VOGONS


First post, by Joseph_Joestar

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System specs

  • AthlonXP 2100+ (Thoroughbred B core)
  • Elitegroup ECS K7VTA3 v6.0
  • 512 MB Kingmax Hardcore DDR500
  • Voodoo 3 2000 AGP
  • Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (SB0240)
  • Turtle Beach Montego II (Aureal Vortex 2)
  • 2x Kingston 120GB SSD (Windows 98SE and Windows XP)
  • Sony 3.5" floppy drive
  • NEC ND-3550A DVD-RW
  • Seasonic S12 III 650W PSU
  • Samsung SyncMaster 795MB CRT monitor
  • Cambridge SoundWorks Digital Speakers (2.1 system)

Introduction

This is basically a beefed up version of the computer that I had in the early 2000s. Truthfully, the only remaining original component is the case, everything else has been upgraded over the years. The main purpose of this system is to play A3D 2.0 games and some of the more demanding Glide titles.

CPU

This AthlonXP 2100+ CPU has enough power to not be a bottleneck for most Win98 games. The extra speed is useful when dealing with some CPU intensive Glide games like Deus Ex and Diablo II.

Motherboard

The ECS K7VTA3 v6.0 is among the last Socket A motherboards which still support AGP 3.3V cards (like my Voodoo 3). The on-board LAN card and USB 2.0 controller can be quite useful too. Not having a chipset fan is another big plus in my book, as those tend to become very noisy with age. There are no CPU voltage or multiplier options in the BIOS, and the board is otherwise unremarkable, but it fits my use case quite well. For reference, I use VIA 4-in-1 drivers version 4.56 under Win98, and the latest 5.24A version under WinXP.

Graphics card

I mainly use the Voodoo 3 to play Glide games of course, but it's also handy for some Direct3D titles which use table fog and paletted textures. Under DOS, the Voodoo 3 offers a crisp 2D image and can even run some (but not all) early DOS Glide games. It also has fully functional drivers for Windows 3.1 for people who want to use that. When playing hi-res 3D DOS games in software mode (e.g. Quake and Tomb Raider) it's best to run FASTVID beforehand to further improve the frame rate. Lastly, the VBEHz tool can be used to force DOS games that use the 640x480 resolution (and higher) to utilize refresh rates greater than 60 Hz on a compatible CRT monitor. My Samsung SyncMaster 795MB can deliver 120Hz at 640x480 and 800x600, which makes games like Transport Tycoon and WarCraft 2 look very crisp.

Sound Card #1: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (SB0240)

The Audigy2 works quite well as a Win9x sound card. It has excellent EAX capabilities, fairly clean output and can use VxD drivers which are more compatible with older titles. It's currently hooked it up to my Cambridge SoundWorks Digital Speakers via SPDIF out, which ensures pristine, noise-free audio reproduction. Should the need arise, I can instead connect this card to a 5.1 speaker system, which is nice for Win9x games which support surround sound (e.g. Unreal Tournament, Thief II and Deus Ex). Under Win98SE, I'm using the Audigy2 ZS drivers as per this guide of mine. Under WinXP, I simply install DanielK's excellent Audigy Support Pack.

Sound card #2: Turtle Beach Montego II (Aureal Vortex 2)

Of course, the Vortex 2 will be primarily used when playing games which support A3D 2.0. Games based on the Unreal engine (Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex etc.) make great use of positional audio on this card, as do other titles like Half-Life and Quake 3. Of particular note is how well A3D 2.0 handles elevation i.e. sounds coming from above and below the player. The manual of this card states that it's better to use headphones than speakers for this purpose, and I wholeheartedly agree. Sound positioning is simply more precise that way. As far as DOS gaming is concerned, the Montego II is relatively solid, and its SBPro compatibility is pretty good for a PCI card. General MIDI sounds ok for the most part, but its FM synth implementation is not really to my liking.

Operating Systems

Windows 98SE is my primary operating system on this rig. The only updates which I apply are the Windows Installer Update, DirectX 9.0c and NUSB 3.3. Nothing else beyond that. As expected, I mostly play Win9x games on this machine, since it runs them quite well, at least the ones released before the year 2000. Anything newer than that will likely struggle on the Voodoo 3 unless it supports Glide.

Windows XP is my secondary operating system, and it's only used for maintenance purposes. Meaning, it gives me easy access to NTFS formatted external HDDs, and allows for running GOG offline installers before copying the games over to the Win98 drive. It's also nice to have WinXP as a backup OS, in case something goes wrong and I need to reinstall Win98.

Conclusion

This rig serves its main purpose of playing Glide and A3D 2.0 games quite well. Thanks to modern components like the SSD, the DeepCool CPU fan and the Seasonic PSU, this system is now blissfully quiet as well.

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Last edited by Joseph_Joestar on 2023-06-27, 15:58. Edited 23 times in total.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 1 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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

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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
Last edited by Joseph_Joestar on 2023-06-24, 16:28. Edited 12 times in total.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 3 of 64, by darry

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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).

Reply 4 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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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.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 6 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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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.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 8 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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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.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 9 of 64, by chrismeyer6

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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

Reply 11 of 64, by kolderman

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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.

Reply 12 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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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!

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 13 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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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.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 14 of 64, by chrismeyer6

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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

Reply 15 of 64, by gex85

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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 😀

My retro computers

Reply 16 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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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.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 17 of 64, by Tali

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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.

Reply 18 of 64, by Joseph_Joestar

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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.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 19 of 64, by Tali

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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