First thing about the CPU: find out what FSB speeds it supports, and see what processors the latest BIOS recognizes. You have a Mendoncino Celeron, with good cooling you can increase the FSB speed, though, thanks to the hight multiplier, the chances of getting it to use 100MHz FSB are next to nil. If the Celeron isn't fast enough for you, you can always put a Pentium 2 Deschutes or a Klammath Pentium 3 running at 100MHz FSB, but as long as everything you want to play works, don't stress too much.
The most important thing is to make a list of the games you wanna play and check what hardware they need. For example, if no games you wanna play are restricted to Glide and do offer good support for OpenGL or DirectX, you can get a cheap nVidia graphics card instead of getting a Voodoo. IMHO you can either get a Voodoo2 and use it together with the onboard Rage, get a Voodoo3/Voodoo4 PCI or just go with the cheapest GeForce PCI you can find. The cheap and easy to find GeForce4 MX are way above what that processor can push anyway, but you can even get a TNT2 if that is easy to get, as long as it is PCI.
Now, you have very few expansion slots. One is going to be taken by the graphics card, another one IMHO should be the NIC. Since you have a shared slot you can either have 2 ISA cards and 1 PCI or 2 PCI and 1 ISA installed, so I'd get an ISA NIC and then decide whether you'd rather have an ISA sound card (better DOS compatibility/capabilities), a good PCI one (A3D/EAX/Sensaura support) or don't care and just use the onboard one.

^+1. I would a get single Voodoo2 to add to pair with the onboard Rage myself. For hard drives find the newest, nicest IDE drive you can buy that is 7200rpm. Or get a CF card/adapter. For the OS I would advise using 98se instead of 98.

Video:
- Single Voodoo2 plus a TNT2 PCI
- Single Voodoo2 plus a Geforce2 PCI
- 2 x Voodoo2 for SLI paired with the onboard.
- Voodoo3 PCI.

For sound:
First thing. Get something ISA slot. Then decide amoungst the following.
- Something with a wavetable header and OPL3 and a Dreamblaster S1.
- An AWE64 Gold.
- Awe32 WITH an actual OPL chip on it.

Finally get a good PSU and install good and efficient cooling/ventilation in the case.
We are talking about this board, right?

Also do not worry about the drivers, you can just install the OS and fill in missing drivers yourself. AMD still hosts the drivers for your gpu! Max the ram out to 2x128mb modules if you can of pc100.

brostenen wrote:

Video: - Single Voodoo2 plus a TNT2 PCI - Single Voodoo2 plus a Geforce2 PCI - 2 x Voodoo2 for SLI paired with the onboard. - Vo […]
Show full quote

Video:
- Single Voodoo2 plus a TNT2 PCI
- Single Voodoo2 plus a Geforce2 PCI
- 2 x Voodoo2 for SLI paired with the onboard.
- Voodoo3 PCI.

For sound:
First thing. Get something ISA slot. Then decide amoungst the following.
- Something with a wavetable header and OPL3 and a Dreamblaster S1.
- An AWE64 Gold.
- Awe32 WITH an actual OPL chip on it.

Finally get a good PSU and install good and efficient cooling/ventilation in the case.
We are talking about this board, right?

Yes that is the correct board. I thought it was extremely compact for being a mini, since I've seen newer boards in HP systems larger than that with roughly the same amount of expansion slots or less. If I could getting a good sound card in there would be nice, but I'm okay with using onboard audio as long as it puts out something halfway decent in terms of quality.

alexanrs wrote:

First thing about the CPU: find out what FSB speeds it supports, and see what processors the latest BIOS recognizes. You have a Mendoncino Celeron, with good cooling you can increase the FSB speed, though, thanks to the hight multiplier, the chances of getting it to use 100MHz FSB are next to nil. If the Celeron isn't fast enough for you, you can always put a Pentium 2 Deschutes or a Klammath Pentium 3 running at 100MHz FSB, but as long as everything you want to play works, don't stress too much.
The most important thing is to make a list of the games you wanna play and check what hardware they need. For example, if no games you wanna play are restricted to Glide and do offer good support for OpenGL or DirectX, you can get a cheap nVidia graphics card instead of getting a Voodoo. IMHO you can either get a Voodoo2 and use it together with the onboard Rage, get a Voodoo3/Voodoo4 PCI or just go with the cheapest GeForce PCI you can find. The cheap and easy to find GeForce4 MX are way above what that processor can push anyway, but you can even get a TNT2 if that is easy to get, as long as it is PCI.
Now, you have very few expansion slots. One is going to be taken by the graphics card, another one IMHO should be the NIC. Since you have a shared slot you can either have 2 ISA cards and 1 PCI or 2 PCI and 1 ISA installed, so I'd get an ISA NIC and then decide whether you'd rather have an ISA sound card (better DOS compatibility/capabilities), a good PCI one (A3D/EAX/Sensaura support) or don't care and just use the onboard one.

Well the thing is unless some parts listing article can define exactly what this board can support so I'm not entirely certain how to ascertain the FSB until I can get the thing running. In which case I still need a PSU to make it operational. As long as I can figure out if it works with this board, I'd be willing to drop some cash on a Pentium just to get a bit more overhead. I mean as long as it's nothing that may interfere with compatibility with a host of earlier games, then I'm fine with spending a little more just to give it a boost.

For GPUs I'm a bit confused as to how these get paired up. The thought that separate cards were so different still has me sorta in the dark, since I've been tinkering in the era where most our parts come with the basics and just vary in speed and dependability. I'm mainly looking to get the most power I can pack into this thing without overdoing it and running a risky setup that might compromise the longevity/stability of the build. So we're looking at what a "safe" gpu array might look like. Also sorta random, but I know some communities/games still have some kind of MP support (as I've gathered from these forums anyway). So in terms of networking does this current dialup chip even work with modern connections? Now I'm not looking to browse the web with this thing but if the availability to access MP modes is there then I'd really want to consider what cards could best support that as well.

Just really do note that I'll probably be searching and picking up exactly what you guys point out to me. While I'm fascinated with the older parts and different types, usually the stuff I pick out is somehow incompatible. Call me too young to know the difference but it's why I ask around so much, because there's so much non-standard setups you can roll with that can be equally tricky with these older builds. I do know I'm mainly aiming these to roll with a mid to late 90s game range, but I do want to be able to get a collection of some floppies that can still run on it. Considering that some of the earlier 90s games are more tricky to run on latter hardware specs, being more speed relative, I wanna still be keeping some of the more robust titles in mind if I can. So part of me is wondering if by getting a beefed up CPU?GPU, if that will alienate more of the earlier games just because they aren't meant to handle that new of hardware? I know it can be a hit and miss but basically I'm just trying to say I'm wanting to keep this with as wide a range as possible. That being said, at some point I may try and put together an early 90s box just to handle titles that wont be compatible with this machine.

So I think I'll be rolling with the multi-card setup on the GPUs. I've heard Glide meantioned off and on, so is that usually supplied through a single card or one that also runs DirectX/OpenGL? Because I'll totally roll with multiple cards just to be compatible with the different render types and just drop the extra cash on it. What's astonishing to me is how you can mix so many different cards? With newer stuff I usually only see people put the same card in SLI. 😲

Either way, it looks like I'll be trying to find some kind of HDD that will run with this board. Looking around here to just check some places as to what I'm putting on my buy list, so this is what I'm thinking so far...

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … =9SIA67S21U4583
CPU: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Intel-Pentium-III … =item5d521aacdd
PSU: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Power-Supply-Upgr … =item4ab6cd77dc
GPU 1: http://www.ebay.com/itm/STB-3DFX-Voodoo-2-PCI … =item3f524f157e
GPU 2: *Is that required since the above is a Voodoo 3?*
Audio: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Creative-Sound-Blaste … =item4aef140043

Would these be compatible? I could probably finagle a bit more and just bare with it and buy something that's not brand new, but I'm sorta crazy about not getting used parts whenever it's come to my hardware. Just wanting to know if they look right for the build, and if so I'll be picking them up as soon as I'm not broke. Otherwise I'll just keep looking to find something appropriate.

You only REALLY have to support three standards to get the most out of the majority of games back in the day: Direct3D, OpenGL and Glide. There were proprietary standards too (check here), but not that many games were exclusive to them (as in they also support other standards) and it is impossible to cover them all with a single machine.

Here is the deal about Voodoos: the early ones (Voodoo and Voodoo2) are only 3D accelerators, they do support Direct3D, OpenGL and Glide, but they do not have 2D capabilities/text modes, so they are only used in games, and only in fullscreen. The way they work is that you use an special cable and connect the VGA out of the main card to its input, then the monitor to the Voodoo's output, and it will switch the active card accordingly. Also, check the compatibility matrix here, as the Voodoo2 is more powerful, but has compatibility issues with a few older games. On the other hand the original Voodoo isn't powerful enough to provide good performance for later games, and is limited to 640x480. The Voodoo3 and beyond is a full graphics card, with both 2D and 3D capabilities, and is faster (a Voodoo3 has similar performance to 2 Voodoo2s in SLI) and supports higher resolutions, but have more limited compatibility with older games. Also, they have superior image quality.

One possible setup is to use an nVidia card + a Voodoo/Voodoo2. The only issue is that you have way too few slots. If you're gonna use an earlier Voodoo, I'd try to see if you can get by with your onboard graphics card as the primary one, so you won't use two slots (out of three) for graphics alone. If glide does not interest you (again, check the games you like)

Also, dial-up modems are mostly useless nowadays. What you need is an ethernet NIC to be able to access a network. That way you can share a folder on your main PC and access it from Windows 98, simplifying file transfers. Using Windows' native folder sharing can be a bit involved (you need to install a few updates and change a few registry values to get W98 to connect to a modern folder share from Windows 7+), but using an FTP server is usually absurdly simple.

For sound... how important is true OPL3 support for you? An AWE64 can offer both Sound Blaster 16 compatibility and General MIDI (in many games you can use that instead of OPL3/FM synth), but its OPL3 clone (CQM), while compatible, does sound different somewhat. A YMF719-based card (like the Yamaha Audician 3D, easy to find on eBay) offers SoundBlaster Pro+WSS compatibility and true OPL3, but unless you spend more on a daughterboard, you only get General MIDI from within Windows (Yamaha's SoftSynth). Watch the reviews on Phil's channel to see how they sound, or just search examples on youtube to help you choose the sound card. That SB is fine if you don't need General MIDI. I don't remember, though, if the CT2980 uses CQM or genuine Yamaha OPL.

Also, beware that what you linked there is a Voodoo2, not a Voodoo3.

I doubt the p3 would work in your board since it is a 133mhz fsb Tualatin core cpu. Your socket is most likely a very limited celeron socket, so the 433mhz chip may be your ceiling depending on what FSB speed your motherboard supports. Maybe not, it is hard to say. If it will support a 133mhz FSB then a modded Tualatin would most likely work in it 😀 You are already at the speed where truly speed sensitive (386ish) games will have issues anyways, so you will be running more late DOS, win 95/8 games. I would suggest a true SB 16 not a "value" or a Awe32/64. The Voodoo 2 would require a passthrough cable and uses another GPU for 2D functionality. That PSU looks to be the right form factor and at 300watts is overkill, which is good! BTW that IDE hard drive you linked on Newegg is way over priced. I would try to pick up a cheaper 80gb drive new on ebay or something.

This might help you:

http://www.google.com.tr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&es … PAmVhjNgULEqZWA

According to this, 400MHz Celeron is the top dog for your board. And again it looks like supporting only Celerons. The thing is, your board might be a newer revision than the manual represents, since you already have a 433 Mhz Celeron.

The question is still. Are you going to play any Dos games at all?
Most popular being games such as Doom and Duke3D?
If the answer is no and you only go for Win games.
Well... Then forget an ISA sound card. If yes, make sure it has OPL.

For video. You still want to aim for at least one Voodoo2

tayyare wrote:

This might help you:

http://www.google.com.tr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&es … PAmVhjNgULEqZWA

According to this, 400MHz Celeron is the top dog for your board. And again it looks like supporting only Celerons. The thing is, your board might be a newer revision than the manual represents, since you already have a 433 Mhz Celeron.

Great find tayyare! Then as I'm gathering, should there be a real need for upgrading? I mean I'm always up for more speed as long as it'll just provide some comfortable overhead but I don't have to overdo it if this is plenty. I mean if worse comes to worse I could probably run a late 90s game on one of my other XP machines that have more power.

ODwilly wrote:

I doubt the p3 would work in your board since it is a 133mhz fsb Tualatin core cpu. Your socket is most likely a very limited celeron socket, so the 433mhz chip may be your ceiling depending on what FSB speed your motherboard supports. Maybe not, it is hard to say. If it will support a 133mhz FSB then a modded Tualatin would most likely work in it 😀 You are already at the speed where truly speed sensitive (386ish) games will have issues anyways, so you will be running more late DOS, win 95/8 games. I would suggest a true SB 16 not a "value" or a Awe32/64. The Voodoo 2 would require a passthrough cable and uses another GPU for 2D functionality. That PSU looks to be the right form factor and at 300watts is overkill, which is good! BTW that IDE hard drive you linked on Newegg is way over priced. I would try to pick up a cheaper 80gb drive new on ebay or something.

I think (if it'll work) I will go with the Voodoo 2 I linked and just try to pair that with the onboard then. Seeing as I do want to run some DOS games on it though (DooM and such) then I probably should look at getting a correct sound card for it.

alexanrs wrote:

You only REALLY have to support three standards to get the most out of the majority of games back in the day: Direct3D, OpenGL a […]
Show full quote

You only REALLY have to support three standards to get the most out of the majority of games back in the day: Direct3D, OpenGL and Glide. There were proprietary standards too (check here), but not that many games were exclusive to them (as in they also support other standards) and it is impossible to cover them all with a single machine.

Here is the deal about Voodoos: the early ones (Voodoo and Voodoo2) are only 3D accelerators, they do support Direct3D, OpenGL and Glide, but they do not have 2D capabilities/text modes, so they are only used in games, and only in fullscreen. The way they work is that you use an special cable and connect the VGA out of the main card to its input, then the monitor to the Voodoo's output, and it will switch the active card accordingly. Also, check the compatibility matrix here, as the Voodoo2 is more powerful, but has compatibility issues with a few older games. On the other hand the original Voodoo isn't powerful enough to provide good performance for later games, and is limited to 640x480. The Voodoo3 and beyond is a full graphics card, with both 2D and 3D capabilities, and is faster (a Voodoo3 has similar performance to 2 Voodoo2s in SLI) and supports higher resolutions, but have more limited compatibility with older games. Also, they have superior image quality.

One possible setup is to use an nVidia card + a Voodoo/Voodoo2. The only issue is that you have way too few slots. If you're gonna use an earlier Voodoo, I'd try to see if you can get by with your onboard graphics card as the primary one, so you won't use two slots (out of three) for graphics alone. If glide does not interest you (again, check the games you like)

Also, dial-up modems are mostly useless nowadays. What you need is an ethernet NIC to be able to access a network. That way you can share a folder on your main PC and access it from Windows 98, simplifying file transfers. Using Windows' native folder sharing can be a bit involved (you need to install a few updates and change a few registry values to get W98 to connect to a modern folder share from Windows 7+), but using an FTP server is usually absurdly simple.

For sound... how important is true OPL3 support for you? An AWE64 can offer both Sound Blaster 16 compatibility and General MIDI (in many games you can use that instead of OPL3/FM synth), but its OPL3 clone (CQM), while compatible, does sound different somewhat. A YMF719-based card (like the Yamaha Audician 3D, easy to find on eBay) offers SoundBlaster Pro+WSS compatibility and true OPL3, but unless you spend more on a daughterboard, you only get General MIDI from within Windows (Yamaha's SoftSynth). Watch the reviews on Phil's channel to see how they sound, or just search examples on youtube to help you choose the sound card. That SB is fine if you don't need General MIDI. I don't remember, though, if the CT2980 uses CQM or genuine Yamaha OPL.

Also, beware that what you linked there is a Voodoo2, not a Voodoo3.

Whoops, it looks like I did say that was a Voodoo 3. Considering that may still be more compatible, I'm still banking on getting the 2 instead (for the sake of compatibility). Otherwise yes I'll be trying to look at getting some good sound support then, since it would be preferred to have correct MIDI. I forgot just how finicky older titles were in the sound department, but I know there's a distinct difference from hearing a (like a six card comparison) for the original DooM. So yeah, whatever the more accurate card is, I would like to use it if possible (within reason anyway). This Mobo is limited so I'm not entirely sure what all that might entail.