Nice spec on these machines, the MIDI side will be well catered for! From what I understand, there's no particular advantage to a SC-55 MkII in DOS games. Any SC-55 will fit the bill. Same with the MU module, anything from a MU-10 up will do.

If you are concerned about HDD noise there's always the option of a laptop hard drive. Have you considered a Vortex 2 in the Croft machine?

wocko1 wrote:

OK I have the final planned specs for the machines (Ones in bold are what I already got): […]
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OK I have the final planned specs for the machines (Ones in bold are what I already got):

Project Dopefish
- Intel Pentium MMX 166MHz
- 64MB SDRAM
- 20GB HDD (planning to drop the HDD for a CF-based SSD)
- S3 Trio 64V+
- 3Dfx Voodoo 2 12MB
- Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (will be upgrading RAM to 28MB via SIMMCONN adapter, for the larger soundfonts)
- Roland MT-32 (OLD)
- Ethernet
- CD-ROM
- Roland CM-32L
- Roland SC-55mkII
- Windows 98SE
- SoftMPU
- Floppy Emulator

Will be posting pics soon after I get back home

Very, very, very nice 😀

badmojo wrote:

Very nice! Your systems are quite similar to what I have with a couple of differences: […]
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Very nice! Your systems are quite similar to what I have with a couple of differences:

- I use a Matrox Mystique in My P166 because of its fast SVGA and beautiful image quality compared to several others I've tried in that machine. (Ark Logic PCI, an interesting VGA card.)
- Why not use Windows 95 in Dopefish? It's fun to use different OS's where possible I think.
- IMHO a HDD is the way to go for the authentic experience (same goes for a real FDD).
- Do you have an ISA slot available in the Croft machine? I've found that even the mighty P166 struggles with maxed out SVGA games and it's a much nicer experience running them on my PIII 1Ghz, but these being DOS games it's better to use an ISA card with them. Nice choice on the Live! for Windows games though!

- I read from the compatibility lists that the Matrox Mystique is absolutely crap for DOS games, especially ones that use scrolling such as good old Commander Keen! It has similar faults to what the ATI cards have.
- Hmm, maybe I could use Win 95 OSR2 as the main OS on Dopefish, and it would run faster without the IE crap that 98 has. But would it really be much different than using Win98 with 98Lite installed, to clean out the unneeded crap that 98 has?
- I know that using a proper HDD and FDD is better for authenticity, but the problem is that HDDs and FDDs are quite unreliable and it would be a PITA to get replacement IDE HDDs, floppy drives and disks.
- Sadly Croft doesn't have a single ISA slot, which is a PITA. It only has PCI slots (plenty of them) plus an AGP slot and one of those rare AMR slots.

rgart wrote:

Nice classic builds!
Interested to know about your choice of CPU cooler on the Thunderbird rig.

I am using the el-stocko cooler on the T-Bird at the moment, but I am considering replacing it because it sounds like a Airbus A380 taking off. Is there a better cooler that you or anyone else would recommend?

bjt wrote:

Nice spec on these machines, the MIDI side will be well catered for! From what I understand, there's no particular advantage to a SC-55 MkII in DOS games. Any SC-55 will fit the bill. Same with the MU module, anything from a MU-10 up will do.

If you are concerned about HDD noise there's always the option of a laptop hard drive. Have you considered a Vortex 2 in the Croft machine?

I'm actually more concerned with reliability than noise for the HDDs. I guess you are talking about an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD right? If so, I might have to whack in a SATA controller card. I think that Mau1wurf1977 had little or no dramas setting one up in his rig according to his YouTube vids.

Sorry my reply was a bit misleading. I actually meant have you considered an Aureal Vortex 2-based sound card instead of the SB Live.

wocko1 wrote:

If so, I might have to whack in a SATA controller card. I think that Mau1wurf1977 had little or no dramas setting one up in his rig according to his YouTube vids.

Yea they work really well! Just keep in mind to stay with a single 30GB FAT32 partition to avoid any issues. You have to partition it with an external utility like Super FDisk. I made a video about this as well 😀

wocko1 wrote:

- I read from the compatibility lists that the Matrox Mystique is absolutely crap for DOS games, especially ones that use scrolling such as good old Commander Keen! It has similar faults to what the ATI cards have.
- Hmm, maybe I could use Win 95 OSR2 as the main OS on Dopefish, and it would run faster without the IE crap that 98 has. But would it really be much different than using Win98 with 98Lite installed, to clean out the unneeded crap that 98 has?

Absolutely crap? Nah. I know of the Keen issue but you could just play that on the other machine.

And yes, 95 snd 98 are different.

badmojo wrote:

Absolutely crap? Nah. I know of the Keen issue but you could just play that on the other machine.

And yes, 95 snd 98 are different.

Sure I could play Keen and other games on the other machine, but I would prefer Dopefish for DOS and early Win95 and early DOS/Windows 3Dfx games, and Croft for 1998-2004 Windows based games. But yeah, maybe I might put Windows 95 OSR2 on it.

bjt wrote:

Sorry my reply was a bit misleading. I actually meant have you considered an Aureal Vortex 2-based sound card instead of the SB Live.

Now after looking at the card, it is very tempting because it (Diamond Monster Sound) has a Waveblaster Header, and it would be a good home for my cheap NEC XR385 (OEM version of a Yamaha DB60XG). Though, just curious, what makes the Vortex 2 a good sound chip and why would you choose it over an SB Live?

I'm no expert (have a Vortex 2 for a planned Athlon build but I've not got round to it yet...)

I hear that it has good sound quality and of course supports A3D positional audio in some earlyish Windows games.
I believe it's only compatible with Win 95/98 though.

Well I am having major problems with Dopefish and I was wondering

I found an old Pentium III 833MHz Coppermine and the motherboard has an ISA slot, quite a few PCI and an AGP slot

Would this be a suitable replacement?

I also opted to use an S3 ViRGE to use as the 2D card since its 3D capability is shite but it has excellent DOS compatibility. Also if I were to change Dopefish to an 833 P3 would SLI Voodoo 2s be the go?

wocko1 wrote:

I also opted to use an S3 ViRGE to use as the 2D card since its 3D capability is shite but it has excellent DOS compatibility. Also if I were to change Dopefish to an 833 P3 would SLI Voodoo 2s be the go?

Yes

Here is Project Dopefish so far.

Pentium III 833
64MB RAM
S3 ViRGE 4MB
SB AWE64 Gold
Intel-based Network Card
40GB HDD
IDE DVD Burner salvaged from parts

Good choice with S3 and AWE64 Gold. If this is for DOS games though you'd be much better with socket 7. The socket 7 machines can be slowed down to 386 & 486 levels by disabling caches in the BIOS. Some games will just run far too fast on the PIII.

bjt wrote:

Good choice with S3 and AWE64 Gold. If this is for DOS games though you'd be much better with socket 7. The socket 7 machines can be slowed down to 386 & 486 levels by disabling caches in the BIOS. Some games will just run far too fast on the PIII.

Well my original plan was using an old AST Bravo MS 5166 with a P166MMX, but it was becoming a real hassle to deal with since it will not support HDDs larger than 2GB, not even with a BIOS update and I really didn't want to use a DDO as it chews up conventional memory. It was becoming such a PITA to work with, and it was acting weird when I installed a SATA controller card.

Well folks, Project Croft is completed now

Project Croft
- AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.3GHz
- 512MB SDRAM
- 80GB HDD
- nVIDIA GeForce 4 MX440
- Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
- Pioneer DVD-ROM
- Yamaha MU-80 Synth
- Windows 98SE

I'll put up photos when I get a spare moment 😀

Now, as for Dopefish, I ended up downgrading it to a Pentium II 350, with a 440BX chipset. DOS games run extremely well with the cache disabled. Now only thing left is tho throw in SLI Voodoo 2s (waiting for a good price on Fleabay) and waiting for the SIMMConn adapter to arrive

wocko1 wrote:

DOS games run extremely well with the cache disabled. Now only thing left is tho throw in SLI Voodoo 2s (waiting for a good price on Fleabay) and waiting for the SIMMConn adapter to arrive

What performance do you get in 3dbench 1.0 which cache disabled?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

wocko1 wrote:

DOS games run extremely well with the cache disabled. Now only thing left is tho throw in SLI Voodoo 2s (waiting for a good price on Fleabay) and waiting for the SIMMConn adapter to arrive

What performance do you get in 3dbench 1.0 which cache disabled?

CPU: Intel Pentium II 350MHz (underclocked to 233MHz)
FSB: 66MHz
Multiplier: 3.5x
Cache : Disabled
Motherboard: Abit BF6
Chipset: Intel 440BX
Graphics Card: S3 ViRGE PCI 4MB

Score: 9.5

Hmmmm that is unusually high for a Slot 1 machine. Might test a few of my PII chips now.

EDIT: I get 6 fps with my P II chips. Are you sure you tested with 3dbench 1.0 and not 1.0c?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Hmmmm that is unusually high for a Slot 1 machine. Might test a few of my PII chips now.

EDIT: I get 6 fps with my P II chips. Are you sure you tested with 3dbench 1.0 and not 1.0c?

It was my bad! Turns out I used 1.0C before. I retested with 1.0 and I got 4.0
EDIT: At stock speed (350MHz, 100MHz FSB, x3.5), I get 6.0

Yea that's more like it 😀

Without cache, faster memory makes a difference.

4-6 is really a 386SX at around 16 MHz. It's ok to play some of the older games, but even Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade feels sluggish.

Might want to keep an eye out for another Super Socket 7 board? It's THE platform for DOS games 😀

I'm building my time-machine again, this time with a DFI board. Will make a video again 😁