Hi and welcome!
first of all the most old game I recognize in your list is Zeliard - I happen to have it too - and it runs fine on my p200mmx pc.
I would advice you to use win98SE on your machine , it is an improvement over 95 and you still get DOS mode. Keep your SB16 for DOS games as you really need an ISA card under DOS. The voodoo2 will help in those windows 3D games, so keep it too
You can upgrade to 200mhz if your motherboard supports it, with a pentium onboard you have already a speed-ish pc for DOS anyway...
As for PCI vga, what have you got? I would use a riva128 or s3 or cirus based one... others will thing otherwise here but I can only recommend what I have tested 😀

Welcome to VOGONS 😁

Like keropi said, you need to see if your montherboard will support a higher CPU. Is it a OEM rig or a custom job? We need to figure out what motherboard you have.

I would also use at least a 4mb video card, I'm thinking that's minimum for the Voodoo 2 to function correctly. Where did I read that at?

Thanks guys and thanks for the reply. Much appreciated!

The pc I think is a stock 90s custom built. With a gigabyte GA-586ATE motherboard that is capable of accepting upto 200mhz and upto 228 of ram. A Sony cd drive (which won't read when I exit to dos!!) and a seagate HDD. I think there's an S3 card and I've got a mattrox I think and something else. I just managed to get stellar 7 to work but it seemed super sped up...?

Anyway I'll see how I go but really I don't want windows 95 at all?

And... Am I mistaken to think I actually need to exit windows into dos to run dos games properly? Can it be done just the same in a dos prompt window? Or does windows 98 still allow for an actual exit to dos?

manno32 wrote:

And I mean run out of the box as god intended, no emulators...etc

God does not care how you run your games, and neither should you. Just sayin'.

manno32 wrote:

A Sony cd drive (which won't read when I exit to dos!!)

That is standard. If you want your CD drive to work in DOS, you'll need DOS drivers loaded in your autoexec.bat and config.sys. Alternatively, it's possible to load them when you exit to DOS. (They aren't common, but there are utilities such as "DEVLOAD" and "CTLOAD" that can load CD-ROM drivers without rebooting.)

I just managed to get stellar 7 to work but it seemed super sped up...?

Even a P75 is much too fast for some old games. You'll need a slowdown utility of some sort if you insist on using this machine.

Anyway I'll see how I go but really I don't want windows 95 at all?

And... Am I mistaken to think I actually need to exit windows into dos to run dos games properly? Can it be done just the same in a dos prompt window? Or does windows 98 still allow for an actual exit to dos?

Windows 98SE is indeed the way to go, I think. Some games will run from a DOS Prompt window, but in other cases it is advisable to "restart in MS-DOS mode", as they call it. Windows 98 still has that feature. (It was only removed in Windows ME, but even there it's possible to put it back in.)

Thanks Jorpho, so for now it might be easier just to take the box somewhere, have them wipe it clean and put win98se on and go from there. I guess then ill get the proper USB support and hopefully be able to run most of the games.

As for the slow down utility, any suggestions? Because from what i saw running stellar7 ill need to slow it down for games like that. If only the turbo button could go from the cpu maximum speed right down to just a trickle!?

Moslo and Turbo might help. You could also go into the BIOS and turn the cache off, should reach 286 speeds on that thing just barely enough for the game as Stellar 7 supported a very wide selection of hardware for 1991, I know i've played it fine on an AT in EGA once.

Hey all, thanks for you suggestions.

I got a call from the "computer man" explaining that the fastest CPU allowed on my motherboard is 133mhz so clearly that won't be suitable, barely enough to run one voodoo 2 let alone 2 in SLI.

So now I guess I really need some help building from scratch!!!

What CPU I should buy? (pentium iii 1ghz?) I read somewhere that a voodoo card runs best with a FSB of 66, runs ok at 100 and won't run at 133?? Is this something you guys have experienced and if so which CPU do u recommend I use to get the most out of 12mb voodoo2 cards running SLI?

Also, what 2d card is best to use?

Any other system components you can advise me getting would e a big help as like I said I have little experience other than what I've been able to google and that isn't always that useful...

Thanks again
Manno

Im finishing up my build for voodoo2 sli cards, and it's a pentium II 450MHz. P3 1GHz would be about right for a voodoo3 AGP, IMO and a bit too new for a pair of voodoo2, however there are going to be a lot of people saying "to get full use out of those cards you need xyz"... to me it's about building something you could get when the v2 in sli was the best card out there, and that's around P2-400 - p3-600 and definitely means a motherboard with the intel BX chipset on it.

Ok, so maybe anywhere from 450mhz to 1ghz..

Do you know if the FSB speed of the CPU is important for a pair of voodoo2 cards? Will the cards work with either 66, 100 or 133?

What 2d card are you using?

voodoo2's don't care about the cpu's fsb (or the cpu itself for that matter...) they just work and with a better cpu you will see smoother gameplay and perhaps you can pump the game's quality settings if any...

Thanks for clearing that up keropi.

So then.... If I'm wanting to build a system upto the task of supporting voodoo 2 in SLI then what would you recommend?

Keep in mind for now I'll be using win95. (swiv3d failed to play on a win2000 machine I have with the error message of will only run on windows 95).

Regards
Manno

manno32 wrote:

I got a call from the "computer man" explaining that the fastest CPU allowed on my motherboard is 133mhz so clearly that won't be suitable

Are you sure he wasn't just talking about the FSB? That seems like a weird speed for a motherboard to max out at.

Given that SWIV3D is pretty much the only 3DFX game in the list in your first post, bending over backward so you can get SLI to work for this one game you're interested in is overkill.

Back in the day, a lot of old motherboards maxed out at 66 fsb and no jumper settings beyond 2x were not uncommon.

As for video, I myself am using an agp ati rage128 in my p2 450 with dual voodoo2.

Motherboards with the intel BX chip and slot 1 are a dime a dozen if you do some looking around, and so are pentium 3 slot 1 cpus with 100 fsb (which the bx chipset motherboards require) and up to 800MHz. Something like that would be great for a v2 sli rig.

Maybe an old and particularly inflexible Socket 5 mobo?

BTW, Voodoo2 SLI can see gains even past 1 GHz, partly because the games that people tend to play on them are also rather demanding in ways beyond graphics. Stuff like more complex geometry, heavy deathmatch moments, Unreal Engine 1 and its inefficiencies, heavy duty 3D audio like A3D 2.0, simulations that want infinite CPU, etc. 😀

Well right now the only infinite anything seems to be The infinite hurdles and hardware compatability headaches!!!!

So jaqui.... I know it's not a much famed asus,gigabyte Msi or abit... But a basic intel SE440 BX-2 motherboard maxed out with an 800mhz CPU should be enough ya thunk? Atleast then I've got an agp for the main graphics card to piggy back the two voodoo 2 pci cards as well as an ISA slot for my sound card... That'll do? Or can I do much much better with another recipe of parts?

Looking at those games even single Voodoo2 is more then enough, except Die Hard Trilogy 2, I don't know that one. I would simplify the build with Banshee or V3 if you insist on 3dfx.

Your probably right I guess. But I now have the two voodoo2 cards and that list of games will most likely grow to include afew fps games that need more grunt.

So yeah.... I'll build it using the cards I have, it's just a matter of trying to google my way to a suitable motherboard/CPU combination... Hopefully a mobo with the slots I want as well as being able to handle the faster pentium iii CPU speeds.....

Keep the suggestions coming guys, it's much appreciated!!

manno32 wrote:

So yeah.... I'll build it using the cards I have, it's just a matter of trying to google my way to a suitable motherboard/CPU combination... Hopefully a mobo with the slots I want as well as being able to handle the faster pentium iii CPU speeds.....

I suggest you just stick with your P75 and play the games you want to play. If you're planning to wait around until you've assembled the perfect machine that "God intended", then the years shall sweep past, your living space will fill with crappy old hardware that no one really wants and that you will never actually use, and you will never actually get around to playing those games.

swaaye wrote:

BTW, Voodoo2 SLI can see gains even past 1 GHz, partly because the games that people tend to play on them are also rather demanding in ways beyond graphics. Stuff like more complex geometry, heavy deathmatch moments, Unreal Engine 1 and its inefficiencies, heavy duty 3D audio like A3D 2.0, simulations that want infinite CPU, etc. 😀

Except there's really no reason to use Voodoo2 SLI for those games as opposed to a different, better, single card. Is there?

manno32 wrote:

So jaqui.... I know it's not a much famed asus,gigabyte Msi or abit... But a basic intel SE440 BX-2 motherboard maxed out with an 800mhz CPU should be enough ya thunk? Atleast then I've got an agp for the main graphics card to piggy back the two voodoo 2 pci cards as well as an ISA slot for my sound card... That'll do? Or can I do much much better with another recipe of parts?

That sounds quite nice!

Before my current acquisition, I used to use a gateway 2000 bx chip mobo with a p3 500 or something along those lines. The BX chip is what gives you the performance, not the motherboard brand. 😀