I have a few questions about it.
Can I run DOS 6.22 on it ?

Of course.

Can I install both ISA and PCI cards in DOS ? (As long as there is a DOS driver, I should be fine, right ?)

Of course.

Should I install Windows 95 or 98 on it ?

It's up you, but I would.

Which sound card would be the best for this machine ?

It's a personal choice. An ISA Sound Blaster (16?) with a wavetable daughterboard might be a common suggestion though.

Thanks for helping me :p

I was wondering, is it possible to dual boot Dos 6.22 and Windows 98 ?
I know Win 98 does have a higher version of DOS but I read somewhere that Dos 6.22 was better for Dos games.
How would I dual boot them, if it's doable ?

Yes it's possible, and there are many different ways. I use this:

http://www.masterbooter.com/main/features_en.html

Go for 98SE if your board has USB, you'll be able to install 3rd party mass storage drivers on there. (i.e. USB drive usage)

Just save yourself heaps of trouble and just install Windows 98SE.

vetz wrote:

Just save yourself heaps of trouble and just install Windows 98SE.

Along with the unofficial service pack 2.1a and USB mass storage drivers... Win98SE works like a charm on my PIII (soon to be 'Tualeron') system 😀.

Yes, you really can't beat Win98SE for a bridge between the past and present. It's got USB support, widespread support for wireless cards and plenty of still-useful applications that will run. And DOS 7 will run 99% of whatever DOS games and programs you throw at it. The only aggravation is that it won't install to a FAT32 partition; you have to convert it afterward. Better look into partition resizers.

bucket wrote:

The only aggravation is that it won't install to a FAT32 partition; you have to convert it afterward. Better look into partition resizers.

I've never had that aggravation. I've always been able to install Win95C and Win98SE directly to Fat32 from a Win95c or Win98se startup diskette.

leileilol wrote:

bucket wrote:

The only aggravation is that it won't install to a FAT32 partition; you have to convert it afterward. Better look into partition resizers.

I've never had that aggravation. I've always been able to install Win95C and Win98SE directly to Fat32 from a Win95c or Win98se startup diskette.

I use a WinME boot disk to create partitions and format drives larger than 32GB with my Win98SE PIII rig. It works perfectly 😀. I don't think i've ever had any issues installing Win98 onto a FAT32 formatted drive.

MrTimscampi wrote:

Can I install both ISA and PCI cards in DOS ? (As long as there is a DOS driver, I should be fine, right ?)

It is widely acknowledged that ISA sound cards are generally superior to PCI sound cards, but you can definitely use older PCI sound cards (like the Sound Blaster Live) on a Pentium II in DOS without any technical problems. Exactly which sound card you should get depends on whether you plan to be running mostly Windows games or mostly older DOS games.

By the way, that Voodoo2 is probably going to easily outperform the ATI 3D Rage Pro in every case.

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Along with the unofficial service pack 2.1a

Hmm. Is there some reason you would recommend that over the unofficial 3.18 service pack?
http://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/61749-98-se-sp-318/

bucket wrote:

The only aggravation is that it won't install to a FAT32 partition

Indeed, Windows 98 installs just fine on a FAT32 partition. MS-DOS 6.22 and the first versions of Windows 95 will never boot from a FAT32 partition, but there really isn't much reason to have those around if Windows 98 is available.

Jorpho wrote:

It is widely acknowledged that ISA sound cards are generally superior to PCI sound cards

I didn't know that 😖. I know they're obviously better when it comes to DOS compatibility, but what else?

Jorpho wrote:

Hmm. Is there some reason you would recommend that over the unofficial 3.18 service pack? http://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/ http: […]
Show full quote

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Along with the unofficial service pack 2.1a

Hmm. Is there some reason you would recommend that over the unofficial 3.18 service pack?
http://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/61749-98-se-sp-318/

I didn't even know that version existed 😳. Is it created by the same guy and can it be installed over SP2 2.1a?

PowerPie5000 wrote:

I didn't know that 😖. I know they're obviously better when it comes to DOS compatibility, but what else?

Simply put, the MIDI on the SB Live and suchlike is terrible. I had no idea just how bad it was until I compared it myself. Check out the samples I posted at Trying to find out about a particular AWE32 .

It might just be a matter of loading up the right soundfont, though.

Jorpho wrote:

Hmm. Is there some reason you would recommend that over the unofficial 3.18 service pack?
http://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/61749-98-se-sp-318/

I didn't even know that version existed 😳. Is it created by the same guy and can it be installed over SP2 2.1a?

There are so many different unofficial service packs flying around it is very difficult to keep them straight, but this one seems to be the most actively updated lately. Mixing two different packs together might not be a good idea.

Well, on some PCI cards you can install wavetable daughterboards and others indeed have good onboard MIDI like the Yamaha YMF724 series. The problem lies more within SB compatibility if you don't have a SB-Link card imo...

d1stortion wrote:

Well, on some PCI cards you can install wavetable daughterboards and others indeed have good onboard MIDI like the Yamaha YMF724 series. The problem lies more within SB compatibility if you don't have a SB-Link card imo...

The midi on my Yamaha YMF724 sounds pretty good to me and i'm lucky enough to still have a 440BX board with an SB-link connector. An SB-link PCI sound card and motherboard gives the best DOS compatibility when it comes to PCI sound cards (i've had no issues yet).

Win9x sits on top of DOS 7. You can configure it to boot to a DOS prompt instead of loading Windows, and then play DOS games on it.

There's a way to create boot menus in later DOS versions (including DOS 7) that let you set up different paths through config.sys and autoexec.bat so that you can load DOS drivers in DOS mode while still having a "clean" Win9x mode. I used to do this back in the Win9x days.

ISA sound cards are optimal for DOS because DOS games were mostly written (and optimized) for ISA sound cards. They suck for DirectX games, though, because ISA doesn't have the bandwidth to do near-real-time sound mixing without using a fair amount of CPU.

If you want the best of both worlds, you can probably put both an ISA and a PCI card in at the same time. You would then want to disable the DOS emulation of the PCI card in both DOS and Windows, and set the PCI card as the default Windows sound device. You could even daisy chain the sound outputs together by running the L/R output of the PCI card through the Line In of the ISA card, and then setting the ISA card to monitor the Line In.

My PII-450 started out with an SB PCI128 in it (which was basically a re-branded Ensoniq card) and Win98SE, and ended up as a PIII-550 with an SB Live! X-Gamer and Win2k. I came to VOGONS over a decade ago to get help with VDMSound, which was basically an ISA sound card emulator for Win2k's Command Prompt 😀

From my testing (I made a thread on this once) I think the "ISA sound sucks for Windows" thing is mostly a myth when you leave 3D sound out of the equation. Which Win9x games did have an option to mix everything in hardware, and more importantly, which were totally dependant on it? The difference might be perhaps more noticeable on really slow CPUs, but today one probably wouldn't play most Win9x games on those anyway...

PowerPie5000 wrote:

I use a WinME boot disk to create partitions and format drives larger than 32GB with my Win98SE PIII rig.

Most large hard drives (32gb+) then came with a proprietary bootdisk with special tools to allow the large partitions by the way.

I personally wouldn't use those 'unofficial' service packs. Many packs come with strange fan cruft.

PowerPie5000 wrote:

leileilol wrote:

bucket wrote:

The only aggravation is that it won't install to a FAT32 partition; you have to convert it afterward. Better look into partition resizers.

I've never had that aggravation. I've always been able to install Win95C and Win98SE directly to Fat32 from a Win95c or Win98se startup diskette.

I use a WinME boot disk to create partitions and format drives larger than 32GB with my Win98SE PIII rig. It works perfectly 😀. I don't think i've ever had any issues installing Win98 onto a FAT32 formatted drive.

Strange. I have a MSDN CD with 98SE/ME on it. It won't let me install unless it recognizes a DOS partition. I suppose it might be different if you have an install floppy that came with the disc...

Wow, thanks everyone for the input 😁
Learned quite a bit from all your posts ^^
I have a Sound Blaster 128 somewhere, I'm thinking of using that as a PCI sound card.
In the future, I might put a Gravis Ultrasound as support for DOS games.

I'll go with Windows 98SE, as I remembered being able to run DOS games like Duke 3D, Redneck Rampage and such back in the day.

I still need to pick up a hard drive and a case for the thing. I'm thinking a 20gb drive should be enough.

Again, thank you all for all the answers 😁