I was using my MSI GeForce4 Ti4200 which normally sits in this system while running some tests on my upcoming socket 754 build (Athlon64 3000+ on an Asus K8V-MX). It surprised me how much better the card performed on that platform.
In 640x480 using 32-bit colors, the socket 754 system runs Quake 2 at twice the frame rate compared to this AthlonXP rig. Again, this is with the same Ti4200 card. The difference gets smaller as the resolution goes up, but it's still quite noticeable. Pretty interesting.
Using the SoftMenu section of the BIOS of my Abit KT7A motherboard, I can freely adjust the CPU multiplier. Among other things, this allows me to downclock the CPU to 500 MHz. This is useful when dealing with speed sensitive games.
Interesting!!!
Your combination of KT7A + Thoroughbred is able to boot with the 5x multiplier.
My system (KT7 + Thunderbird) is able to boot with 5,5x only as lowest setting.
I don't really know the reason behind...?
My system (KT7 + Thunderbird) is able to boot with 5,5x only as lowest setting.
I don't really know the reason behind...?
Not sure, maybe your CPU doesn't support multipliers lower than 5.5x. Or this could have something to do with the motherboard revision or the BIOS version that you're using.
My KT7A is revision 1.0 and I'm using the latest official BIOS for it (A9). If I remember correctly, some unofficial BIOS versions replace the 5x multiplier with a higher value to allow for faster, more modern CPUs to be used.
The MSI GeForce4 which was in this build started artifacting recently. It might have been triggered by a power failure or possibly the card was not in the best shape to begin with. I did use a slightly higher I/O voltage (3.6V) while running the CPU at 1466 MHz since the system was unstable otherwise, so that may have had something to do with it too. I have since downclocked the CPU back to 1250 MHz (12.5x100) and returned the I/O voltage to normal levels. With all that in mind, I have decided to repurpose this system as a Glide and A3D 2.0 gaming rig.
Previously, I often found myself moving the Voodoo3 from my Celeron rig to this system when I wanted to play more demanding Glide games such as Deus Ex and Diablo 2. Since I now have an Athlon64 rig for heavy duty Win9x gaming, I've decided to permanently move the Voodoo3 here. Interestingly, an additional setting called "Geometry Assist" appears in the drivers when that card is used with this CPU. I imagine this is some form of compensation for the lack of T&L.
And while I had a Turtle Beach Montego II for quite a while, I could never decide on a permanent home for it. Now, it will remain in this rig and be at my disposal whenever I'm in the mood for some A3D 2.0 gaming. Also, since I moved my nice looking Audigy front panel to the Athlon64 rig, I had to use the newly acquired yellowed one here. It works just fine, but looks kinda bad. I might consider retrobriting it at some point.
Lastly, I also did some additional cable management, just to get stuff out of the way in order to improve the airflow. The plan is to get a PCI fan bracket and place it below the Voodoo3 and also to install an intake fan to the front of the case.
P.S.
My mini reviews of the GeForce4 and the Avance Logic ALS100 can be found below, if anyone still wants to read that.
Mini reviews
Graphics card
The GeForce4 Ti4200 is a very capable card, and it allows me to run the vast majority of Win9x games in 1280x1024 at 60+ FPS. Maxing out Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering is possible for some older games (e.g. Tomb Raider 2) but for newer ones, I need to keep these at lower values. Since my particular Ti4200 is of the AGP 8x variety, the earliest Win9x driver version that it can reliably use is 40.72.
This card is also very fast in DOS providing superb performance in late-era, hi-res games like Quake and Tomb Raider. When I want to play those games in software mode I run FASTVID beforehand to further improve the frame rate.
Avance Logic ALS100
The ALS100 is basically a SB16 without any of the bugs that plague Creative's SB16 cards. I should note that this is the original ALS100, not the plus version, which means that it has proper support for High DMA and works perfectly in all Build engine games. It also supports ADPCM, so games like Duke Nukem 2 will work fine. On the model that I'm using, FM synth is provided by a 1:1 copy of the Yamaha YMF262-M and sounds identical to the real thing (see music samples below).
Lastly, the ALS100 also has proper SBPro stereo compatibility, which matters for games like Aladdin. As far as resources are concerned, the ALS100 is set up to use A220 I5 D1 H5 T6. In terms of compatibility, from 30+ DOS games that I've tried, not a single one had any problems with it. On the down side, this card is fairly noisy, even with all the mixer settings finely tuned.
I like the changes you made to this system. It'll make a great Glide gaming system. You should be able to run your games at max settings.
Cheers! The AthlonXP does draw out the full power of the Voodoo3, but maxing out everything is possible only up to the 800x600 resolution, as evidenced by the benchmarks. Still, paired with a CRT monitor that works well enough.
Of course, older and less demanding games can use higher resolutions as well, if they support them.
Added a SPDIF out bracket to my Turtle Beach Montego II, thanks to some tips from @ZanQuance. The process is a bit complicated, but if anyone's curious, I have described it in full detail here.
I have also uploaded some music samples that were recorded via SPDIF out:
Lastly, I can now connect the SPDIF OUT port of my Montego II to the SPDIF IN port of my LiveDrive front panel and use both cards at the same time without introducing any extra noise into the system.
A slight upgrade: I have replaced the SBLive 5.1 with an Audigy Platinum. The main reason was that the SBLive automatically expanded stereo inputs (e.g. CD Audio, DOS games etc.) to surround when connected to 5.1 speakers. I couldn't find any way to disable this, other than manually forcing the speaker settings to 2.1 instead of 5.1. With the Audigy, there are no such issues when ZS drivers are used, as expanded stereo can be avoided by disabling CMSS in the EAX control panel. My old SBLive mini-review can be found below:
Sound card #1: Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (SB0100)
On this system, the Live is mostly used for its hardware EAX capabilities, since many late Win9x games support that. The front panel that the card is connected to provides optical in/out which is great if you need crystal clear recordings of gameplay audio. Although this particular front panel is intended for an Audigy1 card, it works just fine with the SBLive 5.1.
Under Windows 98, the SBLive can also serve as a capable soundfont loader, especially if you force it to use Audigy drivers. This way, you can load your favorite soundfont (size only restricted by system RAM) and use it for General MIDI music in DOS games, as long as they are running from within Windows. And while the SB16 emulation of the Live is decent, it still causes issues in certain games (e.g. Quake and WarCraft 2) so don't expect perfect SB16 compatibility all the time.
Also, I have added a 92mm Noctua intake fan using a side PCI fan bracket (pics in the first post). This blows fresh air directly onto the Voodoo3, ensuring that it stays cool even under heavy load. The side of the case has a metal grille from which cool air is being pulled in.
I've added a 3Com 3C905B-TX card to this rig. It's only used to access my retro LAN and transfer files (mainly GOG offline game installers and savegames) from one retro rig to another. All my retro systems are kept completely off the internet.
My primary retromachine is:
Abit KT7A-RAID v1.1
Athlon XP-M Barton @2GHz (150FSB)
768MB memory
146GB WD Raptor with PCI-SATA-card
Radeon X800 Pro
Audigy2
Vortex2
ESS SOLO-1
Gravis Ultrasound Classic
Love that mobile-Athlon, I can freely choose multiplier and FSB in DOS, Windows 98SE or Windows XP (it dual-boots those)
Lowest multiplier is 3x (setmul.exe) and with 100MHz FSB it makes 300MHz. If I disable some L1 cache too it'll be so slow that Wing Commander is playable.
Been playing Far Cry and Doom3 with this and all the DOS games. Only thing that is missing here is Voodoo2. But, I can't get Voodoo and ATI display cards to work here together. Voodoo works with Geforce but this mobo just don't like Nvidia and some games are unstable.
Love that mobile-Athlon, I can freely choose multiplier and FSB in DOS, Windows 98SE or Windows XP (it dual-boots those)
Lowest multiplier is 3x (setmul.exe) and with 100MHz FSB it makes 300MHz. If I disable some L1 cache too it'll be so slow that Wing Commander is playable.
Been playing Far Cry and Doom3 with this and all the DOS games. Only thing that is missing here is Voodoo2. But, I can't get Voodoo and ATI display cards to work here together. Voodoo works with Geforce but this mobo just don't like Nvidia and some games are unstable.
Indeed, the versatility of this motherboard is incredible. I like how you have a GUS in there, that ISA slot makes some crazy things possible. Like you said, one can play games from the early 90s all the way up until the mid 2000s, with the proper components.
I used to have a similar setup initially, but I turned this into a dedicated Glide/A3D system since I now have other rigs where I play DOS and WinXP games. But this board is still special, as it's been with me all the way since 2001, which is when I first bought it. 😀
So, back in 2002 or so, I bought a Leadtek GeForce3 Ti200 second hand and used it in this PC. It felt amazing seeing pixel shaders in Morrowind for the first time. About six months later, I got a great deal for a Gainward GeForce3 Ti500 (or as they call it Ti550) Golden Sample complete in box, so I got that one and sold the Leadtek. The Gainward card served me well for several years, but eventually it started artifacting heavily and I declared it dead. However, emboldened by my recent success at SMD soldering, I decided to take a closer look at that card.
I immediately noticed that one of the inductor coils was about to fall off because the solder had dried out. Fixing that was fairly easy, although my work was somewhat messy. That didn't solve the artifact problem though. I then carefully examined both sides of the card using high resolution photos and noticed that one of the SMD resistors on the back also had a cracked solder joint. Since I have a bit more confidence in my SMD soldering skills now, as well as access to better equipment, I managed to fix that too. The artifacting changed, but didn't disappear completely, so my next targets were the memory chips.
I carefully removed the heatsink from each chip using a razor blade (the epoxy was extremely strong) and then started pushing down on the chips one by one (while the card was running) in hopes of determining which one was creating the artifacts. Before doing this, I had also removed the GPU cooler, as that made it easier to access the memory chips. The goal was to find the problematic one, and then reflow it using a soldering iron. However, during this process, the artifacts suddenly disappeared. I wasn't sure what's going on, so I turned off the machine, put a brand new aftermarket cooler (DeepCool V50) on the GPU and reattached the memory heatsinks. Somehow, the artifacts were completely gone. My best guess is that a cracked solder joint re-sealed itself from the extra heat while the card was running without the cooler and heatsinks. Saves me the trouble of reflowing I guess, and the card appears to be working correctly, at least for now.
I used my spare Celeron rig for testing purposes and installed Gainward's official drivers from the CD that came in the box. These automatically overclocked the card to 250/550 (wow!) and it worked without any issues. Played a bit of Quake 2 and ran a few loops of 3DMark 2001SE, still no artifacts in sight. I do intend to test this more thoroughly, but I just wanted to share this odd repair story. The reason I'm posting it here is because this AthlonXP system used to house this very card back in the day. I'm pretty happy with the Voodoo3 that I now have here, but I'm also glad that I managed to get my old card working again. 😀
Is the "Ti550" factory overclocked, since they use that name?
About the solder joint seemingly reflowing it self - it may only be a short time succes, but then you know how to search 😀
Actually, back in the day, I reflowed a complete system board from an IBM Thinkpad T43, which apparently was known for having issues with the GPU. After reflowing in my kitchen oven, system board wrapped in tin foil, it ran for years on without issues. Maybe a graphics card can be reflowed in the same manner?
Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀
Is the "Ti550" factory overclocked, since they use that name?
Only when using the official Gainward drivers and utilities from the supplied CD. These automatically raise the clocks to 250/550 if you install them in "Enhanced Mode" which is the default option (see pic above). On the other hand, if regular Nvidia reference drivers are used, the card will run at stock Ti500 clocks i.e. 240/500.
About the solder joint seemingly reflowing it self - it may only be a short time succes, but then you know how to search 😀
After some additional testing, I think it may have actually been my fixes to the cracked solder joints on the resistor and inductor coil that solved the issue. It probably just took the card running for a minute or so to fully stabilize. After making those fixes, I turned the system on, saw the artifacts still being present at boot, and immediately turned it back off.
Later, when I was testing the memory modules, the artifacts went away after roughly a minute of the card running. In hindsight, I don't believe the chips ever got hot enough to reflow themselves, since I was simply looking at the BIOS screen and checking if the artifact pattern would change as I was pressing on each chip. Thinking back, the artifacts actually disappeared while I was not touching the card. I had pressed on two chips, didn't see any changes, and before I was able to press on the third chip, the artifacts went away. To be extra safe, I inspected all memory chips with a bit more scrutiny later on, but I couldn't see anything that looked suspicious.
After reflowing in my kitchen oven, system board wrapped in tin foil, it ran for years on without issues. Maybe a graphics card can be reflowed in the same manner?
I'm not a fan of "baking" graphics cards, as that's a temporary "fix" which often doesn't hold up for long, and can damage sensitive components on older (retro) GPUs. I prefer to identify the problematic chips and then reflow them manually, either with a soldering iron, or using a hot air rework station. I don't have the latter yet, but I do plan on buying one eventually.
Time to revamp this build yet again. I never fully enjoyed gaming on it because of how noisy the entire thing was. The Abit KT7A doesn't like JMicron SATA to IDE adapters. For that reason, I couldn't use SSDs on it without spending a lot of money on Marvell-based adapters (e.g. StarTech ones). Most of the noise came from the mechanical hard drives (platters spinning), but the chipset, and CPU fans contributed as well. I could replace the noisy fans, but it didn't make sense to do so without also getting rid of the old disks. Now, I can finally fix all that.
A few days ago, I grabbed this ECS K7VTA3 v6.0 for 10 EUR on my local classifieds. It came with an AthlonXP 2100+ (Thoroughbred B core) and a Spire FalconRock cooler. The CPU fan was of course old, worn out and very noisy. However, I managed to fit an 80mm DeepCool fan on the Spire heatsink, and that combo is almost inaudible. Thankfully, the KT333CE (not CF!) chipset on the ECS motherboard has no problems with JMicron SATA to IDE adapters, so I can finally switch to SSDs.
I also double and triple checked whether the K7VTA3 supports AGP 3.3V cards (for my Voodoo 3) and it does, at least in the v6.0 revision, which is what I have. To be extra safe, I purchased this ATi Rage XL for 5 EUR (since it's an AGP 3.3V card) tried it out and it worked just fine. The board is currently sitting on my test bench, and I'll be putting it into the case over the next couple of days, but it's already looking pretty good. Blissful silence at long last!
And done! Case interior pic updated in the first post. Changing motherboards is always a tedious job, but this was well worth it. After putting everything together and closing the case, I was surprised at how little noise this system now makes. Switching from a mechanical HDD to an SSD is a huge upgrade. The entire system feels more responsive, and becomes much quieter as well. The new Seasonic PSU is also barely audible. Surprisingly, its 20A on the 5V rail seem to be enough to drive the AthlonXP 2100+ at least when it's paired with a low-power GPU like the Voodoo 3.
I guess I'll have to re-do all of my benchmarks as well. I don't expect the results to change a whole lot, but I imagine there may be a slight improvement in CPU intensive games like Unreal Tournament. I'll get on that later today, so we'll see how it goes.
P.S.
I've archived the mini review of my old Abit KT7A motherboard below, in case anyone's curious about that.
The Abit KT7A-RAID is one of those rare Socket A motherboards which have an ISA slot. It's based on the VIA KT133A chipset which is pretty solid overall, but it was known to cause issues with SBLive and Audigy cards back in the day. Miraculously, I never had these problems, possibly because I'm using the latest official BIOS (A9) and the v4.43 VIA 4-in-1 drivers.
Unfortunately, the AthlonXP 1700+ CPU that I'm currently using is a bit too new for my revision 1.0 motheboard, even with the latest official BIOS installed. The board sees it as an "Unknown CPU". I'm currently running it at 1250 MHz (12.5x100) which shouldn't make much of a difference as the system will be limited by the Voodoo3 graphics card. On the plus side, this allows me to use run the memory at CL2 and use better timing values. Interestingly, the CPU multiplier is completely unlocked. This allows me to downclock the processor to 500 MHz (5x100) through Abit's SoftMenu BIOS section. Combined with Throttle and SetMul, this gives the system even more range when it comes to slowing things down for DOS gaming.
Lastly, probably the most intriguing aspect of the KT7A is its inclusion of an ISA slot. From personal experience, I can attest that DOS compatibility is excellent when this board is paired with something like an AWE64 or an ESS AudioDrive 1868F. I have since then repurposed this build and no longer use the ISA slot, but I thought this information might be interesting for someone else.
I've had success with Corsair 20a PSUs and Athlon XP up to about 2.2ghz. That's without the extra 4 pin CPU power connector. For what it's worth, that's what I currently have running on my XP system but it tops out at 1.4.
I've had success with Corsair 20a PSUs and Athlon XP up to about 2.2ghz. That's without the extra 4 pin CPU power connector. For what it's worth, that's what I currently have running on my XP system but it tops out at 1.4.
Cheers!
I think I'm fortunate that my Voodoo 3 only draws around 15W. If I were to put a more power hungry GPU in there, I don't know if this PSU would hold up.
As expected, there was a very slight increase, otherwise results are mostly the same. Unreal Tournament did benefit from the faster CPU, but only at lower resolutions.
