Many thanks for the G200 TSR, I don't have my G200 installed right now, but it might come in handy 😀

Here are some PC-Player benchmark results, which I already posted on a german DOS forum (they have a kind of PCPbench contest going on here).

486 rig: Intel 486DX/DX4, Asus PVI-486SP3 64 MB FPM RAM

1   MHz |  120  100  080  075  066  050  040  033  025   |   Legend:
2-------+---------------------------------------------   |   120: 486DX4 @ FSB40x3
3T8900C |  4,5  4,1  4,0  3,3  3,6  2,9  2,6  2,2  1,8   |   100: 486DX4 @ FSB33x3
4ET4000 |  6,6  5,5  5,7  4,1  4,7  3,5  3,2  2,6  2,0   |    80: 486DX4 @ FSB40x2
5CL5426 |  6,6  5,5  5,7  4,1  4,7  3,5  3,2  2,6  2,0   |    75: 486DX4 @ FSB25x3
6S3-928 |  6,9  5,9  5,9  4,5  5,0  3,8  3,2  2,7  2,0   |    66: 486DX4 @ FSB33x2
7CL5428 |  8,6  7,2  7,1  5,4  5,9  4,4  3,5  2,9  2,2   |    50: 486DX4 @ FSB25x2
8ETW32P |  9,0  7,5  7,4  5,6  6,1  4,6  3,6  3,0  2,3   |    40: 486DX  @ FSB40x1
9IS-MGA | 10,5  8,7  8,6  6,5  7,2  5,4  4,0  3,3  2,5   |    33: 486DX  @ FSB33x1
10TRIO64 | 10,6  8,7  8,7  6,5  7,2  5,4  4,0  3,3  2,5   |    25: 486DX  @ FSB25x1
11ET6000 | 10,6  8,8  8,7  6,5  7,2  5,4  4,1  3,3  2,5   |

T8900C:
Noname Trident VGA (Trident TVGA 8900C) ISA with 1 MB DRAM
VESA 1.2 (Trident)

ET4000:
Noname Tseng VGA (Tseng ET4000) ISA with 1 MB DRAM
VESA 1.2 (Tseng)

CL5426:
Diamond Speedstar Pro (Cirrus Logic GD5426) ISA with 1 MB DRAM
VESA 2.0 (UniVBE)

S3-928:
Number Nine GXE (S3 928) VLB with 4 MB VRAM
VESA 2.13 (S3), tested with parameters "101 /400LINES"

CL5428:
Noname Cirrus Logic VGA (Cirrus Logic GD5428) VLB with 2 MB DRAM
VESA 2.0 (UniVBE)

ETW32P:
Noname Tseng VGA (Tseng ET4000 W32P rev. C) PCI with 2 MB DRAM
VESA 1.2 (Tseng)

IS-MGA:
Matrox Millenium (Matrox IS-MGA) PCI with 8 MB WRAM
VESA 2.0 (Matrox), LFB

TRIO64:
ExpertColor Trio64V+ (S3 Trio64V+) PCI with 4 MB EDO DRAM
VESA 2.0 (S3VBE), LFB

ET6000:
Hercules Dynamite 128/Video (Tseng ET6000) PCI with 4 MB MDRAM
VESA 2.0 (Tseng), LFB

K6 rig: AMD K6-III, Asus P5A, 256 MB SDRAM

1   MHz |  500  400  266  166   |   Legend:
2-------+---------------------  |   500: K6-III @ FSB100x5
3M-G100 | 24,8 23,9  -     -    |   400: K6-III @ FSB100x4
4M-G200 | 24,8 23,9  -     -    |   266: K6-III @ FSB66x4
5ET6000 | 41,7 39,7  -     -    |   166: K6-III @ FSB66x2.5
6V55500 | 54,0 50,2 34,7 25,5   |
7RAG128 | 54,0 50,3  -     -    |
8GF-2MX | 56,2 31,7  -     -    |

M-G100:
Matrox Productiva G100 (Matrox G100) AGP with 8 MB VRAM
VESA 2.0 (Matrox), LFB

M-G200:
Matrox G200 (Matrox G200) AGP with 8 MB VRAM
VESA 2.0 (Matrox), LFB

ET6000:
Hercules Dynamite 128/Video (Tseng ET6000) PCI with 4 MB MDRAM
VESA 2.0 (Tseng), LFB

V55500:
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 (2x VSA-100) AGP with 2x 32 MB SDRAM
VESA 2.0 (3dfx), LFB

RAG128:
ATI Xpert 2000 (Rage 128pro) AGP with 16 MB SDRAM
VESA 2.0 (ATI), LFB

GF-2MX:
Asus V7100 (GeForce 2 MX) AGP with 32 MB SDRAM
VESA 2.0 (NVidia), LFB

wow! great set of benchmarks there. A score of 10 would be great compared to what I'm getting now.

I upgraded my bios on my 486sp3 and improved to 7.3 with the et4000 card (only 2mb though). I've definitely got a few things to tweak - I'll try and post my own benchmarks once I do.

kreats wrote:

I upgraded my bios on my 486sp3 and improved to 7.3 with the et4000 card (only 2mb though).

7,3 with a ET4000(rev. C) on a 33MHz PCI bus is actually quite good! (I assume you ran the bench at 133MHz with the AMD K5). Remember that the PCI transfer rate is rather lame on the 486SP3, so this becomes the bottleneck.

Yes, I'm running an amd 133 (33x4). The write-back cache on these cpus probably gives it a small edge over the dx4.

I ran univbe and uvconfig and got 8.5 with the et4000/w32p - a nice easy tweak for a significant boost.

kreats wrote:

Yes, I'm running an amd 133 (33x4). The write-back cache on these cpus probably gives it a small edge over the dx4.

Unless the DX4 also has WB cache - mine does 😉 But I found out that the WB cache doesn't make much of a difference when running the PCPBench.

kreats wrote:

I ran univbe and uvconfig and got 8.5 with the et4000/w32p - a nice easy tweak for a significant boost.

Strangely, UniVBE doesn't work with my ET4000/W32P. 😒 UVConfig always detects the card as W32P rev. D (which is wrong, it's a rev. C), and the benchmark crashes when UniVBE is loaded.

I think the amd chip works out faster in most benchmarks than the dx4, but I've got no evidence to back up what I'm saying atm.

Univbe idenifies my ET4000/W32P as a w32p rev D (AGP)? It works despite this though.. not sure why yours does not.

ok did some testing - both with and without univbe. Most of these results seem quite similar.. 9 seems to be a bit of a barrier, I guess I'll have to go to 40MHz bus to get any higher.

486 rig: AMD 5x86 133, Asus PVI-486SP3 rev 1.8 (bios 306), 32 MB FPM RAM. I upgraded the cache on my motherboard to 8x32 rather than 4x64 (256k).

2MB s3 trio64V+: normal 8.0,univbe 8.8
2MB ET4000W32P: normal 8.0, univbe 8.8
4MB S3 Virge/DX (Diamond Stealth 3d 2000): normal 8.8,univbe 8.8
2MB Ark2000PV (Legend 64): normal 8.0,univbe 8.8
1MB S3 Trio64 (Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM): normal 7.7,univbe 8.8
4MB ET6000: normal 8.8,univbe 8.8
8MB SIS6326: normal 8.8,univbe doesn't work
4MB V2100 Rendition Verite (Diamond Stealth II S220): normal 8.3,univbe doesn't work
2MB ARK2000PV (Legend Stingray 64): normal 8.0,univbe doesn't work
4MB Millenium I: normal 8.8,univbe doesn't work
8MB Millenium II: normal 8.8,univbe doesn't work

So I'm taking from these results that the stealth 3d 2000 (virge dx) is the best card to use. It scores the same regardless of univbe and I don't need to run a tsr for most extra vesa modes (I could go up to 640x480 in system shock without running anything). Any thoughts?

Wow! Thanks a lot for all those bench results, they're quite interesting! 😁

Most of the cards are equally fast, that shows that the PCI implementation on this board is not very good. Also it seems strange that UniVBE doesn't work with so many cards (I have the same problem on my board).

Until now I thought that the SiS496/497 chipset was a genuine PCI host bridge design (an old c't magazine article reports this), but the miserable PCI throughput and the onboard VLB IDE controller suggest that it's only another VLB->PCI bridge implementation.

That doesn't matter much however, since the 486SP3 is still a very fast and stable board. For PCPBench results >9 FPS, you will need 40MHz FSB and agressive memory timings.
I also have an AMD K5x86 lying around somewhere, maybe I'll try benching at 160 MHz 😉, but I don't think the results would improve much.

The S3 Virge card seems to be a good choice, if you use this card, you can also replace UniVBE with S3VBE, which takes less memory and provides more VESA modes.

5u3 wrote:

I've already tried to use the 8MB SoundFont MIDI emulation with an AWE32, but there was trouble with DOS extender games (the GUS MIDI emulation has similar problems).

Could you explain these problems a bit closer, since I own a AWE32 and GUS too and would like to know what doesn't work. (Or maybe give a workaround)

elianda wrote:

5u3 wrote:

I've already tried to use the 8MB SoundFont MIDI emulation with an AWE32, but there was trouble with DOS extender games (the GUS MIDI emulation has similar problems).

Could you explain these problems a bit closer, since I own a AWE32 and GUS too and would like to know what doesn't work. (Or maybe give a workaround)

Well, before I bought my Roland cards, I tried to get a decent GM/MT32 emulation out of my AWE32 and GUS and failed.
AWE32: The onboard ROM sounds really awful in some games, and there doesn't seem to be a way to load custom soundfonts under DOS. Also, the emulation doesn't work with games using a DOS extender.
GUS: MegaEM needs EMM386 to work, which conflicts with some programs, and I really don't want to use SBOS ever again. 😉
Both of these also don't work with DOS extender games.
Since I got my General MIDI/MT32 devices, I've only used the AWE/GUS cards in programs that support them natively.

Btw, system specs on the first page have been updated again. I've replaced my main system with a slightly faster one 😀

5u3 wrote:

AWE32: The onboard ROM sounds really awful in some games, and there doesn't seem to be a way to load custom soundfonts under DOS. Also, the emulation doesn't work with games using a DOS extender.

For AWEUtil it is true, that it's way of emulation grabs the NMI which does not work in protected mode games.

5u3 wrote:

GUS: MegaEM needs EMM386 to work, which conflicts with some programs, and I really don't want to use SBOS ever again. 😉
Both of these also don't work with DOS extender games.

You cant load MegaEM without Memory Manager. This disqualifies it for games that don't run with Memory Manager loaded.
But for all other it works even with DOS-Extender unless you use a (quite outdated) version prior 3.03b.

elianda wrote:

You cant load MegaEM without Memory Manager. This disqualifies it for games that don't run with Memory Manager loaded.
But for all other it works even with DOS-Extender unless you use a (quite outdated) version prior 3.03b.

Ah, thanks for the info, I only have v2.07, where the incompatibility with DOS-extenders is mentioned in the documentation. Time to update my GUS drivers 🤣

Most current version of MegaEM (as far as I know) is 3.10.
The 3.xx is a complete rewrite, so there is no more Emuset.exe and stuff needed.

Update: Finally got a suitable AWE32 (CT3900) for my oldest rig. As it is a non-PnP card, it doesn't cause problems with the buggy Award BIOS on the mainboard. Also the card doesn't seem to be affected by the infamous "hanging notes" problem (tested with a first-generation Creative WaveBlaster 😵).

The only drawback is that the card doesn't feature a real YMF262 OPL3 chip.
[Edit:] Correction: I originally assumed that my AWE cards used Creative's CQM hardware FM emulation, but with the help of some guys over at the Queststudios forums I found out that both my CT3900 and CT3980 cards feature the CT1747 IC, which contains a real OPL3, or at least something very similar.

Now I'm searching for a Yamaha DB50XG daughterboard... The price of these things has certainly gone up in the last years...

Time for an update: I was not able to play with my retro machines for some time, because until recently, I was busy buying, renovating, and moving into a new apartment.
Now I'm settled in and finally found some time to set up my computers again.

A few things have changed:

First, I got a Yamaha DB50XG from nice dutch guy. It sounds great!

Then I found a K6-3+ 400 on ebay. It was offered for 14 €, I couldn't resist 🙄
This meant I also had to change the mainboard, since the last revisions of the Asus P5A won't work with K6-2+/3+ CPUs (my P5A was rev. 1.06).
I've always wanted to try out the MVP3 chipset, so I dug out a very promising DFI K6XV3+/66. Unfortunately this one didn't work well for me, I got abysmal memory performance (either the board is defective, or it just doesn't like my DIMMs). After a few hours of troubleshooting (and much cursing) I ruefully went back to the P5A, this time a rev. 1.04.

I'm very happy with the result. With the new parts I can clock this machine as low as 120 MHz, and it is stable up to 550 MHz (it boots at 600 MHz as well, but then I get CRC errors and page faults).

Now I'm considering adding a PCI soundcard for the final touch. It should have a non-buggy wavetable DB interface and A3D support.

The Diamond Monster Sound MX300 would be my first choice, but it seems to be rather hard to find.

5u3 wrote:

Time for an update: I was not able to play with my retro machines for some time, because until recently, I was busy buying, reno […]
Show full quote

Time for an update: I was not able to play with my retro machines for some time, because until recently, I was busy buying, renovating, and moving into a new apartment.
Now I'm settled in and finally found some time to set up my computers again.

A few things have changed:

First, I got a Yamaha DB50XG from nice dutch guy. It sounds great!

Then I found a K6-3+ 400 on ebay. It was offered for 14 €, I couldn't resist 🙄
This meant I also had to change the mainboard, since the last revisions of the Asus P5A won't work with K6-2+/3+ CPUs (my P5A was rev. 1.06).
I've always wanted to try out the MVP3 chipset, so I dug out a very promising DFI K6XV3+/66. Unfortunately this one didn't work well for me, I got abysmal memory performance (either the board is defective, or it just doesn't like my DIMMs). After a few hours of troubleshooting (and much cursing) I ruefully went back to the P5A, this time a rev. 1.04.

I'm very happy with the result. With the new parts I can clock this machine as low as 120 MHz, and it is stable up to 550 MHz (it boots at 600 MHz as well, but then I get CRC errors and page faults).

Now I'm considering adding a PCI soundcard for the final touch. It should have a non-buggy wavetable DB interface and A3D support.

The Diamond Monster Sound MX300 would be my first choice, but it seems to be rather hard to find.

Nice updates 😀

Got myself a DB50XG too recently, boxed

My Epox MPV3 based mobo also had these problems, after trying different brands of DIMM's I finally got it stable

What cooler do you use on the K6-III?

What do special about the Monster Sound cards?

Amigaz wrote:

Nice updates 😀
Got myself a DB50XG too recently, boxed

Thanks! A DB50XG is really worth having 😉

Amigaz wrote:

My Epox MPV3 based mobo also had these problems, after trying different brands of DIMM's I finally got it stable

Well, mine was stable, but it was really slow. The BIOS didn't enable the enhanced K6 CPU features like Write Combining, MTRRs, etc..., but even after enabling those via software and playing around with WPCredit, it didn't get much faster. I suppose it didn't like my DIMMs for some reason.

Amigaz wrote:

What cooler do you use on the K6-III?

I use an aluminium heatsink originally intended for Socket A Thoroughbred Athlons, cut down to the size of Socket 7. Fitting the holding bracket between the socket and the verging capacitors was a bit of a hassle, but once installed, it works very well. I left it without a fan, because even after several hours under load, the CPU doesn't get hotter than 55°C.

Amigaz wrote:

What do special about the Monster Sound cards?

AFAIK this is one of the few cards to support A3D 2.0 in hardware. Also, it has a wavetable DB connector, which is always handy 😉
Apparently it comes with a decent DOS SB emulation too, but I don't care that much about this feature.

Basically, any PCI card with wavetable connector and some kind of hardware 3D sound will do for me, however I admit I haven't done much research in that direction. I've avoided PCI soundcards all my life (except for one Creative Audigy, which I bought because I thought it could output Dolby Digital. Boy, was I wrong... 🤣).

The K6 3+ is a great chip. I have a ACZ450 in an Asus P5A 1.04 and it is wonderful. Like you it overclocks to 550 no problem. Interesting thing is that it seems to do really well with EGA and VGA lucasarts and sierra games. Most of them just run, even those that have the a soundblaster error; I just turn of the caches with K6speed and they run no problem. I don't understand why. My p233 couldn't run these games. On the p233 Mt-32 games wouldn't have time to load all the customs sounds and my AWE64 would always have the dreaded "could not initialize your soundcard" error. On the K6 3+ my CM-32L has no problems, and most games don't have the soudnblaster error even though the cpu is going at 550. I'm not complaining that everything works so well, but I kind of wonder why sometimes.

Also, the DB50xg does sound wonderful. I have the DB60xg and it is amazing on Final Fantasy VII and Descent. Wow it it sound awesome in those games. Interestingly enough it also sounds really good in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the fathers. Most games composed on the SC-55 don't sound good on the DB50xg, but you could make an argument that GK1 sounds better on it. Interesting....

I've been messing a lot with setting up a DOS rig that runs late DOS games extremely well. I have access to lots of video cards, CPUs, sound cards.

Current setup:

Abit BF6 440BX Pentium III 600E (100x6) 256 MB SDRAM GeForce FX 5600 AGP Ensoniq Soundscape Elite Diamond Monster Sound MX300 + […]
Show full quote

Abit BF6 440BX
Pentium III 600E (100x6)
256 MB SDRAM
GeForce FX 5600 AGP
Ensoniq Soundscape Elite
Diamond Monster Sound MX300 + SCD-15
Intel 1000 GT NIC
ATA133 PCI card
WD 160gig
Win98SE installed, playing games in DOS7

Believe it or not but the GFFX 5600 has proven to be one of the most effective VESA cards I've tested. It's very fast and hasn't caused any crashes or lockups. Its 3D support will be excellent for older Windows games too, and its 2D GUI acceleration is superb to say the least. And it's crystal clear..

I've tried:

Matrox G200, G400, Mil2, Mystique 220
3dfx Voodoo3, 5
ATI Radeon 8500
Verite V2200, V2100
CL Laguna 3D (omg slow)
NV RIVA TNT, TNT2 (didn't test these a lot, but probably pretty decent too)
NV RIVA 128 (not so hot)
S3 Virge (maybe the most compatible of all, but it sucks for Windows and 3D)
*if UNIVBE 6.7 supported these, I tried them with it too

The point of this rig is to run SVGA DOS games completely fluidly and have good compatibility. I've been testing a number of games. The system has performed well in System Shock, Cybermage, Rebel Assault 2, Dark Forces, Crusader No Remorse and No Regret, and TerraNova. In my testing, I've found that Cybermage requires probably a 500 MHz P3 to be smooth at 640x480! My P3-450 wasn't quite there! On the other end of the spectrum, a 1400 MHz P3 is too fast for the game.

Terra Nova is very picky about its VESA support. Almost every card that works with this game gives palette corruption in the menus. It is easily fixed though with VESAfix for Voodoo, even on non-Voodoo cards believe it or not. Only the Virge has worked flawlessly with the game.

The Soundscape doesn't really like to work alongside the Monster Sound's DOS driver. This is an easy fix: just set up another DOS menu profile that doesn't load the driver. However, the Monster Sound seems to work quite well alone. Its SBPro support has performed well in each game I've tested. I wish I had a better platform for the SCD-15 though. I only have 1 ISA slot on this board, so there's not much to do other than a external MIDI box plugged into the joystick port perhaps. I actually am not sure if I think the SCD-15 is superior to Soundscape Elite anyway.

In the end though, I'm starting to waver in my belief in the worth of setting up these old machines. If a game runs in DOSBOX, I can get more quality out of that than even the best DOS hardware. I can load a 160 MB soundfont on my Audigy that sounds absolutely incredible. I have a number of soundfonts to try so I can get the game sounding best. I can mess with Direct3D image scalers. And finally, there is no mess to clean up, no hours burned installing Win9x, testing drivers, DOS configs, figuring out lockups, dealing with the real bugged hardware vs DOSBOX's idyllic emulated recreations, etc... DOSBOX is incredible and it's getting better. Unfortunately I have a inner need to build retro rigs so, illogically, I keep doing it. 😀