fandenivoldsk wrote:

What PCI ATA card would you get for it?

I have no personal experience with 486 and PCI IDE cards, but my guess would be a card like the Promise Ultra 100 TX2 or Ultra 133 TX2

vetz wrote:

Yes, the Millennium, Mystique and G200 series are great Matrox cards that work in a 486.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATROX-DUAL-MONITOR-1 … =item565d22bc3f

Will this one work, or is it only for Win98 and up?

fandenivoldsk wrote:

vetz wrote:

Yes, the Millennium, Mystique and G200 series are great Matrox cards that work in a 486.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATROX-DUAL-MONITOR-1 … =item565d22bc3f

Will this one work, or is it only for Win98 and up?

Will not work. I own that card and it's only Win98 and up.

vetz wrote:

fandenivoldsk wrote:

vetz wrote:

Yes, the Millennium, Mystique and G200 series are great Matrox cards that work in a 486.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATROX-DUAL-MONITOR-1 … =item565d22bc3f

Will this one work, or is it only for Win98 and up?

Will not work. I own that card and it's only Win98 and up.

Could you give me a link to a Matrox that will work? One with the best specs.

fandenivoldsk wrote:

Could you give me a link to a Matrox that will work? One with the best specs.

Where do you live? Your nick seems to suggest Norway or Denmark.

I am danish. Currently living near the city Århus.

Cool. I visited Aarhus in 2012.

SC-55 i DK: http://www.dba.dk/lydmodul-roland-sound-canv/id-1002133635/

Nice one! Maybe I will get that one.

fandenivoldsk wrote:

I am danish. Currently living near the city Århus.

Matrox Mystique 4MB and Voodoo2 including SLI and pass-through cable for 100kr

http://www.dba.dk/andet-matrox-creative-lab/id-1007369613/

That is a good deal!

vetz wrote:

Matrox Mystique 4MB and Voodoo2 including SLI and pass-through cable for 100kr […]
Show full quote

fandenivoldsk wrote:

I am danish. Currently living near the city Århus.

Matrox Mystique 4MB and Voodoo2 including SLI and pass-through cable for 100kr

http://www.dba.dk/andet-matrox-creative-lab/id-1007369613/

That is a good deal!

Great! I just wrote an email to the seller about it. Thanks!
How many of the cards the seller has listed, should I install in my PC?

It's pointless installing a 3D accelerator (the Voodoo 2) in a 486 DX-2 66. It won't be able to make any real use of it.
It's really only the Mystique card you need. But that should be just fine for your system. The great thing about Matrox cards, is that you can find drivers not only for Windows 3.11 and 9x, but also NT 3.51, 4.0, OS/2 and sometimes even other OSes. And their drivers are still available from their website to this day. There are few other brands that provide that level of long term support. Most companies take down the drivers for older products a few years after they reach EOL.
It would be excellent though for a Pentium MMX and upwards to a Pentium III even (or K6 to Athlon).
It's a very nice little system you have there though. It'll give you lots of fun times with old DOS games 😀
I'm so glad to see so many old computers being put back to proper use. Hopefully we'll all have our lovely 486s 10-20 years from now, so that future generations can see these systems from the golden age of PC games in all their glory.

LunarG wrote:

It's pointless installing a 3D accelerator (the Voodoo 2) in a 486 DX-2 66. It won't be able to make any real use of it. It's re […]
Show full quote

It's pointless installing a 3D accelerator (the Voodoo 2) in a 486 DX-2 66. It won't be able to make any real use of it.
It's really only the Mystique card you need. But that should be just fine for your system. The great thing about Matrox cards, is that you can find drivers not only for Windows 3.11 and 9x, but also NT 3.51, 4.0, OS/2 and sometimes even other OSes. And their drivers are still available from their website to this day. There are few other brands that provide that level of long term support. Most companies take down the drivers for older products a few years after they reach EOL.
It would be excellent though for a Pentium MMX and upwards to a Pentium III even (or K6 to Athlon).
It's a very nice little system you have there though. It'll give you lots of fun times with old DOS games 😀
I'm so glad to see so many old computers being put back to proper use. Hopefully we'll all have our lovely 486s 10-20 years from now, so that future generations can see these systems from the golden age of PC games in all their glory.

Thanks for your reply! Please let me know if you have any other recommendations based on my specs as seen in my first post.

LunarG wrote:

It's pointless installing a 3D accelerator (the Voodoo 2) in a 486 DX-2 66. It won't be able to make any real use of it. It's re […]
Show full quote

It's pointless installing a 3D accelerator (the Voodoo 2) in a 486 DX-2 66. It won't be able to make any real use of it.
It's really only the Mystique card you need. But that should be just fine for your system. The great thing about Matrox cards, is that you can find drivers not only for Windows 3.11 and 9x, but also NT 3.51, 4.0, OS/2 and sometimes even other OSes. And their drivers are still available from their website to this day. There are few other brands that provide that level of long term support. Most companies take down the drivers for older products a few years after they reach EOL.
It would be excellent though for a Pentium MMX and upwards to a Pentium III even (or K6 to Athlon).
It's a very nice little system you have there though. It'll give you lots of fun times with old DOS games 😀
I'm so glad to see so many old computers being put back to proper use. Hopefully we'll all have our lovely 486s 10-20 years from now, so that future generations can see these systems from the golden age of PC games in all their glory.

While I agree the usefulness of a Voodoo2 in a 486 is limited it is still a great deal with the Mystique and Voodoo2 for 100 DKR! He might get a Pentium or faster PC later (if he doesn't already) and just the SLI cable alone is almost worth that amount. People here would buy without thinking if they saw a 12MB Voodoo2 card for 16 dollars.

Yes, and I hope the seller will sell it to me. Still awating a reply from him.

vetz wrote:

LunarG wrote:

It's pointless installing a 3D accelerator (the Voodoo 2) in a 486 DX-2 66. It won't be able to make any real use of it. It's re […]
Show full quote

It's pointless installing a 3D accelerator (the Voodoo 2) in a 486 DX-2 66. It won't be able to make any real use of it.
It's really only the Mystique card you need. But that should be just fine for your system. The great thing about Matrox cards, is that you can find drivers not only for Windows 3.11 and 9x, but also NT 3.51, 4.0, OS/2 and sometimes even other OSes. And their drivers are still available from their website to this day. There are few other brands that provide that level of long term support. Most companies take down the drivers for older products a few years after they reach EOL.
It would be excellent though for a Pentium MMX and upwards to a Pentium III even (or K6 to Athlon).
It's a very nice little system you have there though. It'll give you lots of fun times with old DOS games 😀
I'm so glad to see so many old computers being put back to proper use. Hopefully we'll all have our lovely 486s 10-20 years from now, so that future generations can see these systems from the golden age of PC games in all their glory.

While I agree the usefulness of a Voodoo2 in a 486 is limited it is still a great deal with the Mystique and Voodoo2 for 100 DKR! He might get a Pentium or faster PC later (if he doesn't already) and just the SLI cable alone is almost worth that amount. People here would buy without thinking if they saw a 12MB Voodoo2 card for 16 dollars.

Totally agree. It's a crazy good deal. 😀

Mainboard with 1x CPU Socket 3, 3x PCI Slots, 5x ISA Slots, 2x Vesa Slots, 4x Edo SIMM Slots, AwardBIOS

Sounds like a nice board. Do you know how much cache it has?
That is important on figuring out how much RAM to install.

Most 486 boards can cache at most <cache size in KB>/4 in MB of RAM
So with 64K cache install 16MB RAM
With 128K cache install 32 MB of RAM
with 256K cache install 64MB of RAM

Uncached RAM slows down the system a lot

Install and ethernet card so you could put the system on the network and get rid of that ISDN card (can be ISA)

I did a lot of reading on video cards for 486 boxes and at this point I suggest an S3 Virge -or- better still a Matrox G200
I do not recommend the Matrox Mystique though. I just happened to be able to buy one for $1 and tried it on my 486 and ended up yanking it and putting my Virge back in for performance reasons
But whatever you choose make sure it has atleast 2 MB of memory

Then again if you pair a Matrox Myst with a Voodoo 2 it would offset the Myst's awful 3d perf

Don't know how much HDD the BIOS supports, but since it is a PCI board, I am sure it is aleast a few GB

USB works on my board atleast, but it needs 98 or 2000. It is a real pest in 95 because it tries and fails to install a driver every boot
Honestly might be pushing it with a /66

I suggest looking into a CF card hard drive because it makes switching OSes easy

You already have the optimal OS' installed (DOS 6.22 / Windows 3.11) IMO.

Disagree. 95 really isn't that much slower, and the software availability will make you never want to go to 3.1 again

Yes CDROM of course for programs/games/OS install

Add memory, but I would not go higher than 16MB on a 486 that will run DOS games as some games do not like more than 16MB (there's only a few though)

Those are very rare. And I suspect such problem games may have problems with newer boards anyway

The only people that really relate to MS-DOS / Windows 3.X / 9X era PCs are those who grew up with them. I am sure the # of people from newer generations with an interest will be minimal personally. Plus I am not sure that much hardware will survive that long. 😀

smeezekitty wrote:

Sounds like a nice board. Do you know how much cache it has? That is important on figuring out how much RAM to install. […]
Show full quote

Sounds like a nice board. Do you know how much cache it has?
That is important on figuring out how much RAM to install.

Most 486 boards can cache at most <cache size in KB>/4 in MB of RAM
So with 64K cache install 16MB RAM
With 128K cache install 32 MB of RAM
with 256K cache install 64MB of RAM

It says 265k cache at boot screen. So I guess I can buy 4x 16mb ram then?!

smeezekitty wrote:

Install and ethernet card so you could put the system on the network and get rid of that ISDN card (can be ISA)

Can you recommend a specific card?

smeezekitty wrote:

I suggest looking into a CF card hard drive because it makes switching OSes easy

Can you recommend a specific hard drive?

Thank you for all your inputs!!

fandenivoldsk wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

Sounds like a nice board. Do you know how much cache it has? That is important on figuring out how much RAM to install. […]
Show full quote

Sounds like a nice board. Do you know how much cache it has?
That is important on figuring out how much RAM to install.

Most 486 boards can cache at most <cache size in KB>/4 in MB of RAM
So with 64K cache install 16MB RAM
With 128K cache install 32 MB of RAM
with 256K cache install 64MB of RAM

It says 265k cache at boot screen. So I guess I can buy 4x 16mb ram then?!

Yes. In most boards 256K will readily cache 64MB of RAM
Do you happen to have the board model? If so someone could come up with the supported configurations I am sure

smeezekitty wrote:

Install and ethernet card so you could put the system on the network and get rid of that ISDN card (can be ISA)

Can you recommend a specific card?
[/quote]
Well. In my older 486, it came with an Intel etherexpress 16 which seems to work well.
My newer 486 with a 486DX-120 has a Dlink DE-220 (NE2000 clone). I found it a slightly temperamental especially in Linux and DOS but stable in Windows
I eventually got it working fairly well in DOS

For sound, I use a SB Vibra16 (CT2800). Its plug n play which means it works good in Windows but again kind of funny in DOS. It will not work without the configuration
utilities loaded. I think other members will have better sound card advice

As far as I can remember, the 3Com Etherlink III always seemed to "simply work".
When it comes to sound cards, it's really very much a matter of "what you like". For a good plain SB16, the CT2230 should be a good choice. The AWE64 Gold is also a nice card, especially when it comes to having nice clean output with little noise. It has no genuine OPL3 though, if that matters to you.