Hi for compatibility sake I would go with ess and pci s3 gfx

-S3 Not much difference between the 2 cards and none in the games you specifically mention, so would go with the AGP card unless it's incapability effects you specifically.
- TNT2 is also highly compatible a better match for a P2 This would be my pick.
- Banshee is also a great card for dos/early windows but as you haven't mentioned any glide games I'd save it for a Glide PC build unless you only have room for 1 retro PC in which case I'd use it here over the rest.

In case your not aware this has a lost of the cards and problem games
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Sound
SBLive will give cleaner sound in Windows so could go with 2 card setup but as your only playing the earliest of Windows games I'd probably not bother in this instance.
AWE vs ESS would be a personal choice, The AWE would be better suited to later dos games and Windows but the ESS with its more "authentic" OPL sound may be more desirable for the earlier games.

Thank you very much for your kind feedback.
I'm actually using the Creative 3D Blaster Banshee (CT6750 - AGP) and the Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 (CT4520 - ISA, not Gold) and I'm very happy of the results!

But I suspect that the AWE64 is one of the "partial-fake" cards, since it works perfectly in Windows 98 but in DOS (following @philscomputerlab tutorial on YouTube) I get no music if I use the AWE driver, while everything is OK with the SB16 driver.

P.S. It is normal that when I reboot in MS-DOS mode in Windows 98, there's no real reboot (I directly get the prompt)?

Yes that is normal behaviour in windows 98. I'm really no expert but I usually reboot and push f8 repeatably and choose command prompt for dos 7.1

Thank you very much for your kind feedback.

In the end these are the final specs of my retro-PC:
- ASUS P2B-F
- Intel Pentium II 400 Mhz
- 512 Mb RAM
- Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 (ISA, CT4520)
- Creative 3D Blaster Banshee (AGP, CT6750)
- CD-ROM and floppy 3.5''

Not bad for a total cost of 25 euro (including shipping). I'm running Windows 98 SE.
May I ask which is the best tool to slow down the CPU in MS-DOS mode? The chipset should be Intel 440BX.
Thanks!

Scandy wrote on 2021-05-05, 09:58:

Thank you very much for your kind feedback. […]
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Thank you very much for your kind feedback.

In the end these are the final specs of my retro-PC:
- ASUS P2B-F
- Intel Pentium II 400 Mhz
- 512 Mb RAM
- Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 (ISA, CT4520)
- Creative 3D Blaster Banshee (AGP, CT6750)
- CD-ROM and floppy 3.5''

Not bad for a total cost of 25 euro (including shipping). I'm running Windows 98 SE.
May I ask which is the best tool to slow down the CPU in MS-DOS mode? The chipset should be Intel 440BX.
Thanks!

should be good and for 25 its great! several choices for slow down utilities such as mo'slo, bremze, slowdos, throttle, in fact such searching for 'slow down dos' should get most of these

Scandy wrote on 2021-05-01, 08:36:

P.S. It is normal that when I reboot in MS-DOS mode in Windows 98, there's no real reboot (I directly get the prompt)?

I'm not familiar with Phil's guide but if your accessing dos via the shutdown screen it doesn't do a full reboot and loads drivers off "dostart.bat"
I suspect the AWE drivers aren't here so no loaded.

I prefer something along the the steps here but rather then changing the "Exit to Dos" pif in the guide I create a new shortcut to command.com on my desktop and continue with the steps.
Phil's MS-DOS Mode Tutorial: Working Memory, Mouse, CD-ROM and Sound Blaster 16/32/64 in Windows 9x MS-DOS Mode

As for Slowdown tools, This isn't something the PII is very good at thanks to their locked multiplier, it may be that you have to run a tool on top of a tool depending on the game.
In my case most common is games with the Turbo Pascal Runtime Error , lucky patches exist to fix the game rather then having to slowdown the PC.

This is a good list of games and what needs doing, try the game first. I've had a few instances where I don't have the problem reported (or it's so minor it doesn't bother me)
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games

I tried Phil's pif but it somehow locked me out of windows 98 after I installed a driver. I really would not recommend using tools like it if you don't understand what they do.

Personally I got myself an other SD card to boot DOS 6.2 from with Phil's DOS boot menu. Which I modified with the Teac CDrom driver (slowed down cause of noise) and an option to use an Usb memory stick, which is quite handy.

Thank you so much for all your feedback.
Unfortunately with my chipset SetMul allows to only disable L1 and L2 cache (as the options in the bios) and the "jump" in terms of performances is too extreme. I've also tested Throttle but unfortunately I don't have all the options that I get on my HP T5710 with the VIA chipset. I'm also testing mo'slo but I have some problems with Sound Blaster (e.g. in Jazz Jackrabbit).

I suppose that TTPATCH will be a better solution for Jazz Jackrabbit and Halloween Harry (Alien Carnage) but it would be great if I could fine a more fine-tuned utility for the Intel 440BX chipset.
Thanks!