Hello!

I did something similar a few years ago although I'm not personally too intense into gaming - New Old Stock Build Pentium III @ 800 MHz w/ ISA Slots

For sound some are super into whether it uses a hardware OPL3 chip for MIDI or emulates it as the later Sound Blasters and compatibles did. The ESS in particular have a slightly different (not bad) rendering of MIDI music sometimes.

I believe there is a 137GB or so limit with Windows 98 on hard drives. You can read on my post about how I used linux to be able to fdisk/format an 80GB drive since Win98 couldn't do that from the boot CD.

I think the concerns with KT133/KT266 are more about the timing with the bad batch of capacitors than quality. I actually had a KT266 system that died and I always attributed it to a lightning strike/power surge, but maybe it was capacitors after all.

Since you rule out CRTs anyway, there are still some new-ish 1280x1024 LCDs out there.

You don't mention it but I assume you'd go with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse for maximum DOS compatibility. I'm loving my Unicomp keyboards.

When you say DOS games, if you mean any so long ago as to be EGA games (I test with Commander Keen 4), I found the last PCI and AGP ATI cards with Win98 drivers not to do as great at showing them correctly as an older card like a Cirrus 5446 or a Trident I have, though you said no PCI cards!

jakethompson1 wrote on 2020-05-17, 19:01:

Since you rule out CRTs anyway, there are still some new-ish 1280x1024 LCDs out there.

Yes ! If thrift stores are open in your area you can sometimes find a very good one for very little $. I have a few 4:3 LCD that work very well for the older pre-2005 gaming that was not in Widescreen. Not as good as a good CRT but better than using a widescreen LCD.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2020-05-17, 19:01:

Hello! […]
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Hello!

I did something similar a few years ago although I'm not personally too intense into gaming - New Old Stock Build Pentium III @ 800 MHz w/ ISA Slots

For sound some are super into whether it uses a hardware OPL3 chip for MIDI or emulates it as the later Sound Blasters and compatibles did. The ESS in particular have a slightly different (not bad) rendering of MIDI music sometimes.

I believe there is a 137GB or so limit with Windows 98 on hard drives. You can read on my post about how I used linux to be able to fdisk/format an 80GB drive since Win98 couldn't do that from the boot CD.

I think the concerns with KT133/KT266 are more about the timing with the bad batch of capacitors than quality. I actually had a KT266 system that died and I always attributed it to a lightning strike/power surge, but maybe it was capacitors after all.

Since you rule out CRTs anyway, there are still some new-ish 1280x1024 LCDs out there.

You don't mention it but I assume you'd go with a PS/2 keyboard and mouse for maximum DOS compatibility. I'm loving my Unicomp keyboards.

When you say DOS games, if you mean any so long ago as to be EGA games (I test with Commander Keen 4), I found the last PCI and AGP ATI cards with Win98 drivers not to do as great at showing them correctly as an older card like a Cirrus 5446 or a Trident I have, though you said no PCI cards!

I just checked the KT133a and the two KT266 motherboards I have to see what brand caps they have and sure enough, they have known bad caps on them. Lovely. The upside is that all of these boards look fairly new/lightly used and I even got the box with at least one of them. I'm not overly concerned but it's something I'll need to keep an eye on going forward which is a bit unfortunate.

I only have, at most, 2-3 PS2 Keyboards and at most, 2-3 PS2 Mice.. none of which I have a clue of their location, but I do recall they were in poor condition. I have an old AT "clicky" keyboard as well. My main keyboard is a Logitech G710 (not the + version) which I LOVE as it uses Cherry MX Blue switches (The + uses brown switches I think). I love mechanical keyboards but I bought the Logitech because it has a built in wrist rest, backlighting, etc. This keyboard is over 5 years old and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'd love to find a PS2 keyboard, but honestly, I refuse to use a keyboard without a built in wrist rest because that's all I've ever used in the past 20+ years. My PII system back in 1998 even had a keyboard with a wrist rest built in. Sure I can buy a gel one or whatever, but it isn't the same. I'd love to find a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 again because it's s USB mouse but it works with the USB to PS2 adapters. That was my favorite mouse back in the day. I dunno, I may look around for something that's PS2, but seeing that I have over 30 USB keyboards and 30 USB Mice... which often work on these older systems as long as you set the legacy setting in the BIOS, I'll probably use USB.

I just went out and pulled in the Dell and Compaq Deskpro systems. The Compaq Deskpro is a PIII 500 Mhz and the Dell is a PIII 450 Mhz. The Compaq has seen better days... the from bezel is yellowing and the metal framing is all scratched up and dented in spots. However, unlike the Dell, the Compaq has a regular ATX motherboard (and screw layout), marked headers, and a removable IO shield, so I think I'm going to strip this system and place it into a new ATX case and put this old case by the road for a scrapped to pick up for scrap metal (we don't have e-waste centers here or any type of recycling programs.). There's another Deskpro out there that's a PII of some sort. You could say these systems are rather sentimental. I got like 13 of these Deskpro systems back in 2005 when a company I worked for retired anything older than a PIII (somehow this one PIII got throw into the mix). The company was my 2nd job and my first office/somewhat IT related job. Remember Metrocall? PageNET? Arch Wireless? USAMobility? Well... these are from Metrocall and back in 2005, a lot of government's and companies used them and even kept spares on hand, so I'd swap them out via a AS400 system, etc. It was a fun gig. I actually had a two way pager free from them for working there which was like a PDA... had a dock and everything. You could send/receive e-mail, SMS messages, numeric and alphanumeric pages, read the news, weather, etc. It's kinda funny... I was dating a girl at the time that lived out in the middle of nowhere and there was no cell service whatsoever out there from any provider. However, that little pager worked like a champ since it operated on a lower frequency than the cellular networks did, the signal was able to reach much further and go through walls and whatnot (kinda like 2.4 Ghz WiFi has better range than 5 Ghz WiFi). Anyway, over the years I gave the systems away slowly. I still have my first computer, but that's a story for another day 😜 I'm waiting for the caps to blow on that one simply due to it's age.

Anywho, I'd love to find a CRT monitor like I used to have. I used to have a 19" ViewSonic which had a "flat" screen and an "ultrabright" button/mode. It was an amazing monitor, spent countless hours playing Half-Life 2 and Need for speed underground on it. You can't find them locally at all and they sell for crazy prices on eBay and shipped is extremely expensive. Oh, I did pull in my other 19" LCD monitor which I think is in good condition and is "newer". It was mfg in late 2009.

Horun wrote on 2020-05-17, 22:21:

jakethompson1 wrote on 2020-05-17, 19:01:

Since you rule out CRTs anyway, there are still some new-ish 1280x1024 LCDs out there.

Yes ! If thrift stores are open in your area you can sometimes find a very good one for very little $. I have a few 4:3 LCD that work very well for the older pre-2005 gaming that was not in Widescreen. Not as good as a good CRT but better than using a widescreen LCD.

Sadly, the few thrift stores we have around here don't carry much, if any electronics these days. 10-12 years or so ago, I would go every weekend and always find and often buy stuff. Now they are at the point where they don't accept most electronics. They no longer will take CRT TV's or CRT monitors. I miss those days... picked up 486 systems for $10, IBM thinkpad's for $5, etc. Now the one thrift store that does have an "electronics" section mostly only sells complete systems for $100+, like Core 2 Duo's.

If I could find a PS2 keyboard/mouse that I liked... I actually have a couple KVM's that I could make use of as they are VGA/PS2.

CelticDubstep wrote on 2020-05-17, 22:36:

If I could find a PS2 keyboard/mouse that I liked... I actually have a couple KVM's that I could make use of as they are VGA/PS2.

Just found a new old stock keyboard that I like and has wrist rest and is black so will match everything. 😀 Just ordered it. Now trying to track down a mouse.

3 Ways:
- "Pure" DOS but not 98 era : P1 + ISA sound card with OPL+ Any card with good DOS suport like S3 and Nvidia
-"Authentic" 98 era: - Any pII/III + ISA soudncard for some DOS games and v3+ good pci soundcard
-Fastest: Voodoo 5 + audigy card for EAX + Athlon

MKT_Gundam wrote on 2020-05-17, 23:25:

3 Ways: - "Pure" DOS but not 98 era : P1 + ISA sound card with OPL+ Any card with good DOS suport like S3 and Nvidia -"Authent […]
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3 Ways:
- "Pure" DOS but not 98 era : P1 + ISA sound card with OPL+ Any card with good DOS suport like S3 and Nvidia
-"Authentic" 98 era: - Any pII/III + ISA soudncard for some DOS games and v3+ good pci soundcard
-Fastest: Voodoo 5 + audigy card for EAX + Athlon

Not a bad idea and I do have that Pentium 166 Packard Bell I could technically use. However, the only DOS games I play are newer ones, like mid to late 90's which a Pentium would have trouble keeping up with. My Cyrix 180 Mhz with a 2MB video card was slow trying to run Duke 3D. There is only 1 game that I like to play which depends on CPU cycles and it is Sim Tower. It works fine on the Cyrix and Pentium, but anything faster and the game runs too fast unless you go into the options of the game and select "slow mode" or something to that effect, but that has its own set of flaws... too slow 🤣.

I think I might do something like the following:
System 1: PIII 500 Mhz with Voodoo 3 3000 and an ISA sound card (probably an AWE64) This system would give me some flexibility as I could swap out sound cards as desired (for example, I really like ESS's FM)
System 2: AMD Athlon 1333 Mhz with a Voodoo 5 5500 . Not sure on the sound card, but kinda leaning towards a Sound Blaster Live.
System 3: AMD Athlon XP 1800 or 2400 with some high end video card like a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and an Audigy (I may actually have two of these and if so, I'd put one in the system above, or I may just get a Vortex2 as I've never used A3D before)

I dunno. It's still a work in progress at the moment.

I like your thinking
System 1: looks like a great Win9x/late dos PC. I'd probably add a second PCI sound card for Win9x gaming.
System 2: High end Glide PC, I'd agree with any of your sound card choices
System 3: High end D3D PC,

Re the Vortex 2, check which games you own support A3D 2.0, if it's not many you can get away with the Vortex 1
http://members.optusnet.com.au/kirben/3dsoftware.html

Then from that list How many A3D games are Glide vs D3D? if most your A3D games are Glide then that's where you want the V5

chinny22 wrote on 2020-05-18, 12:33:

I like your thinking System 1: looks like a great Win9x/late dos PC. I'd probably add a second PCI sound card for Win9x gaming. […]
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I like your thinking
System 1: looks like a great Win9x/late dos PC. I'd probably add a second PCI sound card for Win9x gaming.
System 2: High end Glide PC, I'd agree with any of your sound card choices
System 3: High end D3D PC,

Re the Vortex 2, check which games you own support A3D 2.0, if it's not many you can get away with the Vortex 1
http://members.optusnet.com.au/kirben/3dsoftware.html

Then from that list How many A3D games are Glide vs D3D? if most your A3D games are Glide then that's where you want the V5

Thanks for the link, that's extra helpful! 😀 I just tried looking for a Vortex 2 and well... OUCH! They appear to be extremely hard to find and if you find one, they are very expensive. I think I'll stick with the Vortex. A quick look through that list, it seems that most of the games I'd like to play would either have A3D (not 2.0) or EAX support. Most of the cards that support A3D 2.0 also support EAX. I'll just use the Vortex I already have in one of these builds. It'd actually be really good to be paired with the PIII system, but then I'd lose DOS support. Meh. I dunno, It's probably going to be a lot of trial and error seeing what games run best on what systems and deciding from there.... or get my DOS fix and after a few months, swap cards.

CelticDubstep wrote on 2020-05-19, 03:50:

chinny22 wrote on 2020-05-18, 12:33:

I like your thinking System 1: looks like a great Win9x/late dos PC. I'd probably add a second PCI sound card for Win9x gaming. […]
Show full quote

I like your thinking
System 1: looks like a great Win9x/late dos PC. I'd probably add a second PCI sound card for Win9x gaming.
System 2: High end Glide PC, I'd agree with any of your sound card choices
System 3: High end D3D PC,

Re the Vortex 2, check which games you own support A3D 2.0, if it's not many you can get away with the Vortex 1
http://members.optusnet.com.au/kirben/3dsoftware.html

Then from that list How many A3D games are Glide vs D3D? if most your A3D games are Glide then that's where you want the V5

Thanks for the link, that's extra helpful! 😀 I just tried looking for a Vortex 2 and well... OUCH! They appear to be extremely hard to find and if you find one, they are very expensive. I think I'll stick with the Vortex. A quick look through that list, it seems that most of the games I'd like to play would either have A3D (not 2.0) or EAX support. Most of the cards that support A3D 2.0 also support EAX. I'll just use the Vortex I already have in one of these builds. It'd actually be really good to be paired with the PIII system, but then I'd lose DOS support. Meh. I dunno, It's probably going to be a lot of trial and error seeing what games run best on what systems and deciding from there.... or get my DOS fix and after a few months, swap cards.

Vortex1 is not great. Yes it technically has EAX, but it's an imperfect implementation. SB Live! has perfect EAX, A3D1, and good DOS support, and excellent all compatibility.

Vortex1 actually has good dos support 😀 If you only had PCI I's say it was a good choice but as you have an ISA slot I'd recommend putting 2 sound cards in the system.

Vortex2 can be had for not stupid prices, got one off ebay last year for £31 From Australia of all places! Even saved on shipping as Dad was coming over later in the year 😀

Vortex1 can only do EAX1 , Live! series can go upto EAX3, Audigy series can go upto EAX4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_EAX_support

but yeh lots of trail and error, but thats half the fun!

chinny22 wrote on 2020-05-19, 09:40:

Vortex1 actually has good dos support :) If you only had PCI I's say it was a good choice but as you have an ISA slot I'd recomm […]
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Vortex1 actually has good dos support 😀 If you only had PCI I's say it was a good choice but as you have an ISA slot I'd recommend putting 2 sound cards in the system.

Vortex2 can be had for not stupid prices, got one off ebay last year for £31 From Australia of all places! Even saved on shipping as Dad was coming over later in the year 😀

Vortex1 can only do EAX1 , Live! series can go upto EAX3, Audigy series can go upto EAX4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_EAX_support

but yeh lots of trail and error, but thats half the fun!

I got some fun using the vortex 1 in my p4 build and worked fine on intel chipsets (865).
The OPL emulation sucks but is doable and not bad like the sb Pci128.

CelticDubstep wrote on 2020-05-17, 17:45:

What configuration(s) would you go with to cover most DOS/3DFX/Windows Era Games?

If you know what games you want to run, then you should build a machine that can run those games. If you don't know what games you want to run, then the computers you build will probably just end up collecting dust. Just sayin'.