A couple of benchmarks. For the 3DMark entries, the standard benchmarks were utilized, in whatever color depth each one uses by default.

All game benchmarks were carried out using 16-bit color depth. Game versions used:

• Quake2 v3.20 (with AMD 3DNow! 3.20 patch and 3DFX miniGL v1.49)
• Unreal Tournament 99 GOTY (Glide renderer)
• Drakan v445 (Direct3D renderer)

OS and drivers used

• Windows 98SE retail (no unofficial service packs or third-party patches)
• DirectX 9.0c
• VIA 4-in-1 Chipset Driver 4.56
• 3DFX Voodoo3 1.07 reference driver

does the headphone jack work on the audigy drive with soundblaster live?
i thought i tried that and it didn't work.

wirerogue wrote on 2020-07-17, 18:07:

does the headphone jack work on the audigy drive with soundblaster live?
i thought i tried that and it didn't work.

Panels for Audigy 1 and SB Live are interchangeable, AFAIK .

Panels for Audigy 2 and legacy PCI X-FI are interchangeable (have been doing that for years).

wirerogue wrote on 2020-07-17, 18:07:

does the headphone jack work on the audigy drive with soundblaster live?

Yes, I'm using it all the time.

My HyperX Cloud headphones are connected there using one of these adapters. Having a physical volume knob at the ready is super convenient.

Nice system. I built a system for my son based on the Abit KT7A-RAID it's a great motherboard fast and super stable.

Agreed on the stability, especially since this is a VIA board. I've had it for years, and never experienced any problems. Also, even contemporary reviews state that the board has excellent stability.

The only thing that worried me was when I recently added the Sound Blaster Live to it, since those are known to cause issues with VIA chipsets. Remarkably, I had no problems whatsoever. Maybe it's because I'm using an up-to-date BIOS (release notes do mention this being addressed) along with the 4.43 VIA drivers, but the SBLive never made any trouble for me on this setup.

Lucky, Via always gave me trouble with SBLive!. So I use a very period incorrect audigy2zs instead.

kolderman wrote on 2020-07-18, 05:58:

Lucky, Via always gave me trouble with SBLive!. So I use a very period incorrect audigy2zs instead.

I used to have a ZS in this machine as well, but I swapped it out for the Live because they have equivalent functionality in terms of DOS gaming when you force the Live to use Audigy drivers. No more size limits on soundfonts and you get proper, soundfont-based General MIDI in DOS games.

Also, the ZS used an extra IRQ for its FireWire port which always ended up being shared with some other device, regardless of PCI slot placement. Experience has taught me to avoid IRQ sharing whenever possible under Win98.

I'm running XP Pro with mine and even maxing the ram out 1.5 gigs it's been perfect for the 3 years it's been back together. I'm also using a fatality X-FI card with it. My son's 5 and he loves playing all my old educational and regular games on it. He helped me build it as well he just loves it

very nice system, finding a board with ISA slot and socket A has become pretty difficult.

SPBHM wrote on 2020-07-18, 09:07:

very nice system, finding a board with ISA slot and socket A has become pretty difficult.

I've got one but it's missing agp. I suppose it would be good with a pci v5 or something.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-07-18, 09:01:

I'm running XP Pro with mine and even maxing the ram out 1.5 gigs it's been perfect for the 3 years it's been back together.

I used to run XP on it back in the day, and I remember it performing reasonably well. That was before SP3 came along though. That seemed to slow things down to a crawl even on much more powerful systems.

My son's 5 and he loves playing all my old educational and regular games on it. He helped me build it as well he just loves it

I find it great that you're passing down your knowledge and love of games from that era to your son. Kudos!

SPBHM wrote on 2020-07-18, 09:07:

very nice system, finding a board with ISA slot and socket A has become pretty difficult.

Yeah, it has become the proverbial unicorn nowadays.

I was lucky enough to have kept mine all these years, not sure I'd be able to find one like that locally anymore.

I do have sp3 installed but it performs the way it should. I'm glad he's enjoying it as well. He also likes helping me build and maintain our computers as well it's fun working with him

Nice writeup, thank you!
I also still have the Socket A rig I bought in 2001 which is based on the Epox EP-8KTA3+. It also has the Via chipset and an ISA slot and I have a spare ALS100 in storage that I have never used, so it might be a good idea to throw it in and give it a try 😀

gex85 wrote on 2020-07-18, 20:03:

I also still have the Socket A rig I bought in 2001 which is based on the Epox EP-8KTA3+

That's a great board. As I recall, Epox and Abit were very close in terms of performance back in the day.

I have a spare ALS100 in storage that I have never used, so it might be a good idea to throw it in and give it a try 😀

Nice! The ALS100 is one of the few non-Creative cards with proper SB16 compatibility. Be sure to try it out with some DOS games which use 16-bit sound (e.g. Crusader: No Remorse) for maximum effect.

Indeed, aside from sounding somewhat lackluster, which is probably a very subjective thing, there is nothing else wrong with the ALS100 (100+ is a different, noisy beast altogether). Then again, "lackluster sound" in my books is when compared to better quality examples of YMF744 and ESS cards, which, alas, have no SB16 (though generally they do sound fuller). Come to think of it, if I ever get around building a 6x86, this is the card I'll be pairing with a GUS, just to have fuss free sound. For the record, the one I'm using is Diamond MF-009, which may be different sounding from yours (EDIT: Diamond seems to be quite confusing in that it has more than one card labeled as MF-009, and they are entirely different chipsets!).

Another option would be C-Media, notably the 8330, but that one has some weird hiss when playing FM (something that never bothered me back in the 90s, but seems to be quite obnoxious now). Some folks here have toyed with digital out on this one, but that requires another card with digital in or a receiver of some sort.

Tali wrote on 2020-07-20, 10:21:

For the record, the one I'm using is Diamond MF-009, which may be different sounding from yours

There does seem to be a lot of variety between ALS100 cards. I've seen some with a Crystal chip, others with an on-board wavetable ROM and then there are the generic ones like mine with an 1:1 OPL3 copy and nothing else.

I do have a YMF724 too and I can say that the ALS100 is a bit noisier, but muting all unused inputs seems to help a lot, at least in my case.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-07-20, 10:37:

Tali wrote on 2020-07-20, 10:21:

For the record, the one I'm using is Diamond MF-009, which may be different sounding from yours

There does seem to be a lot of variety between ALS100 cards. I've seen some with a Crystal chip, others with an on-board wavetable ROM and then there are the generic ones like mine with an 1:1 OPL3 copy and nothing else.

I do have a YMF724 too and I can say that the ALS100 is a bit noisier, but muting all unused inputs seems to help a lot, at least in my case.

I'm not sure it's the noise I'm so against. I was using line out -> mixer setup, and every non-essential input was turned off, so it sounded pretty clean. Since I'm no true audiophile (if there is such a thing), I'm not entirely sure I can explain in correct terms what I mean, but it sounds simply "dead" to me (as in opposite of "alive"). Much like driving a German car would feel after an Italian one, I guess. Not that it doesn't work or doesn't sound right, it just doesn't, for the lack of a better word, sparkle with excitement.

The one I have fits into the "generic ones like mine with an 1:1 OPL3 copy", only yellow and re-labeled by Diamond. I think a very similar one is mentioned here: Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones