If it were me, I'd just go ahead and try it - experimenting with this old stuff is half the fun! 🤣

I'd try it 😉

It should work. I had a Pentium 100 growing up and I could overclock it to 120 or 133 using the jumpers.

Socket 5 always supported 133Mhz CPUs. I owned a Packard Bell that came with one. Socket 7 was needed for the higher clocked split voltage MMX CPUs.

As for video cards, a S3 Virge and ATI 3D Rage II were popular. I even ran a Voodoo 1 in said Packard Bell. Most circa 1995 machines came stock with pre-3D video cards though. Stuff like the Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430/34, ATI mach64, and S3 Trio64.

OK, sounds good, I'll try that later today...

As for the video card, right now I'm using an S3 Trio64. All I'm doing with it is DOS games and Windows word processing (no Windows games right now). But in games like Descent II, I can't crank up the resolution past 320x240 without severely reducing the framerate. Would the Voodoo 1 or some better main card change this?

ATI cards are completely out of the question due to their crappy EGA compatibility.

The pentium 133 was a socket 7 cpu and if i remember right these had an extra pin so they would not fit in socket 5. However pentium mmx would, no dual voltage support tough so they would run overvolted.

keenmaster486 wrote:

OK, sounds good, I'll try that later today...

As for the video card, right now I'm using an S3 Trio64. All I'm doing with it is DOS games and Windows word processing (no Windows games right now). But in games like Descent II, I can't crank up the resolution past 320x240 without severely reducing the framerate. Would the Voodoo 1 or some better main card change this?

I'm not sure there was a Voodoo patch for Descent2? I do know that D2 needs a LOT of cpu to run smooth at anything higher than VGA. It still gets a little choppy in spots with my POD 200MMX. In my experience, almost any DOS game ran too slow in SVGA at P133 speeds. But this is on a Triton chipset with no L2 cache and 72-pin SIMMs. Maybe a more modern platform would do more justice to SVGA with a P133.

If you're not concerned with period correctness, the TNT range of cards have some of the best DOS compatibility and speed.

clueless1 wrote:

I'm not sure there was a Voodoo patch for Descent2? I do know that D2 needs a LOT of cpu to run smooth at anything higher than VGA. It still gets a little choppy in spots with my POD 200MMX. In my experience, almost any DOS game ran too slow in SVGA at P133 speeds. But this is on a Triton chipset with no L2 cache and 72-pin SIMMs. Maybe a more modern platform would do more justice to SVGA with a P133.

If you're not concerned with period correctness, the TNT range of cards have some of the best DOS compatibility and speed.

OK... well, I am kind of concerned with period correctness; I want this to be a ~1994-95 machine. What was the best PCI card of 1994, for instance?

And yeah, D2 does run slow at 640x480 even on my 166MHz MMX laptop. I guess I don't care about that very much 😀

Intel Pentium 133 - A80502133 / A80502-133, Sockets:
Socket 5
Socket 7

www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium/Intel-Pe ... -133).html

It works!

YES! Instant bump in framerates, now Descent 2 is quite playable at 640x480. Nice.

keenmaster486 wrote:

I want this to be a ~1994-95 machine. What was the best PCI card of 1994, for instance?

Probably something based on the S3 Vision 964 or 968, or a Matrox Millennium. The Millennium would have been more expensive though, not sure about performance. I'm not sure if the Trio64 was already out in 1994.

devius wrote:

keenmaster486 wrote:

I want this to be a ~1994-95 machine. What was the best PCI card of 1994, for instance?

Probably something based on the S3 Vision 964 or 968, or a Matrox Millennium. The Millennium would have been more expensive though, not sure about performance. I'm not sure if the Trio64 was already out in 1994.

Here's some candidates from 1994:
ET4000/w32p
S3 Vision 864/868/964
S3 Trio 32/64

1995:
ARK2000PV
MGA2064W (Millennium I)
S3 Trio64V+
S3 Vision 968

Back then Cirrus Logic was pretty much all I knew from looking at boot screens. 😀