You need a Voodoo card in there so you can run some of those games in Glide mode. Maybe a Voodoo2. Voodoo3 would be best but I don't know how many old glide games would run correctly.

swaaye wrote:

You need a Voodoo card in there so you can run some of those games in Glide mode. Maybe a Voodoo2. Voodoo3 would be best but I don't know how many old glide games would run correctly.

Which Voodoo card is best? I'm wary of their lack of any T&L whatsoever, but hey, this is a LEGACY gaming machine...

I don't like the idea of having to sacrifice either my USB ports or my SB Live! Value for a V2 SLI setup-something that a single V3 AGP surpasses, from what I hear. Heck, a single V5500 PCI can't hold up to the V3 AGP! To top it all off, the mobo lacks an AGP slot.

Know a place which has the one that would complement my PC best & sells it for a reasonable price(in other words, under $100, maybe even under $50 even!)?

You'd need a regular 2D video card in order to have a Voodoo2, since they had no 2D blit modes or any 2D support at all. Your onboard video probably doesn't have a sync header, so you'd need to actually replace *2* cards for a Voodoo2. Too bad a Voodoo3, like swaaye pointed out, may not run some of the stuff it should. (Also those fucking things get HOT!! Probably 150C at the core, based on how hot their heatsinks get!!)

Yep Voodo2 SLI BABY. Can be dumbed down for OLD glide games to act as a voodoo 1.

Snover wrote:

You'd need a regular 2D video card in order to have a Voodoo2, since they had no 2D blit modes or any 2D support at all. Your onboard video probably doesn't have a sync header, so you'd need to actually replace *2* cards for a Voodoo2. Too bad a Voodoo3, like swaaye pointed out, may not run some of the stuff it should. (Also those fucking things get HOT!! Probably 150C at the core, based on how hot their heatsinks get!!)

That means I get to lose my USB ports AND my SB Live! Value? Guess I better put those 2 ISA slots to use then. I wonder if downgrading to an SB16 ISA is worth it...

Or should I just persuade my friend to let me swap mobos with him so that I'll finally have an AGP slot?

BTW, last time I checked, the SiS 530 only had support for DirectDraw 1.0. Ouch. No wonder loading even 2D images can be so slow!

Finally, what about the other Voodoo cards-or are the V2 & the V3 the only ones worth getting in the series? I don't think the case has room for a V5500...

Remember you're building a retro-rig. We don't need AGP or USB.

Get a Voodoo2 12MB PCI. You can use your onboard video with that since Voodoo2's use a pass-thru cable. You hook your monitor to the Voodoo2 and then a small cable goes from the Voodoo2's other VGA port to the VGA out of your mobo.

You also probably want a ISA sound card as PCI sound cards generally suck terribly for DOS. And old Win95 games weren't designed around any fancy DirectSound hardware acceleration anyway. A Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold ISA would be very nice.

USB is terrible for DOS. Getting USB keyboards and mice to work is a pain in the ass. Go PS/2 ports. Use your USB->PS2 adapter for the mouse (it should've come with one).

The SiS530 should be ok for DOS I think. It depends on whether it has decent VESA 2.0 support (which is questionable I suppose cuz SiS rarely does anything right). I messed with a SiS530 back in the day and I couldn't even get it to run GLQuake playably. It's bad stuff. I doubt its 2D is even all that decent.

So, you may want to ditch that mobo and find something with an Intel chipset, like i430HX (EDO RAM) or i430TX (SDRAM)...stay away from 430VX and 430FX cuz they aren't the best of the bunch. In the Pentium days basically only Intel chipsets didn't suck. A K6 will definitely work in a TX board (not absolutely certain about HX). And with one of these boards you'll have more PCI slots and not have garbage integrated video.

The ideal DOS VGA card would probably be a Matrox Millenium or Matrox Mystique. Get a 8MB version if possible, otherwise at least 4MB. They were the best cards of their time and have great DOS support and Windows speed and clarity. An excellent pairing with a Voodoo2.

swaaye wrote:

Remember you're building a retro-rig. We don't need AGP or USB. […]
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Remember you're building a retro-rig. We don't need AGP or USB.

Get a Voodoo2 12MB PCI. You can use your onboard video with that since Voodoo2's use a pass-thru cable. You hook your monitor to the Voodoo2 and then a small cable goes from the Voodoo2's other VGA port to the VGA out of your mobo.

You also probably want a ISA sound card as PCI sound cards generally suck terribly for DOS. And old Win95 games weren't designed around any fancy DirectSound hardware acceleration anyway. A Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold ISA would be very nice.

USB is terrible for DOS. Getting USB keyboards and mice to work is a pain in the ass. Go PS/2 ports. Use your USB->PS2 adapter for the mouse (it should've come with one).

The SiS530 should be ok for DOS I think. It depends on whether it has decent VESA 2.0 support (which is questionable I suppose cuz SiS rarely does anything right). I messed with a SiS530 back in the day and I couldn't even get it to run GLQuake playably. It's bad stuff. I doubt its 2D is even all that decent.

So, you may want to ditch that mobo and find something with an Intel chipset, like i430HX (EDO RAM) or i430TX (SDRAM)...stay away from 430VX and 430FX cuz they aren't the best of the bunch. In the Pentium days basically only Intel chipsets didn't suck. A K6 will definitely work in a TX board (not absolutely certain about HX). And with one of these boards you'll have more PCI slots and not have garbage integrated video.

The ideal DOS VGA card would probably be a Matrox Millenium or Matrox Mystique. Get a 8MB version if possible, otherwise at least 4MB. They were the best cards of their time and have great DOS support and Windows speed and clarity. An excellent pairing with a Voodoo2.

AWE64 Gold? My friend has one(he's also the one with the Socket 7 mobo w/AGP slot), but I think it's a PCI model. Also, I hear the AWE series has some disadvantages compared to the classic SB16. I don't see the problem, though, as my SB Live! Value seems to work quite well already. And another thing-I keep hearing things about daughtercards-what are they for?

My keyboard port uses a round port larger than PS/2, and my mouse is native PS/2, so that's not a problem. The problem, though, is that my Saitek Cyborg 3D Gold & my Logitech WingMan Formula GP are both USB controllers. I guess that's reason enough to invest in the original Thrustmaster FCS HOTAS for legacy games, complete with pedals-MW2: Mercs might just benefit from it. And about AGP-are you sure that I don't need a Voodoo 3 instead of a Voodoo 2?

Trust me when I say even an ATI Xpert 98 PCI is much better than an SiS 530. This integrated chipset can't even keep the video in sync with the sound of an anime episode, and that's just 2D work!

Finally, if I am to get a new mobo, be aware that it has to be compatible with an AT case. My current mobo has 2 ISA slots(1 free)& 3 PCI slots(1 free). An Ethernet card(for networking & Internet access)& the SB Live! Value take up the PCI slots-I moved my PS/2 & USB ports to another slot location not over a PCI slot. Therefore, if I want V2 SLI, I just have to dump the SB Live! Value & settle for integrated audio(if I don't have some sort of ISA sound card yet).

Anyway, it looks like I have all the information I need to make this into a decent gaming PC. It just might make every game made in its era run decently...except for Unreal Tournament(which problably begs for a more powerful CPU-K6-3 500 anyone?)

EDIT: I did some research on the V2 & the V3 PCI. It turns out there's some very mixed results with the V3 2000, V3 3000 & V2 SLI, but all should work fine-besides, a V3 3000 PCI should give similar performance with the additional benefit of less space taken(1 card instead of 2, plus 2D support, maybe?). Is it worth upgrading to a V3 card or should I stick with the V2 SLI recommendation?

NamelessPlayer wrote:

AWE64 Gold? My friend has one(he's also the one with the Socket 7 mobo w/AGP slot), but I think it's a PCI model. Also, I hear the AWE series has some disadvantages compared to the classic SB16. I don't see the problem, though, as my SB Live! Value seems to work quite well already. And another thing-I keep hearing things about daughtercards-what are they for?

Well a AWE64/AWE32/SB32 really IS just a SB16 with some EMU wavetable chips added on. They all use the same Windows drivers, with some additions for the wavetable-equipped cards. Sound Blaster was the gold standard thru most of the '90s; almost every game supports them. REAL old games, like late '80s/early '90s may need a SB PRO for compatibility reasons though, cuz SB16's SBPRO and SB-classic support isn't perfect believe it or not.

Also, ISA cards are simply by far the best for DOS. The Live should work ok though, for digital sound only. But midi will be far better off with a ISA card with hardware midi capabilities (like AWE). Or you could get a full-blown DOS MIDI ISA card like the Yamaha SWXG cards (SWXG-60 is a good one) or even a Roland SCC-1 sound canvas (most games developers used this to compose their game music back in the day)

Daughtercards are little addon boards for sound cards with a Waveblaster header. Waveblaster is a bad Creative daughtercard that basically created the daughtercard market, because all the other manufacturers used the waveblaster connector for their cards. The best of the daughtercards are Roland's SCD-10 and SCD-15. You need to attach these to a ISA sound card to be able to use them in DOS (so say a PCI Aureal Vortex card with a waveblaster connector probably won't work for DOS stuff, you won't be able to access the thing)

NamelessPlayer wrote:

My keyboard port uses a round port larger than PS/2, and my mouse is native PS/2, so that's not a problem. The problem, though, is that my Saitek Cyborg 3D Gold & my Logitech WingMan Formula GP are both USB controllers. I guess that's reason enough to invest in the original Thrustmaster FCS HOTAS for legacy games, complete with pedals-MW2: Mercs might just benefit from it. And about AGP-are you sure that I don't need a Voodoo 3 instead of a Voodoo 2?

That keyboard connector is the old AT syle DIN. It's fine. You can get adapters for PS/2 keyboards to that thinger.

For DOS games you are going to need to get a joystick with a plain gameport connector. Anything else is probably a hopeless cause. Even if there is some magical driver out there, DOS games are unlikely to work well cuz DOS games didn't always work well with plain gameports!

NamelessPlayer wrote:

Trust me when I say even an ATI Xpert 98 PCI is much better than an SiS 530. This integrated chipset can't even keep the video in sync with the sound of an anime episode, and that's just 2D work!

No doubt. SiS graphics cards always are poor. Even today. 😀

NamelessPlayer wrote:

Finally, if I am to get a new mobo, be aware that it has to be compatible with an AT case. My current mobo has 2 ISA slots(1 free)& 3 PCI slots(1 free). An Ethernet card(for networking & Internet access)& the SB Live! Value take up the PCI slots-I moved my PS/2 & USB ports to another slot location not over a PCI slot. Therefore, if I want V2 SLI, I just have to dump the SB Live! Value & settle for integrated audio(if I don't have some sort of ISA sound card yet).

I'd try a PCI Voodoo3. Voodoo3s rock for 2D too. They have just an excellent 128-bit VGA core and Windows accelerator. The slowest Voodoo3 (2000) is a bit faster than Voodoo2 SLI.

Or just 1 Voodoo2. Honestly, DOS-only games do not need more than a single Voodoo2. A Voodoo1 would probably be adequate, and even may work better since even Voodoo2 has some compatibility issues with very old Glide games. Though there are probably workarounds out there.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

Anyway, it looks like I have all the information I need to make this into a decent gaming PC. It just might make every game made in its era run decently...except for Unreal Tournament(which problably begs for a more powerful CPU-K6-3 500 anyone?)

I have a K6-III+ running at 500 and it struggles a bit with UT. K6's are crippled by the Socket 7 architecture (terrible memory performance) and by their own FPU inadequacies. Athlon or P3 is God at UT compared to any K6.
And, 🤣, a P3 or Athlon is likely to be cheaper than a K6-III cuz people are collecting them and they are rare, especially the + mobile versions that are quite overclockable (~600Mhz usually).

But UT and Unreal are definitely games where a Voodoo card is BY FAR the best choice because the engine was designed for Glide and then they wrapped D3D and OpenGL on top. Voodoos are especially best if your CPU is overworked cuz Glide has far less CPU overhead than D3D.

UT isn't retro-enough for a retro rig 😀 You should be looking to play some DOS Carmageddon-1 in Glide Mode! Or original Tomb Raider.....or maybe Forsaken. Or Quake 1! 😈

swaaye wrote:

Well a AWE64/AWE32/SB32 really IS just a SB16 with some EMU wavetable chips added on. They all use the same Windows drivers, with some additions for the wavetable-equipped cards. Sound Blaster was the gold standard thru most of the '90s; almost every game supports them. REAL old games, like late '80s/early '90s may need a SB PRO for compatibility reasons though, cuz SB16's SBPRO and SB-classic support isn't perfect believe it or not.

Also, ISA cards are simply by far the best for DOS. The Live should work ok though, for digital sound only. But midi will be far better off with a ISA card with hardware midi capabilities (like AWE). Or you could get a full-blown DOS MIDI ISA card like the Yamaha SWXG cards (SWXG-60 is a good one) or even a Roland SCC-1 sound canvas (most games developers used this to compose their game music back in the day)

Daughtercards are little addon boards for sound cards with a Waveblaster header. Waveblaster is a bad Creative daughtercard that basically created the daughtercard market, because all the other manufacturers used the waveblaster connector for their cards. The best of the daughtercards are Roland's SCD-10 and SCD-15. You need to attach these to a ISA sound card to be able to use them in DOS (so say a PCI Aureal Vortex card with a waveblaster connector probably won't work for DOS stuff, you won't be able to access the thing)

So SB Pro, SB 16 & SB AWE-series cards are among the best for compatibility, and that daughterboards are just upgrades like an extra RAM stick or graphics card to the PC overall?

That keyboard connector is the old AT syle DIN. It's fine. You can get adapters for PS/2 keyboards to that thinger.

For DOS games you are going to need to get a joystick with a plain gameport connector. Anything else is probably a hopeless cause. Even if there is some magical driver out there, DOS games are unlikely to work well cuz DOS games didn't always work well with plain gameports!

So that means that I should persuade my dad to ship the MS Sidewinder 3D Pro once he gets back from the Philippines over here for the best possible compatibility? Or should I go ahead & find that TM PFCS/WCS Mk. II/RCS combo for overkill while retaining compatibility?

I'd try a PCI Voodoo3. Voodoo3s rock for 2D too. They have just an excellent 128-bit VGA core and Windows accelerator. The slowest Voodoo3 (2000) is a bit faster than Voodoo2 SLI.

Or just 1 Voodoo2. Honestly, DOS-only games do not need more than a single Voodoo2. A Voodoo1 would probably be adequate, and even may work better since even Voodoo2 has some compatibility issues with very old Glide games. Though there are probably workarounds out there.

I have a single 12 MB Voodoo 2 shipping already. I decided to be a bit cheap because 2 of them would've cost $90 with S&H(UPS Ground), which is priced too close to the far-superior ATI Radeon 9600 XT right now(at least tech-wise). Besides, I don't think many old games besides MW2: Mercs run up to 1024x768 anyway(the whole reason for going V2 SLI).

I have a K6-III+ running at 500 and it struggles a bit with UT. K6's are crippled by the Socket 7 architecture (terrible memory […]
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I have a K6-III+ running at 500 and it struggles a bit with UT. K6's are crippled by the Socket 7 architecture (terrible memory performance) and by their own FPU inadequacies. Athlon or P3 is God at UT compared to any K6.
And, 🤣, a P3 or Athlon is likely to be cheaper than a K6-III cuz people are collecting them and they are rare, especially the + mobile versions that are quite overclockable (~600Mhz usually).

But UT and Unreal are definitely games where a Voodoo card is BY FAR the best choice because the engine was designed for Glide and then they wrapped D3D and OpenGL on top. Voodoos are especially best if your CPU is overworked cuz Glide has far less CPU overhead than D3D.

UT isn't retro-enough for a retro rig 😀 You should be looking to play some DOS Carmageddon-1 in Glide Mode! Or original Tomb Raider.....or maybe Forsaken. Or Quake 1! 😈

I have those covered...both Carma & the Splat Pack, and Quake(which won't run right on the family PC for some reason unless I use one of those spiffy source ports like Telejano-and then I lose networking compatibility.). I have Tomb Raider games 2 & 3, but not the original. I haven't played Forsaken, but I've seen it in action & heard the PC version came bundled with a Spacetec SpaceOrb 360°. Speaking of that controller, do you know a place where I can find something like it? 6-DOF games like Descent could benefit from such a controller quite well.

Daughtercards for sound cards just give you wavetable midi. Some have effects processors for Chorus, Reverb, Spatial effects to add to the midi. Some of them really suck (Creative Waveblaster) and some are awesome (Roland SCD's). Hard to find.

Sound Blaster cards are by FAR the most compatible card for DOS games. Remember all the nonsense back in the mid'90s about having Sound Blaster compatiblity? Well, if your sound card lacked SB compatibility, you were not going to sell any

I dunno what joystick you should go with. I still have my old favorite, the CH Flightstick, for DOS games. I've had that sucker since 1992. I've never used a Spaceorb 360. A LONG time ago I had a friend with one and I think he liked it a lot for Descent, but I think I also recall bad reviews. I can only think of eBay as a source for them these days. I played Descent 1/2 with a keyboard 😀

BTW, there are some accelerated versions of Descent. Virge, Glide and PowerVR I believe Heh Heh.

Voodoo2 should work out well for ya. Check out http://www.falconfly.de for a lot of good downloads and info.

swaaye wrote:

Daughtercards for sound cards just give you wavetable midi. Some have effects processors for Chorus, Reverb, Spatial effects to add to the midi. Some of them really suck (Creative Waveblaster) and some are awesome (Roland SCD's). Hard to find.

Wavetable MIDI? How is that good? Is it like going from software sound to hardware sound, only in this case dedicated to MIDI?

Sound Blaster cards are by FAR the most compatible card for DOS games. Remember all the nonsense back in the mid'90s about having Sound Blaster compatiblity? Well, if your sound card lacked SB compatibility, you were not going to sell any.

Oh, yeah-sure, I may have been but a child in the 90's, but I know about how Creative Labs set the standard back then.

I dunno what joystick you should go with. I still have my old favorite, the CH Flightstick, for DOS games. I've had that sucker since 1992. I've never used a Spaceorb 360. A LONG time ago I had a friend with one and I think he liked it a lot for Descent, but I think I also recall bad reviews. I can only think of eBay as a source for them these days. I played Descent 1/2 with a keyboard 😀

I'm not asking for precisely a SpaceOrb 360°, just something like it. I know that Spacetec made other 6-axis peripherals that were controlled with orbs(one with a LOT of buttons), but they don't seem as ergonomic as the SpaceOrb 360°. What I'm looking for is a 6-axis controller that's not too hard to use(for example, a Dual Shock 2 controller wouldn't work even with 2 axes to an analog stick each & 1 axis for each pair of analog triggers)-preferably so that I can control all of the axes with 1 hand & have a bunch of buttons ready to be used by the other. Of course, that doesn't mean I would forego getting a CH or TM classic HOTAS...

BTW, there are some accelerated versions of Descent. Virge, Glide and PowerVR I believe Heh Heh.

I have a 3D-accelerated version of Descent II(as well as Destruction Derby on the same CD)-for the Diamond Stealth 3D, that is. What REALLY sucks is that those games want THAT EXACT CARD, which I don't have, and therefore I can't play them.

Voodoo2 should work out well for ya. Check out http://www.falconfly.de for a lot of good downloads and info.

Thanks for the link!

Wavetable MIDI? How is that good? Is it like going from software sound to hardware sound, only in this case dedicated to MIDI?

For practical purposes,
Non-wavetable MIDI = AdLib (OPL, or FM Synthesis; sounds made out of waveform generators)
Wavetable MIDI = Wavetable Synthesis (sounds made out of recordings of actual instruments)

Okay, so my Voodoo 2 just arrived. OEM, but the card itself looks brand-new-the bag hadn't even been opened! Then, I realize that only 1 of the 3 PCI slots won't be blocked by the K6-2 HSF, so I move my Ethernet card that's residing in that slot. I boot...only to realize that my HDD power cord is becoming as unreliable as my CD drive cord(prone to failure from slight movements).

On top of that, the vendor was stupid enough to ship it WITHOUT a passthrough VGA cable, so I have to keep it plugged into that damn SiS 530. All this on top of the fact that my Ethernet card isn't being detected, so I can't go online or play LAN games. I tried adjusting the card to fit in the socket, and while it seems snug, the drivers STILL won't detect it-so I reinstall them.

At least the family PC is back online, so I can play newer games without too much hassle.

Oh, wait-I forgot that the network kinda went with the format. I'm going to try & fix that & see what happens-but then again, THE ETHERNET CARD ISN'T BEING DETECTED, so that may not be the case.

I wonder if they sell VGA passthrough cables, or if I'm just going to have to splice my own somehow...

EDIT: I just got it in a little tighter. PCI slots are REALLY anal-retentive(wait a minute...that's not physically possible, but that's not the point)when it comes to having hardware inserted in them.

Right, with my Legacy PC, I had to go with an ISA 3com NIC. I did not have enough PCI slots. Dual VooDoo Cards, Matrox Millenium, and an Encore Dxr2 DVD decoder board took up the 4 slots I had.

Okay, I have a HUGE problem now that the V2 is installed in Win98.

Well, two actually.

First, to re-install the Ethernet card drivers, I have to have the Win98 SE CD. Well, guess what? I don't have it. My dad problably kept it.

Second, there's the fact that the SB Live! Value stopped functioning under Win98 as well. This means no sound for my finally-running-properly copy of MW2: Mercs 1.1!(Now if I was just given the passthrough, I wouldn't have to keep re-plugging the VGA monitor cable...)I guess this is part of the reason to dig up an old SB-series ISA card.

Strangely, Win2000 has none of those problems, and I DON'T HAVE TO HAVE THE DISC when I need to install drivers.

EDIT: Looks like the V2 is also raping my SB Live! in Win2000 as well. Luckily, the Ethernet card remains unaffected.

EDIT 2: I tried disabling the Voodoo 2 in Win98 to see if the SB Live! would be seen again. This time around, Win98 wants to crap out on me-I now get a total lockup seconds after logging in. Looks like that old thing is trying to rape me anyway it can.

Oh, God...it just became WORSE. Now it says I have insufficent memory to run Windows, and I'm getting a lot more "missing file" messages than usual.

ScanDisk takes a while to load, detects an invalid long filename entry it can't fix, and then when around 94% done or so, it jumped back to 85%. Looks like I better persuade my dad to fork over his Win98 SE disc, because this sounds like time for a reformat!

Many times with Windows 98, when it asks you for the path where your ethernet drivers are, you can simply enter C:\windows\system and it will just regrab the files it already has.

My old SB Live! would have issues like that as well. Occassonaly it would dissapear from the device manager. I moved it to a different PCI slot, and that seemed to solve the problems. I think it was shorting out somehow.

laxdragon wrote:

Many times with Windows 98, when it asks you for the path where your ethernet drivers are, you can simply enter C:\windows\system and it will just regrab the files it already has.

My old SB Live! would have issues like that as well. Occassonaly it would dissapear from the device manager. I moved it to a different PCI slot, and that seemed to solve the problems. I think it was shorting out somehow.

I'd like to know how to do that when I CAN'T EVEN GET WIN98 TO BOOT FULLY(not even in Safe Mode!). I guess I might have just screwed up my chances of playing MW2: Mercs at all somehow.

EDIT: I have successfully gotten my SB Live! Value & my Voodoo 2 to co-exist properly. Maybe I should install some Linux drivers while I wait for a solution to my Win98 problem...

Also, do you know what .exe file is used to play Carmageddon Splat Pack in Glide? I seem to only have the software-rendered .exe files.

EDIT 2: Okay, so after a re-install of Win98SE & some other stuff, I can finally utilize it. The problem is, most games(MW2: Mercs & Redline in particular)seem to run worse than I remember them when I had that Xpert 98 installed many years ago. GLQuake works great, though.

Here's the main problem-Glide Carmageddon & Descent II work great under GliDOS on the family PC. It just so happens to turn out that they don't work on my PC with its V2 & its hardware Glide support, which means I have to stick to ugly, choppy software mode!