Thanks for responses.

dionb wrote:

Native Tualatin support with ISA is rare, but it certainly exists and there have been many threads here on Vogons dedicated to them.

I tried to find something but if someone know some MB names from top of their head it would be nice.

dionb wrote:

Less natively, you can use a lot of later BX boards with Tualatin CPUs with an FC-PGA2 (or modded FC-PGA) socket with ISA galore.
Even if you leave out Tualatin, a 1GHz Coppermine runs rings around a 600MHz K6-3+.

Im not sure if understand it correctly, there are some 440BX which are supporting 1400 Tualation of box? Or at least 1 GHz one? How to recognize them, i guess that is not somewhere officially in manual or manufacturers page..

dionb wrote:

Tbh, I think you're trying to do too much with one machine. Yes, you can run every OS on a single computer, but it involves a lot of compromises, causes issues and takes you far, far away from anything like period-correct.

Im usually quite sucessfull with these projects, it only need lots of research. I now have one very fast machine, with is still dos capable with anything after. And now i need something for some games which are not working on it, 80% of issues, which im not able to fix, are usually sound related and ISA soundcard will fix lots of them. Im not patient and i hate waiting, so fast and possible is other target.

dionb wrote:

Does not compute. Most compatible is rarely as fast as possible. Focus a bit more...

I think that its ok, you just have 2 criteria, first is most important.. but less say, if could trade 2% of compatibility for 50% of performance i will.

dionb wrote:

I use a lot of Linux, with the main 'desktop' and backup machine in my retro area running Lubuntu on an nForce3 AGP motherboard with Phenom II quadcore. I also use an old Knoppix release (4.0, from 2004) as a diagnostic & test CD for PCI-based systems, but most definitely not for regular (inter)networking. 15-year old Linux is as insecure as an unpatched Windows XP install

Im not hardcore Linux admin, developer so i dont care about security, Linux is already much safer than Windows, because of number of spyware and viruses which are targeting it. I need something that would work out of box, i dont want spend too much time with it, i just need copy some files through network, 2 monitors, Grub as bootloader, from USB flash and i emergency slowly google something.

appiah4 wrote:

I prefer VIA 694T boards for these kinds of builds, but even if you go with an i810/815 without ISA slots there are PCI chipsets that are genuine OPL3 and work with these early ICH chipsets flawlessly in Win9x such as AZFIN3328 or very good clones that work similarly well like the FM801.

Why its better ISA slots or something else?

Update, i found some Phil Intel vs VIA Tualatin 1.4 GHz video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkJbJDCTW4U

List of Socket 370 motherboards
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … 70_motherboards

What about ALI chipsets? Company where here for long time.
- ALi Aladdin Pro 5T / up to 3 GB ram + Tualatin
- CyberALADDiN-T / 3 GB + Tualatin

and

Apollo Pro 266T / VT8653 / VT8233 - 4 GB + Tualatin // Update no ISA.
Apollo Pro 133T VT82C694T VT82C686B - 2 GB +Tualation // With ISA.
CLE266 VT8622 or VT8633 VT8233A, VT8235M - - 2 GB +Tualation

I checked also:
- SiS 635T / 1.5 GB ram only
- Via 694T / 1.5 GB ram

It would be nice add max meory info to Vogons s370 MBs list.

I found nice, fan size adapters on eBay, they can be handy for these old platform where there is usually some heatsink for some 50/60 mm fans some for videocards with small noisy 40/50 mm fans..
https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs= … tmarket&_sop=15

jheronimus wrote:

Honestly, the more I stay in this hobby, the more I realise that slowdown features are hugely overrated. A lot of the games from […]
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Honestly, the more I stay in this hobby, the more I realise that slowdown features are hugely overrated. A lot of the games from this list were rereleased or patched. Does anyone really have issues with UFO Defense or Ultima Underworld I/II, for instance?

Sure, you have exceptions: Ultima VII was simply bundled with Moslo in the Ultima Collection, and Test Drive 3 (to my knowledge) never got a rerelease or a patch to address CPU issues. But the exceptions are rare. Even Wing Commander was ported to Windows and released as part of Kilrathi Saga compilation — that version doesn't have issues with fast CPUs. Same goes for UFO Defense (but I don't think there are issues with later DOS versions either).

So unless you want to play games off their original disks or you're into really obscure titles, you're not that likely to get speed issues that can't be solved with patches. If not — you better stick with less exotic 430TX/440BX platforms and get performance and stability in 95% of all DOS games.

That being said, 80s games are of course a different story. But SS7 can't really emulate XT/286, so it's not the topic of discussion either. Not to mention that there are much better platforms for 80s games than PC anyways 😀

Sometimes game speed is not affected, but music is. Many graphic adventures will have glitchy music when played on too fast systems. Patches or re-releases are not always easy to find. And some games have only certain sections of the game play too fast, while the rest seems fine. Take Realms of Arkania series. You wouldn't think it was speed sensitive for the first hour or so of playing, then when you get into your first combat, the text that displays the results of each attack go by too fast to read. So I don't think it is overrated. Really, the best way to find out is to really play games that matter to you because what at first doesn't seem like it needs slowing down will often show itself after you get deeper into the game. And if you happen to be into later DOS games, it's almost a non-issue. It's mainly games from 1990-1993 that tend to have an issue. Once the Pentium came out, that fleshed a lot of these problems out and game makers had to account for the extra speed in their game development.

So notes to partitioning and backuping..

Partition Magic 8- when you trying to resize to Win98 live partition, its not possible as with more modern OSes.. and partition magic fixing it by adding some lines to autoexec and config, and if you are using some custom branched configs or menu, its not working you have to manually place that code to Win98 branch, after that it works fine.. Still its annyoing, i dunno has Partition magic also some live CD, or only some Rescue floppy?
It is also nice that is able to create NTFS and EXT2/3 partition from running Win98..

What is nicer that at least R-Drive image 4.5 - it has trial - its working as in modern OSes, you can make live copy of running Win98 system to image file - compressed with password.

ruthan wrote:

Hello,
for pure Dos retro machine, i always thught about Socket 7 / Super Socket 7, but i wonder how good / bad choice is Slot 1 or Socket 370 machine?

I never did analysis of it, back in day, because havent money i have always Super Socket 7 machines and used only PII /Celerons / PIII machines when i was vising friends with them.. and we played on them newest games, so almost never pure DOS, except some lan parties.

In general without using ACPI for slowdown via Throttle.exe:

Socket 7 gets you from 386 to Pentium II CPU speeds (using slowdown tricks, but gaps in fast 486 to slow Pentium), and early AGP graphics.

Socket 370/ Slot 1 gets you from 286 to Pentium III 1400+. By using slowdown tricks, but you'll see gaps in the fast 386 to slow Pentium II speeds, however, you can fix this issue with VIA C3 Ezra CPUs. And upto fast AGP cards will work.

With special hardware (interposers and turbo-switched motherboards), you can slowdown Socket 7 to 4.77 MHz IBM XT speeds and up to Pentium II speeds with no gaps in speeds.

With unlocked Pentium III CPUs, you can get 200MHz to 1400MHz Pentium speeds, and 286 to fast 386 speeds as well. I have an unlocked Tualeron that can do this.

And:

• Is pure Dos Slot 1/ socket 370 compatibility worse than Super Socket 7 compatibility?

- See above.

• Is Win 98 Slot 1/ socket 370 compatibility worse than Super Socket 7 compatibility?

- See above.

• Is there big enough performance difference between fastest PIII and K6-III for these platforms to matter?

Yes, see above.

• Are slowdowners like Setmul work well for all of these platforms?

Yes, great for AMD K6 and VIA C3 series - see above.

• Are there some passive coolers for slot1? I always was a bit afair of these slow fans on slot 1 coolers. I hate noise.

Use Socket 370 or Slocket/ Slotket Slot 1 for passive cooling. Better is using large low speed fans and fan adapters.

• What about maximum of RAM, i can matter for occasional use of Windows XP or Linux on same HW.. it will not be primary OS, but there some nice partition etc tools, modern browsers etc.

Chipsets tend to max around 1.5 GB for S370 and 256 MB for S7. I wouldn't really bother with OS use if you have an XP capable machine already.

• If slots 1 / s370 are good, which chipsets are the best?

You can't go wrong with 440BX. But there are VIA and SIS alternatives and newer Intel 810 plus.

j^aws : I dont think that compatibility issues are only about machine speed after slowdown, from my experience there is lots of other factors in the play and and there are very important too.

Can you be more specific about which slowdown utilities are good for which platform? Setmul is working for SS7 ok, what for S370?

Other question for all, are there some AT to ATX IO brackets (shileds) for using AT MB in ATX case, without big whole in back of machine? Some SS7 MBs are both AT/ATX but i never saw IO shield for them..

This sucks:
, but it thing that AT keyboard would be everytime on same place..

ruthan wrote:

j^aws : I dont think that compatibility issues are only about machine speed after slowdown, from my experience there is lots of other factors in the play and and there are very important too.

Can you be more specific about which slowdown utilities are good for which platform? Setmul is working for SS7 ok, what for S370?

Other question for all, are there some AT to ATX IO brackets (shileds) for using AT MB in ATX case, without big whole in back of machine? Some SS7 MBs are both AT/ATX but i never saw IO shield for them..

Socket 370 machines can disable L1 cache which puts there speed somewhere in the territory of a 386dx40 or so. They cannot disable instructions or lower their multiplier at all, no even in the bios. SS7 CPUs can lower their fsb down to 66mhz and a multiplier of 2, in addition to having the ability to disable l1 cache and l2 cache via the bios. A slow SS7 K63+ gets down to about a 386dx25, which is slow enough for games like wing commander and test drive.

Socket 370 and slot 1 machines can make use of a software slowdown utility called throttle. This uses clock skipping to force wait states on the CPU, effectively reducing their clock speed. Depending on the model, you can slow down in either 25% increments or 12.5% increments, letting you approximate speeds in the pentium range, or even getting down to 486 speeds depending on the model. Lower clocked pentium 3 like a katmai 400mhz can get the slowest. I haven't tried it, but from what other's have said about it works pretty well, although at really high throttle levels the mouse movement can be less smooth.

When it comes to baby AT motherboards in ATX cases, you can find an AT Din style I/O shield online, usually for about 30$ or so. The problem is that all of the board headers still have no place to go. You can get PCI brackets for things like COM and P/2 mouse, but these headers are often positioned at the top of the board, so you have to run them under or over your PCI expansion cards. On my pentium MMX machine right now, I gave up and just let them free hang out of the hole where the i/o shield should go.

Doubly so if the board doesn't support ATX power supplies and you have to use an AT to ATX adapter with a hardware switch. You can get an AT case instead, but the mounting points are all over the place, and finding one that is a good fit for your board can be a challenge, especially if you are not sure exactly what to look for (or the seller doesn't provide many pictures of the inside of the case, which is common).

The SS7 route has a lot of benefits for sure. A k6 3+ on a good board with a voodo 3 has a lot of range, but that set of core parts will cost you maybe 300$ on ebay right now and the right parts can be difficult to find.

If you want to focus on DOS compatibility, a regular socket 7 board with a p45c or p55 core is easier and cheaper to find, and has more options for disabling instructions and generally getting down to a lower multiplier or fsb.

A pentium 3 machine is much easier to work with in modern cases and with modern power supplies and doesn't have any issues with larger hard drive. You probably won't hit more than a couple of reference speed points, but that is enough to play all but a few notable DOS games anyways.

What I have decided to do is build a DOS focused machine and a windows 98 focused machine instead. It's not the cheapest or most space efficient route, but I found that that any in between build had to compromise quite a bit. Also, and this is just my experience so take it with a grain of salt, all of the SS7 motherboards I ran into were a total crap shoot when it came to build quality and capacitor health. I bought one motherboard that died on me shortly after I started using it. That same model of motherboard also died on two other Vogon's members in a similar way (FYI it was a DFI board), and another I bought from outside my country and it arrived DOA, with the cost to ship it back and go through the return process made it hardly worth it. Based on my personal experience, I would not recommend bargain bin SS7 boards, and the good ones will cost you quite a lot on ebay these days.

ruthan wrote:

j^aws : I dont think that compatibility issues are only about machine speed after slowdown, from my experience there is lots of other factors in the play and and there are very important too.

Can you be more specific about which slowdown utilities are good for which platform? Setmul is working for SS7 ok, what for S370?

I use unlocked CPUs for both S7 and Slot 1/S370 as well.

The biggest factor for compatibility comes from the CPU, whether if it's slow enough or fast enough gives you the range of games it can run.

I don't use Throttle.exe as its outcome isn't the same as more hardware specific parameters for controlling speed - namely multipliers, FSB, L1/L2/L2 cache manipulation, other Setmul parameters such as Data and Instruction cache as well. You don't need Setmul to control all those parameters as some can be done from BIOS and hardware toggle switches.

The graphics card is next regarding compatibility. I recommend multi card setups for the broadest compatibility, and an ISA card to slowdown animations that are too fast. Controlling CPU also needs to be balanced with graphics speed.

Regarding sound cards, also multi card setups are recommended. Start with a Sound Blaster compatible card and add Intelligent Mode MIDI compatibility as well.

Unlocked S370 CPUs, which ones are unlocked, anything except Celerons?

This ATX bracket for AT boards, but i dunno where to buy.. I dont mind some version, there would be more holes for some serial, paralel, USB or PS2 ports.

It not look complicated, if someone is skilled with modeling for 3D printing, just bar with right dimmensions, with some dots at the edges and 1 hole at right place (for AT keyboard) and other holes where such location doesnt really matter and few screw holes around them for standard pc screws, i would buy few of these..

ruthan wrote:

Unlocked S370 CPUs, which ones are unlocked, anything except Celerons? […]
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Unlocked S370 CPUs, which ones are unlocked, anything except Celerons?

This ATX bracket for AT boards, but i dunno where to buy.. I dont mind some version, there would be more holes for some serial, paralel, USB or PS2 ports.

AT-Bracket.png

It not look complicated, if someone is skilled with modeling for 3D printing, just bar with right dimmensions, with some dots at the edges and 1 hole at right place (for AT keyboard) and other holes where such location doesnt really matter and few screw holes around them for standard pc screws, i would buy few of these..

As soon as you find someone with the right equipment willing to sell them as a service let me know. It definitely can be done, and some of the folks on Vogons have made some for themselves and for a few members. In terms of what you can buy on ebay or elsewhere right now, I have only seen I/O sheilds with cut outs for the AT Din port.

ruthan wrote:

Unlocked S370 CPUs, which ones are unlocked, anything except Celerons?

VIA C3s - Samuel, Ezra and Nehemiah.
Pentium III Engineering Samples - Celerons and P3s, both Coppermine and Tualatin.

My friend found models for 3D printer these fans adapters, which quite expensive from Greece guy..
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:735038/files

There some ATX shield to, so if someone has some modeling skill and can print at least some paper testing sheet, it would be nicer to make ATX - AT shield model, find some guy with 3D printer locally its not super hard task.

Look at this thread for 3d printable atx/at backplates: ATX I/O shield models for 3D printing

Great thanks exactly what i needed.

Its nice to have very good friends..

SS7 goodies, Now i can make Super Socket 7 AT/ATX MBs, much better.. with normal ATX case, ATX PSU (there some nice Fontron not expesive passively cooled PSUs), no big hole in backplate place, nice 80mm CPU fan, instead of noisy 50mm, no cards slots filled by IO brackets..

^^ Nice tweaks. Those aftermarket fan adapters are definitely handy. Your friend maybe able to take advantage of an aftermarket demand for those.

I already posted link for some Greek guy, who is making these fan adapters, there are 3D printed, it took 9 hours, because of old 3D printer and best quality of printing.

All these 3D models are free of charge available online.. you only need some guy with 3D printer near of you.

I got QDI Advance 10B for Socket 370, something particularly good or bad about this MB?

I also tried install XP, alongside Win98 to Zida Tomato TX98-3D + K6-II 300 MHz, i tried multiple Win ISOs XP SP1,SP3 some modded, but i always getting BSoD after files are copying before first boot where HW should be detected. Error message is IRQ_IS_LESS_OR_EQUAL, i tried to disable all most all on board devices, disabled dPowerManagment/APM, enable/ disable PnP OS, load optimalized defaults, but all the same.. I have only S3 Virge additional videocard - in first 1 PCI slot and 1 CD-ROM and IDE 40 GB disk, HW is working for Win98 - i didnt test it a lot but its booting and some 2D games are running.

I didnt find any conclusive info about that error, only that is happening to other people with K6-II too, should i fiddle manually with that IRQ assignment in Bios? Any hints for it.

I had very similar Zida MB back in day and XP ran fine on it, out of box i think.

Does it have a PC/PCI header? That's always handy.