Hudson187 wrote:

If I went with a faster CPU (P3/700, Athlon XP1500), how would Windows 98SE/DOS react?

The OS has no particular problems at those speeds.

How would DOS games react -- would they play too fast?

That depends entirely on what exactly you want to play. There's no shortage of things for which a P2/400 is already much, much too fast, but if you don't want to play them, there's no point in worrying about them.

That depends entirely on what exactly you want to play. There's no shortage of things for which a P2/400 is already much, much too fast, but if you don't want to play them, there's no point in worrying about them.

DOS games I would be playing:

Command and Conquer and Red Alert
Wing Commander 1/2/3/4
Descent 1/2
Any BUILD engine game (Duke, Shadow Warrior, Blood, etc)
Rise of the Triad
Doom 1/2
LucasArts games (Floppy and CD versions of X-Wing/Tie Fighter, Dark Forces, etc)
The Bethesda "Terminator" games (Future Shock, etc)
Some Warhammer 40K games
Games I've never played such as Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Abrams, LHX, A10 Tank Killer, etc.

I may also like to mess around with some games that were on 5 1/2 floppies, not really sure what, but I suppose anything that would tickle my fancy. Games like that may require a separate system though, maybe a P90 system?

Hudson187 wrote:

I may also like to mess around with some games that were on 5 1/2 floppies, not really sure what, but I suppose anything that would tickle my fancy. Games like that may require a separate system though, maybe a P90 system?

Even a P90 would be way too fast. At that point you'd have to start using tricks like disabling the CPU cache in the BIOS or using slowdown programs, unless you have a computer with a hardware turbo switch. It makes vastly more sense just to use DOSBox, really. (Yes, nostalgia is all well and good, but there are a lot of games on 5.25" floppies that really aren't worth spending more than a few minutes with – especially since other platforms like the C64 often offered the same games with considerably better quality.)

Even a P90 would be way too fast. At that point you'd have to start using tricks like disabling the CPU cache in the BIOS or using slowdown programs, unless you have a computer with a hardware turbo switch. It makes vastly more sense just to use DOSBox, really. (Yes, nostalgia is all well and good, but there are a lot of games on 5.25" floppies that really aren't worth spending more than a few minutes with – especially since other platforms like the C64 often offered the same games with considerably better quality.)

Sounds good -- I can use DOSbox for 5.25" floppy games on my current PC.

I am still interested in building a box for DOS/Win98 games from 1987 - 2002. The sound card is what I am battling with now...

Secure that shit, Hudson. Get a 486 going, it'd cover that range better than Pentiums would.

Secure that shit, Hudson. Get a 486 going, it'd cover that range better than Pentiums would.

Yes Sir! 🤣!

But really, I am back and forth on a second system for DOS based games. Think a P60 would fair slightly better than a true 486?

I think I'm going to go for a Athlon XP 1500+ with a Geforce 4TI series and VooDoo 2 SLI for Glide games, MX300 or SB Audigy for sound... all running Windows 98SE. Can't wait to play me some Wing Commander Prophecy and Freespace 2! Any suggestions?

Hudson187 wrote:

But really, I am back and forth on a second system for DOS based games. Think a P60 would fair slightly better than a true 486?

It all depends on exactly what you want to do! If you're dead set on using PCI cards, a 486 would probably be a bad idea.

Hudson187 wrote:

I think I'm going to go for a Athlon XP 1500+ with a Geforce 4TI series and VooDoo 2 SLI for Glide games, MX300 or SB Audigy for sound... all running Windows 98SE. Can't wait to play me some Wing Commander Prophecy and Freespace 2! Any suggestions?

A Geforce 4 TI would be huge overkill for the games you're talking about. In fact, as most of the ones you referred to are not Glide games, the Voodoo wouldn't be very useful either. There's no point in bothering with SLI if you're not going to get much use out of it.

The Audigy isn't such a bad idea, but the DOS drivers for SB PCI cards require an expanded memory manager. If you plan to run games that have problems with expanded memory managers, that may be a consideration – but there really aren't many games with that problem.

To reiterate, I would be building two boxes, one for DOS only games and one for 1997 - 2002 Win98 based games.

My 98 box would be the Athlon XP system and the VooDoo2 cards would be for Windows based Glide games (Carmageddon 2, WC: Prophecy, Turok 1/2, etc). This system would have either a MX300 or Audigy sound card.

Then, I would build a DOS only box, based on a P90 (maybe?). I need suggestions on a sound card (preferably with the DB50XG daughter-card).

I had Athlon CPU on one of mine PCs, I've had too many problems with 3DFX games, so I had to replace it with P3.
In my opinion P3 500 is very slow to play BUILD engine games on HiRes. In my primary rig P3 1GHz I still want something faster for those games.
For the sound card I would recommend AWE64 Gold because of its clear sound, and use external Yamaha MU10 or MU50 for MIDI.

So, I've been testing out my XP 1500+ box with SLI Voodoo2 and a GF4MX -- so far it plays everything rather well. But, I have issues with one game -- Mechwarrior 2 3DFX edition. I've tried the Voodoo2 bat fix, however that results in either system crashes or major artifacts. I was considering picking up a Voodoo 1 card; my question is can I have both a Voodoo 1 card and Voodoo2 SLI in the same box?

Voodoos don't use any IRQs, so in theory they should work -- but you might have to change their memory addresses, since they might overlap. I wouldn't know about how to make the driver control panels get along, or how to choose which adapter to use in a game.

I recommended a 486 with the thought of a late-model board with PCI slots, and a fast CPU like an AM5x86-133. It would be great for pre-1997 DOS games. It competes well with the P60, and it can be slowed down to almost nothing for playing those super-retro games that timed themselves against the CPU clock instead of the RTC.

Oh, you mentioned you have a GF4MX -- those work on 486 motherboards with PCI slots, I can confirm. You just need to pick an older driver set. DX7 is the best you'll be able to do with a 486 under Windows 98SE. DX8 says it requires a Pentium.

McMick wrote:

Secure that shit, Hudson.

🤣 awesome!

So, for a DOS/Win95 system I picked up a old P200 Pionex computer at a Flea market for $10! Still not sure if it works, but it has 4 PCI and 3 ISA along with some sound card with a ESS 1868F audio drive chipset. I was wondering -- what is the best ISA sound card I can put in there coupled with a DB50XG daughter-card? Or, should I put a MX300 with the DB50XG? Keep in mind, this is only for DOS/Win95 gaming... maybe a little 3dfx Voodoo 1 stuff. I'm making another system for strictly for Win9x games.

I will take a photo of the sound card tomorrow and post.

Thanks!