swaaye wrote:

elfuego wrote:

The anisotropic filtering added in earlier GF completely ruined the 3D quality of some games. The game that comes to mind as an example is Might and Magic 9. Looks wonderful on TNT2 (also on V5 5500!) and crappy as hell on GF.

Isn't anisotropic optional? I think you have to force it on. You sure something else isn't goin on there?

Oh I'm sure alright. Whoever doesnt believe me, just try the game I suggested, or much easier test: 3d mark 2000. Use max quality settings on Riva / Voodoo vs GF 1 and see the difference 😀

With extra effort, I think you can put V5 on AGP 4x mobo.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

With extra effort, I think you can put V5 on AGP 4x mobo.

...and magically transform it to V4 4500 by effectively disabling one core. Even though that italian guy managed to run 4xFSAA on paper, I havent seen the screenshots. I also note the lousy 3dmark score which indicates that the card works in single core mode.

The link to the modified Voodoo5 5500 AGP looks interesting. I went ahead and looked further at the original mod.

http://www.forumzone.it/showthread.php?t=22932

I own a Voodoo 5 and an AN7 Motherboard just like the guide uses. Perhaps not the right place to ask, but can anyone explain the later part of his guide? I am no stranger to doing this kind of work, but what is the reality with the final result? You need a large on/off switch to boot into Windows, then power it on to get it working? I'm not sure I understand. And what is the deal with soldering wires from the pins of the card to the molex if 3.3v was already registered with a single wire brought from under the motherboard?

Thanks,
-bytes

I like this thread has derailed.... ^.^

Anyway, I've been using my V5 setup as my "main system" for 2 weeks now. Now what I've done is use black tape (electrical tape) to make a butterfly bandage of sorts. I put it over the agp connector on my V5 to effectively disconnect the pins in the previous mods, WITHOUT permanent cutting. No dice. It may be I diddnt do it right, or the motherboard is smarter than me. but at least it diddnt fubar anything.

Don't overlook the 1st-generation P4. I've got two retro P4-S423 rigs (one at 2.0GHz and another 1.8GHz) supports up to 1Gb RDRAM on an Intel D850GB board. I like these boards b/c they have NO on-board CRAP. I get to use my OWN sound and my OWN LAN, etc. Just like it should be.

P3's have been done to death, even the later S370 RDRAM boards.
However, if you're set on P3 I like the Intel VC820 boards for the same reasons as above but have only 2 RDRAM slots.

As for sound, I love the Turtle Beach cards, PCI usually with a WaveBlaster header, or the Yamaha 192XG/XWave cards, too.

In my system for video I've got the Elsa ERAZOR3 so I can use it with the Revelator 3D glasses, however, early Radeon cards would be a good match for this board, I think.

The socket was short-lived in fact so was RDRAM

Socket was short-lived b/c the electrical characteristics wouldn't let the architecture surpass 2.0GHz. RDRAM was short-lived b/c of RAMBUS stupid licensing rules and the fact that faster SDRAM/DDR came on on the scene. Back in the day, though, My 1.8GHz 423 w/ 256MB RDRAM blistered the paint off the walls. I still think they're good systems, worthy of retro-builds, although I know the retro- community doesn't think them retro- enough.

I think i850 / P4 setups were somewhat rare because of the cost. You'll find most gamers were using P3 or AMD instead. But I agree those 850 setups were quite effectiive.

AmigaZ, who doesn't come by much anymore, set up a mean Northwood 3.06 GHz on i850 system.
Rambus box *updated*

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

I just hit this topic while googeling.

I spend the last few days doing exactly this: Building a V5 5500 rig. Since my last attempt, I have exchanged the V5, this time I got a fully intact model, which runs on all my vintage boards.

I have so far assembled two machines, but can't make my mind up. Reading this thread doesn't make it easier.

I have an Asus P3B-F with a selection of P2/P3 CPUs, among them a p2-400 with open multiplier, a p3-900/100 and a p3 1000/133. I am somewhat worried about exposing the V5 to 89 MHz AGP, when using the P3-1000. So 1000 MHz would be reached by oc'ing the p3-900 to fsb 112.
That sounds like a nice system: It is silent, can run a CPU clock as slow as 133 MHz, it has two ISA Slots. The only problem is the juicy alternative:

An Athlon XP-M 2600+ (512MB Cache) on an Epox 8KTA3PRO, with 1xISA. I finally got the plan to work, thanks to Retro Games 100, who suggested the board.
Within Win98se, I can change the speed from 300 MHz to 1500MHz or from 450Mhz to 2000 MHz! (or more if OC) I can boot to Dos with a speed selection of 500 MHz to 1200 MHz. As an added incentive, the board has USB2.0 and works well with a fast internal card reader.

As a display, I got myself a 16:10 Dell that has selectable aspect (5:4 or 4:3) and offers 1600x1200 (I love it).

So which system should I finalize? The later system has more sex appeal, is way faster and gets the last 20% performance out of the voodoo5. The Intel System has a few advantages on closer inspection:
Except for the Voodoo5, I have every component more than once. It has a lower TDP and runs practically silent. Being able to run at virtually any clock from 133 MHz upward gives it a lot of flexibility for games like Magic the Gathering (where Shandalar has a speed issue) or Turbo Pascal strategy Games (Runtime 200 Error).
Most later Dos games handle 133-233 MHz without hickups. 500 MHz on the Athlon may be a bit too much.

Then there are the games to be played: Jane's Simulations are high on the list. Wing Commander and such. Dos Strategy (SSI, SSG ...) games.

For DOS speed adjustment, 500-1200 MHz (in steps of 100) without cache simulate a 286-386 rather well. Wing Commander will work at the right speed in that range.

Whatever you pick, I hope you don't plan on playing demanding 3D games at 1600x1200 with the Voodoo 5 5500 😜 !

F2bnp wrote:

Whatever you pick, I hope you don't plan on playing demanding 3D games at 1600x1200 with the Voodoo 5 5500 😜 !

I had European Air War and Gunship! running at that resolution on the Athlon setup. Worked fair enough for me.

I don't really have an alternative card anyway, do I? Afaik, European Air war will cause garbled briefing screens when run on Geforce. I tried to get rid of them but failed. Radeons had some other problems (Fog, iirc). The only card that still plays it as it should be is the voodoo.

What worries me most is how DOS will respond to 500 MHz in general?

Oh Flight Simulators are different. They are quite playable even in lower framerates (20ish FPS) so no biggie. In the end, if it works for you then that's fine 😁
An Athlon 500 will probably not be ideal for DOS games 🙁. I'm pretty certain Turbo Pascal games will not run (although there's a patch for that!) and you'll probably witness other anomalies in some games as well.
Here's what I'd do, install DOSBox and play those pesky games under that. The Athlon XP 2600 should be more than enough to play those at full speed!

F2bnp wrote:

An Athlon 500 will probably not be ideal for DOS games 🙁. I'm pretty certain Turbo Pascal games will not run (although there's a patch for that!) and you'll probably witness other anomalies in some games as well.
Here's what I'd do, install DOSBox and play those pesky games under that. The Athlon XP 2600 should be more than enough to play those at full speed!

I already tried Clash of Steel with 1st Lvl Cache off. I evaded the RT200 Error that way. I also patched the TP-Bug out, which worked as well.

I didn't mention it, but I am using an SB 32 AWE with Yamaha DB, so I would like to do some gaming in real DOS.

I have so far assembled two machines, but can't make my mind up. Reading this thread doesn't make it easier.

I am a member of that club. 😉

I like that Athlon system, just for the uniqueness of it. I'm not an Athlon guy, really, so it is just interesting to me. There are plenty of P3 systems out there that have been done and re-done. They are the tri-5 Chevy's of the retro-PC world! I think this Athlon build has a lot of potential functionality.

As for my version of the "tri-5 Chevy" I have a p3-1000/133 w/ V5 5500 on a P3V4X mostly for my vintage racing games and some FPS games although I prefer to play those on my Revelator PC with the big Gateway DL36 monitor and it works well.

7cjbill2 wrote:

I like that Athlon system, just for the uniqueness of it. I'm not an Athlon guy, really, so it is just interesting to me. There are plenty of P3 systems out there that have been done and re-done. They are the tri-5 Chevy's of the retro-PC world! I think this Athlon build has a lot of potential functionality.

Well, as I said, it is sexy. But it has drawbacks. You need to have a bag of spare capacitors. Three of them blew when I first powered it up. I've ordered ten so I still have seven spares. RG100 (iirc) reported noise problems with SB32 ISA, which I can't yet confirm.

The chipset is said to be the worst ever. So far, I can't confirm this. But I have only used IDE1 for that very reason and installed a USB2 card reader instead.

As for my version of the "tri-5 Chevy" I have a p3-1000/133 w/ V5 5500 on a P3V4X mostly for my vintage racing games and some FPS games although I prefer to play those on my Revelator PC with the big Gateway DL36 monitor and it works well.

If I were only shootin' at the 3dfx simulation titles, the Athlon would get the job for sure. I have already experimented with a Voodoo1 for the DOS environment only, and that works alright, when the V5 is not compatible.

I am afraid that between 500 MHz and 2000MHz w/o cache is too far a gap. I just don't know if there are any speed sensitive titles that I would be ill prepared for. Even a P2 at 133 MHz is too fast for Wing Commander. I'd have to cover that game w/o cache on a P3 too.

Taking the pentium/BX route, I'd stick a P3-1000 in for the fast games, and use a P2-400 when I want to do DOS. Switching CPUs only takes a few seconds since the board uses Slot1.

If a problem occurs on the Intel, you won't doubt the chipset. It is not the problem. If it happens on the Athlon, you won't be sure about it.

Damn, both machines have a lot going for them!

ux-3 wrote:

I didn't mention it, but I am using an SB 32 AWE with Yamaha DB, so I would like to do some gaming in real DOS.

You can still use that with DOSBox. I used to have a Live! with soundfonts, a Vortex 2 with a DB50XG and a Roland SC-7 all hooked up at once on the same system and used DOSBox to play all my DOS games (and ScummVM for most Adventure games).

ux-3 wrote:

Well, as I said, it is sexy. But it has drawbacks. You need to have a bag of spare capacitors. Three of them blew when I first powered it up. I've ordered ten so I still haven seven spares. RG100 (iirc) reported noise problems with SB32 ISA, which I can't yet confirm.

Almost any PC component from those days needs recapping. Intel and AMD alike. PSUs and video cards too 🤣

KT333 right? You're getting high enough in the VIA engineering retry count there that it should be OK. Although, GUI acceleration is slow on all VIA chipsets for some reason. The BIOS can be crap too and cause the infamous sound problems due to improperly programmed PCI settings. The VIA PCI latency patch helps there.

swaaye wrote:

Almost any PC component from those days needs recapping. Intel and AMD alike. PSUs and video cards too 🤣

Actually, none of my older boards did need recapping as of now. Only this one did.

KT333 right?

Brace yourself. It is far worse! We talk KT133A. They just started trying!

The BIOS can be crap too and cause the infamous sound problems due to improperly programmed PCI settings. The VIA PCI latency patch helps there.

I am using an ISA card.

I have just been doing some 3Dmark2000 comparisons. My Voodoo5 5500 actually runs OK at 100 MHz AGP, I could bench the P3-1000 at FSB150! Impressive. I got 5200 points that way. At 1000 MHz, I missed the 5000 mark on the P3 by very little, and just barely made it with the Athlon XP-M.
When I ran the card with the XP-M at 2000 MHz, the results vary somewhat about 5680.

When a doubling of CPU power only brings about 12% more score, the benchmark should run nearly completly within GPU limits.

So there are just about 12% left to be squeezed out of the V5 (at stock gpu speed). But maybe some game like European Air War (with many planes up) may show a more pronounched difference.

Otherwise, the chrome may not warrant the compromise. Considering the age of the games and their moderate hardware requirements, maybe a Chevy is just what I need?