VOGONS


The All-in-One Retro PC

Topic actions

First post, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I want an all-in-one PC, one that can play, one way or another, just about any game from the earliest DOS game to the latest Windows 9x game. Could such a system be built? With DOSBox I think it can. Let me detail the important specs of such a system:

Pentium III 1000GHz EB Slot 1
ASUS P3B-F
512MB PC133 SDRAM
Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
Aureal SQ2500
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
Sound Blaster 16 non-PnP

That is the crucial hardware of the machine. Let me start with the processor an explain each choice in turn:

The processor uses a 7.5x multiplier. 1Ghz is too fast for many late DOS and earlier Win9x games, which must be run natively. The mulltiplier is locked, so, speed decreases must be done by lowering the FSB. At 100MHz FSB, the CPU runs at 750Mhz and at 66MHz FSB, the CPU is at 500MHz. But if you are running DOSBox, you need every MHz you can get. DOSBox should be sufficiently fast to run CGA and EGA games and early VGA games. It can probably do just fine with the majority of VGA games that does not stray beyond 320x240x256. Anything higher and you have to run it natively. If a slower processor is needed, why not use 100MHz FSB Pentium II at 350MHz, which can be slowed down to 233MHz at 66MHz FSB?

The motherboard is BX based, which is not only rock solidly stable and offers excellent performance, but easy to use and understand as well. Its support for the 133MHz FSB is unofficial but excellent. Beware, however, this system has certain limitations. Tulatin P3s will need a special adapter to work, if they work at all. The ATA spec only supports 28-bit LBA, so your hard drives cannot be larger than 120GB. The USB is 1.1 only, so high speed devices will not transfer very speedily. The AGP slot will be overclocked to 89MHz if you are using a 133MHz FSB and only supports 1x and 2x devices.

I picked this particular board for several reasons. First, it has four DIMM slots, which means it can support 512 or 1024MB of RAM. Second, it can have one to two ISA slots, and we will need them. Third, it allows you to set multipliers and FSB in the BIOS; no jumpers or dipswitches to fiddle around with. Fourth, ASUS is an outstanding brand name and the boards are easy to find. Fifth, the board comes with no resource hogging frills. Sixth, it supports processors from the Pentium II 233MHz to the Pentium III 1.13GHz natively.

The video board was a tough choice. I wanted a card that could natively handle Glide applications. I used to think a Voodoo 1 was the way to go because certain early 3dfx capable games did not work with the later Voodoos, but almost every single one can be coaxed to work as long as the hardware supports Glide. Many games were built with Glide and offer better performance than on Direct3D. At the same time I wanted a card with solid 2D performance. The Voodoo 5 has the excellent 2D core of the Voodoo3 and Banshee, and also offers assistance in mpeg2 decoding too. FSAA is also a nice benefit. I chose the AGP version over the PCI because it is more common and cheaper, but if the card refuses to run on the overclocked AGP bus, then I would use the PCI version. The main limitation is that this card does not support hardware T&L or pixel/vertrex shaders, but those games are probably looking for faster machines anyways and they are not the focus of this machine.

The sound was also a tough choice too. I stick by my selection of the SQ2500 because it supports A3D 1.0 and 2.0. It only supports 4 speakers and offers poor EAX support, which is why I included a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 card. The Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 will give EAX 1.0 and 2.0 support as well as soundfont support. The old-Sound Blaster emulation of both needs to be disabled.

Finally, I have included a Sound Blaster 16 for late DOS game support. Keeping in mind all I know of Creative products, I believe that an ISA, non-PnP 16 with a 4.05DSP is the best way to go. Some late games support 16-bit digital sound in DOS, the emulations above may not. In my system, this is doubling as a midi interface, and as it is the only interface the 4.05DSP is necessary to avoid the "hanging notes" bug. Also, as I value a true OPL3 chip highly, I have included it. If you use the version of DOSBox with the OPL passthrough, you can improve performance and obtain perfect FM synthesis quality.

Why DOSBox at all? The best advantage of DOSBox is that it offers real slowdown. All the software solutions in the world come up far short. Its also much more convenient if you find a game that does not like the Voodoo 5 or similar card.

Reply 1 of 13, by Dominus

User metadata
Rank DOSBox Moderator
Rank
DOSBox Moderator

Hmm, I did have a similar computer ones, a different Asus board but 1GHZ, 512MB RAM, Voodoo5 and a Live!.
I'm not sure if all these soundcards are worth the hassle, especially since you plan on using Windows 9x it seems to me that you are asking for trouble. I'd rather stick a Roland card in there or at the least hook a Mt-32 up there, since this seems to be missing on that setup. I'd probably ditch the Live! there (only had problems with this crap anyway).
You will have to try which Windows 9x flavor works best there. My system always had problems with the 98 ones, only ME worked stable (I know it is not known for that but it did). Switching to W2k was the best decision back then 😀
I did have massive problems with Dos games on this machine. It was just too strong. Every machine after the 266MHz were much too fast to play games without hassle.
So Dosbox could be a blessing there but on the other hand I'm not sure if it wouldn't be TOO slow for most games 😀
And you could always report back on how the Windows 9x compatibility of Dosbox holds up 😀
Good luck with this setup and I'd be glad to read soem reports on it.

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 2 of 13, by Spaz

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

This is an interesting topic. Over the last two years I've gradually set up a system for the same purpose ( it takes a long time to find some parts ). This it the system I've settled for after many different hardware changes and tweaks.

Pentium III-E 500Mhz (FC-PGA)
IPOX 3BXA2
256MB PC-100 RAM
Pioneer DVR-112 CD\DVD-RW
Hitachi Deskstar 7K80, 80GB IDE
3dfx Voodoo3 3000 AGP
Diamond Stealth II S220 PCI
D-Link AirPlus G 54 Mbps Wireless PCI ( for internet access )
Creative AWE 64 Gold ( upgraded to 16MB )
Gravis Ultrasound MAX ( upgraded to 1MB )
Roland LAPC-I
Roland SCC-1

I run Windows 98SE and boot into real-mode DOS when I need it. It took me many tries to tweak and perfect the autoexec.bat and config.sys files, but I'm finally at a point where I'm happy. When I boot into Real Mode DOS I have 621 KB free memory which is enough for any game I've played so far. For games that run to fast or otherwise won't run correctly, I use DOSBox.

The most expensive part in this system is the motherboard. I bought an industrial motherboard with the unique configuration of 1 AGP/3 PCI/4 ISA slots. It has the best voltage, temperature and fan speed monitoring I've ever seen, great layout and since its based on the 440BX chipset it's rock stable. The motherboard supports hard drives up to 128GB, so I can utilize the full capacity of my harddrive.

My sound cards are working properly and are connected to a Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 2.0 speaker set through a small Rolls MX41b four-channel passive mixer. All four cards have excellent SNR and are hiss-free. The initial config of the DMA and IRQ channels was a pain though 😵

The Voodoo3 3000 AGP card has lightning quick 128-bit 2D acceleration in DOS and runs most GLIDE games after some tweaks. I also have a Diamond Stealth II S220 PCI card that uses the rare Rendition Veritè 2100 chip. After a flash to the latest BIOS from Diamond it now runs at the same speed as the more expensive Veritè 2200 chip. The 3dx card is connected with BNC cables and the Diamond card is connected with regular VGA to my Samsung SyncMaster 997MB 19" CRT monitor. I can choose to boot from PCI or AGP in the BIOS.

I have installed a total of 256MB PC-100 RAM ( 2 x 128 ) which should be plenty for any DOS or Windows9x game. The Pentium III 500 FCPGA is plenty fast for it's intended use. I chose the slowest of the Intel FCPGA processors because it has very low power dissipation ( 13.2 W ). I can cool it using a small heatsink with an inaudible fan.

I've found a few useful programs for eliminating the runtime:200 error and other speed related issues that some DOS games have.

There you have it, that's my retro system 😎

Reply 3 of 13, by F2bnp

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

You can use Turbo to slow down Win9x and for DOS you could use dosbox or just moslo

Reply 4 of 13, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Dominus wrote:

I'm not sure if all these soundcards are worth the hassle, especially since you plan on using Windows 9x it seems to me that you are asking for trouble. I'd rather stick a Roland card in there or at the least hook a Mt-32 up there, since this seems to be missing on that setup. I'd probably ditch the Live! there (only had problems with this crap anyway).
I did have massive problems with Dos games on this machine. It was just too strong. Every machine after the 266MHz were much too fast to play games without hassle.
So Dosbox could be a blessing there but on the other hand I'm not sure if it wouldn't be TOO slow for most games 😀

I have a Roland MPU-401 box with the proper interface card to use if needed, but I doubt that it would be needed much. DOSBox can handle games that require Intelligent MPU-401, which are almost always older games that support the MT-32. General midi games almost always can get by with a UART MPU-401 as found on the Sound Blaster 16.

Obviously, the nature of the game will determine whether DOSBox or native is the better choice. Adventure games do not tend to require the same performance as a first person shooter or rpg. A game that uses a 640x480 resolution must be run natively, I have no allusions that a machine of this caliber will be able to run it well in DOSBox. However, if I use a Pentium II 350Mhz and underclock it to 266Mhz, it should be OK.

Reply 5 of 13, by Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Great Hierophant wrote:

Pentium III 1000GHz EB Slot 1
ASUS P3B-F

Alternatively, you can also use Epox 8KTA3+ and AMD Palomino processor. Unfortunately, Epox 8KTA3+ only has one ISA slot.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Voodoo 5 5500 AGP

Agree on this one. However, it seems many people prefers Voodoo3.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Aureal SQ2500

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Aureal SQ2500 support EAX 2.0 as well? IIRC many sound cards support EAX 2.0 --it is EAX higher than 2.0 which is only supported by Creative.

Never thought this thread would be that long, but now, for something different.....
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman.

Reply 6 of 13, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:
Great Hierophant wrote:

Pentium III 1000GHz EB Slot 1
ASUS P3B-F

Alternatively, you can also use Epox 8KTA3+ and AMD Palomino processor. Unfortunately, Epox 8KTA3+ only has one ISA slot.

Athlons aren't quite as underclockable as Pentium II and IIIs. For me, its best to stick with what you know.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:
Great Hierophant wrote:

Aureal SQ2500

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Aureal SQ2500 support EAX 2.0 as well? IIRC many sound cards support EAX 2.0 --it is EAX higher than 2.0 which is only supported by Creative.

The reason why I include both is because Aureal's EAX support isn't very good, Creative's A3D support is also limited.

I have also learned that Pentium IIs manufactured before August, 1998 are not multiplier locked. This means that a Pentium II 333 (the last such processor) can run reliably at any speed between 133-333.

Reply 7 of 13, by 5u3

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Great Hierophant wrote:
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:
Great Hierophant wrote:

Pentium III 1000GHz EB Slot 1
ASUS P3B-F

Alternatively, you can also use Epox 8KTA3+ and AMD Palomino processor. Unfortunately, Epox 8KTA3+ only has one ISA slot.

Athlons aren't quite as underclockable as Pentium II and IIIs. For me, its best to stick with what you know.

True, Athlons can't go below 500 MHz. But above that speed, Athlons are far more versatile than Pentiums, because their multipliers can be unlocked.
There is not much to gain from that flexibility, however, because games that run best at 500+ MHz usually don't misbehave running on much higher speeds.

On the other hand, a Socket A system could be more powerful for DOSBox. If you take a VIA KT133A board (as suggested by KAN), you can go as fast as ~1.5 GHz and still have an ISA slot available.

And last, but not least, Voodoo5 cards love powerful CPUs. They still gain performance above 1 GHz, especially with the unofficial new drivers written by the guys from 3dfxzone.
The V5 in my K6 machine is bored to death because of the sluggish FPU on the processor. 😉

Reply 8 of 13, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I have had some new thoughts on this subject, which I will share with you so I can sound all wise and brilliant.

First, with the help of a PowerLeap adapter, specifically the PL-iP3/T for the Pentium III Tulatin or the SlotWonder for the Pentium III Tulatin Celeron, you can support these processors in a BX system. 1.4GHz without any overclocking. It will require buying or finding the niche adapter, however. Also, the 133FSB speed is always an issue. However, with this processor, I would see using a video card up to and including Geforce 2 GTS/Ultra. As your Glide compatibility would suffer, you would have to make do with 2 Voodoo 2s in SLI configuration. Also, with a quick tweak to the Windows ini files, 1GB of SDRAM becomes feasible.

Another suggestion has been to use the i815e chipset instead of the venerable BX. The i815 has support for a 1/2 AGP divider and AGP 4x. It also supports ATA-6 for 48-bit LBA. This means that your hard drives are no longer limited to 127GB. With this chipset you still have a wide range of frequencies, from 266MHz (underclocking the PIII 533EB) to 1.4GHz. Unfortunately, you are limited to 512MB of SDRAM and may find it difficult to find a system with an ISA slot.

Finally, if you stick with the basic system I have described above, consider a P III at 1GHz with a 100MHz FSB. Although not quite as flexible an underclocker, you can still do 666Mhz at the 66FSB speed with its 10x multiplier. Of course, you should have a jumperless board, because the ASUS boards do not document multiplier settings above 8.0x.

Reply 9 of 13, by Dominus

User metadata
Rank DOSBox Moderator
Rank
DOSBox Moderator

I would see using a video card up to and including Geforce 2 GTS/Ultra

How is the VESA compatibility with newer cards? I think I read somewhere that it is no longer that great compared to old graphic cards...

Windows 3.1x guide for DOSBox
60 seconds guide to DOSBox
DOSBox SVN snapshot for macOS (10.4-11.x ppc/intel 32/64bit) notarized for gatekeeper

Reply 10 of 13, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I have heard nothing especially good about the Geforce 3 or higher models, and I would stay away from anything that supports pixel shaders, the games which use them are generally too demanding to run on this system.

I also forgot to mention that Pentium II 333 Deutsches or lower manufactured before August 1998 allow for multiplier underlocking. I would think think that a PII running at 133MHz would be slow enough for just about any game that requires a Pentium or a high-end 486.

Reply 11 of 13, by dvwjr

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Dominus wrote:

How is the VESA compatibility with newer cards? I think I read somewhere that it is no longer that great compared to old graphic cards...

I have not yet tested an 8xxx series card from NVidia, but the most all of the NVidia GeForce (non-motherboard integrated) video adapters from the 7950GT and below have very good VESA 3.0 (minus) 🤣 capability. The 'minus' is because of the mass market adoption of LCD screens and the release of VISTA, the post-GeForce 3 NVidia video adapters have received a reputation for being non-VESA compliant, especially under the Windows NTVDM environment.

The wide-spread adoption of LCD screens in the market caused the NVidia BIOS coders for the 5xxx, 6xxx and 7xxx series to do a sloppy job in implementing the video output register parameters for CRT screens. The positioning is off and the refresh rate is locked to around 60 Hz to ensure that most of the newer LCD screens do not give an 'out of range' error message as many would do with an 85Hz refresh rate. This helps avoid support issues, since even if there was an 85 Hz refresh rate option clearly marked for CRTs only, the zombies with LCDs out there would find a way to improperly select this CRT only option and cause grief for the technical support organizations. The LCD screen user see none of these problems and thinks that all is well in their 60 Hz world... 😒

The NVidia BIOS coders removed sections of BIOS code so that the CRT users can no longer use the VESA 3.0 Int10h call enhacements to function 4F02h to set the VESA VBE CRTC Information Block parameters, ncluding the desired refresh rate. This means the VESA utility programs such as VBEPlus and UniRefresh will no longer work in DOS, much less the NTVDM environment.

The release of VISTA and the deprecated support for Int10h calls in the VISTA kernel means that the NVidia (and others) video BIOS coders placed some BIOS level 'protection' in the latest BIOS versions to protect VISTA 32-bit from any full-screen NTVDM occurance. A side effect of this VISTA 32-bit video BIOS protection is to cause problems with the WinXP (SP2) users who get new NVidia cards or who update their video BIOS. The problem that they get is a failure to go into full-screen NTVDM session in any plain IBM VGA or VESA graphics mode with a Windows popup message such as this:

The NTVDM CPU has encounterd an illegal instruction
CS;c000 IP:d0d9 OP:c6 6c 38 0c c6 Choose 'Close' to terminate application

When I shifted from an Leaktek 6600GT to a BFG 7950GT I ran into the problem and had to fix the VGA.SYS for WinXP (SP2). Now all VESA 1.2 modes plus the NVida specific VESA mode 152h (2048x1536x32bpp) work just fine in an NTVDM session.

Hope this helps,

dvwjr

Reply 12 of 13, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

That is encouraging, especially as I am focusing on cards that have a VGA connector, not a DVI connector. With this new knowledge, I see no real drawback in having hardware T&L support for DirectX 7 titles. The Voodoo 2 cards represented, I think, the pinnacle of the development of Glide. Little is gained going to the Voodoo 3 or the Voodoo 5 in Glide territory. The RIVA/Geforce 2D should be no slouch, and the relatively high speed of this machine should compensate.

Reply 13 of 13, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Well, Voodoo3 and Voodoo5 give you better image quality. Especially on the 2D side of things because not only do you not need the pass-through, but V3 and V5 are excellent 2D cards. Voodoo5 also has anti-aliasing for Glide games if you want that, which is quite nice. Voodoo5 also can do 32-bit color for D3D and OpenGL.