d1stortion wrote:

CQM is still better than DOSBox emulation.

what

no

oplemu=compat, rate=49716 much?

I have something very, very similar to this - same motherboard, 650 MHz processor (actually an 866 made to run on 133 bus), Voodoo 3000 instead of 3500, AWE64 gold instead of Value, and dual 40-gigabyte drives. This actually the computer I use the most 😁

I changed out some of the components listed here and keep them as spares 😉 this is what I currently use as my main "retro" (I hate that term...) machine. Maybe I'll add the YMF again when I decide to play a game that requires good FM synthesis 😀 the card I have is a bitch to fit in the ISA slot though, requires a lot of pressure for some reason.

Also funny that you use a 133 MHz FSB CPU. When I bought this board it had a 800/133 in there. I don't get the point. Tried running it at 133 then but the results were not so pleasing... 😀

The 866/133 was what had laying around... and after trying it I decided 650 was good enough. And one lesson I have learned the hard way.... once you get something working leave it alone. I have had many mishaps removing CPU coolers.

That really is an awesome board.... quite possibly the best board for socket 370 chips. I have used board with the apollo pro chipset and in spite of the 133 bus I think BX is better.

That's why I call mine Time-Machine 😀

BX440 is such a great chipset. I wouldn't worry about OPL3 at all. All the late DOS games support Sound Blaster 16 and General MIDI. So an AWE64 and an external Sound Canvas is the way to go IMO.

Have you tried any SVGA DOS games? How does it handle them?

I suppose your term fits my machine as well then 😀 although I like the feel of beige cases etc. I wanted something easy to build and to work with for starters and that's why I went with these components.

A lot of DOS games work great on this computer, namely those that are not speed sensitive (and even work on P4 3 GHz etc.). Unfortunately there is a nasty horizontal tearing problem with certain DOS games, sometimes it's also briefly seen on the POST screen etc. I made a thread about it here thinking that it's game specific, but it's not. I think it's because of the monitor. An old TFT really isn't optimal for DOS, even though this one has the perfect 4:3 ratio...

As for OPL3 I think a real one is still best. The early Creative clones are good too. There are games where it sounds really awesome, like in Heretic. Adds a really creepy vibe to that game. But yeah in most games I feel that they haven't bothered getting the most out of it. Don't care for FM synthesis if it just has that tinny feel to it. I got GM covered with a XR385 and SC-88. I'm not very interested in pre-1992 DOS games, so I don't feel the need to buy a MT-32. Wolfenstein 3D is the about the oldest game I played as a kid (in 1998).

ncmark wrote:

That really is an awesome board.... quite possibly the best board for socket 370 chips. I have used board with the apollo pro chipset and in spite of the 133 bus I think BX is better.

I dig it too. I can really see why they called it Flagship back in the day. I actually have a GA-6VXE7+ laying around and it has those damn teal caps. Of course some of them have gone bad.

To clarify what I meant by saying that 133 MHz didn't work for me, here: download.php?id=11278 😉 I'm fairly sure that it was just due to the 3dfx card though.

d1stortion wrote:

To clarify what I meant by saying that 133 MHz didn't work for me, here: download.php?id=11278 😉 I'm fairly sure that it was just due to the 3dfx card though.

loool! You sure you didn't flash your BIOS with the Welsh language version? 🤣

Rave and Exit!! 🤣

Indeed, had to tell Cold Storage to get the hell out of my computer 😉

🤣! 😀

d1stortion wrote:

Also funny that you use a 133 MHz FSB CPU. When I bought this board it had a 800/133 in there. I don't get the point. Tried running it at 133 then but the results were not so pleasing

'

This is where I wish the Intel chips weren't locked. If that 866 chip wasn't locked I could probably set it at 850 or at least 800. I understand why they do it, but I still don't like it.

Looks like a nice setup! 😀

can't you manually define/edit the size of the swap file?

I completely disabled it. Never had a crash related to lack of RAM, of course I don't do heavy multitasking on such a machine. The one and only game that just refuses to run like that is Quake 2.

I agree, unless your like me and like to run internet (palemoon older cpu build) with flash you haven't much to worry about.

The machines from this period are really nostalgic for me. The moment we swapped our 386 for a Celeron 633 Mhz with a RIVA TNT2 (the real one, not the budget "Vanta" or "M64" ones) 32 MB card I will forever remember. I'm envious cause I don't have any retro machines on hand correctly. Anyways wish you luck on playing everything you want on it.

Thanks. I've mainly played Glide stuff on mine so far and that really works great without much fiddling around. I don't think our PC at that time had any 3D acceleration, that way I got to play DOS games instead of something like Unreal. From that standpoint I would not call 3dfx cards overrated at all as you hear it sometimes. Perhaps you should build such a PC yourself someday... better invest in something like this than in current games that are DRM and DLC-riddled anyway.

I have

2x Intel Pentium III 800MHZ 256KB L2 100FSB
ASUS Duel slot 1 Intel Chipset 440i
2x 16GB CF (Flash Memory) IDE Adaptor 90mb/s @ UDMA 2
Sony 16x DVD-ROM IDE
4x 128MB PC133 Kingston
Nvidia Geforce 4 TI 4200 64MB AGP2x + 2x PCI Voodoo 2 12MB SLI
Soundblaster 16 ISA + Yamaha Midi OPL3+
Windows 98SE Custom patches + Windows 2000 SP4R2
Windows 98SE can see 137GB+ with the patches

2nd Rig
AMD AthlonXP Barton 3200+
Nvidia Nforce Chipset DDR
3DFX Voodoo 5 5500 64MB AGP
1024MB DDR400 XMS Corsair
2x 32GB CF Flash memory IDE 90mb/s ATA133
Soundblaster Live! 5.1 EMU SB16 DOS
Windows 98SE

and i change the parts around when testing to find the best setup and compatibility all round and Using Omega Drivers from Nvidia, ATI, 3DFX