The only issue I see with this build is the m3d card. It will benefit greatly from a much stronger CPU, so I'd save it for a higher end Win98 build. Other, earlier accelerators like the Voodoo 1 and perhaps Verite cards have better DOS support.

Freespace 1 and 2 came in 97/98 and are more PII/K6-2 era games if you want decent acceleration.

MMX/Voodoo 2 is a fun combination but it kind of has no legs for stuff beyond 1997; so stick to Quake 2 and before or upgrade it to a K6-2/400 I would say.

I advocate going all the way to Athlon or better for a high performance DOS system, generally doing dual duty as a Win98 machine. PMMX based machines have superb flexibility which makes them wonderful DOS machines covering the performance range from 386DX to early P2. Most high performance DOS titles have some kind of frame limiter which eliminates clock matching issues found in pre-Pentium titles.

gdjacobs wrote:

I advocate going all the way to Athlon or better for a high performance DOS system, generally doing dual duty as a Win98 machine. PMMX based machines have superb flexibility which makes them wonderful DOS machines covering the performance range from 386DX to early P2. Most high performance DOS titles have some kind of frame limiter which eliminates clock matching issues found in pre-Pentium titles.

I have a 1ghz Pentium 3 for my next step up.
Below that I have a Pentium II 400

Also have a bunch of k6-2 CPUs just need a super socket 7 motherboard.

I just wanted some clear demarcation on which games stop at this machine and start at the nexr

I agree with appiah4. 1997 is the latest year I'd install games from. The 233MMX will bottleneck the V2 even there. Games like Quake 2, Tomb Raider II, Wing Commander Prophecy, and MDK should run okay. The Voodoo2 will be a better fit for your P2 400.

2000 at most, likely. All that new gen UE1.5 and Q3 engine stuff is a 6th gen CPU flusher.

Well, to answer your question, I'd say 97-98 with the last DOS titles.