The best SB16 card is actually not an SB16 card. If you want genuine OPL3 FM, go with a YFM718/719. If you are ok with CQM then just go with an AWE64 instead. If you want great but not necessarily genuine OPL3 FM then go with an ES1688/1868/1869/1896 card.

If possible I would go with a Vortex 2 for this build but Live's SF2 soft synth kind of makes it ok when coupled with an ISA card.

The Klamath 300 will severely bottleneck the GF2MX, but you can do 32-bit 800x600 or 16-bit 1024x768 on it I would think.

It's a good build, but suffers from issues that are not your mistakes. All PII build plans I have either end up downgraded to a Socket 7 AMD K6-2 or a high end Katmai P3 for me. PII is just a terrible middle ground for most builds.

I REALLY wanted to do a Super Socket 7, but the only MOBO's I could find are Baby AT, and I'm not sure if I want to try to stuff that into an ATX case...

I know that PII is pretty bad, but that's the point. I don't think I'm going to need a lot of horse power for late DOS/early 3D games.

I could go for a cheaper 440BX Intel board for like, $30 less and forgo the extra bells and whistles.

Is this a YFM719? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-OPL3-Vintage- … nEAAOSw3EVaV8Ma

And Vortex 2? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aureal-Vortex2-SQ250 … ass!48192!US!-1
And what makes a Aureal Vortex 2 better than a SB Live?

Should go with a TNT2, GeForce 256, or GeForce2 instead?

Sorry, I swear I'm the resident geek in my city but computer hardware knowledge from mid-late 90's is kinda all over the place.

ATX S7/SS7 boards aren't very common where I live either, I have a Tyan Turbo S1573 that is technically only an S7 board but runs a K6-2 400 fine at FSB 66MHz and I'm content with it. I guess I should consider myself lucky.

Yes, that card is a YMF-719 and will suit you fine.

The other card is a Vortex 2, but there are better Vortex 2 cards out there; I would strongly suggest you go for one with a Wavetable header.

The wavetable header is one thing that makes it better than Live for me, the other is that its DOS drivers are a hundred times more compatible and its SB Pro emulation sounds a lot better than Live's SB16 emulation. They both have soft synths, Live has the upper hand here by using SF2s and not having a soundbank size limit, but for a PII you would be CPU limited in using large sound banks (say over 32MB). The default 4MB Vortex2 soundbank is roughly equivalent to Live's default 4MB sound bank, but inferior to the 8MB one and to some of the very nice larger soundbanks like General User, Unison, Merlin etc. Vortex2 supports A3D, Live supports EAX. A3D is superior and sounds a lot better, and is also a lot more contemporary and relevant to P2/P3 era games.

TNT2 Ultra would be more contemporary for that system, but is slower than the GF2MX which is roughly the same speed as a GF 256 which is usually outrageously expensive to get. I use a GF2GTS in my P3-700 build but I think it would not make a difference over a GF2MX with a Klamath 300. If you want to stick to nVidia, GF2MX will serve you well with this build. I skipped the early GeForce era with a Voodoo 3 3000 before eventually upgrading to a GF2 Ultra, but my sister's Celeron 400 system got a GF2MX at the same time and I remember it was a very nice match for that CPU and will complement a Klamat 300 well. Just don't expect high res 32-bit gaming with it, that card was usually paired with low end 15" monitors for 800x600 gaming, at best.

I have a P3B-F with a 350MHz Deschutes overclocked to 400MHz and it's still way too slow for my 2x Voodoo 2 12MB's.
In 3dmark99MAX bumping the CPU by 12,5% from 350 to 400 already gives a ~17% overall score increase and the score is about the half of what the Voodoo's do when paired up with a Pentium 4 3.0.

For DOS it should be plenty but it will start to struggle with Quake, Unreal etc. The overall FPS might be pretty high but the animation will get choppy in more crowded places.

How's compatibility with late DOS games and late Slot 1 PIII's? Meh IDK... PIII is entering modern-ish era (even though PIII's are basically higher clocked PII's+SSE)

DOS gaming would be a 486DX. You get a turbo toggle for the real old stuff or underclock it with jumpers.

Late 90's Win9x games just go with 512MB ram, the fastest single core platform (Pentium 4 Northwood/Athlon 64), and the fastest AGP card you can find for cheap. Win98 drivers didn't start disappearing until later gen PCIe and SATA stuff were common. This could also dual boot and play early XP games. Once the games get too slow in XP, it's likely that game will run in a Modern Win7/10 machine.

@TS
Not exactly, Pentium III Coppermine and onwards have 50% faster cache that runs at CPU speed so it's not just a higher clocked P2.
And indeed for maximum power in Windows 98 you could go with a Northwood P4 or an Athlon(XP).

I went with 1x512MB stick of PC133 that can do CL2 at PC100. I always felt like Win98 got sluggish with >512MB RAM.

256mb might be a bit overkill- I'd go for between 32mb and 128mb of RAM. While I believe 256mb was available at the time, it would have been very expensive (not unlike today hehe).

appiah4 wrote:

The other card is a Vortex 2, but there are better Vortex 2 cards out there; I would strongly suggest you go for one with a Wavetable header.

It's also very expensive. A few months ago I bought 6 Vortex 2s new, in OEM packaging, for about A$150 including shipping from US to Australia. They weren't crap stripped down ones like that one either. Unfortunately the guy who was selling them seems to have run out of stock.

128MB RAM would be fine but I wouldn't go any lower.

I go for 64-128 for Socket 7 (depending on chipset and max. cacheable RAM), 128-256 for K6-2/PII and 256-512 for K6-III/PIII for Win9x/Me/2K. 128 would be enough but not comfortably, 256 would be fairly luxurious, 512 would be greatly overkill for this build methinks.

Well I think I'm just gonna go the SS7 route... May be more interesting to build.

MOBO: Shuttle HOT-591P
CPU: K6-2+ (500MHz)
RAM: Same as before (256MB)
GPU: GeForce2 MX (Just found an old card in my box of old PC parts, FREEBIE!)
Sound: 1x Yamaha YFM719 (DOS) and 1x SB Live! (I think my dad has one laying around somewhere at his house)
PSU: 350 Watt ATX

I don't think I will need a HDD, I got some older IDE drives laying around somewhere, but I do have a 128GB mSATA and a mSATA to IDE adapter I could use with a 2.5 to 3.5 converter, but that would kinda kill the retro vibe I think.
Also, do Socket 370 heatsinks fit onto (Super) Socket 7's? I am ready some conflicting reports.

I think I'll just get a cheapo beige ATX case, PhilsComputerLab (love him 🤣) had a video of him putting a Baby AT in one pretty easily. Just gotta figure out the rear I/O bracket.

Anything else you guys think I should add?

Be careful with the GF2MX, if it's an AGP card be prepared for AGP issues in an SS7 motherboard.

Why not - VOODOO 😁
p.s
Watch the 3.3V and 5V rails capacity on that PSU. Should be at least 100W.

Well look here what I found in that box.

https://imgur.com/WACzyxx

Looks like a Voodoo3 3000???

But looks like the pin trace A43 is lifted.

https://imgur.com/7v2L4Ke

Looking at the AGP 1.0 pinout, A43/B43 is ground. Would this card still work or do you guys think it's borked? Voodoo's are expensive.