VOGONS


First post, by johnyept

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I recently replaced a Pentium 3 1000 Mhz that had been running XP 24/7 for the last 10 years on a Matsonic board. Uptime record without rebooting was 7 months!! Unfortunately the fan connectors no longer work but I can use molex adaptors to replace them.

I've been watching some videos from PhilsComputerLab and it sparked a retro bug in my head, so I decided to build a computer around a 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 AGP (I have 2 of them) to enjoy those nice Glide games from my childwood, and in the process some MS-DOS games too. This is what I got so far:
- Matsonic motherboard (1x AGP, 5x PCI, 1x ISA)
- Pentium 3 1000 Mhz
- 2x128MB RAM (possibly 2x256MB)
- 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 AGP
- Seagate 40GB 7200rpm (2GB FAT16 for MS-DOS 6.22+WFW3.11, 30GB for Win98SE, the rest for WinXP)
- 10/100 PCI Network card (do realtek PCI work in DOS?)
- 3.5" floppy drive
- CD/DVD-ROM drive
- 100MB Iomega ZIP IDE drive (because why not?)

For the sound card, I have a bunch of ISA and PCI cards either lying in a shelf or inside very old computers. I've been reading several topics and got kinda overloaded with too much information. So, with your kind help and insight, which of these cards would be best for DOS games and Windows 98 games?
- Sound Blaster 16 (CT2290) ISA
- Sound Blaster 16 (CT2940) ISA
- AWE64 (CT4500) ISA x2
- AWE64 (CT4520) ISA x2
- ESS1868F ISA
- ESS1869F ISA x2 (one is compaq)
- BTC1817DS (Opti 82C931) ISA
- Zoltrix CMI8330A ISA
- CMI8330C/C3D ISA
- EPC-SYMINI01 (Yamaha OPLYM719B-S) ISA

- AudioPCI 3000 (Creative ES1370) PCI x2
- Creative Labs ES1371 PCI
- Creative Labs CT4750 PCI x2
- CT4810 PCI x4
- Sound Blaster Live! (CT4830) PCI x4
- Turtle Beach Santa Cruz CS4630-CM EP) PCI

I also have 3 ECS K7S5A v3.1 motherboards (no ISA slots) + Athlon XP CPUs, I'll probably try to make a small retro gaming LAN with them, and use the 3 CT4830 if they can be used in MS-DOS too.

EDIT: found 6 more cards, added to the list.

Last edited by johnyept on 2019-04-09, 07:39. Edited 1 time in total.

RETRO-W95/NT4: ASUS P3B-F, P3 550, 192MB, GF2+VD2 PCI, AWE64+VIBRA128, 80GB IDE
RETRO-W98/2K: ASUS A7N8X-E, Sempron 2.8+, 512MB, FX 5700LE 256MB, SB Live! CT4830, 320GB IDE
RETRO-WXP/7: ASUS P5KPL-AM EPU, XEON E5450, 4GB, GTS 450 1GB, 120GB SSD, 1TB sATA

Reply 1 of 6, by gerwin

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johnyept wrote:

I also have 3 ECS K7S5A v3.1 motherboards (no ISA slots) + Athlon XP CPUs, I'll probably try to make a small retro gaming LAN with them, and use the 3 CT4830 if they can be used in MS-DOS too.

Better check the capacitors of these boards before trying to power them up. It is likely these aged very poorly.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 2 of 6, by johnyept

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gerwin wrote:

Better check the capacitors of these boards before trying to power them up. It is likely these aged very poorly.

Too late, I already did! But just to see if they were working 😉

RETRO-W95/NT4: ASUS P3B-F, P3 550, 192MB, GF2+VD2 PCI, AWE64+VIBRA128, 80GB IDE
RETRO-W98/2K: ASUS A7N8X-E, Sempron 2.8+, 512MB, FX 5700LE 256MB, SB Live! CT4830, 320GB IDE
RETRO-WXP/7: ASUS P5KPL-AM EPU, XEON E5450, 4GB, GTS 450 1GB, 120GB SSD, 1TB sATA

Reply 3 of 6, by chinny22

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P3 1Ghz will be aimed at late dos gaming so I'd argue True OPL isn't the focus here.

So with that out of the way.
DOS/ISA AWE64, Doesn't really matter which one
Win/PCI SBLive

Re the Realtec NIC, I'm amusing it the dime a dozen RTL8139 in which case your in luck
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=834&menustate=0

And Re PCI cards in dos
All the creative cards support SB Pro emulation with the SBLive supporting SB16 emulation, It's still based off the same driverset though
Even the Turtle Beach supports dos it seems?
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz

Reply 4 of 6, by johnyept

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chinny22 wrote:
P3 1Ghz will be aimed at late dos gaming so I'd argue True OPL isn't the focus here. […]
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P3 1Ghz will be aimed at late dos gaming so I'd argue True OPL isn't the focus here.

So with that out of the way.
DOS/ISA AWE64, Doesn't really matter which one
Win/PCI SBLive

I went with the P3 1Ghz because it's the recommended CPU speed for the Voodoo 3, but I would like to have OPL under MS-DOS too, even if I have to build a slower computer for that. Which card would be the best for OPL with all the bells and whistles under MS-DOS?

chinny22 wrote:

Re the Realtec NIC, I'm amusing it the dime a dozen RTL8139 in which case your in luck
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=834&menustate=0

I have many of those, all RTL8139x, only the last letter changes. Good to know they work under MS-DOS too.

chinny22 wrote:
And Re PCI cards in dos All the creative cards support SB Pro emulation with the SBLive supporting SB16 emulation, It's still ba […]
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And Re PCI cards in dos
All the creative cards support SB Pro emulation with the SBLive supporting SB16 emulation, It's still based off the same driverset though
Even the Turtle Beach supports dos it seems?
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz

Cool, that way the Athlon computers can join a 4-way DOS/Win98 LAN play with the P3 😉

RETRO-W95/NT4: ASUS P3B-F, P3 550, 192MB, GF2+VD2 PCI, AWE64+VIBRA128, 80GB IDE
RETRO-W98/2K: ASUS A7N8X-E, Sempron 2.8+, 512MB, FX 5700LE 256MB, SB Live! CT4830, 320GB IDE
RETRO-WXP/7: ASUS P5KPL-AM EPU, XEON E5450, 4GB, GTS 450 1GB, 120GB SSD, 1TB sATA

Reply 5 of 6, by chinny22

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Bells and whistles in dos is External Midi, AWE, GUS
The AWE is good at 2 of these (cant to GUS, Only a GUS card can do that)

You'll still get OPL in dos but it'll be creatives CQM rather then true Yamaha OPL.
Personally I think the benefits of the AWE64 (Quieter Snr, The AWE, features) outweigh the different sounding OPL chip on such a late dos PC

Earlier games will break due to the P3 more then the sound chip but that's where I'd be wanting true OPL and the lack of 16 bit sound and AWE wont matter as games wont support this anyway
CT2290, SB16 Support, Yamaha OPL
CT2940, SB16 Support, If it has a YMF chip then its true Yamaha OPL
EPC-SYMINI0, SB Pro Support, Yamaha OPL

ESS1868F, Buggy SB16, Perfect SB Pro support, clone OPL but apparently a good one
ESS AudioDrive (ES1868) - a surprisingly good ISA sound card

Not sure about the rest

Reply 6 of 6, by johnyept

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chinny22 wrote:

Bells and whistles in dos is External Midi, AWE, GUS
The AWE is good at 2 of these (cant to GUS, Only a GUS card can do that)

Bad choice of words... I meant the best sound I could get from the best card in that bunch.

chinny22 wrote:
CT2290, SB16 Support, Yamaha OPL CT2940, SB16 Support, If it has a YMF chip then its true Yamaha OPL EPC-SYMINI0, SB Pro Support […]
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CT2290, SB16 Support, Yamaha OPL
CT2940, SB16 Support, If it has a YMF chip then its true Yamaha OPL
EPC-SYMINI0, SB Pro Support, Yamaha OPL

ESS1868F, Buggy SB16, Perfect SB Pro support, clone OPL but apparently a good one
ESS AudioDrive (ES1868) - a surprisingly good ISA sound card

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll start by installing the games I want to play (probably the most "recent" DOS games), then try those 5 sound cards and see which ones works with most/all of them. In case of 2 or more, I'll select the one that has the best sound overall.

The 3 Athlons will probably get an AWE64 or SB Live, whichever is easier to get up and running. Just getting sound working in dos/windows will suffice, since their main purpose will be lan play side by side, nobody will be worried about the quality of the sound, they'll be shouting louder than the speakers/headphones themselves. My most fond memory of lan play was at school, where 2 classrooms with 8 computers each played Deathmatch and CTF in Quake for hours! E1M7 was specially crazy to play with so many people in such a small map!

RETRO-W95/NT4: ASUS P3B-F, P3 550, 192MB, GF2+VD2 PCI, AWE64+VIBRA128, 80GB IDE
RETRO-W98/2K: ASUS A7N8X-E, Sempron 2.8+, 512MB, FX 5700LE 256MB, SB Live! CT4830, 320GB IDE
RETRO-WXP/7: ASUS P5KPL-AM EPU, XEON E5450, 4GB, GTS 450 1GB, 120GB SSD, 1TB sATA