VOGONS


First post, by tomcattech

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Looking at putting together a 98\DOS system that will not be so overpowered that I'm messing with throttling utilities etc that I've been dealing with in some games on my P4s.

I have both of these boards that may do well:
ECS K7VTA3 Ver6.0
Gigabyte GA-7VT600

Processor contestants:
Athlon 1.1 Ghz
Athlon XP 2800+

Video:
Got tons of AGP cards available from GeForce2 to GeForce4 as well as some Radeons sitting around

Sound:
Plan on using a SB Live card that is taking up space instead of the on board AC97. Any reasons to keep the AC97? (Sound or emulation in DOS mode?)

This is pretty much a "parts I have laying around" build but I think I have a good core here.

Any ideas?

Reply 1 of 13, by bartonxp

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tomcattech wrote on 2023-04-07, 23:47:

Sound:
Plan on using a SB Live card that is taking up space instead of the on board AC97. Any reasons to keep the AC97? (Sound or emulation in DOS mode?)

Not really, only thing that's interesting for DOS is VIA chipsets pair well with a SOLO-1. No benefits for a Live.

I doubt the Gigabyte has friendly overclocking settings and 400fsb isn't needed for low-end gaming. I like the ECS.

Is either CPU unlocked?

Reply 2 of 13, by Horun

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I see no reason to keep AC97 if using a a real sound card. DOS Mode and to get most AC97 driver loaded you have limits on avaliable free ram for DOS games and you can have resource conflicts from my experience.
Might be best to disable and just use the live card. I don't think there be much difference in using a GF2 or GF4 for unless the vid card has some BIOS with limited text modes in it's BIOS iirc.
Yeah we have differing opinions but that is what makes this a great place ! Good luck

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 13, by tomcattech

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Neither cpu is unlocked.

I'm currently leaning toward the following:
Ecs k7vta3 mb
Athlon 1.1Ghz
GeForce 2 ultra
SB Live

Does anyone think that the extra horsepower of the Athlon xp would be needed?

Reply 4 of 13, by Joseph_Joestar

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If slowdown is the goal, try getting a CPU with a Thoroughbred B core. Some of these are fully unlocked, and you should be able to set the multiplier as low as 5x, provided that your motherboard and BIOS support this.

Also, note that some PCI sound cards which use Sound Blaster emulation in pure DOS (such as the SBLive) won't like throttling down to 386/486 speed by disabling L1 cache etc. The system will become too slow to run the card's emulation utility.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 5 of 13, by bogdanpaulb

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My personal opinion: unless the socket A board has a ISA slot (kt133/kt133A and multi support), for a AMD build, i prefer to go with a 754/939 VIA board with agp (754 in my case), and a 256kb l2 cache Sempron (3100+). You can use setmul in dos for the speed, 800-1800 mhz (4-9) and also disable l1 cache of the cpu with it (no l2 control thou, that's why i went with the 3100+, 3000+ has only 128kb l2, so you can 'feel' that in win98 and the Athlon has 512kb l2 which i find to 'much' sometimes and can't be disabled). Socket A boards which support multi and unlocked socket A cpu's are harder to find (mainly the boards, usually you can unlock the cpu depending on the model). So if i use my 754 with a 800mhz (4x) setting with l1 cache disabled and the ram speed set to 200mhz (100 actual) i can bring the system to 486 levels and only have to go in the bios for the ram speed, no cpu swapping, nothing else. I find it more versatile then most of the socket A boards and it has the 12v vrm for the cpu (so all psu's work). It keeps the Solo 1 compatibility if i need it, the 'on board' sound works great with sbemu and i have a Audigy 2zs also.

Last edited by bogdanpaulb on 2023-04-08, 11:42. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 6 of 13, by The Serpent Rider

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Thunderbird can be unlocked with a pencil mod. And some Athlon TBs were also unlocked from the factory.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 7 of 13, by NostalgicAslinger

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I would search for a Athlon XP-M Barton 2400/2500 or 2600+ 1,45V with the IQYHA stepping, the best Socket A CPUs, and the IQYHAs are also the best dies from the wafer. Good ones are reaching >2600MHz ~1,75V VCore.

I have a 2600+ Barton IQYHA week 51/year 2003, which works fine with 2500MHz with the default Desktop Barton VCore of 1,65V.

These are mobile CPUs (same as K6-2+/III+), also unlocked from the factory and you can change the multiplier on the fly under Windows/DOS.

Reply 8 of 13, by bartonxp

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I found some info on these boards this morning. According to this article at anandtech, the ECS is not good for overclocking but it does have some FSB options which could be useful in your case. Being able to control the voltage and multiplier would be cool but it doesn't look like the ECS can do it. It's a nice looking board, the board in the article was revision 3.1.

Our biggest complaints about the K7VTA3 stem from its lack of any configurability in the BIOS. There is no clock multiplier support but surprisingly enough there are a handful of FSB frequencies that you can choose from. Voltage adjustment is wishful thinking but the latest BIOS does offer proper Thoroughbred support. The lack of any significant overclocking features is understandable considering ECS' dedication to the OEM market but we would still like to see them introduced in at least an enthusiast line of boards if possible.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/927/8

I saw a pic of the BIOS for your Gigabyte, and it had the same anemic Frequency\Voltage page that my KM400 has, which also a Gigabyte. I've never gotten any of the settings to work and consequently I don't like my board but in your case your Gigabyte might be worth a look, maybe the FSB and voltage will work for you.

Having the option to control the MHz and voltage would make a funner build to tinker with, especially since it's a DOS build, but it doesn't look doable with either board in your case.

Reply 9 of 13, by AlexZ

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For the most authentic build get a board with an ISA slot - 440BX, Via 694X (T) or KT133. No TSRs are needed in DOS and sound works flawlessly in all games.

VIA KT333-400 / socket 754 are for dual Windows 98 / XP rigs, not DOS.

Pentium III 900E, ECS P6BXT-A+, 384MB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 128MB, Voodoo 2 12MB, 80GB HDD, Yamaha SM718 ISA, 19" AOC 9GlrA
Athlon 64 3400+, MSI K8T Neo V, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT 512MB, 250GB HDD, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 10 of 13, by debs3759

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If you don't want to use a throttling utility, I'd stick with the 1.1 GHz Athlon. The XP will be far too fast for some DOS games, and the 1.1 GHz is period correct for 98 (there were two socket A 1.1 GHz, both released in 2000)

See my graphics card database at www.gpuzoo.com
Constantly being worked on. Feel free to message me with any corrections or details of cards you would like me to research and add.

Reply 11 of 13, by tomcattech

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Bad News\Good News Update for the 98SE\DOS project:

Bad News:
The Ecs k7vta3 went up in smoke.... taking the Athlon with it.

Good News:
I got a cool Retro Case for the project (attached)

We are now down to:
Gigabyte GA-7VT600
AsRock K7S41GX

Got both a 1 Ghz and 1.2 Ghz Athlon on the way so we should be back on track soon.

Got a Soundblaster live and some DOS drivers set aside for this one

Any ideas on video cards?
I'm leaning toward a GeForce2 Ultra \ Voodoo2 combo but I'm curious on how well that would work on the DOS side.

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Reply 13 of 13, by MarkClarke

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I don't have much to add to this that hasn't already been mentioned. You'll definitely want to try and seek out a combination of a board with BIOS options for overclocking and an unlocked CPU. Otherwise you'll kinda be stuck using external software throttling utilities for DOS software bound to the frequency of your CPU.

As obvious as it sounds, it sorta depends on what you plan on running in DOS in the first place. Stuff like Stunts runs great on my own Athlon XP dual boot 98SE/XP setup, but other stuff I have like the Even More Incredible Machine absolutely requires some sort of throttling utility or just a slower computer overall to run correctly. Not having access to any sort of CPU multipliers in my M7 VIG PRO's motherboard really limits my options on that machine. If you don't plan on playing anything that's sensitive to CPU clock (usually reserved for early DOS games, with exceptions) your current planned build should be fine for your needs.

As for your sound card, I would highly recommend using your SB live, or any PCI sound card, over your on-board solution. It should improve the performance of your machine, most notably in windows 98 & 98 games. [Edit: I just read that you have sourced your own drivers for using the card under DOS, so feel free to disregard the following if they work for you] Phil's Computer Lab did a video on those CMedia CMI8738 PCI sound cards, which feature very poor 3d audio support but have the capability to emulate old soundblasters, with somewhat mixed results. They are incredibly cheap cards however, so it may be of interest to throw into your build. It does a better job of emulating a soundblaster than those PCI soundblasters do IMO.

Some motherboards also have an interface for a PCI soundblaster known as soundblaster link solely to enable soundblaster 16 support under DOS, but I have no experience with any soundblaster link devices myself and cannot attest to their performance. I believe it requires a unique cable to work as well, no clue how common they are or how to make one. SB Link may also predate the era of parts you're assembling, I'm not entirely certain myself. Disregard this entire thing, upon further research it appears that you can just use software to enable the same functionality, so there is essentially no point in even bothering with the interface from the looks of it.