VOGONS


My finally working "Project 98" computer !!!

Topic actions

First post, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Hello, after a lot of troubles about chipset drivers, sound card IRQ issues and more which I heavily discussed in the "Marvin" section, today I finally got that computer working perfectly well !!! (Except the audio sounds a lot distorted, but that must be because I'm currently using my main PC's front panel "mic in" as a speaker since I don't have another set of speakers here at the moment)

Here are the final specs of my Project 98 computer.

Motherboard: ASUS A8V-XE
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2GHz
Graphics Card: ATI Sapphire Radeon X300SE 128MB
Sound Card: Creative Labs SBPCI128 Sound Blaster CT4750 (most DOS games give me the error "Could not find AWE32", I'll try with VDMSound)
Hardisk: a single 8 GB IDE, I'll eventually add or replace it with another larger one... I also have 2 SCSI hard drives which I currently can't use since I had to remove the SCSI controller PCI card due to it conflicting with my sound card's IRQ...
Operative System: Just Microsoft Windows 98SE with Service Pack 3.53, which I can conveniently switch to DOS MODE (no need to install actual DOS, I already have the "DOS PC" based off the Intel Celeron, remember ?)
RAM: 1GB SDRAM (or DDR... I dunno, it's the "triple legged" kind)

Well.... pretty much this I guess...

It has some problems with few Windows 98 games which run extremely fast, such as Montezuma's Return and Captain Claw... I hope there's a workaround, but overall it works fine... Heretic II, Quake and some 3D DOS games are perfect.

I still can't get the S-Video port on my X300SE to display stuff on my capture card, though... 😢

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 1 of 63, by Kamerat

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Congratulations! 😀 Remember that no Ensoniq based Sound Blaster PCI cards do support AWE32 for music in DOS games, try General MIDI instead. Socket 939 only support DDR SDRAM, so that's the kind of memory you have.

And now some pictures? 😉

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 2 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I'll upload some pics as I get back home.
Since I don't have any midi box to get sound from the gameport, can I get midi out from the green speaker "emulating" it ?

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 3 of 63, by Jorpho

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Elia1995 wrote:

(most DOS games give me the error "Could not find AWE32", I'll try with VDMSound)

VDMSound is pretty much completely useless if you're not running Windows 2000/XP, in which case you're probably better off running DOSBox.

You will probably only have sound in DOS games if you run them from within Windows 98. While your sound card might be able to use SBINIT.COM in DOS, that probably won't work on a motherboard running an Athlon 64. (To my knowledge there is still no reliable means of determining offhand whether a given motherboard will support SBINIT.COM.)

RAM: 1GB SDRAM (or DDR... I dunno, it's the "triple legged" kind)

Windows 9x is generally incapable of using more than 512 MB of RAM. (In fact, it can become unstable with more than 512 MB of RAM, but the service pack you installed probably included the necessary fix.)

Reply 4 of 63, by Kamerat

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Elia1995 wrote:

I'll upload some pics as I get back home.
Since I don't have any midi box to get sound from the gameport, can I get midi out from the green speaker "emulating" it ?

The Sound Blaster PCI series does GM in pure DOS at least, loading an .ECW sound bank into the system RAM. I don't remember if it's working running DOS games inside Windows.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 5 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Is this loading .ECW things something it does automatically or how do I do it ?

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 6 of 63, by Jorpho

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

The first thing to do is to check if you actually have the ECW sets. They should have been included with whatever drivers you installed.

After that, I think you can specify a particular set in one of the control panels somewhere. (It should be fairly obvious.) MIDI will still probably sound pretty crappy even if you load the largest set, though.

Reply 7 of 63, by Kamerat

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Elia1995 wrote:

Is this loading .ECW things something it does automatically or how do I do it ?

You can have a look at this thread: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 8 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I don't have anything Creative-related in my control panel.

dsoPAHzl.png

Sorry for low quality, I quickly took a screenshot off my Hauppauge HD PVR software (my capture card) which looks quite crappy with the Televiewer V2 (the only thing I had to convert VGA to RCA to connect it to the capture card)

By the way, there's also a new-ish problem... perhaps you can find the thread in the "Windows" section, most Windows 98 games now don't detect the graphics card and either crash to desktop or look crappy... it's the only PCI-E x16 graphics card I have, most of the old graphics card I have are all IGP/AGP and don't fit in there, plus this is currently the last motherboard I can use to set-up this Windows 98 computer so we have to find a solution around what I currently have 😐

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 9 of 63, by Jorpho

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Elia1995 wrote:

I don't have anything Creative-related in my control panel.

Google <load ecw in Windows>, and one of the first hits is http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=1930 .

Reply 10 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Here come the pictures of the "Project 98" computer at its current status, I'll try to give as many descriptions as possible to the pictures.

gBDHeyjm.png

This is a front-side view of the chassis, notice how I had to use 2 empty slim CD jewel cases to cover up the big hole it has beneath the DVD-Drive, I couldn't find the plastic things yet and I had to cover it somehow to avoid that my cat would get inside it and destroy the internals...

EQMqvqem.jpg

Here's the back of it, I couldn't find an I/O shield that fits this motherboard, but whatever, it works just fine...

There are only 2 cards in it (barely visible in the photo): the upper one is the X300SE graphics card and right beneath it there's my Creative Sound Blaster PCI128 CT4750.
The USB thing isn't an actual card, but it's a thing that goes in one of the cards slots and connects to the USB pins in the motherboard, from there I connected an USB cable that enabled the 4 USB ports in the front of the PC and the power supply for my "VGA to RCA converter" (a Trust Televiewer v2) for my capture card (Hauppauge HD PVR).

JzKYzb3m.png

That's my whole desk, as you can see, the Windows 98 PC isn't in a "definitive" position yet, because I can't find a good place to... "place" it, so I connected it to my second monitor (which I can "switch the channel" between VGA and DVI to use it as second monitor on my main PC or the monitor for that Windows 98 PC when I use it) and I place its keyboard in front of my main keyboard (and put it away on top of the case itself when I don't need to, like in this moment) and its mouse side by side with my main computer's mouse (I don't put away its mouse aswell, it's not as uncomfortable as typing with the keyboard further than me) ah yes, and there's also my cat on top of my main PC 🤣

6BAQZFCm.jpg

This is the thing I use to convert the VGA signal from the graphics card into RCA for my capture card, I connected it that way:
The red VGA cable you see on the left is the one that is connected directly to the PC's graphics card, from the side of this thing, you can see a blue VGA cable and the yellow RCA cable, well that blue VGA cable that is connected on the televiewer (this thing's name) is the cable that is connected to the monitor and the RCA cable is connected to the capture card, so in conclusion is like this... "PC to televiewer, televiewer to monitor and capture card"... it's quite a mess and this thing lowers the quality to the capture card (looks perfect on the monitor by the way), but that's the only way I could think of it to connect it to the capture card... if you have some other ideas or if you're using some capture cards to capture vintage computers aswell, lemme know please 😢

And that's the capture card (why not show it aswell at this point ?):
zffVgSwm.jpg

Last edited by Elia1995 on 2016-04-29, 14:43. Edited 1 time in total.

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 11 of 63, by Jorpho

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Elia1995 wrote:

Here's the back of it, I couldn't find the "overlay" that goes between the motherboard plugs, but whatever, it works just fine...

FYI, that's called an "I/O shield".

Reply 12 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Thanks, I didn't know its name, gonna fix that in the post 😁

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 13 of 63, by Stiletto

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Elia1995 wrote:

Warning: large pictures ahead due to the lack of "spoiler" tags in this forum 😢

Imgur screwed with how they did things, but I still like them and recommend them, and these directions still apply:
http://pdnfans.proboards.com/thread/291/creat … r-image-hosting

But at VOGONS, instead of using HTML, use BBCode. Instead of formatting the link like they describe, do the following:

[url=http://i.imgur.com/gBDHeyj.png][img]http://i.imgur.com/gBDHeyjm.png[/img][/url]

which is the fanciest setup I can easily think of, and will create a clickable medium-sized thumbnail:
gBDHeyjm.png

... or you can host the images here by uploading attachments, which can also embed thumbnails.

Your mileage may vary but for me this is easier and kinder than hiding huge photos behind spoiler tags. 😉

[EDIT] Okay tell ya what, I'll fix this for ya now - but only this time 😉

FYI, I also recommend you learn how to create screen captures on your 98 box and transfer them to your Internet box, rather than the Hauppage PVR solution you are using 😉

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 14 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Well, that vintage PC I put together isn't powerful enough to handle FRAPS, you know 😢

And thanks for the tip, I'll use img + url bbcodes from now on, much cleaner 😁

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 15 of 63, by Stiletto

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Elia1995 wrote:

Well, that vintage PC I put together isn't powerful enough to handle FRAPS, you know 😢

Yeah, but you took a screenshot of a Windows Explorer window. So for that case, PrtScrn + MSPAINT and you're gold. 😁

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 16 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Stiletto wrote:
Elia1995 wrote:

Well, that vintage PC I put together isn't powerful enough to handle FRAPS, you know 😢

Yeah, but you took a screenshot of a Windows Explorer window. So for that case, PrtScrn + MSPAINT and you're gold. 😁

Ah yeah, I just was too lazy to save the picture in the shared folder, retrieve it from my main PC and upload it, so I just quickly took a screenshot on my capture card window with Lightshot (Prntscr) 🤣

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 17 of 63, by Elia1995

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Today this PC stopped detecting the hardrives.
I just unplugged every IDE BUS cable, I cut half of my right hand on the audio card doing it, I then plugged them all back in, double checking if they weren't loose on either hardisk, but nothing, the BIOS refuses to detect them anymore...
I don't have an IDE enclosure to test the hardrives in my main PC and my MSI Z97 Gaming motherboard is SATA only, but the hardrives are certainly fine.
I even used the PC yesterday and it worked fine, today I just turned it on and didn't detect them without any modification... weird, isn't it ? What might've happened ?

Currently assembled vintage computers I own: 11

Most important ones:
A "modded" Olivetti M4 434 S (currently broken).
An Epson El Plus 386DX running MS-DOS 6.22 (currently broken).
Celeron Coppermine 1.10GHz on an M754LMRTP motherboard

Reply 18 of 63, by chinny22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Joys of old PC's
I've got 2 machines that will decide not today, and fail to find the HDD, even if nothing has changed. Sometimes changing settings in BIOS from Auto Detect to none and back again work, sometimes not and then next day it will be back working again as if nothing happened.

Reply 19 of 63, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Elia1995 wrote:
Today this PC stopped detecting the hardrives. I just unplugged every IDE BUS cable, I cut half of my right hand on the audio ca […]
Show full quote

Today this PC stopped detecting the hardrives.
I just unplugged every IDE BUS cable, I cut half of my right hand on the audio card doing it, I then plugged them all back in, double checking if they weren't loose on either hardisk, but nothing, the BIOS refuses to detect them anymore...
I don't have an IDE enclosure to test the hardrives in my main PC and my MSI Z97 Gaming motherboard is SATA only, but the hardrives are certainly fine.
I even used the PC yesterday and it worked fine, today I just turned it on and didn't detect them without any modification... weird, isn't it ? What might've happened ?

What PSU does your rig use?

Looking at the pic of your rig taken from the back, the PSU looks typical for an El Cheapo brand.

Do you have a spare PSU you could temporarily put in there? Your rig shouldn't use a lot of power with those components, so most PSUs should do.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!