You'll be fine with a PII and AGP card.
Id not want a faster Pii, stick with one that has a unlocked multi as you can down clock the cpu more for when/if you running any apps with speed bugs. But for games from 95 and up you should not run into any speed problems. From what I now AGP cards are mostly fine in dos, there are a few that aren't the best. Id go for a voodoo3, TNT or virge Gx2.

I'd go for the AWE64 for sound.

I think, that P2 is too fast for REAL DOS GAMES... real mean pure 16 bit apps, NOT requires protected mode 16/32 bit extenders. P2 have OoO instructions execution, and as result many DOS apps have divide-by-zero or overflow errors in delay cycles (TP error 200 etc).
can turn off L2 cache, but than instead fast Pentium machine we get slowpoke (slower than 8088)!
so i suggest, that better choice for DOS (and only for DOS!) be P-MMX.

To be brutally honest, the highest anybody should ever go for pure DOS is a pre-MMX Pentium or, in a pinch, an MMX Pentium. Nothing P6, and even a Pentium MMX is deserving of Windows.

IMO, get a 486, Pentium P5 pre MMX, and use the Slot 1 for a good Voodoo 1 or 2 build.

I find a P 233 MMX and setmul to be a great combination, it will cover fast 386, 486 and slow Pentium speeds.

m5215tx wrote:

I am looking into possibly building a pure MS-DOS 6.22 system with one of my Slot 1 boards I have. I have never done a pure DOS Slot 1 Pentium II system so I have a few questions.

Would a PII 233MHz CPU be fine for DOS games from around 1995 to the last ones that were released or would one of the faster PII's be better for supporting that era of DOS games?

If you want to use a P2 build for later ~1995 DOS games, Sticking to pure DOS may not be necessary, Windows 95/98 handles DOS games from that era just fine in my experience, you'll always have the option to boot to DOS mode if you desire, I think in that regard pure-DOS would be better reserved for earlier systems as others have said; unless you just wanted to experiment with DOS/Windows 3.1x on real hardware there's no reason not to use Windows 9x.

A Slot 1 rig is excellent for a hybrid late-DOS/9x gaming rig because it's the last era where ISA was common, ISA became more of an industrial thing by the Socket 370 era so even if you had a newer board with ISA, there's a lower chance of being able to use an ISA sound card on a later industrial Socket 370/478 board compared to an older Slot 1 board.

I honestly don't see why people push slower systems for dos.
Yes there are some apps that don't deal well with faster CPUs, but name one late dos app/game that has problems with a Pii. It's not to say there aren't but there are so few that I would not worry about it.
And a 386 or 486 just doesn't cut it for later dos games like quake, mechwarrior2 or even duke3d at higher resolutions.

But I probably would not put together a dos system around a Pii. That more dos/9x

Looking at a DUAL slot 1 motherboard, what would be the (best) use of such a thing ? Gaming wise I mean. Or otherwise as well.

Neither DOS nor Win98 can use the second cpu, and putting on WinNT or 2000/XP seems pointless on such a system... (?)
Might as well just go with a regular slot 1 motherboard, right ?
And have faster machines for winXP etc.

If someone here has built such a dual cpu system, what is it used for ?

bestemor wrote:

Looking at a DUAL slot 1 motherboard, what would be the (best) use of such a thing ? Gaming wise I mean. Or otherwise as well. […]
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Looking at a DUAL slot 1 motherboard, what would be the (best) use of such a thing ? Gaming wise I mean. Or otherwise as well.

Neither DOS nor Win98 can use the second cpu, and putting on WinNT or 2000/XP seems pointless on such a system... (?)
Might as well just go with a regular slot 1 motherboard, right ?
And have faster machines for winXP etc.

If someone here has built such a dual cpu system, what is it used for ?

Kind off topic?
well there are old old flight simms, bench marking, quake3, retro home server, multi tasking, SMP optimized drivers and of course having fun.
Impractical for 90's gaming for the most part but they do have a place and use.

Oh and dual bottling a lite *inx OS for daily use. My daily system was a dual 1.4ghz setup up until about 2014.

I have a duel slot 1 with 2x P3 600's, its probably my most used retro PC
Windows 2000 can actually play 90% of my Win9x games, and while Win98 SE isn't unstable (by its standards) 2000 IS so much more stable.
Only games I cant play are Return fire which is ancient NEEDS win98 set to 256 colours to run so not best example anyway.
And Need for Speed series,
There may be unofficial fixes for it, but I just duel boot Win98 if I want to play those games, and let the 2nd CPU sit idle,
Same with DOS, I mainly play mid 90's and up, by which time games don't suffer speed issues, again the 2nd CPU sits idle, so what?

With all that said, I have a single slot 1 1Ghz PC that does all the above as well, the 2nd CPU setup is just "cooler" end of the day, there is no real benefit.

As far as graphics card compatibility this is my goto
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Slot 1 makes for an awesome DOS machine. Support for Memory Type Range Registers gives it a nice boost in DOS graphics performance, especially higher resolution.

I would use MS-DOS mode of 98 SE though, as it's super easy to install. Sure some of the older games won't run correctly, but once again, focus on what will run, and that's a huge list of games.

I was always amazed when I got my PII-350 MHz Windows 98 system back in 1999 at how SMOOTH my DOS games were on that system. I used to play Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II, Carmen Sandiego games, Lemmings, Sim City, stuff like that. I NEVER ONCE saw the speed problems people on here talk about. I must not have had "those" games to play.
And yes, that system had an Intel i740 graphics chip in a Diamond Stealth II G460 8MB AGP 2x card. It ran all the games I needed it to just fine at the time. All you i740 haters can kiss my butt. So it wasn't a Voodoo 2. It also didn't cost me $300 at the time and played what I needed @ 800x600, which is the highest I ran games at on my 17" Cybervision CRT display.

FFXIhealer wrote:

Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II, Carmen Sandiego games, Lemmings, Sim City, stuff like that. I NEVER ONCE saw the speed problems people on here talk about. I must not have had "those" games to play.

yes, sure, that games has no "too fast" problem... this is not native DOS games, its 32-bit dos extender games. 🤣

MERCURY127 wrote:

FFXIhealer wrote:

Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II, Carmen Sandiego games, Lemmings, Sim City, stuff like that. I NEVER ONCE saw the speed problems people on here talk about. I must not have had "those" games to play.

yes, sure, that games has no "too fast" problem... this is not native DOS games, its 32-bit dos extender games. 🤣

Sure about that?
I mean Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II are all 32bit-bit, not sure about Carmen Sandiego games and Sim City.
But Lemmings sure as heck is not 32bit. I don't think the problem lies in the 32-bit extender, all though I never see not 32-bit dos extender game that has a speed problem. But plenty of 16bit games are fine on newer systems.

Jade Falcon wrote:

I don't think the problem lies in the 32-bit extender, all though I never see not 32-bit dos extender game that has a speed problem. But plenty of 16bit games are fine on newer systems.

i talk not that here is some relations bw 32 extenders and speed problem...
i say, that some dos apps, written in old epoch dirty hacks, use delay cycles, that can bypass on 686+ series. and obviously, that this apps not req fast cpu, nor any 32 extenders capabilities. that apps just too old for it.
other apps (alley cat, prehistoric) written more accurate, and still stable on new i7 cpus.
here is no relations to 32 bit extenders, but all apps, which use extenders, written more accurate, and not use delays, based on cpu cycles..
moreover, in my opinion, apps which req extenders, is not can be called DOS apps...

Jade Falcon wrote:

Sure about that? I mean Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II are all 32bit-bit, not sure about Carmen Sandiego games […]
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MERCURY127 wrote:

FFXIhealer wrote:

Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II, Carmen Sandiego games, Lemmings, Sim City, stuff like that. I NEVER ONCE saw the speed problems people on here talk about. I must not have had "those" games to play.

yes, sure, that games has no "too fast" problem... this is not native DOS games, its 32-bit dos extender games. 🤣

Sure about that?
I mean Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II are all 32bit-bit, not sure about Carmen Sandiego games and Sim City.
But Lemmings sure as heck is not 32bit. I don't think the problem lies in the 32-bit extender, all though I never see not 32-bit dos extender game that has a speed problem. But plenty of 16bit games are fine on newer systems.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (5 1/4" floppy release, anyway) has a speed bug in my configuration with a K6-2 and SB CT2770 card. I have to run in "486 mode" (L1D, L2E) for it to auto configure PCM audio. My K6-2 rig has become a "P120mmx" machine and I haven't tested everything with it, but I expect the same problems in full speed mode with this game and the new CPU.

MERCURY127 wrote:

i talk not that here is some relations bw 32 extenders and speed problem... i say, that some dos apps, written in old epoch dir […]
Show full quote

Jade Falcon wrote:

I don't think the problem lies in the 32-bit extender, all though I never see not 32-bit dos extender game that has a speed problem. But plenty of 16bit games are fine on newer systems.

i talk not that here is some relations bw 32 extenders and speed problem...
i say, that some dos apps, written in old epoch dirty hacks, use delay cycles, that can bypass on 686+ series. and obviously, that this apps not req fast cpu, nor any 32 extenders capabilities. that apps just too old for it.
other apps (alley cat, prehistoric) written more accurate, and still stable on new i7 cpus.
here is no relations to 32 bit extenders, but all apps, which use extenders, written more accurate, and not use delays, based on cpu cycles..
moreover, in my opinion, apps which req extenders, is not can be called DOS apps...

Sorry but if an app was written for dos and runs in dos is an dos app regardless if it used any extenders.
That's like saying a win95 game can't be call a windows app if it uses glide API more or less.

Jade Falcon wrote:

MERCURY127 wrote:

Sorry but if an app was written for dos and runs in dos is an dos app regardless if it used any extenders.
That's like saying a win95 game can't be call a windows app if it uses glide API more or less.

for me, DOS app - its 16 real mode. its all.
all other - non dos apps. else we should call dos app Word for Windows - run in dos, automatically run win shell, and execute self... DPMI apps run exacltly that, just instead win shell they run DPMI host. moreever, then can call "dos app" Win 3x/9x - they also run from dos.
DOS app cant operate with more than 64 kb chunk at time, DPMI app - can.
DOS app cant use lfb, DPMI app - can.
DOS app can do direct port/mem access, DPMI app - cant.
DOS app do DOS calls directly, DPMI wrap all it on host.
when i reda about DOS machine, i mean fast 186, possible with 32 bit ALU, but w/o using any MMU capabilities.
if in ur world quake is dos app 🤣 sorry, but we live in parallel worlds...

If you are looking for a DOS-Gaming-Machine, then go for a 486.
If you are looking for a Hybrid-Gaming-Machine then go for a PII/3DFX.

The PII-333 Models SL2KA (dA0) and SL2QF (dA0) are the best.
They draw much less power then the previous ones (233-300), especially when clocked down to 133/166/200/233/266/300.
My PII-333 SL2KA works passiv cooled in my system. I clocked it down to 233 because that's OK for some speed sensitive dos-games
that produce the runtime200 tp-bug, but also fast enough to power a voodoo1 card very well for the early 3d-games.

it's the most perfect machine for me.

I used an AWE64Gold in it, which is a fantastic card, but changed over to the audician32 with dreamblaster upgrade. I love to run
older dosgames and demoscenedemos with real stereo-sb-pro sound. beside that the audician32 has a real opl3 which sound 100%
correct in the old dos-games. I also added a GUS-ACE in this setup. I think it's a must have for demoscene-demos and lots of supported
games like pinball fantasies. Do not get me wrong, the AWE64gold is very good, but the audician32 is the better card in my opinion.

btw. I used a voodoo3-3000 agp before and it's a great card. very good image-quality. excellent performance. But I changed it to
a matrox g200 which has a slighty better image quality and extremly good colors and by far better win3x drivers then the voodoo3.

perhaps I will check out another AGP card soon, but currently the g200 is my most preferred one.
(I have tested a riva128,g400, tnt/tnt2, voodoo3)

I prefer a voodoo1-card over a voodoo2-card because I like that real retro-feeling 😀

perhaps you could give me an advice, what AGP-card I should checkout next?
Doc

dr.zeissler wrote:

If you are looking for a DOS-Gaming-Machine, then go for a 486.

486 is too slow for some later DOS games in higher-res, e.g. Quake.