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I've never seen that many sound cards in one machine before.

You should use that LIAN-LI snail-shaped case instead and pretend it's a cochlea or something.

Yeah, I have run out of PCI slots or I would add more sound cards. But I still have USB ports so I am going to add some real nice USB audio devices and I have lots of RCA inputs and Toslink inputs too.

I have the Lian Li Snail in the garage. I am going to build an Audio studio out of it too. Controlled by my iPad.
I might even put a high performance speaker in it. It is BIG enough and has lots of room and cavities for such stuff.

For DOS, you'll definitely want to look at another sound card (like a Yamaha or ALS4k based device). None of the Envy24 drivers support pure DOS.

Do you want game/music PC or Audio mixer+effects station? Your config too much likes the mixer station for external devices. What USB cards you're going to add and why? How will it let you to listen music/games with better quality than now? I think you just plug all you see without target.

Your motherboard has PC/PCI connector! And for DOS games it is the best method. I would pull out both Envy24's and plug in Yamaha 7x4 with SB-Link cable connected to PC/PCI connector, second installation is Voodoo3/4 PCI for Glide. And leave AGP 4Ti as it is. GeForce 4 is a wonderful choice for Win98/DOS.

Okay, I am going to pull the Terratec EWX 24/96 with SPDIF and replace it with a Aureal SuperQuad SQ2500 Vortex-2 AU8830 Sound Card which I have in my garage.
I might add a Yamaha YMF-7xx card too.
I am also going to replace the hard-drive with an SSD and add more ram since I only have 512mb installed right now. I will bump that up to 2gb. ( Max ram )
And I am going to leave the XP Pro install since it is running very good.
I am just going to keep this motherboard for now. later I may upgrade to a 755 motherboard with Core-2-Quad for best performance.

I have more motherboards , Audio cards, and Lian Li cases so I am going to build an Ultimate Pentium-3 Audio/Gaming Computer later.

Intel486dx33, your Asus P3 TUSL2-C even doesn't have ISA. You want change AGP+PCI motherboard to AGP+PCI motherbaord and get lower performance and lower max RAM size. I don't understand you. OK, at least take one of the fastest CPU-370 with 512kb cache (Tualatin-1133/1400 etc).

Well you will change:
- RIMM 2GB to DIMM 512MB
- PC/PCI present to PC/PCI absent
- AGP2.0 to AGP Universal
And what? Not reasonable.

If you'll find Intel D850MV board it will be best choice.

Socket-478 and Northwood CPUs, USB2.0 if NEC controller is installed, PC/PCI, RDRAM 800/1066 up to 2GB, FSB533 !!!
And exclusive points about Northwood:
- it already has 0x19A register - frequency divisor - and the best throttle quality for old DOS unlike Tualatin and Willamette
- it has Hyper-Threading which is very useful in Windows XP

Oh, why did you think that WinXP shouldn't work well on i850 board? Of course you need not Win2000, make dual boot 98/XP and enjoy! Often Windows 98 won't work with RAM more than 512MB and needs BURNMEM.SYS driver. But on i850 motherboard Win98 works well always with 1GB RAM and sometimes even with 2GB !!! I've checked.

Yes, I am just trying to get these builds as close to period correct as I can.
I actually want the best of both worlds. NEW and old tech.

I am NOT about building the fastest most advanced computer.
If I wanted that I wouldn't touch this stuff.

OK. You named it "Ultimate", so I said about fastest most advanced. But if it is not really ultimate so be it.
You said also about Core 2 Quad. This is a much interesting theme. Core 2 has free multiplier down to 6 and 0x19A ODCM like Northwood+.

Yes, I am asking for feed back on how I can make this computer better.

Thank you.

Better Audio cards ?
Better Drivers ?
Better programs ?

Purpose: Audio / gaming computer for it's era ? Based on this motherboard and operating system.

I am NOT building a Windows-10 computer.
This is a website about old computers and old games.

That's why I am going to swap out the motherboard for a Pentium-3 and use Windows-2000.

These Terratec Audio device drivers only support up to Windows-XP. ( WinNT4.0 / 98 / 2000 / XP ).

True Windows-XP does support Dual Xeon processors so I could use a computer like the HP-Z800 with dual xeons and 12-cores and 24-threads and 128gb of ram. But that is NOT a retro computer as of yet.

All these Audio cards are PCI. So I am looking for a good Pentium-3 motherboard with AGP and 6 PCI slots.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I am NOT building a Windows-10 computer.
This is a website about old computers and old games.

Not only exactly so. This is a website about old games and any possible methods for run them including new hardware and even emulators.

Nobody forces to install exactly Windows 10 on Core 2 system, why? You may to have on Core 2 system Windows 98, Windows XP, DOS and nothing more. And its free downclock makes Core 2 not the worst but the best solution than a top P3/P4. Because for DOS minimum multiplier and ODCM is optimal, for Win98 medium CPU frequency is optimal (through multiplier too), and for WinXP there are two/four cores, maximum frequency and maximum performance. P3/P4 can not do this.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

That's why I am going to swap out the motherboard for a Pentium-3 and use Windows-2000.

In the end you can use any PC which you wish of course. But I don't understand why Win2000. Pentium-3 can not WinXP? Win2000 is a terrible OS for games. Older retro games run fine on 9X and newer retro games run fine on XP. But not 2000.

"PARUS"
In the end you can use any PC which you wish of course. But I don't understand why Win2000. Pentium-3 can not WinXP? Win2000 is a terrible OS for games. Older retro games run fine on 9X and newer retro games run fine on XP. But not 2000.

Okay, Thanks for your comments.

What I really want to use is as many old Audio cards as possible. I really like these Terratec audio devices and would like to use them in this build.
In doing so I am limited by PCI slots and old operating systems. Some of these cards only have driver support up to Win2000.

What do you think ?

How can I make a better retro computer using these audio cards ?
What motherboard would you recommend ?
I need to run Win2000 or maybe WinXP.

Sound Blaster Audigy 2zs ( PCI )
Terratec DMX6 Fire 24/96 ( PCI )
Terratec EWS88-MT ( PCI )
Yamaha YMF 7xx ( PCI )
Vortex2 ( PCI )

I think so:

1) In many many cases win2000 driver is absolutely able to work in WinXP. Take a random PC, install XP, plug each sound card (one at a time) and try them.
If they all work next is:
2) There are i865 full ATX boards. I recommend ASRock ConRoe865, it has 5 PCI slots.

3) CPU E5800. In DOS you can get 200x6mul/8odcm=150MHz (or higher as you wish, for example 200x8mul/4odcm=400MHz). In Win98 200x10=2GHz. In WinXP 200x16=3,2GHz two cores.
4) RAM 2GB DDR400. For Win98 booting use BURNMEM.SYS and limit to 512MB, for pure DOS limit to 64MB.
5) Audigy2 rather will not let you to get SB16 mode in Windows MS-DOS sessions. If you want SB16 in Windows MS-DOS sessions you should install Audigy1 or Live. In pure DOS all Lives/Audigys1-2 can work as SB16.
6) For Yamaha 7x4 you should use hacked pure DOS driver for Intel ICH5. Unfortunately forget about PC/PCI. The last fastest boards with PC/PCI are Intel i850 and QDI i845 boards.
And for Windows there are some versions of regular win-driver. Works in Win98 as quadraphonic (2018 driver) and in WinXP (5245b driver) stereo only. WT-XG is available in both OSes!
7) Vortex2 will work fine as A3D and SB Pro! "SB Pro" will be in Windows MS-DOS session and in pure DOS.

You shouldn't go to BIOS setup any time you wish to boot one or the other OS. In the BIOS setup it must be always MAX config (i.e. for E5800 multiplier x16). And at Win98/DOS booting you should to put necessary commands in autoexec.bat for getting needed parameters. And no way to BIOS, no excess reboot! Never! 😀

Video cards:
1) For Win98/DOS - PCI Voodoo3/4/5. You'll get D3D, Glide and excellent compatibility with DOS games.
2) For WinXP - AGP. Radeon HD3850 512MB, Radeon HD4670 1GB, GeForce 7950GT 512MB, Radeon X1950, GeForce 7800GS - one of the top AGP cards, which you wish!
3) The Primary adapter in BIOS setup must be always PCI and you shouldn't to enter setup to switch them. Never. In DOS and Win98 you will use PCI Voodoo. And WinXP lets to disable signal from first video card and activate second (AGP) video card as first and primary. It may be doing during XP booting (necessary commands in XP Startup section).

So I switch out the Terratec EWX 24/96 for the Aureal Vortex-2 8830 with SPDIF.
Works good in WinXP. 3D sound is working.
Now I just need a Yamaha YMF-7xx PCI card.

More photos Aureal Vortex-2 8830 ( PCI ).

I am finding that the Pentium-4 @ 1.5ghz. is a little under powered for this computer. So I am going to be upgrading this computer to a Socket 775 motherboard and a Core-2-Quad Q9300 CPU. I am Also going to add the Yamaha XG sound card.

This should provide enough performance for the Windows XP operating system in order to more effiently run these Audio devices.

I'm looking for s775+PCIE+5xPCI boards too but still can't find them. Because I look for ICH7 boards. GA-P43T is ICH10 board and may have problems with Windows 98 and throttling under DOS. If you have this board ask ruthan about it. He is experimenting with ICH10 boards.

I want to find this one:

It's ICH7 board and it hasn't problems with DOS and Win98. It supports only two cores CPUs but in Windows XP you will not feel more performance if use four cores CPU.

Yes, For this build I am going with the Core-2-Quad Q9300 and a Gigabyte 775 motherboard because I feel that 1 or 2 cores is not enough to run Windows-XP effectively.
Also it supports DDR3, USB 2.0 and Sata 3gb.

That GA-945PL-S3E motherboard is expensive. There are some in china on sale in ebay.com. Gigabyte only has drivers from Win2000 thu XP.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-945PL … pport-dl-driver

Motherboard Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsOTb0-0BQ&t=155s