I don't know about the best, but my 440bx PII machine has been a dream in playing games from that era. I can't think of one thing it hasn't played, except for timing sensitive games like Wing Commander.

It is indeed the best. The best in terms of speed and compatibility, except for the 133MHz FSB which it doesn't officially support and due to its 2/3 divider for the AGP Bus it was getting overclocked. Not all cards were tolerant to this.
I was running a 1GHz 133FSB Processor on it with a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 for several years though and it was great 😀

I’ve just finished playing Warcraft and now half way through Warcraft 2 on my P3 1Ghz on a BX board and a Gforce Ti 4600 😀

BX is rock stable in any OS, if you get a high end P3 and later graphics card like the one above you can play all the C&C’s up till Generals and Blizzard games up to Warcraft 3 or safely run your favourite Voodoo card for glide games.
I’m not one for overclocking etc so run at 100 mhz FSB if you find an Intel board with the Yamaha on board sound you also get great GM Midi (90% sure this doesn’t work in pure dos though) so no need to get daughter boards or external midi devices, otherwise Asus boards can be run with a 133FSB with the right video card as mentioned already

chinny22 wrote:

... and Blizzard games up to Warcraft 3 ...

Well... Maybe warcraft 3 vanilla, but definitely not DOTA or any other modern warcraft 3 map. DOTA even lags on barton 2.5 Ghz with Voodoo 5 5500 and 2 GB RAM. 😒

If I were gonna go for just one system to cover as many years as possible, from DOS to Win9x games I would go for a 440bx system with a 1.4ghz PIII. The system works with basically all pieces of hardware and games.

Wouldn't a Pentium III in that speed range be crippled by the chipset's lack of support for 133 MHz FSB, thus running underclocked?

Anyway, while 440BX would be a nice foundation for a DOS gaming platform, it seems too limited for later Win9x titles in terms of CPU speeds. (It doesn't help that my particular 440BX-based board is an Abit BP6, a board meant for PPGA Mendocino Celerons, and Celeron 533s just aren't fast enough for early-2000s games. Things might be different if your board can accept Katmai or Coppermine Pentium IIIs.)

I just opted instead for an Intel 875P chipset-based board that just happens to have an ISA slot. This way, I can still get great sound from DOS games with my AWE64 Gold while booted into Win9x, but won't be limited by the CPU since it can take any Socket 478 Pentium 4, even the 800 MHz FSB ones. (Admitted, I'm stretching this one to the Windows XP era of gaming, up 'til around 2005, and I want to be damn sure UnrealEngine1 games run butter-smooth. They want all the CPU cycles they can get.)

Frankly I have a hard time seeing why one would want to even use a retro machine for games newer than ~2000. These games almost always run fine on modern machines. Of course if the excuse is to play with newer old hardware, then I understand.

BTW, the Tualatin Celeron which is rarely talked about is a good match for 440BX. It's a pretty nice Celeron too considering it has 256K L2 like a PIII Coppermine. Of course you still need a Tualatin Slotket and compatible VRM for it.

Is 440BX the best chipset

Yes.

swaaye wrote:

Frankly I have a hard time seeing why one would want to even use a retro machine for games newer than ~2000. These games almost always run fine on modern machines. Of course if the excuse is to play with newer old hardware, then I understand.

BTW, the Tualatin Celeron which is rarely talked about is a good match for 440BX. It's a pretty nice Celeron too considering it has 256K L2 like a PIII Coppermine. Of course you still need a Tualatin Slotket and compatible VRM for it.

if your going THAT far, you might as well spend the $10 on a REAL tualatin...

luckybob wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Frankly I have a hard time seeing why one would want to even use a retro machine for games newer than ~2000. These games almost always run fine on modern machines. Of course if the excuse is to play with newer old hardware, then I understand.

BTW, the Tualatin Celeron which is rarely talked about is a good match for 440BX. It's a pretty nice Celeron too considering it has 256K L2 like a PIII Coppermine. Of course you still need a Tualatin Slotket and compatible VRM for it.

if your going THAT far, you might as well spend the $10 on a REAL tualatin...

The key difference here is that a Pentium III Tualatin expects a 133 MHz FSB, and a Celeron Tualatin expects a 100 MHz FSB.

This is a 440BX topic, and that chipset is officially constrained to 100 MHz FSB, as mentioned earlier. You can overclock it, but your AGP card of choice will have to be tolerant of the overclocked port due to the 440BX's lack of the right AGP divider.

Then again, if you need 1+ GHz Tualatin speed, chances are you'll want a chipset more modern than 440BX anyway.

but that's the thing, 133 was SO COMMON on the 440bx. the 810 and 820 SUCKED. and the 815 only MATCHED the 440bx in performance. But the flaw of the 815 ( and the whole 8xx series minus server) was the 512mb memory limit.

440bx was the best.

overclocked agp? who cares. put a 4x card in a 2x slot and there is no problems. that 4x card can handle the extra speed, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if ati/nvidia allowed for this during the 440bx's hayday.

I never said 440BX's Socket 370 successor chipsets were any good. If anything, by the time you hit the 1+ GHz range, you might not want to constrain yourself to Tualatins anyway when there's plenty of cheap Northwoods and Bartons to be had.

Anyway, it's not just the chipset itself, but the VRMs on the motherboards. I don't know of any 440BX-based mobos that were built with Coppermines and Tualatins in mind, complete with VRMs that fit those FC-PGA chips. I've seen the crazy lengths that people go through to get those working on Abit BP6 boards designed for PPGA Mendocino Celerons; it involves lots of replaced components and socket adapters, stuff that requires you to be very proficient with soldering and have a lot of time on your hands.

Overclocked AGP isn't something I've investigated too heavily, but the general hearsay is that NVIDIA cards are very tolerant while ATI cards aren't, and the maximum AGP interface speed (2x, 4x, 8x) supported wasn't an indicator of stability on an overclocked 440BX port.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

I don't know of any 440BX-based mobos that were built with Coppermines and Tualatins in mind,

My Asus P3B-F officially supports coppermines in the later released BIOS (1006). It also supports Tualatins voltage directly (rev 1.03 above only), but since the pin layout has been changed a bit on the CPU itself you either need a modded CPU (bought from Ebay or done yourself if you got the skills & equipment), a Upgradeware Slot-T Slocket or the Powerleap iP3/T adapter.

It also has 2/3 frequency divider for the AGP bus, meaning it won't go over 100mhz when running 133mhz CPU's

I can also add that I just got a Geforce FX5950 Ultra for £5 on Ebay and that along with my P3-S 1.4 set to 150mhz FSB and 1024mb CL2 RAM should make it the fastest possible 440bx setup.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tualatin-P-IIIs-1-4GH … =item3f04fd9f47

the price is a little high, but the mod looks well done.

thegardentool wrote:

As appealing as the later i815EP sounds it seems to lack an ISA slot for getting perfect audio on some DOS games.

If I'm not mistaken, there is nothing inherent in the chipset that makes ISA support impossible; it's just a matter of finding a motherboard with the slot.

Also, no card is "perfect". An Audio PCI card could very well meet all your needs.

I know I could try to emulate these through DOSBox but I'd prefer not to do it that way.

I advise you to reconsider. Down this path lies madness.

Jorpho wrote:

I know I could try to emulate these through DOSBox but I'd prefer not to do it that way.

I advise you to reconsider. Down this path lies madness.

haha, where is the "like" button when you need one 😉 🤣

Jorpho wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, there is nothing inherent in the chipset that makes ISA support impossible; it's just a matter of finding a […]
Show full quote

thegardentool wrote:

As appealing as the later i815EP sounds it seems to lack an ISA slot for getting perfect audio on some DOS games.

If I'm not mistaken, there is nothing inherent in the chipset that makes ISA support impossible; it's just a matter of finding a motherboard with the slot.

Also, no card is "perfect". An Audio PCI card could very well meet all your needs.

I know I could try to emulate these through DOSBox but I'd prefer not to do it that way.

I advise you to reconsider. Down this path lies madness.

You wouldn't think the later Intel 845, 875, and 945 chipsets would have ISA slots either, but they can. You just have to look into industrial motherboards rather than consumer ones, as I found out. Those are the ones that tend to have ISA slots on more modern platforms.

Unfortunately, those industrial mobos with ISA slots tend to be hideously expensive, but there are a few based on 845 and 875 being sold on eBay right now that aren't selling for exorbitant prices, if you don't mind Socket 478 Pentium 4s.

As for DOSBox, while it's very convenient for most DOS games out there, it's still missing a few features that you can only get with real hardware, particularly sound card-related ones. Whether having those features is worth building and maintaining a DOS gaming system is up to you.

(And you're not kidding about the madness. Trying to set up a Win98SE/WinXP dual-boot setup where Win98SE doesn't crap all over itself with more than 512 MB of RAM installed is proving to be extremely troublesome, especially without paying $21 for that RAM limitation patch.)

Is 440BX the best chipset ... ?

It's beyond 'the best' ... IT IS LEGEND!

... Trying to set up a Win98SE/WinXP dual-boot setup where Win98SE doesn't crap all over itself with more than 512 MB of RAM installed is proving to be extremely troublesome, especially without paying $21 for that RAM limitation patch ...

Up to 1GB of RAM this procedure works fine:

"If you are installing a fresh copy of windows 98SE
01-Start the installation normally.
02-Upon the FIRST reboot, stop the computer at the DOS prompt using the F8 or CTRL key.
03-Edit the file SYSTEM.INI using the following command: EDIT C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI
04-Locate the following entry: [386Enh]
05-Add the following string: MaxPhysPage=
05a-After the equal sign use the table below to limit the amount of memory Windows 98SE will use.
05b-Example: MaxPhysPage=30000 would limit the amount of RAM to 768 Megs.
06-Locate the following entry: [vcache]
07-Add the following string: MaxFileCache=100000
07a-The previous line would limit the size of VCACHE to 100000 Kilobytes (100 Megabytes).
07b-Contrary to the MaxPhysPage setting the amount is in decimal format.
07c-Limiting VCACHE to 217 Megabytes would be: MaxFileCache=217000
07d-Lets not split hair with 1 megabyte = 1024 OK!
09-Reboot.
10-Continue the installation normally."

The practical limit lies around ~1.15 GB. Beyond that you'll need the patch.

NamelessPlayer wrote:

You wouldn't think the later Intel 845, 875, and 945 chipsets would have ISA slots either, but they can. You just have to look i […]
Show full quote

Jorpho wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, there is nothing inherent in the chipset that makes ISA support impossible; it's just a matter of finding a […]
Show full quote

thegardentool wrote:

As appealing as the later i815EP sounds it seems to lack an ISA slot for getting perfect audio on some DOS games.

If I'm not mistaken, there is nothing inherent in the chipset that makes ISA support impossible; it's just a matter of finding a motherboard with the slot.

Also, no card is "perfect". An Audio PCI card could very well meet all your needs.

I know I could try to emulate these through DOSBox but I'd prefer not to do it that way.

I advise you to reconsider. Down this path lies madness.

You wouldn't think the later Intel 845, 875, and 945 chipsets would have ISA slots either, but they can. You just have to look into industrial motherboards rather than consumer ones, as I found out. Those are the ones that tend to have ISA slots on more modern platforms.

Unfortunately, those industrial mobos with ISA slots tend to be hideously expensive, but there are a few based on 845 and 875 being sold on eBay right now that aren't selling for exorbitant prices, if you don't mind Socket 478 Pentium 4s.

As for DOSBox, while it's very convenient for most DOS games out there, it's still missing a few features that you can only get with real hardware, particularly sound card-related ones. Whether having those features is worth building and maintaining a DOS gaming system is up to you.

(And you're not kidding about the madness. Trying to set up a Win98SE/WinXP dual-boot setup where Win98SE doesn't crap all over itself with more than 512 MB of RAM installed is proving to be extremely troublesome, especially without paying $21 for that RAM limitation patch.)

What patch is that that costs $21? Why pay for something you can get for free?

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/145982-using- … ram-update-fix/

http://download.cnet.com/Unofficial-Windows-9 … 87_4-52713.html