VOGONS


First post, by pinesal

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Hello everyone! I am new here. I discovered this forum after needing to learn about an old computer I acquired. I want to introduce myself and to say that this forum is AWESOME!

I was born in 1982 (39) and I am a super nostalgic retro geek. I have a whole room dedicated to the 90s and my internet persona is all about the 90s.

As a kid/teen we had a family computer starting with a hand me down 286 computer and I used to play Commander Keen. Later we got a 75mhz Pentium and got an upgraded computer every few years. I eventually got my own computer that was all mine and so on. We always had budget model pre-built computers though.

My friend was the one with the awesome custom gaming rigs. He had the voodoo cards and the huge towers etc. I was always jealous. I was mostly a console gamer in the 90s with some PC games on the side. Still fascinated by computers, I stayed interested and learn to build my own and eventually entered the tech industry for work. But that's boring.

I loved those good old days of discovery from the 90s where everything was new and interesting. And now all I want to do is go back to those days. I spend a lot of time trying to relive my childhood and do the things I couldn't or didn't do as a teen.

One thing I have been trying to find is a retro PC so I can go back and play some of the PC games that I missed out on because my PC, at the time, wasn't good enough to play them. They have been impossible to find locally and shipping for one is expensive and risky so I just waited.

Finally, I struck gold and I have been sitting on this treasure for years without knowing. I live in a condo complex and there is an office that the HOA uses. But the office doesn't get used much and I had never gone in there. Well, I actually had a reason to go in there last week and when I did, I saw this beige beauty just piled up in the corner of the room. I asked the HOA board what was up with it and I was told they plan to recycle it. NO WAY! I said. I asked if I could have it and they agreed and gave it to me!

Pictures:

y8jE5zX.jpeg
BmaHta6.jpeg

It has a
FIC VA-503+ Motherboard
AMD K6-2 525mhz CPU
128MB PC100 ram
A Trident TGUI 9680
Creative SoundBlaster 16 ISA soundcard

I went over to my brother's house because he kept a lot of the old family PC stuff. Not everything but parts here and there. He managed to find me another 64GB of ram. Plus he gave me a ATI All in Wonder 9800 to try in it. The 9800 kind of works but any 3D acceleration seems to be broken. I posted about this here on a different board and it was suggested that the 9800 might be too new and have compatibility issues. I ordered an ATI Rage Fury. I know not the "BEST" card for the era but it was $12 and should be a better match to the rest of the hardware. I'll have it on Tuesday.

Funny thing, then I was searching GPUs, I was like "These cards don't have fans, the must be crap budget cards or something." but almost no cards from this time had fans apparently. I wasn't used to that fact, I guess.

I also got so exited to be back in 90s PC land that I went to the Internet Archive to read old issues of PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World. I got wrapped up in the excitement of the arrival of 3D accelerators and the new games that come with it. Its just a fun trip into the past.

As a side note, that old office had a Windows XP computer from the mid 2000s also and that was given to me too so that's in my near future as well.

That's it for now. I look forward to chatting with everyone here.

Hang out in the 90s with me on Twitch: The 90s Retro Gaming https://twitch.tv/90snick_pinesal
Retro Battlestation:
FIC VA-503+
AMD K6-2+ @ 600mhz
ATI Rage Fury 16MB
128mb PC100 RAM
137GB SSD
Windows 98

Reply 3 of 42, by stamasd

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FIC VA-503+ is what I'm currently building something around right now. It's going to have a k6-2+/570 and a TNT2 Ultra though.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 4 of 42, by pinesal

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stamasd wrote on 2022-01-31, 03:50:

FIC VA-503+ is what I'm currently building something around right now. It's going to have a k6-2+/570 and a TNT2 Ultra though.

Do you plan on chronicling your progress here? I'd be very interested in how it turns out.

Hang out in the 90s with me on Twitch: The 90s Retro Gaming https://twitch.tv/90snick_pinesal
Retro Battlestation:
FIC VA-503+
AMD K6-2+ @ 600mhz
ATI Rage Fury 16MB
128mb PC100 RAM
137GB SSD
Windows 98

Reply 5 of 42, by Joakim

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Hehe Ati rage fury, don't you love those exaggerated 90s names. It might run tomb raider 1 better than a voodoo though. I have a system that came the ATI rage @work but it was very slow.

Nice system, I'm envious of the screen, I have owned a phat screen in 15 years.

Reply 6 of 42, by dionb

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Welcome 😀

Nice system - particularly nice case too. It's clearly an InWin, but I'm not too familiar with their AT cases so don't know the exact type. It's an 'upside-down' model, with optical drives at the bottom - an early attempt to improve airflow and usability of an otherwise horrendously cramped design. I like it. A lot.

If you're getting this and an XP computer too, it might be good to think about what to run on which. If it's old enough to run Win98 (basically anything with an AGP slot is fine), stick that Radeon 9800 in there and you're sorted for high-end Win98 stuff. This system has "DOS" written all over it, in which case the Trident TGUI9680 might be better than that ATi - it's undoubtably slower, but for DOS that's hardly relevant (pretty much everything runs straight off CPU; 3D acceleration in DOS needs specific card support in games which basically means a handful of things support Voodoo or PCX1 and that's about it) and the Trident has better VESA SVGA compatibility.

As for RAM, the optimal amount depends on how much L2 cache you have. On the Via MVP3 chipset, the amount of cache you have determines how much RAM can be cached. As the K6-2 doesn't have its own L2 cache, you want to try to keep your RAM within the chipset limits. I recall the VA-503+ generally had 1MB, but there might have been boards with more or less. With 1MB cache, max 128MB RAM is supported in (faster) Write-Back mode, or 256MB in (slower) Write-Through. So by upgrading from 128MB to 192MB you have possibly slowed down your system - a tiny bit if you remembered to set L2 cache to Write-Back, a bit more if you didn't. If you have 2MB L2 cache you're in the clear though, that can do up to 256MB in Write-Back. To be honest, for DOS or even Win98SE gaming there's no benefit to be gained over 128MB for anything that will actually run on this system, so with 1MB L2 cache, you're best off downgrading back to 128MB, and if you want to run DOS only (as I would on this system), 64MB would be better but I'd actually look for a 16MB PC100 DIMM - many older DOS games get confused by large amounts of RAM and give memory low errors if you go over 16MB, more do over 64MB - and there is literally nothing for DOS that even needs close to that much. Less is sometimes more.

Reply 7 of 42, by stamasd

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pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 04:48:
stamasd wrote on 2022-01-31, 03:50:

FIC VA-503+ is what I'm currently building something around right now. It's going to have a k6-2+/570 and a TNT2 Ultra though.

Do you plan on chronicling your progress here? I'd be very interested in how it turns out.

I don't know. It wouldn't be a particularly interesting story, by the time of this Apollo MVP3 chipset was out things were getting pretty stable and boring in the hardware world. It's not the first time I build a system around this motherboard either and I don't expect anything special to happen.
The system is already built, except for the CPU which I have to pull out of one of my boxes when I find it. Currently I'm using a366MHz Kingston Turbochip CPU in it (also based on a K6-2, because that is what I found furst in my boxes). The one described as TC366 on this page https://www.cpushack.com/UpgradeProcessors.html

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 8 of 42, by pinesal

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dionb wrote on 2022-01-31, 08:19:
Welcome :) […]
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Welcome 😀

Nice system - particularly nice case too. It's clearly an InWin, but I'm not too familiar with their AT cases so don't know the exact type. It's an 'upside-down' model, with optical drives at the bottom - an early attempt to improve airflow and usability of an otherwise horrendously cramped design. I like it. A lot.

If you're getting this and an XP computer too, it might be good to think about what to run on which. If it's old enough to run Win98 (basically anything with an AGP slot is fine), stick that Radeon 9800 in there and you're sorted for high-end Win98 stuff. This system has "DOS" written all over it, in which case the Trident TGUI9680 might be better than that ATi - it's undoubtably slower, but for DOS that's hardly relevant (pretty much everything runs straight off CPU; 3D acceleration in DOS needs specific card support in games which basically means a handful of things support Voodoo or PCX1 and that's about it) and the Trident has better VESA SVGA compatibility.

As for RAM, the optimal amount depends on how much L2 cache you have. On the Via MVP3 chipset, the amount of cache you have determines how much RAM can be cached. As the K6-2 doesn't have its own L2 cache, you want to try to keep your RAM within the chipset limits. I recall the VA-503+ generally had 1MB, but there might have been boards with more or less. With 1MB cache, max 128MB RAM is supported in (faster) Write-Back mode, or 256MB in (slower) Write-Through. So by upgrading from 128MB to 192MB you have possibly slowed down your system - a tiny bit if you remembered to set L2 cache to Write-Back, a bit more if you didn't. If you have 2MB L2 cache you're in the clear though, that can do up to 256MB in Write-Back. To be honest, for DOS or even Win98SE gaming there's no benefit to be gained over 128MB for anything that will actually run on this system, so with 1MB L2 cache, you're best off downgrading back to 128MB, and if you want to run DOS only (as I would on this system), 64MB would be better but I'd actually look for a 16MB PC100 DIMM - many older DOS games get confused by large amounts of RAM and give memory low errors if you go over 16MB, more do over 64MB - and there is literally nothing for DOS that even needs close to that much. Less is sometimes more.

These are all very good and much appreciated tips that sadden and confuse me. 🤣 I am stuck in the mindset of modern times where bigger numbers mean better. The idea of dropping back down to 128mb seems strange and scary. But the explanation makes sense. My intent is to treat this computer exactly as I would have in the 90s with a mix of appropriate era DOS and Windows software. I want to maximize the system's potential and the only tip of your's that doesn't seem to work is to leave in the Radeon 9800 as 3D acceleration does not work at all. Quake 2 in OpenGL mode runs at less than 1 frame per second.

I am hoping that CPUZ will tell me how much L2 cache I have. Specs found online all say 1mb so I guess I will rip out that extra 64mb (sad face).

I am not sure how I feel about continuing to use the Trident card. I definitely want 3d acceleration. Would a Voodoo 2 card give me the performance and support for games up to 1999? Voodoos are pretty expensive. I was happy to get the Rage Fury for $12.

Hang out in the 90s with me on Twitch: The 90s Retro Gaming https://twitch.tv/90snick_pinesal
Retro Battlestation:
FIC VA-503+
AMD K6-2+ @ 600mhz
ATI Rage Fury 16MB
128mb PC100 RAM
137GB SSD
Windows 98

Reply 10 of 42, by dionb

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pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 15:40:

[...]

These are all very good and much appreciated tips that sadden and confuse me. 🤣 I am stuck in the mindset of modern times where bigger numbers mean better.

Life is so simple these days - that's a lot of the appeal of thes old systems, back to the days when you really needed to do research and get your hands dirty 😉

The idea of dropping back down to 128mb seems strange and scary. But the explanation makes sense.

The thing to remember is that unlike clock speeds, more RAM only helps if you don't have enough. Modern operating systems fill up whatever is left with disk caching and other background tasks, so you always benefit from more. Win9x only has rudimentary disk caching and DOS absolutely nothing dynamic. There's no benefit going over the max you actually use there. And that will be no more than 128MB in gaming on a K6-2, unless you're doing something very unusual.

My intent is to treat this computer exactly as I would have in the 90s with a mix of appropriate era DOS and Windows software. I want to maximize the system's potential and the only tip of your's that doesn't seem to work is to leave in the Radeon 9800 as 3D acceleration does not work at all. Quake 2 in OpenGL mode runs at less than 1 frame per second.

That wasn't what I intended to say - you mentioned you were also getting a WinXP system. That is where to use the Radeon 9800, not in this K6-2. For the K6-2 my suggestion was to use the Trident 9680 rather than the newer ATi if you were only running DOS. If you want Windows too, then the Rage128 will perform much better. Just be aware it's not ideal for late DOS SVGA.

That said, this could just be a driver issue. With Via AGP chipsets it's very important to install the Via 4-in-1 / Hyperion chipset drivers *before* you install the driver for your VGA card. If you haven't installed chipset drivers, things don't work right and that might be causing the lack of acceleration.

I am hoping that CPUZ will tell me how much L2 cache I have. Specs found online all say 1mb so I guess I will rip out that extra 64mb (sad face).

Personally I don't trust software, I just look at the chips on the motherboard. But failing that, just look at the POST screen. It normally shows cache, like here:

devicelisting.gif
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33.09 KiB
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Fair use/fair dealing exception

This is a system with 512kB L2 cache, yours might show more.

I am not sure how I feel about continuing to use the Trident card. I definitely want 3d acceleration. Would a Voodoo 2 card give me the performance and support for games up to 1999? Voodoos are pretty expensive. I was happy to get the Rage Fury for $12.

Again, this is a DOS vs Windows thing. In DOS, there are no system drivers, each individual game must support each individual card. Neither Voodoo2 or ATi Rage128 are supported by 3D accelerated DOS games, you need to go at least one generation older for that, and almost all of those old 3D accelerator cards are standalone, working next to a 2D card - and that 9680 is a more than decent 2D card in DOS. In Win9x it's more complicated. Early 3D accelerated games use proprietary (non-Direct3D or OpenGL) APIs and only work with the specific hardware they were written for, but later games just use OpenGL or Direct3D and will work with any card that has Windows drivers supporting the correct version of OpenGL and/or Direct3D.

It's this sort of complexity and mutually exclusive requirements that make me say you might be better off dedicating one machine to DOS and another to Windows. It's perfectly possible to get one machine to do both, but it will involve compromises in memory, video and audio hardware. If you have two machines available anyway, you don't need those compromises.

Reply 11 of 42, by pinesal

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Oh man. I totally installed the graphics driver before the via chipset drivers. I can uninstall both and start over right? I wish I was home right now so I can see if it makes a difference.

Hang out in the 90s with me on Twitch: The 90s Retro Gaming https://twitch.tv/90snick_pinesal
Retro Battlestation:
FIC VA-503+
AMD K6-2+ @ 600mhz
ATI Rage Fury 16MB
128mb PC100 RAM
137GB SSD
Windows 98

Reply 12 of 42, by dionb

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pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 16:52:

Oh man. I totally installed the graphics driver before the via chipset drivers. I can uninstall both and start over right? I wish I was home right now so I can see if it makes a difference.

Windows 98 and driver uninstallation is eh... a gamble.

You can try, worst-case you'll have to resort to the alternative - reinstall - anyway.

In any event the Radeon 9800 is ludicriously over-specced for that motherboard and will be completely bottlenecked by AGP 1.0 and slow CPU, so even if it works, it's not going to be a great match. Also you might have a tricky juggling act:

- both Via and ATi drivers get bigger with more memory footprint and more CPU overhead as they get newer.
- newer drivers require newer, heavier versions of DirectX which might also have issues with old games.
- old 4-in-1 drivers are generally recommended with Win9x, but might not work well with the much newer GPU.

Playing it safe, you need Via Hyperion (newer name for 4-in-1) and Radeon drivers from 2003 with DirectX to match, but that will slow your sytem to a crawl. On older hardware, newer really isn't always better.

Reply 14 of 42, by pinesal

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I got the ATI Rage card. It's actually a Rage 128 Pro. As I was installing driver etc. The hard drive failed so that put a stop to my adventures for now. I have been debating whether I should try a CF to IDE adapter or an SD to IDE or SATA to IDE. I have an 8GB CF card but I don't know the speed of it and I have several high speed micro SD cards 16GB , 32GB and 128GB. And I have a 256 2.5" SSD drive. I went ahead and ordered a SATA to IDE adapter but I am still considering other options. I'll update this when I have made more progress.

Hang out in the 90s with me on Twitch: The 90s Retro Gaming https://twitch.tv/90snick_pinesal
Retro Battlestation:
FIC VA-503+
AMD K6-2+ @ 600mhz
ATI Rage Fury 16MB
128mb PC100 RAM
137GB SSD
Windows 98

Reply 15 of 42, by TrashPanda

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pinesal wrote on 2022-02-01, 15:07:

I got the ATI Rage card. It's actually a Rage 128 Pro. As I was installing driver etc. The hard drive failed so that put a stop to my adventures for now. I have been debating whether I should try a CF to IDE adapter or an SD to IDE or SATA to IDE. I have an 8GB CF card but I don't know the speed of it and I have several high speed micro SD cards 16GB , 32GB and 128GB. And I have a 256 2.5" SSD drive. I went ahead and ordered a SATA to IDE adapter but I am still considering other options. I'll update this when I have made more progress.

You can buy SD to CF adaptors and that lets you use SD cards in the CF to IDE adaptor instead of CF, SD tends to be cheaper too and comes in more sizes. (There are also Micro SD to CF too, and Micro SD to SD to CF 🤣)

Reply 16 of 42, by Joakim

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Personally I use normal HDD in all my retro rigs because it's easy to transfer data via usb drives or ethernet when needed. But if you don't have usb I would add a CF, SD or even a gotek. I'd go with what is most convenient.

Reply 17 of 42, by leonardo

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Joakim wrote on 2022-01-31, 06:55:

Hehe Ati rage fury, don't you love those exaggerated 90s names. It might run tomb raider 1 better than a voodoo though. I have a system that came the ATI rage @work but it was very slow.

I had an ATi Graphics Pro Turbo PCI Mach64 VT+. It was an absolute POS, couldn't even run Commander Keen. 😁

Like you said, gotta love that they put so much effort into the names though. Now everything just sounds like a model of sports car. "GF 2080 GTX" or something such-like. The only thing you can know for certain, is that a bigger number doesn't mean it's a better card.

[Install Win95 like you were born in 1985!] on systems like this or this.

Reply 18 of 42, by RaiderOfLostVoodoo

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pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 01:20:

My friend was the one with the awesome custom gaming rigs. He had the voodoo cards and the huge towers etc. I was always jealous.

My childhood in a nutshell. xD
I guess we all had that one rich kid in our class, who always had the newest shit.

pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 01:20:

Well, I actually had a reason to go in there last week and when I did, I saw this beige beauty just piled up in the corner of the room. I asked the HOA board what was up with it and I was told they plan to recycle it. NO WAY! I said. I asked if I could have it and they agreed and gave it to me!

They are nuts!
That beige beauty is worth around 200 bucks. A really nice catch.

Super Socket 7 is a very popular plattform for retro gaming these days for a very simple reason:
K6 CPUs have an unlocked multi. Intel started to lock their multis with Pentium II. So you can downclock your K6 to 386 levels, which gives you access to a broader spectrum of games.
The result is the absurd situation, that budget systems (K6) are more expensive than highend (P2). Nice SS7 boards sell for around 100 bucks these days.

Recently a huge stockpile (~100,000 pieces!) of K6-II+ 570MHz surfaced. Those have integrated L2 cache which allows you to cache up to 4GB RAM. So you can max out the RAM if you want. Also the integrated L2 cache is much faster than your onboard cache, which would give you an additional performance boost.
They are sold in a lot of 3 for $70 on Ebay. The seller also accepts offers of $60 for 3. Maybe you can find someone who sells you a single piece for a reasonable price? Many people here on Vogons bought a lot and now have spare units. I would offer you one my spare ones, but shipping it back to the US would be too expensive. Don't let them scam you. Some people try to resell them for 50 bucks. Wouldn't pay more than 25-30 for one.
You won't get the best piece from the lot. My best can run 600MHz@2.05V. My buddy Hirsch (that lucker) has one which can run 600MHz@1.85V. But they all should be able to pull off 550MHz at reduced voltage. 5.5*100MHz is preferable over 6*95MHz (stock speed), so you can use the full speed of your RAM.
There's also the K6-III(+), which has even more cache. But those sell for a premium. The K6-II+ 570 is the best bang for the buck.

For the graphics card, I would recommend a GeForce 2 MX 400. You can get those for $5-$10. Anything beyond that will be bottlenecked by the CPU anyway.
They have excellent compatibility and are very popular for SS7 builds.

pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 15:40:

I am not sure how I feel about continuing to use the Trident card. I definitely want 3d acceleration. Would a Voodoo 2 card give me the performance and support for games up to 1999? Voodoos are pretty expensive. I was happy to get the Rage Fury for $12.

You don't want a Voodoo for the raw performance. The reason why they're so high in demand is the compatibility. Many old games don't support OpenGL or Direct3D. Only Glide or ugly software rendering. And for the Glide API you need a Voodoo. So if you want a really nice system, there's no way around a Voodoo.
Many people here use a Voodoo3 in their SS7 systems. But there are better choices for 2D. For example Voodoo cards cause problems with Commander Keen. A GeForce/Voodoo combo gives you more flexibility.
If you only want to get one Voodoo2, you can pick a 8MB one. If you plan to go for SLI, you should pick a 12MB one.

What's the exact model of your Soundblaster 16? Can you give us the CT code?
Does it have a Yamaha OPL3 chip? If it has: Lucky you! Those sell for a premium.
But even if it only has a CQM chip, you're fine with it for now imho. People who complain how terrible CQM is are exaggerating. Your graphics card is currently the biggest construction site in your machine.
By the way: OPL/CQM is for Adlib sound.

Reply 19 of 42, by TrashPanda

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RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-02-06, 14:58:
My childhood in a nutshell. xD I guess we all had that one rich kid in our class, who always had the newest shit. […]
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pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 01:20:

My friend was the one with the awesome custom gaming rigs. He had the voodoo cards and the huge towers etc. I was always jealous.

My childhood in a nutshell. xD
I guess we all had that one rich kid in our class, who always had the newest shit.

pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 01:20:

Well, I actually had a reason to go in there last week and when I did, I saw this beige beauty just piled up in the corner of the room. I asked the HOA board what was up with it and I was told they plan to recycle it. NO WAY! I said. I asked if I could have it and they agreed and gave it to me!

They are nuts!
That beige beauty is worth around 200 bucks. A really nice catch.

Super Socket 7 is a very popular plattform for retro gaming these days for a very simple reason:
K6 CPUs have an unlocked multi. Intel started to lock their multis with Pentium II. So you can downclock your K6 to 386 levels, which gives you access to a broader spectrum of games.
The result is the absurd situation, that budget systems (K6) are more expensive than highend (P2). Nice SS7 boards sell for around 100 bucks these days.

Recently a huge stockpile (~100,000 pieces!) of K6-II+ 570MHz surfaced. Those have integrated L2 cache which allows you to cache up to 4GB RAM. So you can max out the RAM if you want. Also the integrated L2 cache is much faster than your onboard cache, which would give you an additional performance boost.
They are sold in a lot of 3 for $70 on Ebay. The seller also accepts offers of $60 for 3. Maybe you can find someone who sells you a single piece for a reasonable price? Many people here on Vogons bought a lot and now have spare units. I would offer you one my spare ones, but shipping it back to the US would be too expensive. Don't let them scam you. Some people try to resell them for 50 bucks. Wouldn't pay more than 25-30 for one.
You won't get the best piece from the lot. My best can run 600MHz@2.05V. My buddy Hirsch (that lucker) has one which can run 600MHz@1.85V. But they all should be able to pull off 550MHz at reduced voltage. 5.5*100MHz is preferable over 6*95MHz (stock speed), so you can use the full speed of your RAM.
There's also the K6-III(+), which has even more cache. But those sell for a premium. The K6-II+ 570 is the best bang for the buck.

For the graphics card, I would recommend a GeForce 2 MX 400. You can get those for $5-$10. Anything beyond that will be bottlenecked by the CPU anyway.
They have excellent compatibility and are very popular for SS7 builds.

pinesal wrote on 2022-01-31, 15:40:

I am not sure how I feel about continuing to use the Trident card. I definitely want 3d acceleration. Would a Voodoo 2 card give me the performance and support for games up to 1999? Voodoos are pretty expensive. I was happy to get the Rage Fury for $12.

You don't want a Voodoo for the raw performance. The reason why they're so high in demand is the compatibility. Many old games don't support OpenGL or Direct3D. Only Glide or ugly software rendering. And for the Glide API you need a Voodoo. So if you want a really nice system, there's no way around a Voodoo.
Many people here use a Voodoo3 in their SS7 systems. But there are better choices for 2D. For example Voodoo cards cause problems with Commander Keen. A GeForce/Voodoo combo gives you more flexibility.
If you only want to get one Voodoo2, you can pick a 8MB one. If you plan to go for SLI, you should pick a 12MB one.

What's the exact model of your Soundblaster 16? Can you give us the CT code?
Does it have a Yamaha OPL3 chip? If it has: Lucky you! Those sell for a premium.
But even if it only has a CQM chip, you're fine with it for now imho. People who complain how terrible CQM is are exaggerating. Your graphics card is currently the biggest construction site in your machine.
By the way: OPL/CQM is for Adlib sound.

You seem to be the one to ask questions about Voodoo, I just grabbed a Banshee and was under the impression from reading around that they have great DOS compatibility . .did something change between the 2D of the Banshee and the Voodoo3 ?

I have a Voodoo 4 4500 too and more out of curiosity how is the 2D compatibility for that ?