This is slightly difficult to answer. I think you are using dual Pentium 133s right?

NT4.0 is an interesting OS to play around with and I'd certainly do it if I had such a machine, just for kicks. Anything that doesn't require DirectX 5.0 and upwards (and sometimes you can trick it too) and/or supports OpenGL, should run under NT 4.0. Obviously, the easy bet is to just go with Windows 95.

Final Fantasy VII unfortunately requires DX5.0 and getting it to work in NT4.0 is kinda hit and miss. Some games will work, some won't. I remember trying to get Dark Forces 2 and Tomb Raider 2 running on such a system and one of the two complained that DX5.0 was not installed.
FFVII does support the Voodoo 1 though, so you're covered on that front. NT Compatible is a great site about solving such issues. Take a look here:
http://www.ntcompatible.com/compatdb/details/ … ii_windows.html

As regards Half-Life, it does support NT4.0. However, on a single Pentium 133 and a Voodoo 1, the game is unplayable. Heck, it is unplayable even on an MMX 233 with such a card. I got far framerates out of my MMX 233 using a Voodoo 2.
NT4.0 should help kinda, since it can utilize both CPUs, however Half-Life is not multi-threaded and I doubt the performance will be at all bearable.

The Alpha could be slightly less demanding or even the other way around. You can't really know until you try it. It will run under NT4.0 though!
I think that about covers it. Bottom line, if you want things to go mostly smoothly, go with W95. If you want to just fool around, definitely go for it with NT 4.0! 🤣

Agreed with F2bnp - especially on the Half-Life performance. IMHO Half-Life is better run on a later Pentium II or Pentium III if you want to ensure everything runs smoothly. NT 4.0 is probably the "right" choice for an SMP system (since Win9x doesn't support SMP), but that probably won't do you much good for games since titles of that era weren't really designed with SMP in mind, and NT4.0 doesn't support DirectX as well as Windows 9x can. OpenGL would work though; no clue on GLide but I'll assume it will work.

In *theory* you could install Windows 2000 (the 133 meets the system requirements); I would expect it to be dogged slow though (I've seen 2k on a 200MHz and it wasn't great). If you had a faster set of CPUs (if the board supports them) and probably a newer/more powerful graphics adapter I'd say go with Windows 2000 - you'll have much better DirectX support, along with SMP and the other benefits of NT. Should mean less concerns with getting games to install as well.

I am not aware of any Socket 5 processors that have greater performance than Pentium 133MHz.

As for the rest, thanks for the opinion guys 😀
I will try NT4.0 and see how does it go. I feel its a bit of a waste to have 2 CPUs when one does nothing.

Stojke wrote:

I am not aware of any Socket 5 processors that have greater performance than Pentium 133MHz.

There should be a few faster Overdrive and Overdrive MMX processors for Socket 5, but I don't know if those would be compatible with SMP. I also have no idea about availability of such processors.

I will try NT4.0 and see how does it go. I feel its a bit of a waste to have 2 CPUs when one does nothing.

Probably the best bet to try it and see - come back and tell us how it works too! 😀

Didn't NT 4.0 also have that lack of Directsound acceleration problem that lead to delayed sound?

Also FF7 has been known to be unstable for XP, and that's the 'mainstream' NT, so who knows what uncharted territory of bugginess you'll run into for FF7. Definitely not thought of a recommended experience for the '98 period, even if NT4 is stable, it still was a long way off from the promised but ever delayed NT5 (2000).... and that's far more polished for at least basic sound acceleration support.

You could give Windows 2000 a go. It might be really heavy for a pentium system, but it supports SMP and Directx
I really hate how NT4 lacks device manager

Another vote for Windows 2000; NT4 just isn't game friendly.

Stojke wrote:

I feel its a bit of a waste to have 2 CPUs when one does nothing.

Then instead of trying to find convoluted ways to use two CPUs, maybe you should just switch back to one. It will probably cause far more problems than it will solve. (There are already numerous games that won't run on XP unless they are explicitly set to use only one CPU.)

leileilol wrote:

Also FF7 has been known to be unstable for XP, and that's the 'mainstream' NT, so who knows what uncharted territory of bugginess you'll run into for FF7.

Indeed, the Chocobo Race famously crashes in the unpatched game when it apparently tries to access a segment of memory that is forbidden in XP; I would expect NT 4.0 to act the same.

I cannot conceive of any idea why running FF7 in NT 4.0 would be a better idea than Win95. It's fairly preposterous. Really, there's very little reason not to just go with the Steam version (with the patched soundtrack, anyway).

Stojke wrote:

I want to try NT 4.0 on my dual Pentium computer for a reason of playing some games. The games i want to play are Half Life alp […]
Show full quote

I want to try NT 4.0 on my dual Pentium computer for a reason of playing some games.
The games i want to play are Half Life alpha, Half Life WON and Final Fantasy 7.

What i wonder is that will NT4.0 aid me as opposed to Windows 95, because of dual processor.
Also, is Final Fantasy 7 compatible with firstly Voodoo Graphics and secondly Windows NT 4.0 operating system.
I have also seen that it is possible to install DirectX 5.0 onto Windows NT4.0 but i didn't find any full success story, only comments on it may or may not be possible and how somebody else did it with DX5 beta.

The hardware i will be using is Hercules Stingray 128 3D and Iceman NT4 drivers.
I am still not sure about the sound card.

Pretty much all i want is to play FF7 on this computer, and am wondering is it worth it to search solutions for NT4 or go with W95.

Regarding DirectX on NT - Service Pack 3 introduces DirectX 3.0a. Service Pack 6 gives you that & DirectPlay 6.1a.

WRT DX5 - there was an early Beta of Windows 2000 (I believe it was still called NT 5.0 in those days) that had DirectX 5 which had been ported to the NT architecture (RTM Win2K has DX 7.0). Someone ripped those files and it became apparent that you could copy them into your WINNT directory and things more or less worked (most of the time). The file you want is "NT4DX5". If you can't get a hold of it, I can send it to you. It used to be fairly common. It has no hardware acceleration, but it works well enough if the system isn't too slow.

Because of the time period and subsequent patching, you should install NT4, then SP3, then the DX5 files, then SP6 & the SRP. Otherwise you'll break DirectPlay. I don't remember how subsequent patches affected it.

Jorpho wrote:

Then instead of trying to find convoluted ways to use two CPUs, maybe you should just switch back to one. It will probably cause far more problems than it will solve. (There are already numerous games that won't run on XP unless they are explicitly set to use only one CPU.)

I find this dual processor computer something thats ahead of its time. And i want to see how will something perform in its environment it is made for.
I tried to install OS/2 a couple of times but failed every time. But now that i see that Stingray 128 has drivers for it i might try again.

Jorpho wrote:

Indeed, the Chocobo Race famously crashes in the unpatched game when it apparently tries to access a segment of memory that is forbidden in XP; I would expect NT 4.0 to act the same.

I cannot conceive of any idea why running FF7 in NT 4.0 would be a better idea than Win95. It's fairly preposterous. Really, there's very little reason not to just go with the Steam version (with the patched soundtrack, anyway).

I ran FF7 on XP with out a single problem, quad core. I also ran FF7 on windows 7 with out a single problem, also quad core. I used the old game version, with newest patch and patch for better looking models. I never experienced game crashing. The only thing that was annoying is that i had to buy an game pad, playing on num pad was horrible.

I want to run that game in NT4 because it is an native environment for dual processor computer.

This forum basically was started (VOGONS, not Marvin) because NT4 was out, Win2K had just come out, and DOS/Win9x gaming on these OS's was fairly impossible. There was no DOSBox then and most virtual machines were not suitable for gaming. Thus we'd be discovering hacks like NT4DX5 and so on. The days of VDMSound and a thousand per-game hacks. DosFreak remembers well. 😀

I just wanted to comment that the irony is not lost on me. 😀

VDMSound. What a pain that was. It really makes you put things into perspective and really how far we have come. I was so amazed with DOSBox 0.63 when I first found it.
I could suddenly play all those games I wanted... 😀

I had a go with nt4 on a dual celeron bp6 a while back. It wasn't a lot of use, I couldn't get dx5 to work, and I gave it away soon after. Good luck!

Stojke wrote:

And i want to see how will something perform in its environment it is made for.

NT 4.0 is not the environment FF7 was made for. And, as previously stated, FF7 was also not made for a multiprocessor environment and cannot be expected to perform much differently.

I used the old game version, with newest patch and patch for better looking models.

Yes, the unofficial patch (if that's what you're referring to) fixes the crash bug.

Jorpho wrote:

Really, there's very little reason not to just go with the Steam version

Would despising Steam be a valid reason?

The biggest cause of DOS games not running on NT I have found is video drivers not allowing direct screen access

I remember when windows xp first came out, I discovered that I could boot in safe mode to make it work because the
VESA drivers included with windows did work with DOS programs. But FF7 is not DOS and I bet it will work in Win2K

I'm not really fond of the Steam version, because I like the soundtrack better on the DB60XG and even the AWE32 than the original PS1 release.

F2bnp wrote:

I'm not really fond of the Steam version, because I like the soundtrack better on the DB60XG and even the AWE32 than the original PS1 release.

Fixing the soundtrack is just a matter of using a replacement set of OGG files. There's probably one out there somewhere that matches your preference.

d1stortion wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

Really, there's very little reason not to just go with the Steam version

Would despising Steam be a valid reason?

In that case I think you can still get it from Square's online service.

@Jorpho - Computer not the game 😀