Re: Is any of these two slockets P III Coppermine compatible?
Posted on Today, 10:39
I see a few badly scratched traces near the middle on the back side, therefore I doubt it will work.
Re: Fast Pentium MMX compared to a Pentium II
Posted on 2023-06-05, 19:34
Thanks for adding more Mendocinos. Your results clearly confirm my findings from long ago that Mendocino 500 at 83Mhz FSB was an excellent CPU for gaming, almost a match for PIII at the same clock. Getting it work at 100Mhz FSB was very rare though. K6-2 was not worth keeping. Mendocinos are an …
Re: Win 98 -1997-1999 3dfx dream machine ultimative specs?
Posted on 2023-06-05, 19:23
You can swap the PIII 800 for 900 or 1Ghz. Don't expect much from 3dfx though, it is totally inferior to my FX5600 in terms of frame rate and resolution. I never use Voodoo 2 for that reason. It is only useful for very early 3d games (1997-1998) that don't support Direct 3D. In those games software …
Re: Fast Pentium MMX compared to a Pentium II
Posted on 2023-06-04, 20:21
It would be great if you could test Mendocino Celeron at 83Mhz FSB. I used that back in the day instead of K6-2 for gaming.
Re: Is any of these two slockets P III Coppermine compatible?
Posted on 2023-05-15, 17:41
I bought it last week or so, and it was good value for hardware of an era which I'm not particularly fond about and not willing to spend too much on. Actually, I got it just to see if I could build something interesting (to me at least) around it and find some love for the age of slot 1, slot A …
Re: Unstable Slot-A build.
Posted on 2023-05-11, 18:00
The board is just too worn out. Unless you have experience with replacing capacitors you may kill it. Learn it on a board you don't care about - e.g buy a worn out Socket A board just for recap practice. I would recommend always having a spare in case recap will not be successful. I have 4 boards …
Re: Trying to build a single DOS + Win98 1993-1999 gaming PC - advice is welcome
Posted on 2023-05-08, 08:47
That guide doesn't list many optimal settings to enable on 693A to get decent memory performance. You can view 693A as a beta version of 694X and it may not be fully stable with all optimizations enabled. I'm only listing those that should be stable: The best known optimization is: 1-0 Bank …
Re: Trying to build a single DOS + Win98 1993-1999 gaming PC - advice is welcome
Posted on 2023-05-06, 07:48
693A always had terrible memory performance and is a poor choice for a retro rig. It was possible to reconfigure chipset via wpcredit to fix it and get performance closer to 694X. 694X at 133FSB ~ 440BX at 100FSB. The wpcredit fix made it viable for Windows but not DOS. I'm surprised you have …
Re: Slot Pentium III - Thermal restoration - confused
Posted on 2023-04-29, 22:58
I still use Arctic MX-4 tube that I bought like 15 years ago. I just repasted my laptop with it and it's working fine. I also used it on my retro rigs. Remainders of the original thermal pad can be removed with finger nails or plastic.
Re: Running DOS games in a real hardware. What issues am I going to encounter?
Posted on 2023-04-25, 18:31
He would slow down PII 333 to 166Mhz (66Mhz x 2.5) to play games that can't handle 333Mhz and have a speed reserve.
Re: Running DOS games in a real hardware. What issues am I going to encounter?
Posted on 2023-04-25, 17:05
If DOS is a priority then get a Pentium II 333 + 440LX/BX (not VIA). Those have open multiplier and thus can down clock if needed. You should be able to play games also in SVGA. 486 and Pentium 120 do not have have sufficient speed for SVGA games. You will be missing a lot.
Re: 2GB HDD limit in BIOS - Would XT-IDE fix this?
Posted on 2023-04-23, 07:42
Get a PCI IDE or SATA card. They handle hard drive BIOS calls. You can have a bootable 120GB hard drive on 486/586.
Re: i440BX motherboard not seeing 256MB SDRAM
Posted on 2023-04-11, 16:55
384MB RAM will be more than sufficient for 440BX. Windows 98 can't use more than 512MB without a patch anyway. You will benefit from a faster CPU more than from more RAM in your case. Buy a Katmai 600 or PII 400.
Re: Want to build a DOS/Win98 Gaming PC
Posted on 2023-04-10, 08:56
Athlon 64 is ideal for early Windows XP games and few games that specifically require Windows 98 to run properly. Due to AGP Gart problems the primary OS should be Windows XP. It serves basically the same purpose as Athlon XP. If you want a dual boot system without AGP Gart problems then go for …
Re: Windows 98SE poor gaming performance
Posted on 2023-04-09, 10:32
Unreal and Half-Life run great on my PIII 900E, including other titles such as Soldier of Fortune, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
Re: Early Win98 \ DOS Mode Setup - Athlon 1.1 GHz or Athlon XP 2800 - Throttle the Throttle!
Posted on 2023-04-09, 07:39
For the most authentic build get a board with an ISA slot - 440BX, Via 694X (T) or KT133. No TSRs are needed in DOS and sound works flawlessly in all games. VIA KT333-400 / socket 754 are for dual Windows 98 / XP rigs, not DOS.
Re: Windows 98SE poor gaming performance
Posted on 2023-04-07, 20:19
You haven't stated the board you're using. Intel 440BX or Via 694X (T) is necessary for decent performance. Swap the Celeron for a PIII 1Ghz or 900E as they are superior.
Re: Pentium II/III without AGP, is it too crippled?
Posted on 2023-04-07, 09:01
PIII without AGP is only good for early Windows 98 games. I would not recommend it. PIII with a good AGP 3d card works flawlessly for games up to 2001. As an alternative to PIII you can use Athlon on KT133. Don't waste your money.
Re: Is 3Dfx Voodoo worth picking up in 2023 ?
Posted on 2023-04-02, 17:36
It isn't worth it. I have 3Dfx Voodoo 2 on my PIII and never use it. I bought it for like €2.
Re: CRT randomly makes popping noise
Posted on 2023-04-02, 16:13
My old Goldstar CRT that came with 386 used to make popping noise with picture being cut for a fraction of second as well. It occurred only when the monitor was very warm. The solution was to disassemble it and clean all the dust. It only happened every few months and the monitor served for many …
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