the help of a knowledgeable friend who was nice enough to help me pickout some things out on eBay (which all of your feedback REALLY helped me decide - thanks). I already ordered but I hope we did OK. Still open to any advice, and I still have questions of course, but I hope this will be a good starting point for my first retro build:

Picked up a Dell Dimension XPS T700r for $70 (plus shipping)
--Pentium III 700MHz
--256MB RAM
--nvidia m64 video card (cheaper 64-bit version of TNT2; prob just ripping out unless you tell me otherwise)
--"SD35VCO" SD to IDE Card Adapter
--Dell Keyboard (already have a Model M), off-brand mouse (I have a PS/2 Microsoft Wheel Mouse)

I then bought some UPGRADE PARTS:
--Intel Pentium III SL5QV 1000Mhz Processor Socket 370
--ASUS Smart Slot 1 CPU Card w/CPU, S370 Rev 1.01
--Original 3-Pin Intel Socket 370 3-Wire DC 12V CPU Cooling Fan w/ Heat Sink
--PNY GF4 TI4600 AGP 128MB Video Card (this was literally the single most expensive part...didn't want one to ship from Ukraine or Russia like the majority were strangly from)
--Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS (Gold, SB0350 - NON OEM - read some problems about driver issues with the HP/Dell OEM versions of this)

QUESTIONS:

The Wiki for the Dell Dimension XPS "T" models says the "r" suffix is for Socket 370 versions, but my buddy is pretty confident this one (despite being a T700r) is a Slot 1, thus us getting the Slot 1 to 370 adapter. Can anybody confirm from the below pics?

For the upgraded processor, the 1ghz processor was something cheap like $10, but I didn't know you can get 1.4ghz ones like Sedrosken mentioned for just a little bit more. With all the talk about my beloved Warcraft III game (seriously one of my favorite games ever!) needing a faster processor, if it would help my efforts to pickup one of these 1.4ghz Intel SL6BY for $25, I'm totally game (found a "SL5XL" for couple bucks more - I don't know the difference, one better to get?). I'm a fan of going all out so if there's no detriments I'll pick it up. That fan I bought will still work, right? I know I need to update the BIOS to the newest (this A11 is the right BIOS, correct?) before I switch in any new processor.

Was told 256mb ram is safe as some games like Crusader: No Remorse (and other DOS games?) don't like it when there's more than that so no use to upgrading to more? -- it'll just be more problematic if I upgrade to more?

For the "SD35VCO" SD to IDE Card Adapter, am I fine picking up my regular go-to Sandisk micro SD card, then using a micro to full-side SD card adapter? Will the system see 256mb? Or should I only get the 128gb card? Any problems to sizes this large? I saw some posts about problems formatting with the built-in Windows program? Have to use something else so the MBR is correct or something?

For sound, this MB (not positive though, the Dell manual online is for ALL the TXXX models, and there's a LOT of them) seems to have an "Integrated Yamaha XG 64 Voice Wavetable Sound" with an "Audio chip set Yamaha 724 DS-1". Will that take the place of the ISA sound cards for DOS everybody was telling me to get? This MB does have an ISA slot. The Audigy2 is primarily for Windows games, right? Any suggestions here or is this a good starter place to be sound-wise? Don't want any game scrashing in Duke3d and would like half way decent sound (def not going to notice -or remember from childhood- any nuances or super small differences of anything so "good enough" sounds good to me 😉

I think that's it off the top of my head. Thanks once again everybody for your feedback - this is slowly starting to make more sense to me day by day.

Dochartaigh wrote on 2020-01-11, 23:00:

I was up late last night with the help of a knowledgeable friend who was nice enough to help me pickout some things out on eBay […]
Show full quote

I was up late last night with the help of a knowledgeable friend who was nice enough to help me pickout some things out on eBay (which all of your feedback REALLY helped me decide - thanks). I already ordered but I hope we did OK. Still open to any advice, and I still have questions of course, but I hope this will be a good starting point for my first retro build:

Picked up a Dell Dimension XPS T700r for $70 (plus shipping)
--Pentium III 700MHz
--256MB RAM
--nvidia m64 video card (cheaper 64-bit version of TNT2; prob just ripping out unless you tell me otherwise)
--"SD35VCO" SD to IDE Card Adapter
--Dell Keyboard (already have a Model M), off-brand mouse (I have a PS/2 Microsoft Wheel Mouse)

Nice! That's one of the most pleasant cases to work in, and the motherboard is a beauty.

I then bought some UPGRADE PARTS: --Intel Pentium III SL5QV 1000Mhz Processor Socket 370 --ASUS Smart Slot 1 CPU Card w/CPU, S37 […]
Show full quote

I then bought some UPGRADE PARTS:
--Intel Pentium III SL5QV 1000Mhz Processor Socket 370
--ASUS Smart Slot 1 CPU Card w/CPU, S370 Rev 1.01
--Original 3-Pin Intel Socket 370 3-Wire DC 12V CPU Cooling Fan w/ Heat Sink
--PNY GF4 TI4600 AGP 128MB Video Card (this was literally the single most expensive part...didn't want one to ship from Ukraine or Russia like the majority were strangly from)

Why no shipping from RU/UA? That's where a lot of surplus systems were shipped after being discarded in the West, so a logical place to find old hardware, particularly from this era.

That is about the fastest single card that theoretically could run on your board. Great, but I'd be a bit concerned about power draw - it is likely to stress if not overload both the power supply in this system and the motherboard's old AGP 1.0 slot. In any event check the PSU in the system - you'll want at least a *good* 250W supply. Note that Dell tended to use non-standard PSU connector pinouts, so don't assume that because the power connector on the motherboard looks like a standard ATX connector you can just connect any standard ATX PSU. If it's their odd one, that will fry your system. You either need to find a suitable Dell PSU (check the exact part numbers in the technical reference manual) or modify the connector on a standard one. This, by the way, is one of the best examples of why I for one was recommending a non-brand system to start with :0

Tbh, it's overkill in this system and something slightly less extravagant - if only a Gf4Ti4200 - would have been a safer bet IMHO.

--Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS (Gold, SB0350 - NON OEM - read some problems about driver issues with the HP/Dell OEM versions of this)

Yep, Creative was notorious for that. Another example of brand systems being non-standard pains.

QUESTIONS:

The Wiki for the Dell Dimension XPS "T" models says the "r" suffix is for Socket 370 versions, but my buddy is pretty confident this one (despite being a T700r) is a Slot 1, thus us getting the Slot 1 to 370 adapter. Can anybody confirm from the below pics?

Here's two pics of inside the case

The CPU is pretty well-hidden under that air duct, but I can clearly see the bottom retention clip for a Slot 1 CPU, so this is a Slot 1 board. Googling images of the model number I mainly see Slot 1 versions, so I guess the Wiki isn't entirely accurate.

For the upgraded processor, the 1ghz processor was something cheap like $10, but I didn't know you can get 1.4ghz ones like Sedrosken mentioned for just a little bit more. With all the talk about my beloved Warcraft III game (seriously one of my favorite games ever!) needing a faster processor, if it would help my efforts to pickup one of these 1.4ghz Intel SL6BY for $25, I'm totally game (found a "SL5XL" for couple bucks more - I don't know the difference, one better to get?). I'm a fan of going all out so if there's no detriments I'll pick it up. That fan I bought will still work, right? I know I need to update the BIOS to the newest (this A11 is the right BIOS, correct?) before I switch in any new processor.

The P3-1400S is the fastest So370 CPU by quite a margin, but you'll hit three problems here:
1) There are three different So370 pinouts, PPGA, FC-PGA and FC-PGA2. Your adapter is FC-PGA, the 1400S uses FC-PGA2. That won't work without modding either adapter or CPU.
2) Tualatin CPUs run at a lower voltage (~1.45V) than the Coppermine CPUs (~1.65V), and the FSB runs at 1.25V vs 1.5V. Now, these CPUs are overengineered so can survive a bit of overvolting, but you should really aim for feeding them that lower voltage. It's not at all sure your motherboard can handle it. To be safe you need an adapter that also includes a voltage regulator. They are rare and pricey (check listings for the Powerleap PL-iP3/T...).
3) BIOS can respond in various ways to an unknown CPU. Not booting at all is possible. You should look up how these Dell (= Intel OEM) BIOSs respond to Tualatin.

Best case the motherboard can deliver something like the desired voltage and the BIOS just shrugs and boots the system. In that case all you need to do is pinmod the CPU or adapter - or get an FC-PGA2 slocket (ones without voltage regulator are far more affordable). But as you're a beginner in this game, I'd not recommend it yet.

If you want to read up on it:
https://www.oocities.org/_lunchbox/generic_slotket_mod.html

Was told 256mb ram is safe as some games like Crusader: No Remorse (and other DOS games?) don't like it when there's more than that so no use to upgrading to more? -- it'll just be more problematic if I upgrade to more?

512MB is the max for DOS and Win9x, anything over that and you hit problems (there are workarounds, but best not to need them). For DOS 256MB is already insane overkill, for Win9x you might find 512MB would run better in some of the newest stuff. I run with 512MB in my Win98 system.

For the "SD35VCO" SD to IDE Card Adapter, am I fine picking up my regular go-to Sandisk micro SD card, then using a micro to full-side SD card adapter? Will the system see 256mb? Or should I only get the 128gb card? Any problems to sizes this large? I saw some posts about problems formatting with the built-in Windows program? Have to use something else so the MBR is correct or something?

Are you looking into using this for data transfer or as boot disk?

If the latter: don't, at least not for Win98. Get a PCI SATA card and add a SATA SSD. *MUCH* faster.

This is one of the places where your choice to do DOS and Win9x on the same system is problematic. DOS 6.22 still uses FAT16, so max partition size is 2GB. For late Win98 games that's much too small. One solution would be to have two separate boot media, one for DOS (I use 512MB-2GB CF cards) and another for Win98 (I have a 64GB SSD). I'd recommend CF over SD as CF uses the IDE protocol, so no additional conversion is needed. That means less latency, less complexity and less things that can go wrong. As for the SSD, if you're using an SATA controller (tip: Promise TX2Plus works fine under Win98SE) you're not limited by system BIOS so it doesn't matter what it does or doesn't support.

For sound, this MB (not positive though, the Dell manual online is for ALL the TXXX models, and there's a LOT of them) seems to have an "Integrated Yamaha XG 64 Voice Wavetable Sound" with an "Audio chip set Yamaha 724 DS-1". Will that take the place of the ISA sound cards for DOS everybody was telling me to get? This MB does have an ISA slot. The Audigy2 is primarily for Windows games, right? Any suggestions here or is this a good starter place to be sound-wise? Don't want any game scrashing in Duke3d and would like half way decent sound (def not going to notice -or remember from childhood- any nuances or super small differences of anything so "good enough" sounds good to me 😉

Check the pic you posted - there's no audio header there, so no onboard sound.

But... the pic shows a PCI sound card. One that looks suspiciously like the Turtle Beach Montego II, which is generally considered to be the best Aureal Vortex 2 sound card. I certainly like it, I have one in my Win98 box 😀

Now, the Montego 2 is a great Win98 card, but not an amazing DOS one - no native DMA support, so you're stuck with big TSR drivers and patchy compatibility. The Audigy2 would be better in DOS, but not much. You still need an ISA card here.

More info on the card (and drivers):
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/aureal-vortex-2.html

dionb wrote on 2020-01-11, 23:40:

Why no shipping from RU/UA? That's where a lot of surplus systems were shipped after being discarded in the West, so a logical place to find old hardware, particularly from this era.

I'm on week 6 (and ongoing still) of getting some Kramer broadcast equipment to me from Germany...so I would hate to see how long it would take for budget shipping from those other countries. It's simply a matter of time and hassle. I know I've gotten stuff from even China and Japan in a week or two...but when the price difference was only $20 or abouts, I'm fine with paying a little more to get it next week guaranteed.

dionb wrote on 2020-01-11, 23:40:

That is about the fastest single card that theoretically could run on your board. Great, but I'd be a bit concerned about power draw - it is likely to stress if not overload both the power supply in this system and the motherboard's old AGP 1.0 slot. In any event check the PSU in the system - you'll want at least a *good* 250W supply. Note that Dell tended to use non-standard PSU connector pinouts, so don't assume that because the power connector on the motherboard looks like a standard ATX connector you can just connect any standard ATX PSU.

I'm glad I didn't splurge on the ti4800 then! If I'm to believe the manual (which I might not since it says it has integrated audio and it seems to not have), it only has a 200w power supply. I just wasted a half hour trying to find the power consumption of the different GeForce 4 series cards and completely failed (closest was a spec page which said "its power draw is not exactly known" 🤣 - does say suggested a 350w so I would probably get 400 or 450w to be safe).

What are symptoms of not having enough power? Will it simply not boot? If it's going to do something like take a performance hit in-game because of not enough power I'm not going to notice something like that since I've never used one before...

Can you recommend any exact ATX power supplies? All the ones I just looked up seem to have newer style connectors - I don't see any of the funky ones I remember from things like 3.5" hard drives (molex was all there of course). I can re-wire if I can find the pinout (this page seems to be the bible about upgrading Dell Dimensions, but unfortunately the link to the pinout is a dead link anymore - I'll look some more).

dionb wrote on 2020-01-11, 23:40:

2) Tualatin CPUs run at a lower voltage (~1.45V) than the Coppermine CPUs (~1.65V), and the FSB runs at 1.25V vs 1.5V. Now, these CPUs are overengineered so can survive a bit of overvolting, but you should really aim for feeding them that lower voltage. It's not at all sure your motherboard can handle it. To be safe you need an adapter that also includes a voltage regulator. They are rare and pricey (check listings for the Powerleap PL-iP3/T...).

This rings a bell of something my buddy said: this exact Dell can ONLY take a Coppermine, stock, right? And I think he choose the 1ghz because the fastest coppermine was 1.1ghz and it was super pricy and rare. Does that sound right? So the 1ghz I already ordered is the fastest normal one I can use? I'm not going to buy one of those expensive powerleaps or any advanced mods or anything.

dionb wrote on 2020-01-11, 23:40:

Are you looking into using this for data transfer or as boot disk?

If the latter: don't, at least not for Win98. Get a PCI SATA card and add a SATA SSD. *MUCH* faster.

The 2GB SD drive already has Win98se on it, and it's already installed. I'm honestly ashamed I don't even know what kind of hard drives these have (it is "ATA EIDE"?). I think they're before IDE which I have a bunch of these 250gb IDE drives I use for OG Xbox and PS2 builds... But I was kinda thinking of leaving the OS on the tiny SD card, then worse case plug in the HDD from my other P3 to use as game storage. I'm OK if the SD card dies in a year or whatever (I know SSD isn't good to run without the software which maintains the drives health, right?).

On my other P3 I'm honestly perfectly fine with the optical HDD's performance. Win98se literally boots up in less than 30 seconds if my memory serves. Actually seems zippy. Still think I should go the PCI SATA card adapter route (which if so I would have to research how that works).

I don't think I'll be running a HDD which is ONLY DOS, so I don't have to worry about FAT16, right? My other p3 I simply booted from the Win98 disc and formatted it through the install setup whichever way is the default (FAT32?). I can then (I think, it's been a while) hit F8 and it'll boot into DOS if a game won't run from within Windows proper (or quit Windows into DOS? maybe).

dionb wrote on 2020-01-11, 23:40:

Check the pic you posted - there's no audio header there, so no onboard sound.

But... the pic shows a PCI sound card. One that looks suspiciously like the Turtle Beach Montego II, which is generally considered to be the best Aureal Vortex 2 sound card. I certainly like it, I have one in my Win98 box 😀

Now, the Montego 2 is a great Win98 card, but not an amazing DOS one - no native DMA support, so you're stuck with big TSR drivers and patchy compatibility. The Audigy2 would be better in DOS, but not much. You still need an ISA card here.

The ad said it has a Turtle Beach but didn't list the model. Since the Audigy2 is already on it's way, and wasn't super pricy, I'll stick with that for Windows (plus I was reading about them - they just seem cool with reference grade audio and all that!).

BUT, it sounds like since you think this doesn't actually have an audio header (which TBH I would have NO clue where to even look for that to tell 🤣), we're back to needing an ISA card. I re-read the first couple posts where people mentioned good ones, and yup, still confused. I read some pages and seems like the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold is highly recommended, but super pricy still. I found a non-gold (kinda random so have no clue if this is good), but how does this one look?

AWE64 really shines with a ram expansion card/adapter. Loading 28mb sound fonts in Win98 and it sounds awesome. However, these ram adapters are expensive and hard to find. The AWE32 ct3670 is a AWE64 with ram expansion slots built in. It's a cheaper option in other words. None of them have genuine OPL however. Thete are heaps of other options besides....search these forums for best ISA sound card and see what comes up.

Just messing around with how I'm going to setup the new computer when it comes it. And yes, it will need a fully stocked bar next to it to ease those configurations issues... Don't like how the speakers are off-center from each other (but don't like the tower way off to a side either...) but I'll see how they sound.

kolderman wrote on 2020-01-12, 03:05:

AWE64 really shines with a ram expansion card/adapter. Loading 28mb sound fonts in Win98 and it sounds awesome. However, these ram adapters are expensive and hard to find. The AWE32 ct3670 is a AWE64 with ram expansion slots built in. It's a cheaper option in other words. None of them have genuine OPL however. Thete are heaps of other options besides....search these forums for best ISA sound card and see what comes up.

Thank you for the info, really. But to your last point (and I'm just making a general overall point here), I'm no exaggeration, on like hour 6 of reading forum posts and watching YouTube videos about which sound card(s) to get... and what I keep seeing over and over again is people recommend like 3-5 different cards which they see as a "bare minimum setup" (I only have 1 ISA slot FYI). Then I see other people (who I'm sure just trying to be helpful) posts things like ~"or, if you want to keep it simple just get these 3 different cards and it'll be ok sounding for most games...". That's just about when my head explodes.... only 3 cards? so simple 🤣... then I search eBay for those models they're like $70, $150, to $250!!!+/each... I'm sure everyone can see how this is extremely overwhelming to somebody new to all this!

Anyway, I can pickup an ISA card to help with DOS since I'll have that single ISA slot free. The Audigy 2 ZS Gold (PCI) sound card is already shipping to me - that should do me good in Windows, correct?

I see lots of people recommending Phil's Computer Lab in other topics, and he says the Ess ES1868F is "One of the best ISA Sound Cards for DOS Games". I found this one on eBay for $29. What does everyone think of this Ess and Audigy2 combo? I'm finding other ones which use the ESS1868F chip as well, but don't know if they're all the same, or if I need different drivers for different flavors of these or what... (none of them look exactly like the one in Phil's video to further confuse things FYI).

Yes it can be overwhelming. Probably why I have 4 different builds that have ISA slots, so I have places to try out my 100+ ISA sound cards I have hoarded over the years.

And yes the ESS is a good card to start with. Very easy to install and get working. I quite like that one you linked to as the waveblaster header is located where there are few obstructions for the daughterboard. Just get it and give it a go. If at some point you want midi, maybe get a dreamblaster, or put together an external midi emulator on another PC. It will serve your purposes. And over time, if you want to try out new things, you can slowly expand your collection. No need to stress about this at the beginning.

And yes the ZS is probably the best Win98 sounds card. The reason people recommended so many kinds of soundcards is because there are retro-gamers...and there are retro-gamophiles. The former just like to play games. The latter, like myself, like to be able to switch between 9 different midi devices just to see which ones sounds best for a given game, or even level. Or refuse to use non-genuine OPL cards. Or go to great lengths to get pure SPDIF in dos games. If you are the former, life is a lot cheaper and simpler.

Dochartaigh wrote on 2020-01-12, 02:46:

[...]

I'm on week 6 (and ongoing still) of getting some Kramer broadcast equipment to me from Germany...so I would hate to see how long it would take for budget shipping from those other countries. It's simply a matter of time and hassle. I know I've gotten stuff from even China and Japan in a week or two...but when the price difference was only $20 or abouts, I'm fine with paying a little more to get it next week guaranteed.

Yes, that's a valid point - although the big issue is the intercontinental shipping, particularly to or from the US. Whether it comes fro, DE or RU or UA would make very little difference indeed.

[...]

I'm glad I didn't splurge on the ti4800 then! If I'm to believe the manual (which I might not since it says it has integrated audio and it seems to not have), it only has a 200w power supply. I just wasted a half hour trying to find the power consumption of the different GeForce 4 series cards and completely failed (closest was a spec page which said "its power draw is not exactly known" 🤣 - does say suggested a 350w so I would probably get 400 or 450w to be safe).

What are symptoms of not having enough power? Will it simply not boot? If it's going to do something like take a performance hit in-game because of not enough power I'm not going to notice something like that since I've never used one before...

Symptoms of insufficient power supply will be unstable voltages, which in the short term lead to instability, particularly under heavy load and/or when the system get physically warm. In the long term it increases the risk of catastrophic failure of the power supply and possibly multiple connected components in the system. If your power supply blows, it tends to take the motherboard with it. Worst-case it knocks out pretty much everything in the system.

Can you recommend any exact ATX power supplies? All the ones I just looked up seem to have newer style connectors - I don't see any of the funky ones I remember from things like 3.5" hard drives (molex was all there of course). I can re-wire if I can find the pinout (this page seems to be the bible about upgrading Dell Dimensions, but unfortunately the link to the pinout is a dead link anymore - I'll look some more).

There are as many opinions on power supplies as on sound cards 😉

Robert Hancock addresses most of the relevant points: don't trust the maximum power rating alone; Dell uses very good power supplies, but if you have a combination of 'heavy' components you need more; the big draw of a P3 (or Athlon) system is on the 5V, not the 12V line etc.

Basically there are two main schools of thought:
1) ATX 2.x PSUs (such as all mainstream supplies today) emphasize the 12V line used for newer CPUs and GPUs at the expense of the 5V line needed by older systems. As such they will be inefficient when load is drawn mainly from 5V. You would need a much heavier PSU and it still wouldn't outperform a period-correct ATX 1.x PSU. So go for a good period-correct PSU for best match.
2) Overall PSU efficiency has increased to the point that that will compensate the disadvantages of unbalanced draw from 5V on a 12V-heavy PSU. Older PSUs were not only less efficient overall, but after a few decades they are wearing out and more prone to catastrophic failure. So go for a reliable new PSU and choose it based on its 5V power rating.

Personally I tend towards #1, particularly as the reliability bit works both ways - after 20 years it's pretty clear which PSUs were duds and which aren't. The biggest risk of failure comes from capacitors and you can get a good idea of their health just by looking at them. I like Fortron Source Power PSUs best. They were commonly used by Acer and AOpen. I have a pile of turn-of-the-millennium examples rated at 350W and capable of delivering huge power on the 5V line (over 30A). If you can find one of those, you're good. Enlight was another good brand. Antec was rated highly, but became notorious for capacitor failure.
If you can't find a good old PSU (or tend towards school #2), go for a good new one. Check independent reviews by people who actually take the things apart and investigate at component level. I haven't built a new system for a few years, so am not up to speed on exactly which models to look for right now. Bear in mind that the vast majority of brands just relabel PSUs made by a very limited number of factories, so the difference between brands can be smaller than the difference between individual PSUs supplied by that brand, as they can be sourced from totally different production facilities! Don't assume that because one eg. Corsair (a brand without own production facilities) PSU is good, another will also be. Treat each device on its own merits.

As for the pinout: https://pinouts.ru/Power/dell_atxpower_pinout.shtml

[...]
]
This rings a bell of something my buddy said: this exact Dell can ONLY take a Coppermine, stock, right? And I think he choose the 1ghz because the fastest coppermine was 1.1ghz and it was super pricy and rare. Does that sound right? So the 1ghz I already ordered is the fastest normal one I can use? I'm not going to buy one of those expensive powerleaps or any advanced mods or anything.

The fastest 100MHz FSB Coppermine is the 1.1GHz (there was briefly a 1.13GHz Coppermine with 133MHz FSB, but it was notoriously unstable and withdrawn). As your motherboard can't run faster than 100MHz, it's as high as you can theoretically go. The difference between 1GHz and 1.1GHz is minimal, as with a high multiplier, your bus speed becomes more and more of a bottleneck. If that tiny difference is significant. you should probably be looking for a faster platform anyway.

[...]

The 2GB SD drive already has Win98se on it, and it's already installed. I'm honestly ashamed I don't even know what kind of hard drives these have (it is "ATA EIDE"?). I think they're before IDE which I have a bunch of these 250gb IDE drives I use for OG Xbox and PS2 builds... But I was kinda thinking of leaving the OS on the tiny SD card, then worse case plug in the HDD from my other P3 to use as game storage. I'm OK if the SD card dies in a year or whatever (I know SSD isn't good to run without the software which maintains the drives health, right?).

IDE is a standard dating back to 1986, so this computer is most definitely not older than IDE 😉

The motherboard is a Dell-modified Intel SE440BX (modification is mainly the ATX pinout), which has the i440BX chipset. That chipset supports IDE modes up to UDMA-2, also known as ATA-33. That describes the interface between drive and system, which can deliver max 33MB/s. It does not tell you anything about what size drives are supported or how fast the drives themselves are.

On the first count, the motherboard BIOS is the limiting factor. Robert Hancock's info shows its age here as it incorrectly says 'no limit', when there is definitely a 137GB-limit to the 28-bit addressing used. You can't address drives over 137GB natively with that motherboard, so those 250GB drives won't work without some trouble.

Regarding performance, people tend to obsess over max bus speed (the 33MB/s vs other speeds/standards), but for general desktop/gaming use, latencies are generally much more important. Rotating hard drive latency is inversely proportional to spin rate, so a 15k rpm SCSI drive will have lower latencies than a 7200rpm high-end IDE drive and both will completely trounce a 3200rpm Quantum Bigfoot. But the massive difference is between HDDs (with latencies measured in ms) and SSDs (with latencies measured in ns). Bottom line: an SSD bottlenecked at 33MB/s by a simple ATA/SATA adapter will feel far, far, far faster than an U320 SCSI drive spinning at 15k rpm, despite the latter being able to communicate at almost ten times the speed!

On my other P3 I'm honestly perfectly fine with the optical HDD's performance. Win98se literally boots up in less than 30 seconds if my memory serves. Actually seems zippy. Still think I should go the PCI SATA card adapter route (which if so I would have to research how that works).

PCI SATA is one route, the other is direct PATA-SATA adapters. The latter are much easier, but limit max throughput to your motherboard's interfaces and are affected by BIOS size limits. PCI adapters cost more, slow down boot, but can offer (far) higher throughput and are limited only by their own BIOS, not the motherboard BIOS.

The latter is probably the most relevant factor. I use PCI on my old BX system that doesn't like >8.4GB HDDs, but PATA-SATA adapter on my Tualatin system with SiS635T chipset. Note that that system support ATA-100, so the performance hit by using the adapter is far less relevant.

I don't think I'll be running a HDD which is ONLY DOS, so I don't have to worry about FAT16, right? My other p3 I simply booted from the Win98 disc and formatted it through the install setup whichever way is the default (FAT32?). I can then (I think, it's been a while) hit F8 and it'll boot into DOS if a game won't run from within Windows proper (or quit Windows into DOS? maybe).

If you're booting into real DOS, you need to partition the drive in a way DOS will understand it. And for late, very demanding DOS games, you really want to boot into native DOS, as every byte of conventional memory matters.

It's entirely possible to do that on the same HDD as the Windows install, but that involves compromises and complexity. It's much easier to let BIOS determine which to boot and to give each OS its own native device.

The ad said it has a Turtle Beach but didn't list the model. Since the Audigy2 is already on it's way, and wasn't super pricy, I'll stick with that for Windows (plus I was reading about them - they just seem cool with reference grade audio and all that!).

Why not run both? The Montego2 gives you A3D, the Audigy2 EAX. Generally EAX is considered superior, but it really depends on the game (and some only support A3D for positional audio). Only reason not to would be shortage of PCI slots, but with 4 or 5 to play with, you have more than enough options. NIC, Voodoo2 and 2x sound would easily fit.

BUT, it sounds like since you think this doesn't actually have an audio header (which TBH I would have NO clue where to even look for that to tell 🤣),

It's the part of the back panel you stick 3.5mm jacks into for speakers or headphones. No place to plug in your speakers is generally a good giveaway that there's no built-in sound 😉

we're back to needing an ISA card. I re-read the first couple posts where people mentioned good ones, and yup, still confused. I read some pages and seems like the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold is highly recommended, but super pricy still. I found a non-gold (kinda random so have no clue if this is good), but how does this one look?

Once again, this is a matter of personal preference. I for one consider most Creative cards to be buggy and overrated.

The AWE64 Gold has two unique selling points, but three major drawbacks too:
+ Best (analog) SNR on an ISA sound card, combined with those nice big IEC jacks (instead of crappy 3.5mm)
+ All audio output can be digitally routed over SPDIF. Sounds simple, but is very rare. No other Sound Blaster allows it. Usually you can't get FM synth stuff over SPDIF.
- Not a real OPL3 but Creative's CQM FM Synth (old DOS music can sound 'off')
- Stuttering on high sampling rate MIDI (MPU-401) music
- to get the most out of native AWE, you need a RAM upgrade, but it is rare and painfully expensive; SIMM adapters exist but are far from cheap too.

If you want to go down the AWE route, don't care about digital audio out (SPDIF) and aren't obsessed with SNR, a CT3670 SB32 would be a better choice, as it's basically an AWE64 without onboard RAM (and those fancy gold IEC connectors and the digital routing), but with two bog-standard 30p SIMM connectors onboard. Add 2x 16MB 30p SIMMs and you're good to go with full RAM, probably for less than the price of a basic AWE64 Gold.

However as I already pointed out, for older DOS stuff this is less than ideal. You mentioned Eye of the Beholder. That's a classic with a classic AdLib soundtrack. Exactly the sort of thing that would sound 'off' on late Sound Blasters like the AWE64. For that sort of stuff you really want a Yamaha OPL3 synth (or 1:1 clone). This sort of target is why I recommended an Aztech 2316-based card, as it has real OPL3 and full SBPro2 compatibiliy, and bug-free MIDI. Your ESS ES1868 is better than the AWE64 for really old stuff, but its ESFM also isn't exactly the same as OPL3. It does however have the full SBPro2 compatibility and bug-free MIDI.

kolderman wrote on 2020-01-12, 08:37:

Yes it can be overwhelming. Probably why I have 4 different builds that have ISA slots, so I have places to try out my 100+ ISA sound cards I have hoarded over the years.

[...]

And yes the ZS is probably the best Win98 sounds card. The reason people recommended so many kinds of soundcards is because there are retro-gamers...and there are retro-gamophiles. The former just like to play games. The latter, like myself, like to be able to switch between 9 different midi devices just to see which ones sounds best for a given game, or even level. Or refuse to use non-genuine OPL cards. Or go to great lengths to get pure SPDIF in dos games. If you are the former, life is a lot cheaper and simpler.

+1, no, +999 😜

I have a Pentium build with 5 ISA slots (finding a board with that many is a challenge in itself), I regularly struggle to get 5 ISA sound cards working in the same system. Never managed more than 4 though...

Please don't dive straight down this rabbit hole, enjoy just using a functional system first 😉

kolderman wrote on 2020-01-12, 08:37:

Yes it can be overwhelming. Probably why I have 4 different builds that have ISA slots, so I have places to try out my 100+ ISA sound cards I have hoarded over the years.

And yes the ESS is a good card to start with. Very easy to install and get working. I quite like that one you linked to as the waveblaster header is located where there are few obstructions for the daughterboard. Just get it and give it a go. If at some point you want midi, maybe get a dreamblaster, or put together an external midi emulator on another PC.

I can't tell if you're messing with me, but I seriously think you probably do have 100+ ISA sound cards 🤣.

So it's funny you mentioned the dreamblaster. My buddy is trying to talk me into this SB16 CT1750 w/ Yamaha chip, AND then get the Dreamblaster add-on for MIDI -- and that I should get that INSTEAD of that Ess ES1868F... but then dionb just posted that the ES1868F has "bug-free MIDI"...so I'm back to being confused (sorry all, this audio stuff just isn't clicking in my brain correctly).

I'm also getting worried about how to setup all these audio cards correctly for all these different games. I always NEVER knew what audio I had and just kinda blindly made audio choices on startup, then if I had some sort of audio (ANY audio) working I assumed I did it correctly. If I'm going to have two audio cards (and dionb just suggested I should keep that stock Turtle Beach in there too which would be THREE!), then this might become a monster to setup, and I'll have to set it up different for every game, right? ...and have to cross reference lists of what game uses what type of audio, right? That's the correct way to do it?

I was kinda thinking (probably being naive) that in Windows games (after the initial setup of the drivers for the Audigy2 of course), that the Audigy2 would just work for Windows games - no setup needed after that. Then when I ran DOS games (is there a difference in audio settings if I'm running a DOS game through windows like I normally do, or when I exit out of Windows into DOS which I usually don't have to do unless there's an issue doing it the other way?), I would then have a little written down cheat-sheet of which Port/IRQ/DMA settings my ISA sound card used, then use those SAME settings for EVERY game (and try to save them so I only have to enter them once, or write a command line .bat file with the settings in it so it just works from the on).

(off to reply to dionb...this will take a while 😉

The ESS cards have ESFM instead of OPL3. ESFM is good in its own right, but not the same

Dochartaigh wrote on 2020-01-12, 18:33:

So it's funny you mentioned the dreamblaster. My buddy is trying to talk me into this SB16 CT1750 w/ Yamaha chip, AND then get the Dreamblaster add-on for MIDI -- and that I should get that INSTEAD of that Ess ES1868F... but then dionb just posted that the ES1868F has "bug-free MIDI"...so I'm back to being confused (sorry all, this audio stuff just isn't clicking in my brain correctly).

It's all summarized in the following thread.
Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

I decided to go with the ESS ES1868F for my DOS ISA sound card right now. With having to buy a new power supply some other things I just don't want to drop the money on the other + dreamblaster (yet at least).

dionb wrote on 2020-01-12, 11:24:

Symptoms of insufficient power supply will be unstable voltages, which in the short term lead to instability, particularly under heavy load and/or when the system get physically warm. In the long term it increases the risk of catastrophic failure of the power supply and possibly multiple connected components in the system. If your power supply blows, it tends to take the motherboard with it. Worst-case it knocks out pretty much everything in the system.

My buddy found me this ATX/Dell adapter cable I'll pick that up instead of changing everything around myself.

(see edit below)
I've been looking up power supplies for the last ~hour and it seems like the highest 5v is 20 amps 120w. Is that enough? EVGA 500 Watt for $40.

Will this work with the above Delll ATX adapter? Do new power supplies have ALL the same wiring hookups my old Dell Dimension XPS T700r computer will need? I will be running a HDD, CD-ROM, 5.25" floppy, 3.5" floppy, Zip 100 Drive (which honestly I probably won't even hook up). The Dell hasn't even shipped yet so I need to rely on you guys telling me if I'll need any adapters and such.

Oh, and the screw holes will line-up in that Dell case, right? And it'll physically fit in the case? My frankensteined P3 800mhz has it like angled 45º with only 2 screws holding it in so just wanted to make sure...

**EDIT** My buddy found this dell-correct Startech 300w power supply which does the same 20 amps on the 5v as the EVGA above. We're trying to add up the total wattage to see if this will be enough. What do you think? ...I'm just a bit worried that it's still probably going to be a LOT older (by prob 15 years if it's old stock I assume).

dionb wrote on 2020-01-12, 11:24:

PCI SATA is one route, the other is direct PATA-SATA adapters. The latter are much easier, but limit max throughput to your moth […]
Show full quote

PCI SATA is one route, the other is direct PATA-SATA adapters. The latter are much easier, but limit max throughput to your motherboard's interfaces and are affected by BIOS size limits. PCI adapters cost more, slow down boot, but can offer (far) higher throughput and are limited only by their own BIOS, not the motherboard BIOS.

The latter is probably the most relevant factor. I use PCI on my old BX system that doesn't like >8.4GB HDDs, but PATA-SATA adapter on my Tualatin system with SiS635T chipset. Note that that system support ATA-100, so the performance hit by using the adapter is far less relevant.

I don't think I'll be running a HDD which is ONLY DOS, so I don't have to worry about FAT16, right? My other p3 I simply booted from the Win98 disc and formatted it through the install setup whichever way is the default (FAT32?). I can then (I think, it's been a while) hit F8 and it'll boot into DOS if a game won't run from within Windows proper (or quit Windows into DOS? maybe).

If you're booting into real DOS, you need to partition the drive in a way DOS will understand it. And for late, very demanding DOS games, you really want to boot into native DOS, as every byte of conventional memory matters.

So you all REALLY don't like solid states for Windows 98 SE, right? Is it because they don't have the build-in mechanism which doesn't write over and over again to the same sectors which will make the solid state (SD card or SSD HDD) break in short order? Just a reminder that this Dell has that SD card reader already in it, and I already have a Sandisk class 10 128gb micro SD card I could put in it... I really don't care if it dies in like a year...

BUT, if there's other reasons why you don't like SSD's, I can pickup the SYBA SD-SATA150R for $15. I already have a modern SATA Hitachi 640gb 7200RPM HDD I can use (also have a 2.5" Sandisk 240gb SSD I could use...). I can format these into ~120gb partitions, and even have one with straight-up DOS (what is it 6.2.2 that was the latest?) on it for those intensive DOS games like Quake.

Dochartaigh wrote on 2020-01-12, 20:18:

So you all REALLY don't like solid states for Windows 98 SE, right? Is it because they don't have the build-in mechanism which doesn't write over and over again to the same sectors which will make the solid state (SD card or SSD HDD) break in short order? Just a reminder that this Dell has that SD card reader already in it, and I already have a Sandisk class 10 128gb micro SD card I could put in it... I really don't care if it dies in like a year...

All modern SSD's should have some sort of garbage collection built in, I don't think anyone hates SSD's unless you are insistent on being period accurate. SD cards have no built in garbage collection and generally aren't designed to handle near as many writes.