WinXp of course.
The only trouble is V5 drivers (there is no retail Xp drivers, only w2k), but w2k drivers are Xp compatible after you set all related services to the kernel level. I use this method for my Voodoo2.

I'm runnig a 3DFX Voodoo 5 5500 under XP at the moment on my PIII, it seems to be working fine so far, Serious Sam 1&2, Heavy metal FAKK2, Driver etc.
I'm using the AmigaMerlin V3.1-R11 WinXP/Win2K drivers from here:http://www.falconfly.de/vsa100.htm
hope this helps.

I have a k7d I have been playing with on and off. it worked well as I recall with a voodoo 3 and a santa cruz, in 2000.

today I installed an Audigy 2, which would only work in the middle pci slot [nor did it work in the pci-x slot I tried - at least, doing so caused windows to detect a system interrupt controller].

even after installing the latest creative drivers, I got reboots during installation of 3dmark2001se.

elsewhere on vogons I have seen references to problems with creative drivers and this board in 2000, though luckybob ran it with an Audigy I think [not sure what os he used]. i'm going back to my santa cruz [love that card anyway].

prior to this I found problems with this motherboard in Linux, and occasionally [too often] I need to reseat the ram.

personally i'm sticking with a single cpu system for voodoo5 gaming, but that's partly cos this system is also dan noisy with 6500rpm dynatron fans. haven't got round to finding anything else yet, but had been considering some vintage water cooling. I only have one 462 w/c system though; guess I could go with a mixed cooling system of one water, one air.

I guess you saw cloudschatze's hilarious posts on the sw1000xg 🤣.

Hmm i see.
Well, since i went to all this trouble of getting the CPUs, Memory, V5, i am guessing i want to do it with dual CPU 😀
I waited for 5 months for the CPUs from Slovenia.

I also have Santa Cruz, is it EAX compatible?
Well, this is just the started idea any way, who knows what will i end up with, i even bought an Adaptec AAR-2400A (ATA RAID Awww yis)

I didn't read the posts on SW1000XG, can you link me? 😀

Here's the sw1000xg thread I was referring to:

x

Santa Cruz is EAX compatible [I don't know which level of EAX] but apparently it does it in software and does not have hardware EAX support.

Now i want to ask them is SW1000XG an game card 🤣
Cool read 😀

I guess i will try W2000 first.

2k easily. More of a retro feel and official 3dfx drivers too.

Windows 2k pro. Xp doesn't have official 3dfx drivers, is bloated, larger footprint, and a lot more work to make fast-lean (it'll still have more bloat). Seem to remember less problems-patch requirements with 2k too (and it has official 3dfx drivers).  Personally would go with 9x OS for glide games (don't think DOS titles run right on 2k).

I use 98SE with the 2K theme. 😀 I never use 2k itself though.

So...... it's ME then? 😀
I remember trying to replicate the Win2K theme in Win98 before Win2k had an official release so I went by with very compressed screenshots so my colors were off from sampling colors off of JPEG artifacts. And at the time, the "Windows 2000 theme" found is one crappy deluded thing.

Heh. It comes with that Windows 98SE Service Pack 2.1a that I sometimes install.

I do occasionally install ME but it's hard for me to think up a reason to bother with it. It mostly brings additional annoyances. It's an interesting historical curiosity and that's about all.

So typically I use 98SE or XP.

leileilol wrote:

So...... it's ME then? 😀

Better to use 98SE and then install 98SE2ME. You get all the good stuff from ME added to your 98SE installation without sacrificing DOS compatibility.

For the specs given, I would say Windows 2000 Pro for sure because both 98 and XP are going to have issues with those specs, and ME doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. :P

98: Can't handle more than 512 MB of RAM properly, USB 2.0 can be problematic to get working, can't utilize dual CPUs.

XP: Memory/HD hog, slower than 2K as an OS, no "official" 3dfx drivers, Pro version minimum for dual CPU support.

You can't run Windows 9x (including ME) for dual-CPU; it can only do a single CPU. For dual CPU support with this system your options are either XP Pro or 2000 Pro (XP Home won't support SMP; there's no "higher" versions of XP beyond Pro, and the "higher" versions of 2000 won't do you any good).

I'd probably let it come down to how you feel about third-party drivers for the 3dfx card, and how much updating you want to do - the later service packs for XP will contain much newer updates/versions of various Microsoft applications compared to Windows 2000 (especially if you don't have a Service Pack 4 image), so depending on what you want/need from the system software-wise, it may or may not be faster to go with XP. As far as "XP is so bloated and terrible" - my recent XP SP2 install on a P4 will sit on the desktop on 120MB of RAM running all of its drivers; it has 1GB of memory - sure it isn't DSL or Puppy, but that's perfectly acceptable in my opinion.

Could always install XP SP1 instead of newer releases too. It was lighter.

XP in theory is supposed to be faster than 2000, at least with more than 128 MB of RAM; see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx .

In practice XP SP3 just isn't as responsive on my 512 MB system and I've never quite been able to figure out exactly why. (I'd like to know if there have been definitive performance comparisons between SP2 and SP3.)

Oh, and apparently WinFLP has SMP support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Fundamen … _for_Legacy_PCs
http://www.allquests.com/question/1242613/SMP … Legacy-PCs.html

Of course, for the purpose of running Unreal Tournament 99 and Half-Life on a legacy PC, it makes no sense not to use Windows 98 and it is pointless to use something else just because your motherboard has two CPUs!!!

Make that 1 CPU 😀
The second socket killed one of my CPUs and i am not gonna test it again 😁

Thanks for a lot of nice info guys! I will try W98 and W2000. I really like W2000.

Jorpho wrote:

XP in theory is supposed to be faster than 2000, at least with more than 128 MB of RAM; see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l […]
Show full quote

XP in theory is supposed to be faster than 2000, at least with more than 128 MB of RAM; see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx .

In practice XP SP3 just isn't as responsive on my 512 MB system and I've never quite been able to figure out exactly why. (I'd like to know if there have been definitive performance comparisons between SP2 and SP3.)

Oh, and apparently WinFLP has SMP support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Fundamen … _for_Legacy_PCs
http://www.allquests.com/question/1242613/SMP … Legacy-PCs.html

Of course, for the purpose of running Unreal Tournament 99 and Half-Life on a legacy PC, it makes no sense not to use Windows 98 and it is pointless to use something else just because your motherboard has two CPUs!!!

A lot of UT servers won't let you play unless you download this anti-cheat plugin that only works on Win2k on up.