I think late 80s-1993 a 486DX-33 is okay. 1994 stuff needs a Pentium.

First board looks in pretty bad condition.

For 3/486 combo board look for the ones with VLB slots.

Not sure what's best suited for Turrican 2 but this list will give you an idea on typically required CPU's
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games
Should be noted this is optimal performance, often you can get away with slighty faster/slower CPU as well if that increases compatibility with games in your onw library.

I'd say hardest thing will be a case. Ideally you want one with a turbo switch. That way a 486 can probably double as a 386 when needed.
As your not after a fast 486 you have more flexibility. 486's with VLB or PCI are very nice, but a pure ISA based 486 may help slow the system down, or at the very least your probably not going to be bottlenecked by ISA.

Cache, 128KB will allow you to cache 32MB of ram, already plenty for a system like this, but if you have more cache it isn't going to hurt.
RAM, 8MB was common for mid range 486 and would be what I'm looking at, 16MB will give you some wriggle room as long as it doesn't case compatibility issues.
BIOS, whatever the board comes with, not like you have a choice
Slots, enough to cover what you need! already mentioned on a system like this you don't really need VLB/PCI but PCI does give you more flexibility for video and network cards. VLB is interesting but expensive.
Some motherboards will have integrated I/O freeing up 1 slot.

You also have battery type, Coin battery is best, Dallas RTC or barrel are also common and are fine, just requires more work to replace.
Unless you go with OEM system most likely you wont have a PS2 mouse port so stuck with serial mouse, just so your aware.

I'm not aware of which system Turrican 2 is written for, but speed sensitive almost sounds like 386 to me. Correct me if I'm wrong please.

For a 386 I'd look for a board that supports at least these features:
- regular AT psu connector
- regular baby AT form factor
- At least six 16b ISA slots
- common bios (Ami, award, Mr bios) for maximum compatibility
- eight 30p ram slots, f ok r 8x 1MB 60ns or 70ns ram. Those are easy to find and affordable.
- at least 64kB cache, you can always disable it in bios if needed.
- cr2032 battery, or Dallas so you can mod it to cr2032. Also no chance for (hidden) accid damage
- 33 or 40MHz CPU support (turbo may clock down if desired)
- forget about 387, it's just a gimmick
- connect the turbo header to a button

Also ofc. a good graphics card like later S3, Cirrus, ET4000, UMC that will utilize the full ISA bandwidth.
Regular I/o with IDE will do, you're probably limiters to 512MB

This system performs just on spot for i.e. Test Drive 3.

Early 1990s means early to mid 486. Late 1980s generally means at least EGA support and no 'booter' disks. That's not too hard. A 486DX-33 would probably do, or you could take a DX2-66 and disable cache in BIOS to slow it down if needed.

Your requirement for Turrican 2 isn't really a CPU challenge (it's a 1995 game designed to run on a 386), but it limits other hardware as it only runs if the CPU is in real mode. That means you're not allowed to use EMS - and that means you can't use hardware with drivers/init that require EMM. That's a big issue with PCI cards (SBLive...) but hardly with most ISA stuff.

As for the rest - you don't sound terribly interested in the hardware (and judging by that first pic of a very badly abused board, you don't exactly have an eye for it either), in which case you really don't need much more than a stable 486 board with a VLB or ISA SVGA card with good compatibility (S3 is pretty much the gold standard), I/O that supports your chosen storage (CF card will almost always work on IDE, even really old adapters+BIOS if you choose small enough cards) and maybe 8MB RAM (more than that is totally unnecessary for DOS and can cause misdetection issues in some games).

Sound is the big question. Late '80s and early '90s is a big rabbit hole before everyone standardized on SBPro2-compatibility. You'll want AdLib, preferably with a real Yamaha OPL chip, but might also want to look at CMS (Game Blaster), Covox and maybe even SSI-2001. Also a hardware MPU (MusicQuest or modern clone) and MT-32 (or Pi-based emulator) could be nice. Depends how far down you want to go. A SoundBlaster 1.0 replica (like the SnarkBarker) with CMS chips on it would be an affordable option with three of the commoner standards (AdLib, SB DA, CMS). You could also look for an Aztech NXPro, with AdLib, SB, SBPro2 and Covox support, although some very early 199s games might not want to work on it (Ultima7...)

I'd definitely stick to 386, but I'm very biased 😁 (386DX-40 is my favorite CPU/system)

386DX-40 is perfect imho for late 80s early 90s
no need to go for VLB, a good ISA card will be plenty enough for that time period, anything that requires more will probably happily run on newer systems too.

I currently have a CT1740 SB16 in my 386 system but I've been swapping it out with an original Adlib occasionally and a PC MIDI card for intelligent mode games.

Instead of buying the motherboard , should I be on the lookout for a complete system then? As it seems to be easier.

C0deHunter wrote on 2022-03-29, 16:16:

Instead of buying the motherboard ,should I be on turc lookout for a complete system then? As it seems to be easier.

If you don't have extraneous components already (e.g. case, PSU, drives, etc.) then I'd go the complete system route. That will give you a base on which to add or upgrade components as needed.

C0deHunter wrote on 2022-03-29, 16:16:

Instead of buying the motherboard , should I be on the lookout for a complete system then? As it seems to be easier.

If the system fits your requirements: yes, if the price is right. So long as the system has a couple of free ISA slots and above all it's known to work, it should be fine. If however it doesn't work, non-standard OEM stuff becomes a nightmare as you can't just get regular spare parts. That's one of the reasons I prefer standards-based stuff. But I'm a hardware tinkerer, so of course I would. Really, given the current state of the market, if I were looking to get into this first time, I wouldn't go in with preconceptions, but just take the first thing that comes by that comes close to fitting requirements and is known to work for an acceptable price. It's not like you have a smorgasbord of cheap, reliable options to choose from.

I found this at a local retro shop. Is it worth a pick up?
I am only interested in the motherboard, CPU and the RAM, as rest of the it’s components are useless to me.

- What is the standalone, lonely sitting stick of RAM for?

- The CPU is an AMD

It has:
3X PCI
4X ISA (1X shared VLB)
Clock battery CMOS (yay, no soldering)
AMIBIOS

Thank you for you insights!

Here are more pics:

Here is the CPU

Can I install my 486DX 33 instead?

Finding the motherboard manual would be difficult, as I might have to change the jumpers in order to fit other CPUs, however!

Interesting read;

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/amd5x86.htm

I would buy this if I can figure out the jumpers for my 486DX 33.
I searched and I can’t find any diagram for its motherboard.

These are the only jumpers that I ca n locate on the motherboard.

Last set of jumpers

I have found this VOGONS thread, about the UMC chipset:

486 VLB UMC-Chipset, what is it?

Motherboard revision?

Ok, I think I found it! Seems like it’s a

PCChips M919 VER 3.3B/F, also know as Amptron DX-9700

https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/582#downloads

It’s manual

https://www.ultimateretro.net/motherboard/man … 29964705834.pdf

the "lonely stick" is the cache, as this is one of those infamous boards with fake cache 😁 (chips on top right) it's good that it's on there as this stick is unique to this board and not compatible with other coast modules.

the board is pretty sought after for it's obscurity, apart from the fakery it's probably one of the best 486 boards.

also can I please have a "local retro shop" too? 🙁

I see, thanks for clarification! I am going to get it then, the best part is the price: $50 😀