Nottah wrote:

Mainly I did it because the Athlon 900mhz did not play well with my sidewinder 3d pro game port version. I did search the forums/web for possible fixes including the patches available, Just couldn't get it to work.

Did you see this thread? With akula65's customized driver, I was able to get mine working on both a 1ghz Coppermine and 1.4ghz Athlon.

Nottah wrote:

This mobo only accepts 256 megs of ram max, so that may hinder later win98 games? I only had two modules to get it 191 megs of ram usable.

You'll be fine. At the time the 450mhz CPUs were available, most people were running about 128mb. Any game that needs more than 128mb RAM will have problems with your CPU too, so your RAM is perfectly matched for your build. It has been argued on VOGONS many times over that Win98SE systems really don't need more than 256mb in even the fastest of machines. Personally, I used to run 768mb in my computers until I felt that it was both unnecessary and potentially causing problems. I've since dialed back my PCs to 512mb each, which is still totally overkill and unnecessary. But hey, RAM is cheap and plentiful so why not?

Nottah wrote:

I ended up using the Santa Cruz sound card and the win98 dosmode box works well with it. Auto detection with most of my games works well, however the real dos using the tbcdos.exe doesn't seem to work properly with any of my games. So I promptly went to ebay and bought a Awe64 ct4520 for $11.24 with free shipping! Hope its decent for dos games.

Your AWE64 is a better match for your system than the Santa Cruz. It can be argued that the Santa Cruz might be a better sound card, but you'll avoid driver issues and have 100% full DOS compatibility with the AWE64. You also don't need to install any drivers or software if you're running it under Win98SE. Just plug it in and go! Personally, I run AWE64 cards in all of my retro builds except for one that lacks an ISA slot.

Nottah wrote:

I also picked up a used gravis gamepad for only $6.24 and thats with shipping 😀.

Which one did you get? I recently rediscovered my old white Gravis dogbone gamepad. It even still has the little screw-in joystick!

Nottah wrote:

My voodoo5 5500 maybe too much for the type gaming I am doing, would I be better off with another card and use the voodoo2 i have with a pass through?
I tried my MK Trilogy CD and it crapped out with the univbe message (I think) and i couldn't get is working in pure dos. I think its because of the voodoo5 and its supported modes. dunno.

The V5 is overkill for that system and you won't be able to use it to its full potential. You should save it for a 1ghz+ build.

My best advice for your system would be a Voodoo 3, but you mentioned you already have a V2 card. In that case, consider a GeForce 3 Ti200 in combination with the V2. Ti200s are super cheap and plentiful on eBay. Many of them are passively cooled too, so you won't need to worry about fan failures.

Nottah wrote:

Is it possible to use a pci graphics card with an AGP card? I have a s3 virge/dx by aopen .

Yes. See this document.

Nottah wrote:

I think the only truly demanding games on windows will be starsiege (my big box baby) and mechwarrior 3. Maybe some quake 3 and a bit of diablo 1, don't know if I can run diablo 2.

On a 450mhz machine, I think the only one you'll run well will be Diablo 1. Depending on which StarSiege game you're talking about, it might run OK too. Mech3 and Quake 3 are just too much for 450mhz.

Nottah wrote:

My potential bottleneck being the max ram being 256 megs.

It's not a bottleneck. It's a good match for a 450mhz system.

Nottah wrote:

I was looking through my library of games, of which I may have bought most of them from vogons member on ebay , and realize that I am probably doing more dos play (eob, elderscrolls, mainly the rpg variety) and probably need a graphics card setup thats gear towards that. I think the sound is taken care of with the awe64 even if its not the gold version.
I may have to find another slot 1 motherboard that supports more ram and maybe more than one isa slot.

Voodoo 3 and your AWE64 make a perfect combo for DOS and early Win9x gaming.

Nottah wrote:

Would I be better off using the geforce mx420 with the voodoo2.

The MX420 is an underpowered card that can be compared to a mid-range GeForce 2. Combined with the Voodoo 2 it's probably a really good fit for your system, but I don't like it.

If you can spare ~$25, I highly recommend the Voodoo 3. It kicks ass in both DOS & Windows, and you'll get real GLIDE support with just the one card. If not, you can find a Geforce 3 Ti200 for ~$10 easily and pair it up with your Voodoo 2. If you don't want to spend any cash, the MX420 should be sufficient. I still think you should save the Voodoo 5 for a much faster CPU.

I remember TNT2 and Voodoo 3 cards being really hot at the time 450mhz PCs were common.

Think KT7Guy sums everything up really well. Only I don't remember Diablo 2 having any problems on my P2 400? But will openly admit that was 10+ years ago, I'd still give it and any other game a try and see how it goes.
Other thing to think about is Does playing in a dos box really matter? for some it will others it wont. With my P3 the on board Yamaha card only works in windows and really it makes no difference to the game if I play in windows or boot to real dos. But is doesn't feel right so I have put in an AWE32 for when I want to do things "properly"

thanks so much for the information! i was checking out the system requirements for mechwarrior 3 and they seemed feasible.

• Mechwarrior 3 Minimum / Recommended
  Operating system (OS) 95 / 98
  Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 166 MHz / Intel Pentium 200 MHz or faster
  System memory (RAM) 32 MB / 64 MB
  Hard disk drive (HDD) 240 MB / 390 MB
  Video card (GPu) High Colour Direct3D compatible graphics accelerator

• Starsiege Minimum / Recommended
  Operating system (OS)
  Windows 98, 95, or NT 4.0 Service Pack 4
  Processor (CPU) Pentium 166 / Pentium 200
  System memory (RAM) 32mb / ?
  Hard disk drive (HDD) 700MB
  Video card (GPU) DirectDraw compatible / OpenGL or 3Dfx Glide compatible

• Diablo II Minimum / Recommended
  Operating system (OS) 95 / 98, ME, 2000, XP
  Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 233 MHz
  System memory (RAM) 32 MB / 128 MB
  Hard disk drive (HDD) 650 MB /1.5 GB
  Video card (GPU) DirectX 6.1 compatible

However the videocard may make difference. I'll start looking around after payday 😀

I also dug up a verto geforce 6800 agp. still overkill?

Should be totally fine with Diablo 2 on that machine. And will be even nicer if you can run it in Glide mode instead of DirectDraw or Direct3D. I actually just created a thread about Diablo 2 in reference to implementing a CPU throttle on the official forums. Because Diablo 2 is written the old school way of main functions just zooming along as fast as a CPU lets them, which for modern CPU's mean's its wasting power and heat. Diablo 2 likes to try to use as much CPU as you let it, but since it's single threaded, the way modern windows handles single threaded programs that consume 100% cpu is by splitting it across multiple cores. So on a single core it would use 100% CPU, on a dual core 50%, on a quad core 25% and so on. As a result, I noticed it using ~25% on my quad, and that is just wrong for a game that old.

It's kinda funny though, because they implemented this throttle that I want BUT ONLY WHEN THE GAME ISN'T IN FOCUS, ie minimized. I can have the game in focus and it'll take 25% of my CPU, but if I take it out of focus, the CPU usage drops to 0-1% and I observe the game still running at full speed!

But is doesn't feel right so I have put in an AWE32 for when I want to do things "properly"

Really what it boils down to is this, every post I have seen in the forum, and I have went through a whole lot doing my research, states that pci sound cards are the devil and should be burnt and exorcised when it comes to dos play. 😀 plus that lonely ISA slot needed some company. It looked sad .

So awe64 installation is easy? I mean I dont have to ftpsearch for old drivers? (http://www.filewatcher.com and http://www.mmnt.ru/int/ are godsends) It just works??? No buying it dinner and telling it I Love You?

All kidding aside, I did grab themans SB compilation off vogonsdrivers , with a little research and you fine people I should get it working. And the gravis which I picked up for like 1.99 plus shipping was indeed the original model, minus the thumbstick. http://www.ebay.com/itm/291342797927 A little discolored but definitly in my price range 😀

very nice writeup, I had no idea about the cpu throttle in starcraft. It would definitely be useful for passive cooled video cards on older systems I imagine.

I could be totally wrong about which of those games will run OK on a 450mhz CPU. The only one in that list that I've actually played is Diablo I. I just kinda guessed about the others... I'd really like to play Diablo II someday though. I'm only about 17 years late for that one. In hindsight, I seem to recall that one coming out when the Celeron 300A and Voodoo 2 cards were popular. It should run OK I think. Half-Life should run well with your setup.

A 6800GT is super overkill and I wouldn't advise doing that. Save that one for a 2ghz+ machine. For your 450mhz CPU, even the GF3 Ti200 is serious overkill, but they're cheap and work well with passive cooling, so that's why I recommended it. A Voodoo 3 is still my #1 recommendation to you as the best choice.

For me, personally, I consider 3dfx to be the ultimate symbol of late 90s Windows gaming. All of my retro machines have a 3dfx card of some sort in them. To me, building a Win98SE machine seems kinda pointless without real GLIDE support. Since you've already got a V2 card, you're gonna be OK even if you stick with your MX420.

We can complain all we want about the prices of Voodoo 2 and Voodoo 5 on eBay, but the truth is that they're still way cheaper than they were when new. I remember paying over $150 each for my Voodoo 3 cards back in the day.

Your AWE64 will work fine in Win98SE without needing any software or drivers installed. It's all built into Win98SE already. However, you can install the software from the original CD if you like. Personally, I always just use the built-in Win98SE drivers with mine. If you can't find a copy of the AWE64 CD, let me know and I'll upload an ISO of it for you. I've got both AWE64 Value and AWE64 Gold discs. Your card is an AWE64 Value, I think.

thanks for the offer! I already got the one from vogonsdrivers.com ( the compilation with everything.. think it was like 600megs ) and I am eyballing some gf3 ti200's on ebay.. is there a particular model?

Nottah wrote:

Really what it boils down to is this, every post I have seen in the forum, and I have went through a whole lot doing my research […]
Show full quote

But is doesn't feel right so I have put in an AWE32 for when I want to do things "properly"

Really what it boils down to is this, every post I have seen in the forum, and I have went through a whole lot doing my research, states that pci sound cards are the devil and should be burnt and exorcised when it comes to dos play. 😀 plus that lonely ISA slot needed some company. It looked sad .

So awe64 installation is easy? I mean I dont have to ftpsearch for old drivers? (http://www.filewatcher.com and http://www.mmnt.ru/int/ are godsends) It just works??? No buying it dinner and telling it I Love You?

All kidding aside, I did grab themans SB compilation off vogonsdrivers , with a little research and you fine people I should get it working. And the gravis which I picked up for like 1.99 plus shipping was indeed the original model, minus the thumbstick. http://www.ebay.com/itm/291342797927 A little discolored but definitly in my price range 😀

Well.... Depends.
Personally, I go for SB-Live if the answer to the following list are all yes.

1: Is the operating system Win9x only?
2: Does all DOS games require EMM386 or other managers?
3: Are you mostly into Windows games, thus only a handfull are Dos games?
4: Are you having Intel chipset?

PCI sound cards are not evil. Just that they really belong in a Windows 9X or XP computer.
And not in a pure Dos computer.

I seem to be leaning the other way, I am playing a lot of dos classics that don't seem to play well with win9x, but still have a few win9x games I still like to play.
I have used several pci audio cards in the last week, two soundblasters live! (1 value, the other a 5.1) a turtle beach santa cruz and a AW724 which actually might go back into the machine.
All of them had there quirks, like not emulating in win9x dosmode box half the time and not being discovered in dos even with default SB settings and legacy support enabled. I could never get the blasted joystick to work in a few of them. I am not saying I will not be doing a bit more 9x gaming in the future, just that the ISA awe64 may give me the flexibility to do either. Thanks for the reply. I had to actually think about the points you gave.

If there really is no ISA option my choice would be Aureal Vortex 2. Works very well under DOS. What needs to be mentioned is that later DOS games have excellent compatibility with all sorts of Sound Blaster compatible cards. It's jus ta few really old games form Sierra for example that cause issues on PCI cards.

So if push comes to shove there are options. I also think it's a bit silly if you have a high powered Pentium III-S or Athlon system and are playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 😵

KT7AGuy wrote:

Did you see this thread? With akula65's customized driver, I was able to get mine working on both a 1ghz Coppermine and 1.4ghz […]
Show full quote

Nottah wrote:

Mainly I did it because the Athlon 900mhz did not play well with my sidewinder 3d pro game port version. I did search the forums/web for possible fixes including the patches available, Just couldn't get it to work.

Did you see this thread? With akula65's customized driver, I was able to get mine working on both a 1ghz Coppermine and 1.4ghz Athlon.

Nottah wrote:

This mobo only accepts 256 megs of ram max, so that may hinder later win98 games? I only had two modules to get it 191 megs of ram usable.

You'll be fine. At the time the 450mhz CPUs were available, most people were running about 128mb. Any game that needs more than 128mb RAM will have problems with your CPU too, so your RAM is perfectly matched for your build. It has been argued on VOGONS many times over that Win98SE systems really don't need more than 256mb in even the fastest of machines. Personally, I used to run 768mb in my computers until I felt that it was both unnecessary and potentially causing problems. I've since dialed back my PCs to 512mb each, which is still totally overkill and unnecessary. But hey, RAM is cheap and plentiful so why not?

Nottah wrote:

I ended up using the Santa Cruz sound card and the win98 dosmode box works well with it. Auto detection with most of my games works well, however the real dos using the tbcdos.exe doesn't seem to work properly with any of my games. So I promptly went to ebay and bought a Awe64 ct4520 for $11.24 with free shipping! Hope its decent for dos games.

Your AWE64 is a better match for your system than the Santa Cruz. It can be argued that the Santa Cruz might be a better sound card, but you'll avoid driver issues and have 100% full DOS compatibility with the AWE64. You also don't need to install any drivers or software if you're running it under Win98SE. Just plug it in and go! Personally, I run AWE64 cards in all of my retro builds except for one that lacks an ISA slot.

Nottah wrote:

I also picked up a used gravis gamepad for only $6.24 and thats with shipping 😀.

Which one did you get? I recently rediscovered my old white Gravis dogbone gamepad. It even still has the little screw-in joystick!

Nottah wrote:

My voodoo5 5500 maybe too much for the type gaming I am doing, would I be better off with another card and use the voodoo2 i have with a pass through?
I tried my MK Trilogy CD and it crapped out with the univbe message (I think) and i couldn't get is working in pure dos. I think its because of the voodoo5 and its supported modes. dunno.

The V5 is overkill for that system and you won't be able to use it to its full potential. You should save it for a 1ghz+ build.

My best advice for your system would be a Voodoo 3, but you mentioned you already have a V2 card. In that case, consider a GeForce 3 Ti200 in combination with the V2. Ti200s are super cheap and plentiful on eBay. Many of them are passively cooled too, so you won't need to worry about fan failures.

Nottah wrote:

Is it possible to use a pci graphics card with an AGP card? I have a s3 virge/dx by aopen .

Yes. See this document.

Nottah wrote:

I think the only truly demanding games on windows will be starsiege (my big box baby) and mechwarrior 3. Maybe some quake 3 and a bit of diablo 1, don't know if I can run diablo 2.

On a 450mhz machine, I think the only one you'll run well will be Diablo 1. Depending on which StarSiege game you're talking about, it might run OK too. Mech3 and Quake 3 are just too much for 450mhz.

Nottah wrote:

My potential bottleneck being the max ram being 256 megs.

It's not a bottleneck. It's a good match for a 450mhz system.

Nottah wrote:

I was looking through my library of games, of which I may have bought most of them from vogons member on ebay , and realize that I am probably doing more dos play (eob, elderscrolls, mainly the rpg variety) and probably need a graphics card setup thats gear towards that. I think the sound is taken care of with the awe64 even if its not the gold version.
I may have to find another slot 1 motherboard that supports more ram and maybe more than one isa slot.

Voodoo 3 and your AWE64 make a perfect combo for DOS and early Win9x gaming.

Nottah wrote:

Would I be better off using the geforce mx420 with the voodoo2.

The MX420 is an underpowered card that can be compared to a mid-range GeForce 2. Combined with the Voodoo 2 it's probably a really good fit for your system, but I don't like it.

If you can spare ~$25, I highly recommend the Voodoo 3. It kicks ass in both DOS & Windows, and you'll get real GLIDE support with just the one card. If not, you can find a Geforce 3 Ti200 for ~$10 easily and pair it up with your Voodoo 2. If you don't want to spend any cash, the MX420 should be sufficient. I still think you should save the Voodoo 5 for a much faster CPU.

I remember TNT2 and Voodoo 3 cards being really hot at the time 450mhz PCs were common.

Um, how would a 450MHz P2 have problems running Quake 3 or Diablo II? I've played both just fine on lesser hardware before, specifically a P2 233 overclocked to 266. Quake 3 had a little bit of slowdown, but nothing unbearable with a decent GPU.