hi and welcome 😀

the issue with aged / damaged electronics in general is more to do with hours 'on', conditions of use (temperature, moisture, power variability) and so on, so each board and each set of caps has its own history - so you have good chance with an old board. Good to have a friend who is good at soldering etc, i'm not so good 😀

anyway if you like DOS games and want to play up to quake 3 then almost any system that supports DOS is good, but probably better if it can support ISA too and the pentium 2/3 periods boards from the very late 90's seem ideal for this according to many - you seem to be in the right direction with 440bx thinking - having one or two ISA slots and an AGP for graphics (and while its good to get nice card, actually almost any TNT2 or above will be ok for up to Quake 3 (and usually seems fine with DOS in my experience, though i defer to DOS expertise on topic of best graphics for DOS)

of course if you see a very cheap later 32bit system, like a P4 or athlon XP then it often proves 'ok' with DOS anyway (and powerful enough for dosbox too) while being more than enough for windows 95-2003 type games even with something cheap like fx5200. Some of this depends on what you want to spend

I hate to say it but in my experience you're kinda describing 2 different machines. Something that runs quake 3 well wont really be the best machine for early 90's DOS stuff. If I was after all native hardware, personally id rather have a nice 486 build for dos with a proper dos VGA/sound card along side a P3 build for windows. Pentium 3 systems are still pretty darn cheap.

If you really wanted 1 system, you cant beat an old core 2 duo/early i5 surplus workstation. You can get them almost free from recyclers right now. Just put windows 7 on it and play GOG releases and use DOSBOX. Pair that with a beige CRT, old school Logitech mouse and keyboard and bobs your uncle. In my experience for actually playing the games the peripherals are 90% of the experience, the computers are just fun to build 🤣.

A period correct build that handles Quake III with decent performance and having proper DOS compatibility for late games (most of the often-talked titles here aren't speed-sensitive) at the same time would be a Deschutes PII or Slot 1 PIII CPU, any nVidia video card starting from TNT2, and a motherboard with ISA slots. Pentium 4/Athlon XP builds are more geared towards Windows than DOS.

IMO, I fail to see the point of running DOSBox on such retro computer when that can be easily done with modern hardware. Furthermore, it doesn't represent a proper DOS experience no matter the chosen hardware. 😜

My current Windows 98 SE machine uses the following build:

CPU: Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67 GHz)
MB: Asus A7V600 (VIA KT600 chipset)
RAM: 512 MB
GPU: GeForce4 4200 Ti
Sound: Diamond Monster MX300 sound card + Roland wavetable daughtercard
Storage: modern SSD drive via a SATA-to-IDE connector

I built this specifically to have an 'overkill' build for Windows 9x games that would run without performance issues, and also trying to maximize compatibility. I opted for the specific motherboard chipset (KT600) to ensure backwards compatibility with the PCI sound card and DOS games.

No issues with the caps on the particular motherboard I'm using, but that's not to say that the caps can't go bad. If you're dealing with pre-2010's hardware, bad caps are always a potential risk.

I have used this system with DOS games as old as the original Doom (1993) and it's played them without problems. Though it would likely have issues with any speed-sensitive DOS games.

If you specifically want to play older DOS titles (pre-1993), I'd recommend going with two systems. Probably a 486 or Pentium era system, and then a faster Pentium III/IV or Athlon for Windows 9x and late 90s DOS.

@gerry You are right it is really good to know somone who is good with soldering when you are not able to it yourself yet. Might can in handy for my journey for my rig.

Good to know that you think that I am in the right direction with the intel 440bx board. I think it is an interesting board that is available and not that expensive. It is also quite flexible and handle many different gpu. You can use higher end pentium 2 from the 300 to the 450 mhz range (mabye these lower speed cpu are better for dos games) and for the later windwos games you can even go up to the 1 ghz range with the pentium 3 line with the right adapter.

I would consider an offer like this for example a very good starting point. it is even from my home country Austria

https://www.ebay.com/itm/354832898695?_trkpar … fac38%7Ciid%3A1

Even has graphic cards included. Not sure if the card is one of the best I can get though. Need to some further research.

@Gmlb256 and Shponglefan you guys have a point though. For the best possible compability it might really a better idea to get classic 486 or early pentium system for dos and a pentium 3/4 or maybe even athlon for the win98se stuff.

Which ealry pentium system would be the best bet for dos only games by the way? Which clock speed i should pick in order to avoid problem with speed sensitive games.?

An advantage if I decide to get a higher end pentium 3 or athlon system would also be that I can away with higher spec graphics card without being concerend of bottlenecking.

Good cards that have been mentionend here very often like the radeon 8500/9000 series or the gf2, 3 and 4 are not that expensive compared to some more classic cards in general. You can get lucky with classic cards to of course but it is still easier to get the more modern ones.

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-06-09, 04:50:

@gerry You are right it is really good to know somone who is good with soldering when you are not able to it yourself yet. Mig […]
Show full quote

@gerry You are right it is really good to know somone who is good with soldering when you are not able to it yourself yet. Might can in handy for my journey for my rig.

Good to know that you think that I am in the right direction with the intel 440bx board. I think it is an interesting board that is available and not that expensive. It is also quite flexible and handle many different gpu. You can use higher pend pentium 2 from the 300 to the 450 mhz range (mabye these lower speed cpu are better for dos games) and for the later windwos games you can even go up to the 1 ghz range with the pentium 3 line with the right adapter.

I would consider an offer like this for example a very good starting point. it is even from my home country Austria

https://www.ebay.com/itm/354832898695?_trkpar … fac38%7Ciid%3A1

Even has graphic cards included. Not sure if the card is one of the best I can get though. Need to some further research.

@Gmlb256 and Shponglefan you guys have a point though. For the best possible compability it might really a better idea to get classic 486 or early pentium system for dos and a pentium 3/4 or maybe even athlon for the win98se stuff.

Which ealry pentium system would be the best bet for dos only games by the way? Which clock speed i should pick in order to avoid problem with speed sensitive games.?

An advantage if I decide to get a higher end pentium 3 or athlon system would also be that I can away with higher spec graphics card without being concerend of bottlenecking.

Good cards that have been mentionend here very often like the radeon 8500/9000 series or the gf2, 3 and 4 are not that expensive compared to some more classic cards in general. You can get lucky with classic cards to of course but it is still easier to get the more modern ones.

I wouldn't drive yourself too crazy going after speed sensitive games specifically unless you want allot of computers. You'll find yourself wanting an XT, an AT, a 286, and oh dont forget a 386 for wing commander. The important thing with an early build IMO is just getting something that plays well with DOS VGA cards (or has a good built in one) and sound cards. I think a Pentium 75 is a nice spot to be and will cover all DOS games. 486's are also nice but stop a little short of playing everything, late stuff is a little slow.

It's shame your so far away I have a really nice NEC P90 machine im about to sell since I got my 486 workstation but I highly doubt the shipping from Florida to Austria is anywhere near reasonable lol

I quite like the K6-2+ CPU for flexibility, you can push it from 200 to 600 MHz and enable/disable L1 & L2 caches all from software (Setmul) without touching the bios. I have Setmul configure the CPU just right before running whatever game. It'll even play Quake 3, if you pair it with a voodoo 3, you get great dos compatibility too.

That said, I have a slot one build too, and it's quite fun to switch out the CPU depending on what you want to do . P2 up to Tualeron 😎

FinalJenemba wrote on 2023-06-09, 05:02:

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-06-09, 04:50:

@gerry You are right it is really good to know somone who is good with soldering when you are not able to it yourself yet. Mig […]
Show full quote

@gerry You are right it is really good to know somone who is good with soldering when you are not able to it yourself yet. Might can in handy for my journey for my rig.

Good to know that you think that I am in the right direction with the intel 440bx board. I think it is an interesting board that is available and not that expensive. It is also quite flexible and handle many different gpu. You can use higher pend pentium 2 from the 300 to the 450 mhz range (mabye these lower speed cpu are better for dos games) and for the later windwos games you can even go up to the 1 ghz range with the pentium 3 line with the right adapter.

I would consider an offer like this for example a very good starting point. it is even from my home country Austria

https://www.ebay.com/itm/354832898695?_trkpar … fac38%7Ciid%3A1

Even has graphic cards included. Not sure if the card is one of the best I can get though. Need to some further research.

@Gmlb256 and Shponglefan you guys have a point though. For the best possible compability it might really a better idea to get classic 486 or early pentium system for dos and a pentium 3/4 or maybe even athlon for the win98se stuff.

Which ealry pentium system would be the best bet for dos only games by the way? Which clock speed i should pick in order to avoid problem with speed sensitive games.?

An advantage if I decide to get a higher end pentium 3 or athlon system would also be that I can away with higher spec graphics card without being concerend of bottlenecking.

Good cards that have been mentionend here very often like the radeon 8500/9000 series or the gf2, 3 and 4 are not that expensive compared to some more classic cards in general. You can get lucky with classic cards to of course but it is still easier to get the more modern ones.

I wouldn't drive yourself too crazy going after speed sensitive games specifically unless you want allot of computers. You'll find yourself wanting an XT, an AT, a 286, and oh dont forget a 386 for wing commander. The important thing with an early build IMO is just getting something that plays well with DOS VGA cards (or has a good built in one) and sound cards. I think a Pentium 75 is a nice spot to be and will cover all DOS games. 486's are also nice but stop a little short of playing everything, late stuff is a little slow.

It's shame your so far away I have a really nice NEC P90 machine im about to sell since I got my 486 workstation but I highly doubt the shipping from Florida to Austria is anywhere near reasonable 🤣

Yes it is really a pity that we live on different continents. A NEC P90 machine sounds like great offer. One I would take for sure if shipping would be feasible.

That's bad luck. But still thanks for mentioning it.

@Rockstar Runner Thx for mentioning the amd k6 line as well. Have not considered them yet to be honest was thinking about the Intel stuff but consideirng some alternative cpus is never a bad thing. I will look into the k6 line asap.

If your playing a lot of dos games you want something with an ISA slot. If it's just one or 2 games you might get away with a PCI card with dos emulation but if your going to be spending half the time in dos then ISA is needed for the soundcard.

I agree a BX motherboard is a good choice to start with. Most games both dos and windows will work with a P3, Stable drivers, mostly unaffected by the Capacitor plague. Main drawback is you cant really slow them down but your never going to get 100% of your games running on just 1 system no matter what you choose.

Here is an incomplete list of speed sensitive games, its not 100% complete or correct but does give you an idea. The main thing while we tend to focus on the few the majority of games do run fine on faster PC's
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games

Bx boards don't officially support via c3 cpus but I find they usually work fine even if bios misnames them. This means you can slow down with setmul. They will struggle with 99 games though.

And caps get better the further you go back. Bx boards probably have much better caps than your socketA and will outlive them.

Usually for a first build it's best to go simple.

A Geforce MX400 128bit should be fast enough to do well in all your games in period correct resolutions. It's cheap and, runs with fairly old drivers.

Your biggest problem will be balancing late era CPU performance with early era speed sensitive games, IF you are interested in those. There are CPUs that scale well, the AMD K6-x and Via C3 series. I'd go easy with a generic Coppermine or Mendocino between 400 and 800MHz.

For sound ESS AudioDrive ES1868F or ES1869F for DOS and Sound Blaster SB0060 or SB0100 for Windows.

gamefan_851 wrote on 2023-06-09, 04:50:

@Gmlb256 and Shponglefan you guys have a point though. For the best possible compability it might really a better idea to get classic 486 or early pentium system for dos and a pentium 3/4 or maybe even athlon for the win98se stuff.

Which ealry pentium system would be the best bet for dos only games by the way? Which clock speed i should pick in order to avoid problem with speed sensitive games.?

This mostly comes down to what era or what specific games you might want to play. As others have said, it's pretty easy to go down a rabbit hole and wind up with a whole bunch of systems depending on what you're trying to do.

The broadest compatibility can be achieved with a late-model Pentium MMX or AMD K6-2/3 processor, and relying on cache disabling and tools like SETMUL to throttle the system. You can then generate performance ranging from 386 through Pentium era speeds.

If you want an example of this, I recommend the following video from Phil's Computer Lab: 136 in 1 Retro CPU - From 386 to Pentium MMX

It's a system built on a Pentium MMX 233 processor. He shows the sheer range of relative performance options via all the different throttling combinations.

chinny22 wrote on 2023-06-09, 09:13:

If your playing a lot of dos games you want something with an ISA slot. If it's just one or 2 games you might get away with a PCI card with dos emulation but if your going to be spending half the time in dos then ISA is needed for the soundcard.

Is an ISA card really that needed though? On my Windows 98 build I rely on a PCI MX300 sound card and haven't encountered any need for an ISA card as of yet with any of the DOS games I've tried so far.

Are there any games specifically worth testing for compatibility?

Yeah a real mode game.

The SBLive! and Audigy DOS drivers requires EMM loaded to work, making them unable to run certain DOS games that uses the unofficial unreal mode. Zone 66 is a special case as well, refuses to run if any XMS driver is loaded.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-06-09, 12:25:

chinny22 wrote on 2023-06-09, 09:13:

If your playing a lot of dos games you want something with an ISA slot. If it's just one or 2 games you might get away with a PCI card with dos emulation but if your going to be spending half the time in dos then ISA is needed for the soundcard.

Is an ISA card really that needed though? On my Windows 98 build I rely on a PCI MX300 sound card and haven't encountered any need for an ISA card as of yet with any of the DOS games I've tried so far.

Are there any games specifically worth testing for compatibility?

There are some well known good PCI DOS sound cards, like your MX300, the ESS Solo-1 or the Yamaha YMF7x4, but they are getting very pricy these days. The Solo-1 used to be this unassuming generic looking budget PCI sound card you could pick up for $10 or less and now it's often for sale between $50-100. Same for the YMF7x4 and your MX300 has been expensive for years. You can build a full retro PC for that price with "lesser" cards.

So yeah, a good PCI sound card, especially one supporting SBLINK with an appropriate motherboard is good 99% of the times, and if you are patient and know where to look (newbies probably don't) you can still find good deals, but it's increasingly difficult.

chinny22 wrote on 2023-06-09, 09:13:

If your playing a lot of dos games you want something with an ISA slot. If it's just one or 2 games you might get away with a PC […]
Show full quote

If your playing a lot of dos games you want something with an ISA slot. If it's just one or 2 games you might get away with a PCI card with dos emulation but if your going to be spending half the time in dos then ISA is needed for the soundcard.

I agree a BX motherboard is a good choice to start with. Most games both dos and windows will work with a P3, Stable drivers, mostly unaffected by the Capacitor plague. Main drawback is you cant really slow them down but your never going to get 100% of your games running on just 1 system no matter what you choose.

Here is an incomplete list of speed sensitive games, its not 100% complete or correct but does give you an idea. The main thing while we tend to focus on the few the majority of games do run fine on faster PC's
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games

Thanks a lot for posting the list. A very intruiging list because many of the games I am interested in was mentioned in that list. I need to consider potential speed issues when chosing the right compoments for my rig.

@kolderman Thanks for the extra info about the caps. Good to know that bx boards are highly regarded quality wise.

RandomStranger Thanks for mentioning other cpu vendors as well. Have not considered the amd k6 and via cpu but I will look into them.

On the other hand I have heard about the Celeron Mendocino line but have not checked them out which i will do. now. Looking for cpu between 400 and 800 mhz sounds good.

You recommendation about the mx400 line also sounds good. Good avaibility and a good reputation.

Also thanks a lot for the sound card recommendations.

Thanks a lot for the video link from phil @Shponglefan . I will check it out this evening after work.

@all You guys helped me a lot but I think I have to reconsider my plan a bit.

It is hard to get rig that is great with both WindowsSE 98 and DOS. In the long run I won't get pass a pure DOS System. The DOS area has many great things to offer for me, so having great DOS only rig is childhood dream from mine.

For my first rig I will focus on rig that is ok with DOS (so that most games should run, but without looking for perfection) and decent Win 98se compability up to the year 1999 with quake 3. And then later a pure DOS rig that runs everything in perfection with good DOS only sound card.

What do you think about the strategy?

Would a cpu between 400 and 800mhz and geforce mx400 and decent sound blaster card a good starting point for such configuration?

In the meantime I have done some further research and there is really big amount of available mainboards with the 440bx chipsets. Some of them come even with cpu included and ram which could also be rather convenient.

I have also seen that some motherboards even have a onboard graphics solution. Interesting from theoretical point of view but also a bit annoying.

I hope it possible to disable the onboard graphics in the bios to let a dedicated gpu like geforce mx 400 do the graphics work?

Not sure if I would get such mobo with on board chip but I want to ask just in case I end up with something like that.

is there also special brand from the 440bx line you would recommend?

During my time as lurker I found out the the Asus P2b was mentioned very favorable many times. But is Asus really the only Premium choice that is better than the others vendors? Which other brand would you recommend besides Asus?

- gigabyte GA-6BXC is very well regarded. GA-6BX7 is similar with socket 370.
- ABit, BE6-II BF6
- Asus: CUBX
- EPOX: EP-BX7+
- MSI BX Master

All premiums brands.