b_rros wrote:

Is this something I can use to play some Windows 95/98 games? Is it worth upgrading?

That depends entirely on what games you want to play. Certainly, there are much better machines that can still run Win9x. 32 MB is a little limited, but it could feasibly be enough.

For what I understand I can upgrade the processor to an MMX one (but 166 MHz is the maximum clock speed).

That depends on the motherboard. MMX CPUs required dual-voltage support (though I'm told you can usually get away without it).

What about the video card? Is it worth upgrading? For what?

Again: it's worth upgrading if there are games you want to play that require an upgrade. If you like what you have and can play what you want, it may be advisable to avoid spending the rest of your life surrounding yourself with old PC parts.

The first win95 area games would work fine on that system.. Games that requires an 133mhz pentium processor.. I defently should install windows 95 on that machine, because its more faster then running windows 98se..
The downside of windows 95 USB is that it wont support usb 2.0.. If you want to play all pentium games, for my opinion you could better installing an pentium 233 mhz MMX processor, although an 200mhz MMX would do fine too.

To answer that question it'd be rather helpful to know what games you bought it for, surely you had some specific ones in mind?

Well there are a few games that I would like to play, The Curse of Monkey Island, Quake II, Starcraft, Grim Fandango, Half-Life...

The thing is there were two things that I would allways wanted to have in one of my computers and never had, a Plextor cd writer and a Matrox video card 😀 At the time they cost so much money but now I can buy them pretty cheap (the matrox at least), I was thinking on buying a Matrox Mystique 220, one MMX 166 MHz pentium (for what I can read here http://www.shuttle.eu/_archive/older/de/555.htm 166 is the maximum this motherboard support) and some more RAM, at least double to 64 MB RAM.

Is it to much? Does the MMX makes any difference?

Well mmx instructions don't make a big difference,especially not in games,but the increased L1 cache does,so a pentium mmx 166 mhz performs as a pentium 200 mhz non mmx,or even better.
64 mb of ram is more then enough for windows 95 and games from that era,using more is not advisable since the vx chipset can't cache more then 64mb.
The Matrox Mystique is a good option for 2d,fast,very good picture quality,it has some compatibility problems with some older DOS games,but the main problem is that it sucks for 3d,so quake 2 , half life will only be playable in software mode on the mystique.
For 3d games the best option is to install a voodoo 1 or voodoo 2 card,the combination of the matrox with the 3dfx was 1 of the fastest options back then

Well HL is unplayable on my 200 MMX with 32 MB and a Voodoo Graphics, but YMMV 😀

b_rros, Congrats! You picked the right PC to begin with! I suggest starting with some Monkey Island and perhaps a couple or two other great DOS titles. I don't know for sure, but Quake II might be playable in software mode. Your S3 videocard is fine, it's fast and compatible, although 2D-only.

The best upgrade at current state is getting a Voodoo Graphics or a Voodoo II card. That will introduce your PC to a whole new world of Glide games. Grim Fandango is great on a Voodoo card, Quake II is really shining. If you wish to upgrade your CPU, you should first make sure your motherboard supports it. I would suggest going straight to 233MMX if you have 3D in mind - some extra beef is never bad for it. However, if you like DOS titles better, your CPU is just fine.

Considering Matrox Mystique 220, I own one and I can say that it is an excellent card. It has a great 2D core and some 3D capabilities I find curious. If you can find one for cheap, go for it! I love playing Tomb Raider on Mystique, it does not have much alpha blending the card can not perform, and looks very crisp and retro compared to the smooth Glide version. There are other games for Mystique, I'll find a full list if you're interested.

And I don't want to disappoint you, but forget about playing Half Life on this rig. Especially in software mode.

btw, here's one of my old builds that started as Pentium-100 with FX chip set, 16MB of RAM and S3Trio64V+: My Pentium MMX gaming rig

And here's the website that has a lot of good info on CPUs, chip sets and other stuff of the era, it helped me a lot: http://www.pcguide.com/

Good luck and have fun!

RacoonRider wrote:

I don't know for sure, but Quake II might be playable in software mode. Your S3 videocard is fine, it's fast and compatible, although 2D-only.

In my youth I played Quake II in 320x200 software mode on a non-MMX Pentium-133 with S3 Virge video card.

I too remeber playing quake 2 and even half life the demo,on my k5-100mhz with 40mb of ram and an s3 trio 64v+ with 1mb of video ram,altough i can't rember what resolutions,prolly lowest,but i found the experience acceptable back then 😜

1. You don't need a Pentium to be able to play Monkey Island 😉
2. I finished Half-Life single player on a Pentium 200 with Voodoo 2 and 64MB RAM. It ran great!

b_rros wrote:

Well there are a few games that I would like to play, The Curse of Monkey Island, Quake II, Starcraft, Grim Fandango, Half-Life...

You can play all of these pretty easily even on a modern computer running Windows 7, with only a few minor difficulties.

Well I just clean it and install Windows 98 SE on it, with the Windows 95 installation I wasn't able to play Full Throttle, now I can 😀
Grim Fandango runs but slowly, Windows 98 with only 32 MB of RAM is not that bad, I will try to upgrade to 64 MB of RAM and I'm watching a few Matrox Mystique @eBay, let's see…

I do have a 486 DX 33 MHz to play those older DOS only games, so maybe I use this one to play only Windows 95/98 games.

Just one more question, this is my motherboard http://www.shuttle.eu/_archive/older/de/555.htm#hot_555a. For what I understand the 1.52 version as 166 MHz as the maximum clock speed to MMX pentiums, right? What should I choose? An 166 Mhz MMX or a 200 MHz non MMX

Here's the photo, I will try to get some better ones later.

Pentium MMX processors have twice the L1 cache, so a 166 MMX should perform closer to a regular 200 than its clock speed would suggest. MMX instructions are used extensively in HL for example, so if you seriously want to play that on this PC better get the 166 MMX 😀

Your PC already meets the minimum requirements, you'd only need to get a 3D accelerator to meet the recommended specs 🤣

Somehow I think the board is capable of handling even a P233MMX. The jumper setting for 233 Mhz is 1.5x66Mhz, the CPU uses 3.5x66Mhz instead... If your board can handle P166MMX it must have split rail and if it can handle P100, it must have 1.5x66Mhz jumper setting. I think you should try and go for P233MMX, it mught be just a marketing trick after all.

d1stortion wrote:

Pentium MMX processors have twice the L1 cache, so a 166 MMX should perform closer to a regular 200 than its clock speed would suggest. MMX instructions are used extensively in HL for example, so if you seriously want to play that on this PC better get the 166 MMX 😀

Your PC already meets the minimum requirements, you'd only need to get a 3D accelerator to meet the recommended specs 🤣

I'm trying to get a Voodoo 😀

RacoonRider wrote:

Somehow I think the board is capable of handling even a P233MMX. The jumper setting for 233 Mhz is 1.5x66Mhz, the CPU uses 3.5x66Mhz instead... If your board can handle P166MMX it must have split rail and if it can handle P100, it must have 1.5x66Mhz jumper setting. I think you should try and go for P233MMX, it mught be just a marketing trick after all.

Depends,i remeber when i had my first pc i had a k5 100 mhz,the mb was the was a chaintech 5vgm0,and the fastest intel cpu it supported was the pentium mmx 166 mhz ,while the second version of this mb the 5vgm1 supported the mmx 233,i remeber the manual saying that the first version of the mb didn't support the faster mmx processors, becouse the voltage regulators will overheat and cause the board to brake down.

RacoonRider wrote:

Somehow I think the board is capable of handling even a P233MMX. The jumper setting for 233 Mhz is 1.5x66Mhz, the CPU uses 3.5x66Mhz instead... If your board can handle P166MMX it must have split rail and if it can handle P100, it must have 1.5x66Mhz jumper setting. I think you should try and go for P233MMX, it mught be just a marketing trick after all.

I "googled" and found a thread https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.c … tle/0h5Tmyw1gWE from 2001 with the same question, and looks like it didn't work for him.
Maybe I should stick with the 166 MHz MMX one, but the 233 MHz MMX will be great. 😀

b_rros wrote:

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/c/34/wpzi.jpg […]
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That's a Cherry keyboard! Which model is it?

Also, nice games on the shelf! Especially Death Rally 😁

I really don't know, this is an old Olivetti keyboard, I really like the sound that the keys make although the space key is a little flakey 😀
Here's the sticker on the bottom: