VOGONS

Windows 98 SE and late DOS Build! Pentium III, Athlon (Thunderbird), Athlon XP or Athlon 64.

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First post, by The One Demon

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I'm looking at also building another system, besides the DOS / Windows 3.x /Windows 95 Pentium MMX build! This one a Windows 98SE and late DOS computer!

I'm not entirely sure what CPU I should use for this one... It won't be used for XP gaming as I have another PC in mind for Windows XP and modern Windows with analogue out, utilising my spare GTX 980Ti I already have not currentlyin use.

I was originally looking at the Pentium 3, but have seen others suggest the Athlon and even the Athlon XP and 64, so now I'm not too sure what I should go with?

I want a motherboard with at least 1 ISA slot and AGP slot though, so I can use an ISA sound card for late DOS games... Unless PCi sound cards can achieve good sound and compatibility for late DOS games? But I'm not sure on that?

CPU -
Pentium III 1000MHz or Tualatin 1.26GHz adapted for socket 370
Athlon (Thunderbird)
Athlon XP??
Athlon 64??

Motherboard -
i440BX probably for Pentium III
AMD 462 for Athlon Thunderbird
Unsure for the Athlon XP and 64...

RAM -
512MB PC133 SDRAM?

Graphics Card -
nVidia Geforce fx5700
Or 440MX
3dfx Voodo 3 or Velocity 100 with the second TMU enabled? (For glide games and I think it works for late DOS games too right?)

Sound Card -
Aureal Vortex 2 (unsure on specific card, Monster MX300 is too much though)
+ SB Audigy 2 ZS
DreamBlaster Synth S2 General MIDI Daughterboard??

PicoGus or AWE64 ISA for DOS? (If ISA is the better option vs PCi sound card for late DOS games)
MT32-Pi since I will have it for MiSTer anyway!

Sorry, I'm a little confused as these PC's are well before I ever had my first PC! Any help is much appreciated! Thank you!

Reply 1 of 2, by chinny22

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I'll just list the pro's and cons of each. Ultimately it'll depend on what hardware you think is cooler (otherwise may as well use emulation)

Personally I'm not very trusting of Socket A. They come from the capacitor plague era and require PSU's with strong 5v rail.
Where as Intel P3 era hardware is much easier to work with IMHO.

Ram, 512, yep

Video card.
Voodoo 3 is good for glide games but will be the bottleneck of Direct 3D games.
Nvidia cards will leave the 3dfx card for dead in Direct 3D but cant do glide.
Both have good dos support, It'll really depend on your games (and budget with anything 3dfx)

PCI Sound card
Any Aureal Vortex 2 card is fine, no need to limit yourself to a specific brand. These have really good dos support as well.
Audigy 2 ZS is very good card as well, but is a pain to have both in the same system (but it is possible)
The Aureal Vortex 2 supports a MIDI daughterboard, the Audigy does not.

ISA Sound card
AWE64 will allow you AWE support for the few games that support it and soundfonts if you can be bothered. Most of the time it'll act like a SoundBlaster 16
PicoGUS will allow you GUS support for the few games that really utilise it and SB Pro which 9 times out of 10 sounds the same as a SB16 as far as dos games are concerned. You also get a CD-Rom emulator

Reply 2 of 2, by evoportals

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Pentium III Tualatin, the legendary 440BX chipset, and the 440mx card (if it has DVI). That will easily run anything from from the Windows 98 se era very nicely. If you're planning on doing high-res (1600x1200) 3D gaming then use the fx5700.

The Pentium III 1ghz coppermine drew too much power and was at the absolute limit of the 180nm process. The Tualatin is 130nm and runs super cool just remember you need the adapter with the voltage converter. A normal socket 370 to Slot adapter will not work.

I've built retro Althon XP and Athlon 64 systems specifically for Windows 98 se and they were complete overkill and drew double the power of a PIII system. For Athlon XP systems you NEED to find a motherboard with a 12v connector for the CPU since today's power supplies do not provide enough 5v current to run them. For the Athlon 64 system you won't find one that FULLY supports windows 98 AND has an ISA slot.

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