vetz wrote on 2024-01-24, 14:34:

I'm in the group with Jasin here, not much point in going faster unless point 2. The issue I've personally experienced is that the more you push it, the more strange behaviours are going to occur, and you are always going to have a feeling at the back of your head that it's due to the setup you're running that's causing it. My venture has been into W98/DOS on Core2 systems, and it just wasn't stable enough. I didn't really need the power for the games that could run under DOS/W9x on that sort of a CPU. Heck even a P4 is overkill, so I personally think it's better to save yourself the trouble, atleast if you intent to keep the system for actual usage and not just testing. At the moment I'm using a P4C800-E Deluxe which officially supports Win9X as my dual boot system and that has been a much more pleasent experience. So for me "practical" and "fastest" is the S478 platform.

Oh, I agree, based on my research and testing so far, I think a Pentium 4 build will probably be the practical cut-off.

That said, it's fun to test things and see what sort of compatibility levels can be achieved. I'm hoping to do document a lot of this testing, especially since I'm already finding things that go against some of what I've seen documented elsewhere (particularly the Vogons wiki speed sensitive games list).

The other thing I really enjoy is trying to mix 'n match all the hardware and see what can be achieved in terms of cross-compatibility and available system resources. It's the same reason I put together those silly multi-sound card builds. There's not a whole lot of practical reason they need to exist, but it's fun to do anyway. 😁

Bancho wrote on 2024-01-24, 14:40:

Maybe a QDI S478 board with SB-Link may be a good middle ground. Paired with a PCI YMF card would offer pretty good compatibilty

I'd love to get my hands a P4 board with SB-Link for testing. Unfortunately the ones I've seen for sale have been prohibitively expensive. If I can find something affordable, I might grab it.

Just took delivery today of this DFI G7S620-N motherboard.

It features a pair of ISA slots with PC-PCI, so it should work with ISA sound cards. Planning to use this as another test platform.

Since this board features an LGA775 socket and supports up to Pentium D processors, I can try to push the envelope a little further with this one.

Got it hooked up and did some testing. Can confirm that ISA sound cards work. Currently using a GUS Extreme and a Roland MPU-401 AT.

Hardware resources were a bit of a challenge. I ended up having to reserve a pair of IRQs and DMA channels in the bios to get the GUS Extreme to initialize. Even then it would sometimes fail to initialize on boot.

Here it is running Sam 'n Max on a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 (Prescott) CPU with General MIDI music from the MPU-401 and SB Compatible digital sound from the GUS Extreme's ESS chip.

Yeah, it's a nice board and has potential for Core 2 modding.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-01-25, 04:11:

Yeah, it's a nice board and has potential for Core 2 modding.

Does it require just a BIOS mod or a physical mod to the board itself?

BIOS mod + pin mod (CPU or socket).

Re: What vintage CPU socket saw the biggest increase in CPU horsepower from release to retirement?

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-01-25, 14:39:

BIOS mod + pin mod (CPU or socket).

Re: What vintage CPU socket saw the biggest increase in CPU horsepower from release to retirement?

That's interesting! Didn't realize the LGA775 had different pin arrangements for the respective CPUs.

Had a moment of panic tonight.

Went to do some testing video cards and fired up Quake only to be greeted by a repetitive stuttering noise. Trying out some more games realized the issue seemed to be the Gravis UltraSound and specifically GUS playback. SB Pro audio via the ESS chip seemed fine.

After further testing including swapping ISA slots, instead of stuttering I would get getting abnormally low pitched playback. This was particularly evident in Scream Tracker 3. Trying to run Epic Pinball would cause the computer to spontaneously reboot. Attempting various speed throttling options didn't change anything.

Finally I decided to try a different GUS Extreme and suddenly everything is back to normal. Scream Tracker 3 tracks played back at the proper pitch. Epic Pinball worked fine, along with other games digital audio. Thinking it might have been a problem with the original card, I put it back and now it's also working perfectly again. Whew! 😅

I then decided to try a different card, a Yamaha Audician 32.

With the Yamaha card, digital audio in games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D were working fine. Even Epic Pinball loaded and sounded surprisingly good (for a non-GUS card).

However, Scream Tracker 3 was again producing that abnormally low pitched playback exactly the same as was happening on the GUS Extreme. At least this doesn't appear to be a problem unique to that one GUS Extreme.

Clearly ISA sound cards are... interesting on this setup. I'm going to keep experimenting with different cards and hopefully find something that is reasonably stable.

Updated on my continued testing the DFI G7S620-N motherboard + 3.4GHz P4 (HT 650 Prescott).

I've tried a few different ISA video cards and sound cards. ISA video cards seem to work fine. Sound cards are a bit more iffy with speed sensitive issues popping up in some games (such as incorrect pitch or truncated playback).

That said, I have had ongoing success using the Orpheus II. Its SB Pro, GM and GUS playback have been flawless so far even with this system running at a full 3.4 GHz.

I've done further testing on throttling this system with CPUSPD and SETMUL. It seems like this thing can be throttled down to 386 and even 286 level speeds, which I found pleasantly surprising.

Tests including making Descent playable, slowing down the Warcraft palette animation to appear normal, and being able to enable General MIDI music in Dark Forces.

More remarkable was playing the Police Quest II intro. This intro is speed sensitive and plays back best on a 286 between 8 to 12 MHz. I was able to get it playing back at something that appeared maybe a bit faster than a 12 MHz 286, but not excessively so. I'll need to set up a 286 and do a side-by-side comparison to see how close I can get it.

The only games I haven't been able to run include Jazz Jackrabbit and Tyrian. Both of these will crash out even with throttling enabled. And of course any games that are picky about sound card support (e.g. Dyna Blaster, Prehistorik) fail to detect the Orpheus II as a proper Sound Blaster.

But other than a handful of exceptions, everything else has been working well.

Very interesting! Would you mind share how you accomplished the following?

Tests including making Descent playable, slowing down the Warcraft palette animation to appear normal, and being able to enable General MIDI music in Dark Forces

vetz wrote on 2024-02-03, 18:27:

Very interesting! Would you mind share how you accomplished the following?

Tests including making Descent playable, slowing down the Warcraft palette animation to appear normal, and being able to enable General MIDI music in Dark Forces

Sure thing!

Warcraft settings:

Disabled L1 cache: SETMUL L1D
CPU multiplier 14.0: CPUSPD m14
CPU clock modulation 2/8: CPUSPD o2
CPU throttle 2/8: CPUSPD t2

This slows down the palette animations to approximate how it appears on my 486 DX-33 system. I've compared the two directly and I can't see much difference.

Descent settings:

Disabled L1 cache: SETMUL L1D
CPU multiplier 14.0: CPUSPD m14
CPU clock modulation 4/8: CPUSPD o4
CPU throttle 3/8: CPUSPD t3

This makes Descent far more playable, more akin to a fast Pentium.

Dark Forces settings:

CPU multiplier 14.0: CPUSPD m14
CPU clock modulation 4/8: CPUSPD o4
CPU throttle 4/8: CPUSPD t4

This allows General MIDI playback to be set without freezing and it works in-game.

Just tried Dynablaster and that one was able to work (e.g. no freezing) with the same settings as Warcraft:

Disabled L1 cache: SETMUL L1D
CPU multiplier 14.0: CPUSPD m14
CPU clock modulation 2/8: CPUSPD o2
CPU throttle 2/8: CPUSPD t2

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-04, 00:33:

Just tried Dynablaster and that one was able to work (e.g. no freezing) with the same settings as Warcraft:

Was that with working digital sound?

IIRC, the "kaboom" sound from the explosions is supposed to be fully digital, not adlib.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-04, 01:37:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-04, 00:33:

Just tried Dynablaster and that one was able to work (e.g. no freezing) with the same settings as Warcraft:

Was that with working digital sound?

IIRC, the "kaboom" sound from the explosions is supposed to be fully digital, not adlib.

Yes, this includes the digital ka-boom sound.

If you ask me, a DOS build needs ISA, there's really no way around it. Also found that builds around exotic stuff like industrial mobos etc from the time when ISA was really obsoleted seldom are worth the trouble, there's just too much that doesn't work, or demands insane amounts of tinkering to get working. Guess that's a matter of preference though, some people might find it enjoyable. I'm not one of them, wouldn't define such a build as a "practical DOS build" 😀

My DOS monster consists of:

Mobo: Chaintech 7AJA2 (KT133A, one ISA slot, needed recapping)
CPU: Thoroughbred Athlon XP 2600+ (AXDA2600DKV3C)(There are XP-M:s on 266MT/s FSB that clocks even higher, and might or might not work on the 7AJA2 with or without BIOS modding)
Graphics: Geforce Ti4600 + 2x Voodoo2 12MB
Audio: SB AWE64 Gold (DOS) + SB Audigy 2 ZS (Windows)
Storage: A very silent Seagate 80GB IDE HDD + random IDE ODD

Mostly it does what it's intended for gallantly. There is one small problem though, parts of the display flickers in the Build games at 1280x1024. Highly suspecting it is the problem described as "flashing" here. Never got around ordering a GF3 Ti500 card to fix it back then, and now those cards are insanely expensive. Just playing the Build games in 1024x768 instead. Otherwise it hasn't given me much trouble at all.

kaputnik wrote on 2024-02-04, 08:56:

If you ask me, a DOS build needs ISA, there's really no way around it. Also found that builds around exotic stuff like industrial mobos etc from the time when ISA was really obsoleted seldom are worth the trouble, there's just too much that doesn't work, or demands insane amounts of tinkering to get working.

I can't speak for every industrial board, but this DFI G7S620-N motherboard I've been working with has been shockingly straightforward. Other than having to reserve specific hardware resources, this board has been a champ.

Mostly it does what it's intended for gallantly. There is one small problem though, parts of the display flickers in the Build games at 1280x1024. Highly suspecting it is the problem described as "flashing" here. Never got around ordering a GF3 Ti500 card to fix it back then, and now those cards are insanely expensive. Just playing the Build games in 1024x768 instead.

I've had the same issue trying to use a GeForce4 4200 Ti. Testing with a GeForce2 and I've been able to run resolutions up to 1600x1200 with no issues in Build engine games.

I'm wondering if a Voodoo3 would also be able to support these resolutions in Build games.

Got a few more games working with the Pentium 4 tonight including Jazz Jackrabbit and the Holiday Hare releases, plus Tyrian.

I used PATCHCRT.EXE with these games to remove the Runtime Error 200 bug. It's available here: https://www.kennedysoftware.ie/patchcrt.htm

Jazz Jackrabbit and Holiday Hare 94/95

1) Used PATCHCRT.EXE to patch FILE0001.EXE in the main game folder.
2) Used PREPGAME.EXE in the main game folder to patch the game for Gravis Ultrasound PnP support.
3) Booted with no EMM386.EXE or any other memory manager loaded.

For Holiday Hare 94 and 95, I performed the same steps except patching JAZZ.EXE instead of FILE0001.EXE.

Tyrian

1) Used PATCHCRT.EXE to patch FILE0001.EXE and SETUP.EXE in the main game folder.
2) Setup a WSS initialization for the Orpheus II card. This included setting WSSPlaybackDMA=0 (zero) and Mode=wss
3) Booted with no EMM386.EXE or any other memory manager loaded.

Both games worked with no additional speed throttling required.

I set up a batch file for Tyrian to enable WSS playback and re-initialize the Orpheus II before the game launches.

I also tried GUS support in Tyrian but it didn't work. With the default initialization, it simply reported no GUS found. Running ULTRAMID resulted in repeated sound effect stuttering in both the setup program and main game. At least WSS playback works.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-04, 15:16:

I can't speak for every industrial board, but this DFI G7S620-N motherboard I've been working with has been shockingly straightf […]
Show full quote

kaputnik wrote on 2024-02-04, 08:56:

If you ask me, a DOS build needs ISA, there's really no way around it. Also found that builds around exotic stuff like industrial mobos etc from the time when ISA was really obsoleted seldom are worth the trouble, there's just too much that doesn't work, or demands insane amounts of tinkering to get working.

I can't speak for every industrial board, but this DFI G7S620-N motherboard I've been working with has been shockingly straightforward. Other than having to reserve specific hardware resources, this board has been a champ.

Mostly it does what it's intended for gallantly. There is one small problem though, parts of the display flickers in the Build games at 1280x1024. Highly suspecting it is the problem described as "flashing" here. Never got around ordering a GF3 Ti500 card to fix it back then, and now those cards are insanely expensive. Just playing the Build games in 1024x768 instead.

I've had the same issue trying to use a GeForce4 4200 Ti. Testing with a GeForce2 and I've been able to run resolutions up to 1600x1200 with no issues in Build engine games.

I'm wondering if a Voodoo3 would also be able to support these resolutions in Build games.

Had to look it up, seems nice. Looks more like a standard consumer board than most industrial boards. Doesn't the Intel 865G chipset still have ISA support built in by the way, albeit not being used for expansion ports in most regular boards?

Also stumbled upon this: Re: Socket-775 Clock Signals, might be interesting if you don't do your own microcode patching 😀 Might be an idea to upload it to theretroweb aswell if it works.

As long as the Voodoo3 can handle those resolutions at all - which I assume they can - I can't see why it wouldn't be able to handle DOS games in them. Regrettably I don't have a Voodoo 3 card to test with though, another thing I never got around to getting before they became prohibitively expensive. I'm using my computer for W98 gaming aswell though, and I got a couple of Voodoo2:s for GLide in it, so I'd still prefer a GF3 Ti500 for daily use 😀

kaputnik wrote on 2024-02-05, 09:03:

Had to look it up, seems nice. Looks more like a standard consumer board than most industrial boards. Doesn't the Intel 865G chipset still have ISA support built in by the way, albeit not being used for expansion ports in most regular boards?

I don't know the specifics of the Intel 865G chipset I'm afraid. I do know this board uses a Wincom bridge chip though to enable ISA support and from my testing, it definitely supports DMA making it ideal for sound cards in DOS.

In that respect, I'm a little surprised this board seems to have flown under the radar. There's a bunch of them on Ebay right now complete with processors, heatsinks and RAM (just like the one I bought).

Also stumbled upon this: Re: Socket-775 Clock Signals, might be interesting if you don't do your own microcode patching 😀 Might be an idea to upload it to theretroweb aswell if it works.

Yup, I've seen that thread. I'm very intrigued by the possibility of modding and supporting the X6800. The idea of a CPU with a proper unlocked multiplier could open up so many good throttling capabilities.

As long as the Voodoo3 can handle those resolutions at all - which I assume they can - I can't see why it wouldn't be able to handle DOS games in them. Regrettably I don't have a Voodoo 3 card to test with though, another thing I never got around to getting before they became prohibitively expensive. I'm using my computer for W98 gaming aswell though, and I got a couple of Voodoo2:s for GLide in it, so I'd still prefer a GF3 Ti500 for daily use 😀

Can't go wrong with a GeForce 3 (or 4). 😁

• C2Q + ESS Solo-1 on a VIA chipset
  If you just want to push the limits of DOS on real hardware.
• Ryzen (or equivalent Intel CPU) + SBEMU
  I’m sure you’ll find an interesting combination to break the world record.
• Unlocked Athlon XP (Barton) + PCI sound card (or ISA sound card).
  Practical, fastest build for DOS.
  You can set the multiplier and disable caches individually. On some motherboards you can even underclock the FSB (down to 50 MHz).

You could also go for the P4 S478 build, that would give you more raw speed, but it’s not as versatile. Of course, YMMV.

For PCI sound cards, this is my rule of thumb:
YMF 7x4 (SiS Chipset <964)
ESS Solo-1/FM-801/ALS4000 (VIA chipset)