Need desperate help! \ VOGONS

Need desperate help!

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First post, by F2bnp

Posted on 2008-03-01, 21:46

F2bnp Offline

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Some days ago we were looking for some books in his attic,we found a old rig.He gave it to me because he knows how much I love them ! I opened the PC and saw what was inside.A typical 200 watt psu,4 empty slots of ram,an onboard graphics card 😖(1 mb shared memory xD),4 pci slots,3 isa slots,one 12x cd rom drive,a 2.1 gb hard disk and a Pentium MMX 200 Mhz!So I grabbed some ram,a graphics card etc and created THIS:

System Specs:

Pentium MMX 200 MHz
24 mb ram
S3 Virge 325
2,1 gb ram
SB 16

Not the best retro PC but it will do the job.
Now the problem is that this motherboard has 2 panels or jumpers whatever.These are obviously for setting your cpu speed.And someone played with them pretty much so it recognizes the cpu at 133 MHz.After playing for a while I found a matching combination showing that now it was clocked at 200 Mhz.But the games proved it wrong.Legacy Of Kain runs like shit,same does Tomb Raider and some others.I searched the motherboard to see if there was any reference to what those panels(jumpers)clocks where.Apparently the red one doesn't do anything(or at least it doesn't seem to) and the blue one clocks the cpu but I'm without a clue.I don't have any manual and I'm stuck.Pictures follow:

You can see the green heatsink(might be for the onboard graphics card).

Check the two panels!

Even closer!

Reply 1 of 4, by DosFreak

Posted on 2008-03-01, 22:17

DosFreak Offline

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The S3 Virge chipset was known as a "graphics decelerator"...and you have the integrated version likely with a lower clockspeed.

Didn't Tomb Raider come out after this video chipset was released? (Virge-1995, Tomb Raider=1996)

Also by Legacy of Kain do you mean Soul Reaver? Released in 1999?

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 2 of 4, by swaaye

Posted on 2008-03-01, 22:28

swaaye Offline

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Virge is pretty good for DOS games though because it's based on the older 2D cores. It also accelerates the only accelerated version of Terminal Velocity!!!!! (!!!!!!! 🤣 !!!!!!) There is a Tomb Raider patch too.

Those are called DIP switches, by the way. You need to look everywhere on that board for some model numbers. Anything you can google up.

Last edited by swaaye on 2008-03-01, 22:34. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 3 of 4, by 5u3

Posted on 2008-03-01, 22:30

5u3 Offline

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Right, a Virge is not bad for DOS games. Add a Voodoo card and you're set!

About those switches: We might be able to help if you found out more about the board. Are there any markings revealing the manufacturer, model, chipset, or something like that?
In case you can't find anything descriptive, maybe a high-resolution photo of the board (without all the cards and cables installed) could give us a clue.

Reply 4 of 4, by F2bnp

Posted on 2008-03-02, 07:09

F2bnp Offline

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Legacy of Kain I mean Blood Omen 1,released in 1996.Even if the Virge is an old card I remember on my 166 mhz with a virge that it ran extremely smooth.Also Tomb Raider with the aplied patch for the virge and resolution of 516(or something)and with bilinear and prespective OFF it is not fast.Clearly the MMX 200 should be ok to handle those games even with the virge.Keep in mind that even Syndicate Wars has some slow downs in DOS mode 😖!Last but not least,I remember that the onboard graphics card is a SIS with 1 MB shared memory.I put a Virge instead of that.I'll try to find more.

EDIT:

I searched it a little.Bootscreen comes up with these names:

Green PCI/ISA System
...
...
10/22/97-SiS5598-W83877-2A5IIA1AC-6J

The motherboard hasn't got anything to refer to except these names in some chips:

Phaselink
Winbound
Award(presumably that's the bios)

It appears that it is the Abit PD5N,but I can't find a working link for a manual!!!HELP!

EDIT 3:OK I found it and found out that the red dip switch is for voltage and the blue for clock speed.But I don't know what voltage the MMX 200 needs.

EDIT 1337:Problem solved!For those wondering the Pentium MMX 200 voltage is 2.8/3.3.I can finally play my games,now I'm going for a Banshee/Voodoo 2 combination 😜

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