Some games and other programs will crash at CPU speeds 200 Mhz and above. Jazz JackRabbit is a known game.
I believe that 64MB of ram is the most 6.22 /3.11 can use.
Some of the older ATI Rage PRO cards work with Mach64 drivers.

Ok. What else?

BTW here is the mobo manual.
https://data2.manualslib.com/pdf3/60/5996/599 … 8cf6d51516a9138

More RAM is available by using HIMEMX and other more capable extenders.

While Moogle is right, Jazz Jackrabbit was compiled using a version of turbo pascal that breaks at 200mhz, there is a patch for it that's easy to apply. So it can be fixed. Games you'll have issues with are ones that use the CPU for timing such as Wing Commander or Ultima VII as far as I know. The list grows if you want to head back into 80s games.

Windows 3.1 should run without issue. The road block will be display drivers, you need to search around for a PCI card that has drivers available, if you're using a later AGP card you'll most certainly get stuck with regular VGA 320x200 as far as I recall.

I'm not sure if ISA breakout cards are a thing.

That's why I suggested the Rage Pro, which came in PCI and AGP. Like the 4 and 8MB ones.

BeginnerGuy wrote:

While Moogle is right, Jazz Jackrabbit was compiled using a version of turbo pascal that breaks at 200mhz, there is a patch for it that's easy to apply. So it can be fixed. Games you'll have issues with are ones that use the CPU for timing such as Wing Commander or Ultima VII as far as I know. The list grows if you want to head back into 80s games.

Windows 3.1 should run without issue. The road block will be display drivers, you need to search around for a PCI card that has drivers available, if you're using a later AGP card you'll most certainly get stuck with regular VGA 320x200 as far as I recall.

I'm not sure if ISA breakout cards are a thing.

The P3 is problematic for slowing down in DOS due to the large performance gap between caches being on and off.

gdjacobs wrote:

The P3 is problematic for slowing down in DOS due to the large performance gap between caches being on and off.

So is a P-2 better or same problem. Can you just turn off the cache in Award bios ?
What about programs like Moslo ?

BeginnerGuy wrote:

The road block will be display drivers, you need to search around for a PCI card that has drivers available, if you're using a later AGP card you'll most certainly get stuck with regular VGA 320x200 as far as I recall.

Fortunately DOS/Win 3.1 doesn't care if the card is PCI or AGP. S3 Savage4, Matrox G100/G200/G400 and Chips B69000 cards come both in PCI and AGP versions and have Win 3.1 drivers, some even offering digital out.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

The P3 is problematic for slowing down in DOS due to the large performance gap between caches being on and off.

So is a P-2 better or same problem. Can you just turn off the cache in Award bios ?
What about programs like Moslo ?

How the CPU reacts to cache being on or off is really the problem. Cache on = really fast, cache off = really slow.

Yes, cycle eaters like Moslo can help address the problem, but it's clunky to get working and doesn't seem effective with every title. At least, not in my experience.

Something like Throttle is potentially more robust than Moslo as it uses capabilities of the ACPI BIOS to further slow the machine. I haven't done any evaluation on it.
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS/

I have some Abit bx440 motherboard’s with P3 CPU’s. I don’t like the bios setup Abit uses.
I would go with an Asus with award bios.
You can turn cache on/off in bios.

I also like the options of motherboards with 3 ISA, 4 PCI, and 1 AGP slot.

matrox cards do have windows 3.11 drivers
some S3 cards too
even the diamond viperII got win3.11 drivers

Lots of great discussion and things to think about. Please! Keep it coming!

I still prefer the Abit BX6-R2. I have 3 of them. They provide real excitement! One exploded and blew everything except the peripheral cards. That was due to the shitty caps. Another I have as a spare, needs caps. And another has been in service for 10-years, recapped. To top it off it seemed to take forever to find a stable memory configuration. But once I got the settings and DIMM order right it became rock solid.

I like the 4 DIMM slots, for 1GB. it's enabled the board to run XP and some useful programs. It's a deal maker! It also has an Award BIOS that seems to adjust everything, so that is a good thing. I do wish it had 3 ISA slots, however.

I know the RIVA-128 has win3.1 drivers. I have a PCI version of it with vivo. And I may use that in conjunction with the AGP Geforce 4 Ti-4600 Ultra board in there now.

I can switch between them with the BIOS. Or at least which one is initialized 1st on power up. I seem to remember it working in a previous long-forgotten experiment.

Riva-128 is used in the Diamond Viper V330. I'm not familiar with the Viper II. But I do remember coming home from work every day and stopping in at BestBuy, Computer City or Comp-USA and just gawking at the aisles of graphics cards! Saving pennies and dollars to get one. The boxes, in retrospect, so pretty and colorful compared to today's monochromatic design language!

None of that matters in today's post-PC world. Heck, geek squad didn't even have a PCI/PCIe wireless card I could purchase! So.. yeh..

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I have some Abit bx440 motherboard’s with P3 CPU’s. I don’t like the bios setup Abit uses.

What seems to be the issue?

The main issue is speed. Pentium 2 or 3 wont make much difference, its why the AMD Super socket 7 builds get a lot of talk around here as they are very flexible in slowing down with multipliers and cache settings not locked.

That said you my not need to slow the system down, A list of games and any fixes can be found on the wiki. Majority of games don't care what speed the system is. the ones that do and any patches can be found here. https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games

You probably don't need all the isa slots. In fact you have better chance that a PCI or AGP card will have support for all the vesa standards and for a Pure dos/Win3x PC you wont need anything fancy so should be cheep. https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS

Onboard I/O controller will work and be better then anything ISA. PCI cards have dos support if you do want something more fancy then the onboard controller.
Same with network cards. PCI will work.

Unless I'm missing something only thing left is Sound, and yeh this wants to be a ISA card, so unless you have more then 1 sound card you'll still have 1 slot free.

I have 2 486's but really my P3 does everything fine if not better, I only use one of the 486's more as it has sentimental value (was our very first pc) but if I just want to play a dos game I use the P3. I doubt the other 486 gets used more then 24hrs a year all up

chinny22 wrote:

Onboard I/O controller will work and be better then anything ISA. PCI cards have dos support if you do want something more fancy […]
Show full quote

Onboard I/O controller will work and be better then anything ISA. PCI cards have dos support if you do want something more fancy then the onboard controller.
Same with network cards. PCI will work.

Unless I'm missing something only thing left is Sound, and yeh this wants to be a ISA card, so unless you have more then 1 sound card you'll still have 1 slot free.

I have 2 486's but really my P3 does everything fine if not better, I only use one of the 486's more as it has sentimental value (was our very first pc) but if I just want to play a dos game I use the P3. I doubt the other 486 gets used more then 24hrs a year all up

My 486 is around for sentimental value mostly.

I'm curious to know why an onboard (Winbond) legacy controller would be better than the standard ISA Multi - I/O board (2 Serial, 2x IDE, Game, 2x Floppy, 1 Parallel, card that's in my 486 now. Not that I don't believe you, but I'm wondering what the improvements are?

Also, in my PIII refurb/cleanup project I'd be using an ISA SoundBlaster AWE 64 Gold, it's in there now, though I do have an original SB16 from when they first came out. You know, the ones with the proprietary CD-ROM interface and WaveBlaster Daughtercard and socketed ASP chip. I assume the AWE 64 Gold would be fine.

The Abit BX6R2 has 2 ISA slots, and the second ISA slot would be equipped with a Supra 56K hardware modem. It's what's in there now.

I also have a Celeron 1.4Ghz on a slocket, and a P2-266 and P3-450 available. So if for any reason I needed to run slower I could drop down to 266MHz, otherwise I'm sticking with the Celeron/P3 @ 1,400 MHz.

What I'm thinking of doing is getting rid of the PCI SB-Live thats in there now. For the longest time I just use Stereo L/R out, and line-in/mic-in. Never got into that hypersonic quadraphonic swirling sound.

---

Currently the system specification is:

OS
Windows 7 Ultimate (tested)
Windows XP Professional SP3 (installed)
Windows 98se (previously installed)
Windows 95 (previously installed)
Windows 3.1 (pending)
Dos 6.22 (pending)

Mainboard
Abit BX6R2 motherboard, Slot-1, Intel BX440

CPU
Intel Pentium III Tualitin @ 1,403MHz, 100MHz FSB, 256KB full-speed L2 cache
PowerLeap socket 370 - slot-1 slocket adapter, with external power supply source

Memory
1 GB RAM (256MB x 4 SDRAM) non-ECC, PC-100/133 w/spd

Chipset
Intel i440BX
Winbond W83977EF-AW Super I/O

Expansion slots
2 ISA
5 PCI
1 AGP 1x/2x (3.3v)

Internal Onboard Connectors
2 x IDE ATA UDMA-33 connectors
1 5.25 & 3.5 FDD connector
4 x 168 pin DIMM connectors (data buffered)
SMI and instrument bus
Reset
Power
HDD indicator
Speaker
Keylock
BIOS reset
Wake-on LAN header
SB-LINK header
IR-1 IrDA TX/RX header
FAN x 3
RT2 thermistor
ATX power input connector

External Onboard Connectors
2 x serial 1650 UART
1 x parallel EPP ECP SPP
2 x USB 1.0
PS/2 keyboard
PS/2 mouse

BIOS
Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG 1984-1999
PnP ACPI DMI
4/26/2000
i440BX-W977-2A69KA1JC-QR (last version produced)

Graphics
Gainward GeForce 4 4600ti ultra PowerPack Golden Sample Ultra/750 XP
Dual DVI, Dual VGA, Video-in & Video-out, 128MB DDR, AGP 1x, 2x, 4x
1996-2002 NVIDIA 4.25.00.28.00 GFORCE 4600 TI 128.0MB

Hard disk drives
3 x Western Digital 120GB HDD (IDE PATA)

Floppy drive
Sony 3.5 Floppy

Optical drives
CD-ROM PlexWriter 24/10/40A drive (IDE PATA)
DVD52X Lite-On DVD reader SOHD 16P9SV (IDE PATA)

Auxiliary drive
Zip-100 Parallel port model

Modem
Supra Express 56.6k v.90 non-win-modem (ISA)

Sound
SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold CT4390 + memory module CT1930 (ISA)
SoundBlaster Live! CT4760 w/breakout box (PCI)

Additional expansion ports
Belkin F5U220 5-port USB 2.0 card NEC chipset (PCI)
Generic VT6306 based 3-port IEEE-1394 FireWire card (PCI)

Internal 1394 - ATA Bridgeboard
FW2IDE02D (Oxford FW911plus)

Ethernet Network NIC
3COM Fast EtherLink XL 3C905b-TX 10/100

Power Supply
Antec True 550

Fans
4 x dual ball-bearing Vantec & no-name generic

Fan speed controllers
3 x Cnps FAN MATE
1 x 3-speed controller and generic fan alarm

Front Panel Ports
1 Stereo line-in
1 Stereo line-out
1 Microphone in
1 CD audio headset out
2 x USB 2.0
1 x IEEE-1394 FireWire
1 x Compact Flash, SD, and multi-card reader

Additional audio expansion ports
2 x optical SPDIF In/Out
RCA optical SPDIF In/Out
RCA Aux-In
RCA Aux-Out
MIDI In/Out
1/4" Headphone Jack
4.1 analog surround out
1/4" line in jack
3 x 1/8" line in
6 Channel AC-3 SPDIF out
2 x RCA line out

Gameports
Standard analog PC gameports onboard the SoundBlaster cards
2 x DA-15 connectors
Multiplexed 4 x DA-15 connector box

Case
Generic beige-white in-winn desktop case

Keyboard
Lenovo standard usb keyboard
KU-0225 41A5100

Mouse
Micro Innovations
Optical
2 button + scroll wheel

Monitor
Samsung Syncmaster T260HD
1920x1200
16:10
VGA + DVI