carlostex wrote:

Still about the monitor:

Can you manually adjust V-H position? Does it have an automatic screen adjustment?

It does have adjustment for V and H position. Auto adjust is triggered by holding down the left-most button for a few seconds.

clueless1 wrote:

Very nice! I agree about 2.0 speakers for retro DOS. I have a pair of beige Gateway Altec Lansings that have good volume, bass and treble, more than adequate without a sub-woofer. They've got a headphone jack which can add another dimension too. One day i would like to get into 486 and earlier systems. I limit myself to what I can find or be given, and no luck yet with anything earlier than P54C so far.

Thanks for the write-up and pics. Very interesting!

I got this stuff years ago, it's harder now and more expensive too 😒

jesolo wrote:

Slightly off topic, but relevant to building a retro PC, I'm actually also looking into getting an LCD 4:3 (square) monitor for […]
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carlostex wrote:

Still about the monitor:

Can you manually adjust V-H position? Does it have an automatic screen adjustment?

Slightly off topic, but relevant to building a retro PC, I'm actually also looking into getting an LCD 4:3 (square) monitor for my older PC's that still runs via VLB or ISA graphics cards.
Although I have plenty of CRT monitors (two 17", one 15" and two 14"), they just take up too much space and the larger ones are quite bulky.

My "daily driver" is still a Samsung SyncMaster 2233 (22.5") wide screen LCD, but have noticed that on PC's with either VLB or ISA graphics cards, it sometimes displays "distortion" across the screen (almost like in the "old days" when someone took a video of an image being displayed on a CRT monitor - which, if memory serves correct, is essentially just the refresh rate being picked up on the video). With PCI (and newer) graphics cards, I don't notice this "distortion".
What carlostex has alluded to, I'm also thinking it might be related to the newer wide screen LCD monitors that doesn't quite support the older display standards (resolution, ratio, etc.).

Back to the topic, I've always thought a 486DX 33 MHz to be a great CPU for early 90's DOS games. However, I've been thinking on rather using a Cyrix 486DLC 40 MHz instead of a 486DX 33 MHz (purely for nostalgic reasons, since it was the first PC I bought for myself and they tend to be more or less on par with each other in terms of integer performance).

Could the "sped up animation" issue perhaps be related to the VLB graphics and IDE controller cards?
The VLB graphics cards do tend to run much faster (even in de-turbo mode) than a standard ISA graphics card.
Maybe pop in a standard 16-bit ISA graphics card and see whether you still experience the same problems in "de-turbo" mode?

Interesting. Can you describe this distortion, or take a picture? On some cards I do have some sort of vertical banding, it shows up when the same colour fills the screen. With widescreen monitors, make sure they are in 4:3 mode, not every monitor supports this though.

Interesting that you mention the 486DCL40. It is not far behind this machine. On a fast 386 board it scores around 22 or so FPS in 3dbench.

I did try an ISA card, with WD chipset, it scored around 23 FPS. So still quite speedy and way faster than a 386DX 40 MHz. Using the Turbo did slow down the animations.

dexter311 wrote:

Nice build Phil!

I'm in the process of collecting parts for a 486 build - mine will be non-VLB though (16-bit ISA only). I've secured almost everything so far, including an ET4000 1MB card and my old CT3900 AWE32 - all I'm missing is cache chips, RAM and a IDE/Multi-IO card. The IO card has been tough to get hold of for less than 15eur and with the features I need, and the cache chips are pretty expensive!

It'll be a fun project once all the parts are here though!

I might a project on a SX (sucks) 25 MHz 486 and go all ISA. At that lowly clock speed it shouldn't matter much. A great ISA IO card is the one with the GoldStar Prime 2 chip.

brassicGamer wrote:

I can't really argue with the CPU choice from an 'adventure games' point of view but, given I was never into those, I would eschew any low-end 486 in favour of at least a DX2-66/80 every single time, purely from a versatility point of view. If you're going 486, I think it should cover an era, not a genre. VLB is somewhat pointless at the lower end of the 486 spectrum, and the system won't play Doom at anything like an acceptable framerate. Trouble is, I say this as a person who own 3x socket 3 boards with a choice of ISA, VLB and PCI, and pretty much all the CPUs as well. I forget that most people have only one (as in your case) or none of these systems available to them, so they make the best of what they've got. And you've definitely done that.

I chose the theme of adventure games to have some sort of focus and theme. Too many games to try out otherwise. I agree that it won't run Doom that well, so I picked a theme that it does do well. 7th Guest for example is also very suitable on this machine and a lot of RPG type games, maybe Ultima Underworld?

LunarG wrote:

Looks really nice :) Very cool and authentic build. I love the VESA localbus. When I get time and energy, I will rebuild my main […]
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Looks really nice 😀
Very cool and authentic build. I love the VESA localbus. When I get time and energy, I will rebuild my main retro rig and try to get my VESA stuff working. It's always been the penultimate 486-era bus in my opinion.
And I totally support your idea of a system for adventure games... It's my favourite genre as well.
Amazing sound setup with the Roland boxes 😀
I have the little brother of your speakers that I use for gaming and such, and I find them surprisingly good.

The Roland music really adds atmosphere and brings these games to life. I noticed the IO controller also has empty sockets. Not quite sure what is meant to go there...

clueless1 wrote:

That system would also play games like Ultima 7 and the Ultima Underworlds really well. Other similar RPGs too--Wizardry 7, Might and Magic 3-5, and flight sims of the early 90s: Aces of the Pacific, Aces over Europe, Red Baron.

True! A lot of the 3D games that chug a bit on a 386, but are too fast on a DX2 should run well.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Wow, that's a very nice-looking build. Well done. I wish I had the time and money to make builds like that... sigh.

And I see you've been made a mod, Phil! Congrats, you've earned it for a long time now.

😊 Thanks

When I got these parts they cost little. I have an Acer 486 (stripped now) that I got for 486. It's OEM, weird looking motherboard with riser card, but it has ISA, PCI and VLB and, well it works 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I noticed the IO controller also has empty sockets. Not quite sure what is meant to go there...

At the very least a controller will have a 9 pin serial port and a parallel port on the main shield. Usually the card would originally have come with an extra shield including a game port and / or 25 pin serial and an extra 9 pin serial port. Or these could be mounted on the case itself if it's AT style. On that note, I assume you're on the lookout for an original case for this build - it really needs the LCD display and turbo switch to do it justice 😀

Yes the IO controller has headers for a second serial port as well as for a game-port. But there are empty IC sockets on the card and I am wonder what they are for.

Very nice build Phil! It's a demonstration that you don't really need the highend of every piece. You've installed a run of the mill motherboard, VGA, controller and soundcard which someone most likely will come across if they happen to find a 486 in the wild. Yes, you have the Roland card and devices, but if you use SoftMPU and buy the Roland device from Japan it's very affordable 😀

I'm actually building something similar using a full ISA system and a DX50. I'm going the more exotic route with the hardware 😀

What's a good source for graphics card memory chips? A lot of my cards have empty slots that I would like to fill.

Check out aliexpress. Easiest and cheapest place to source them!

DX-50? Nice! I heard it's a challenge because of the high bus speed.

Yea Roland stuff is expensive, but it's a one-off purchase and good investment IMO.

Will check out that supplier. The chips are all the same, so if I can get a bulk oder I can fill all those empty sockets 😀

BTW, I appreciate you giving us a sneak peak at this machine before posting your video. And congrats on your promotion! 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

DX-50? Nice! I heard it's a challenge because of the high bus speed.

Yea Roland stuff is expensive, but it's a one-off purchase and good investment IMO.

Will check out that supplier. The chips are all the same, so if I can get a bulk oder I can fill all those empty sockets 😀

I missed the big-ass picture of the card and wasn't sure what you meant, sorry! I'm going to speculate wildly and suggest that the DRAM slots are for cache (albeit a very small / slow amount of it, so maybe not) and that an EPROM can be added to provide RAID functionality or somesuch. Therefore the chip would need to be pre-programmed with the right BIOS for this card - it was probably an optional extra and I suspect the only chance you've got of achieving this is by finding someone with a complete card. Interesting feature though - don't see it often.

clueless1 wrote:

BTW, I appreciate you giving us a sneak peak at this machine before posting your video. And congrats on your promotion! 😀

Thanks 😊

As much as loathe writing, Vogons is a forum, so I might do this more often.

brassicGamer wrote:

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

DX-50? Nice! I heard it's a challenge because of the high bus speed.

Yea Roland stuff is expensive, but it's a one-off purchase and good investment IMO.

Will check out that supplier. The chips are all the same, so if I can get a bulk oder I can fill all those empty sockets 😀

I missed the big-ass picture of the card and wasn't sure what you meant, sorry! I'm going to speculate wildly and suggest that the DRAM slots are for cache (albeit a very small / slow amount of it, so maybe not) and that an EPROM can be added to provide RAID functionality or somesuch. Therefore the chip would need to be pre-programmed with the right BIOS for this card - it was probably an optional extra and I suspect the only chance you've got of achieving this is by finding someone with a complete card. Interesting feature though - don't see it often.

Interesting and worth investigating. Might sit down one day and run some image searches to see if I can ID anything. I was so happy when I saw the jumper tables at the back of the card 😁 Makes life a lot easier.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Every project should have a focus, so for this one the theme are playing classic DOS adventure games

It seems to be optimal 486 for games befor late DOS protected mode era (1993+), except may be VLB (I doubt VLB cards had same compatibility as ISA). While for later games it's better to use Pentium, like your P133 build, except the latest SVGA stuff. I don't know were there games (post-XT) with speed issues on your P133, considering its slowdown possibilities.

Using the turbo function as well as disabling the internal cache through software or BIOS and you can slow it down to 386 and 286 levels. A few games did run too fast (Loom has sped up animations, so did Cruise for a Corpse). And Monkey Island sounds off for example.

If you'll find games where its slowdown don't help - their list is interesting here. Slower ISA card may help sometimes, also.
I notice, the numbers for slowed down 486 33 MHz in 3dbench and pcpbench are very close to what you get with slowed down P3 1000. You may even get close 2nd slow step by reducing in twice the bus clock 133->66.

It doesn't have a OPL3 chip, but who cares, most of the games support MT-32 or General MIDI.

Some may sound better with FM, if to use the machine not for quests only. It's not hard to setup normal SB card.

I got a boot disc from bootdisc.com

"disk"

486DX33 makes for a great DOS machine. I had one as my second PC and enjoyed it for years. It runs most mid 90s games just fine. 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I might a project on a SX (sucks) 25 MHz 486 and go all ISA. At that lowly clock speed it shouldn't matter much. A great ISA IO card is the one with the GoldStar Prime 2 chip.

Hello Phil. I am currently doing something similar. My idea for this build is to be as close to late 1991 as possible with the components I have and see how many and what era games I can play with it. Basically I want to role play a situation where I got some money to build myself a PC for the Christmas season of 1991 😀. There are four exceptions to this role play I accepted:
1) I don't have a 1991 motherboard, so I'm using a 1995 Socket 3
2) I don't have an IDE/FDD card from 1991 so I'm using VLB IO card I already have
3) I'm using modern storage stuff: GOTEK and an IDE SD Card stuff
4) I happen to own MT-32 old and I would LOVE for it to work with this setup with no mingling with the caches (turbo is acceptable). Chances are slim though..

My setup:

1995------------------------------------
Motherboard: FIC 486-PVT (1995)
Multi I/O IDE Controller: Epotec 294V0 Winbond W93758P UMC VLB (1994)
Power 1: Random AT PSU
1991------------------------------------
CPU: i486 SX 25MHz (1991)
Sound Blaster 2.0 (1991)
SC-55 (1991)
Graphics: Trident HNG900C 512Kb (TVGA9000C) (1991)*
2016-------------------------------------
MPU-401 Intelligent: PCMIDI V010 Intelligent Mode - UART, MPU interface
External Storage: GOTEK Floppy
Headphone: Beyerdynamic DT990 Premium 600 Ohm
Headphone Amp: Schiit Magni 1.0
Internal Storage: SD Card IDE thingy*
Power 2: Chinese ATX to AT with no -5V thingy + Aliexpress 180W External power brick*

* - waiting to arrive

Great build Phil! But if you're using a Roland MPU-401/AT, why not add a wavetable board? This is the perfect host card!

CHiLL72 wrote:

Great build Phil! But if you're using a Roland MPU-401/AT, why not add a wavetable board? This is the perfect host card!

Because it doesn't have a mixer, and I also prefer external modules.

Heya PhilsComputerLab,

Nice setup there! You actually helped me identify my motherboard as same. it helped alot managed to get jumper manual and more info about it.

i do however have some problems with cache, it is not working, have here more pictures and showing only 128k SHADOW is installed but no cache: https://pilvi.titanix.net/s/IudeDiIpmZ3ezTx?p … Biostar_mb-1433

can you please confirm with cachechk there is L2 cache onboard? if you still have system up and running?
just want to know if my mb is broken, its about -93 i don't think that time was fake caches

I don't have the system up and running I'm afraid, but there isn't much to it apart from putting the chips in and setting the jumpers.

okey,
well i look your video on youtube there was a tests where is external cache on and off, that helps. it means the L2 cache worked on your board because it gave different test results.

i just going take it out from case and inspect it better, i guess there is something what im missing. realtimeclock(its dead) might be a problem, going to change that.