Any suggestions?

Having at least 256KB of motherboard cache vastly improves the performance (around 25%) on the Socket 7 platform. From 256KB to 512KB is incremental (around 5%) and depends of the application you are going to use.

For video hardware I would go for the Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro 4MB + Voodoo Graphics combo as it is the most compatible. PowerVR PCX could also be added as a second 3D accelerator if desired for titles that looks best on that hardware.

The SB16 is good except for games that uses single-cycle DMA such as Wolf3D and Jill of the Jungle where you will get a clicking sound for samples larger than 64KB, later DOS games that uses auto-init DMA such as DOOM and Descent are fine. When using the SB16 MPU-401 you should avoid it for games using the Build engine because of MIDI stuttering when using higher sample rates for digitized sound.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-13, 20:29:

Having at least 256KB of motherboard cache vastly improves the performance (around 25% aprox.) on the Socket 7 platform.

For video hardware I would go for the Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro 4MB + Voodoo Graphics combo as it is the most compatible. PowerVR PCX could also be added as a third accelerator if desired for titles that looks best on that hardware.

The SB16 is good except for games that uses single-cycle DMA such as Wolf3D and Jill of the Jungle where you will get a clicking sound for samples larger than 64KB, later DOS games that uses auto-init DMA such as DOOM and Descent are fine. The only bad news is that you should avoid using the SB16 MPU-401 for games using the Build engine because of MIDI stuttering when using higher sample rates for digitized sound.

Thanks a lot!

I updated the post with additional ISA options; should I change them up, or I was thinking to use the ProAudio Spectrum for MIDI (and SCSI) duties instead because of your points?

Meatball wrote on 2022-05-13, 21:05:

I updated the post with additional ISA options; should I change them up, or I was thinking to use the ProAudio Spectrum for MIDI (and SCSI) duties instead because of your points?

That MediaVision sound card isn't PAS16 compatible but that one can be used for MPU-401 duties. If you can deal with the IRQ and DMA resources you could add a second ISA sound card and connect a cable that goes from the line-out from one sound card into the line-in from the other one.

There are other good alternatives:

• SB AWE32 CT2760: Has real OPL3 integrated in the CT1747 chipset and said chipset also mitigates the hanging note bug despite having a DSP that suffers from it. It also has the EMU8K chip which on Windows can be used to load SF2 SoundFonts up to 28MB and for MPU-401 emulation with DOS games. On pure DOS (or MS-DOS mode) there is AWEUTIL for the same purpose but it is limited to SBK SoundFonts and compatibility isn't great (at least there is DOS32AWE for protected mode games). There are also some games that are capable of loading custom SoundFonts on AWE cards.
• ESS 1688F: Has ESFM instead of real OPL3 but it is mostly faithful to it. Can also be used for MPU-401 duties without any problem.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-13, 21:44:

That MediaVision sound card isn't PAS16 compatible but that one can be used for MPU-401 duties. If you can deal with the IRQ and […]
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Meatball wrote on 2022-05-13, 21:05:

I updated the post with additional ISA options; should I change them up, or I was thinking to use the ProAudio Spectrum for MIDI (and SCSI) duties instead because of your points?

That MediaVision sound card isn't PAS16 compatible but that one can be used for MPU-401 duties. If you can deal with the IRQ and DMA resources you could add a second ISA sound card and connect a cable that goes from the line-out from one sound card into the line-in from the other one.

There are other good alternatives:

• SB AWE32 CT2760: Has real OPL3 integrated in the CT1747 chipset and said chipset also mitigates the hanging note bug despite having a DSP that suffers from it. It also has the EMU8K chip which on Windows can be used to load SF2 SoundFonts up to 28MB and for MPU-401 emulation with DOS games. On pure DOS (or MS-DOS mode) there is AWEUTIL for the same purpose but it is limited to SBK SoundFonts and compatibility isn't great (at least there is DOS32AWE for protected mode games). There are also some games that are capable of loading custom SoundFonts on AWE cards.
• ESS 1688F: Has ESFM instead of real OPL3 but it is mostly faithful to it. Can also be used for MPU-401 duties without any problem.

Thanks again; Media Vision it is!

I'm having heartburn at the idea that you would install IE4 with only 32 megabytes of RAM. The swapping will never end. Just skip installing IE during setup, the system will run so much faster.

You won't feel the cache or lack thereof for older DOS games, but later games, especially any 3D-titles such as Half-Life or Unreal will go from unplayable to playable, depending on your choice of video card. This computer also wants to play StarCraft/Fallout2. 😀

Cache has diminishing returns moving from FPM RAM, to EDO, to SDRAM - with SDRAM, the burst speed is the same, but the cache delivers the start a few cycles quicker
But it does always have some return, even with SDRAM.

Why not go for 64MB SDRAM if you can - the max cacheable range of the VX chipset, if I recall

Matth79 wrote on 2022-05-15, 23:34:

Cache has diminishing returns moving from FPM RAM, to EDO, to SDRAM - with SDRAM, the burst speed is the same, but the cache delivers the start a few cycles quicker
But it does always have some return, even with SDRAM.

Why not go for 64MB SDRAM if you can - the max cacheable range of the VX chipset, if I recall

I can't - though it will support 64MB of EDO, and max cacheable is 64MB - the max SDRAM support for this board is 32MB.

Meatball wrote on 2022-05-16, 00:07:

Matth79 wrote on 2022-05-15, 23:34:

Cache has diminishing returns moving from FPM RAM, to EDO, to SDRAM - with SDRAM, the burst speed is the same, but the cache delivers the start a few cycles quicker
But it does always have some return, even with SDRAM.

Why not go for 64MB SDRAM if you can - the max cacheable range of the VX chipset, if I recall

I can't - though it will support 64MB of EDO, and max cacheable is 64MB - the max SDRAM support for this board is 32MB.

Is the max amount of SDRAM supported by your board 32MB because it has only a single DIMM slot?
32MB is not a lot, but it's definitely more than contemporary machines had back when they were new (and tbf it was fairly easy back then to run out of memory or storage space).
Why not go for EDO or even FPM? Then you should be able to add 2*32MB or 4*16MB in SIMMs.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-16, 16:34:

Is the max amount of SDRAM supported by your board 32MB because it has only a single DIMM slot? 32MB is not a lot, but it's defi […]
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Meatball wrote on 2022-05-16, 00:07:

Matth79 wrote on 2022-05-15, 23:34:

Cache has diminishing returns moving from FPM RAM, to EDO, to SDRAM - with SDRAM, the burst speed is the same, but the cache delivers the start a few cycles quicker
But it does always have some return, even with SDRAM.

Why not go for 64MB SDRAM if you can - the max cacheable range of the VX chipset, if I recall

I can't - though it will support 64MB of EDO, and max cacheable is 64MB - the max SDRAM support for this board is 32MB.

Is the max amount of SDRAM supported by your board 32MB because it has only a single DIMM slot?
32MB is not a lot, but it's definitely more than contemporary machines had back when they were new (and tbf it was fairly easy back then to run out of memory or storage space).
Why not go for EDO or even FPM? Then you should be able to add 2*32MB or 4*16MB in SIMMs.

Yes, only a single slot for SDRAM. If I can find a DIMM that is compatible with this board (what a nightmare...). This board is not just picky with the 32MB SDRAM, but 32MB EDO as well. I bet a 16MB module of SDRAM might work fine, but I think this is just too little to run comfortably.

I plan to test performance with:

SDRAMx1 (32 MB - with and without 512K Cache)
EDO x2 (32MB - with and without 512K Cache)
EDO x4 (64MB - with and without 512K Cache - just out of curiosity)

I'm not too concerned with only 32MB. If more than 32MB is needed, that game will move to the next machine up, probably 440LX-based w/Celeron.

I wasn't aware those 2*8 chipped PC-66 32MB SDRAMs had become so hard to come by. These weren't exactly rare back in the day. The 16MB modules (the ones which are basically half the 32MB PC-66 ones) were more uncommon.

It's quite the limitation from the 430VX chipset. Back then I always saw it more as a selling gimmick, kinda like how 32-bit gaming was mostly a selling gimmick just a few years later 😋
I mean SDRAM will work with 430VX, but there aren't many boards that received 2 DIMM slots (most got either 1 or none at all).

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-16, 21:07:

I wasn't aware those 2*8 chipped PC-66 32MB SDRAMs had become so hard to come by. These weren't exactly rare back in the day. The 16MB modules (the ones which are basically half the 32MB PC-66 ones) were more uncommon.

It's quite the limitation from the 430VX chipset. Back then I always saw it more as a selling gimmick, kinda like how 32-bit gaming was mostly a selling gimmick just a few years later 😋
I mean SDRAM will work with 430VX, but there aren't many boards that received 2 DIMM slots (most got either 1 or none at all).

They are easy to come by, but none of them have been compatible. The only modules that have "somewhat" worked are 2 matching no-name PC133 modules, 4 chips per side. When either module is installed, they come as 2MB - 20MB during POST.

I had another module arrive today 32MB Micron PC100 3-2-2, 4 chips on only one side - Doesn't work, of course.

I started a separate thread about this problem here: Help with 32MB SDRAM Selection for ECS P5VX-A VER 1.0

Going from 0kb to 512kb should help a lot.

There is also k6-3+ If you want even more 😀

^ Yep, but not anyone is able to perform the voltage mod for the K6-III+ and would also require a modded BIOS if it can't do POST.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-17, 02:08:

Going from 0kb to 512kb should help a lot.

There is also k6-3+ If you want even more 😀

Not for this board... 200MMX is as fast as it will go... all kinds of roadblocks on this ill-advised purchase...

Meatball wrote on 2022-05-17, 03:26:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-17, 02:08:

Going from 0kb to 512kb should help a lot.

There is also k6-3+ If you want even more 😀

Not for this board... 200MMX is as fast as it will go... all kinds of roadblocks on this ill-advised purchase...

If you aren’t interested that’s another matter, but I’m looking at your motherboard on ultimate retro and it appears to have dual plane circuitry.

If interested in having me take a closer look send a high res pic of the top left part of the board particularly interested in those jumpers and what it says on that chip by that transistor without a heatsink.

There may be a jumper configuration for 2.0v-2.2v is what I’m suspecting. If so, then there shouldn’t be any hardware roadblocks to installing a k6-3+

Curious what voltage you get with the p55c/p54c jumpers totally removed also.

The outside corner of the processor where they removed one pin to make a notch. That center pin is vcc2 if you put a volt meter between it and black on the psu you can see core voltage with no cpu installed

Also if your clock gen is w49c65 it appears to have a 75mhz fsb option, meaning that if you can find 2.0-2.2v setting, your max speed is 450mhz

https://www.datasheetarchive.com/pdf/download … e=P&term=W49C65

Not much that you can do about max ram though. That chipset will probably always be limited to 128mb if I recall. But at least it can be low cas sd ram! :p (can use 128mb with k6 with onboard cache (3, 2+,3+), but stick to 64mb with all other chips)

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-17, 04:04:

If you aren’t interested that’s another matter, but I’m looking at your motherboard on ultimate retro and it appears to have dua […]
Show full quote

Meatball wrote on 2022-05-17, 03:26:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-17, 02:08:

Going from 0kb to 512kb should help a lot.

There is also k6-3+ If you want even more 😀

Not for this board... 200MMX is as fast as it will go... all kinds of roadblocks on this ill-advised purchase...

If you aren’t interested that’s another matter, but I’m looking at your motherboard on ultimate retro and it appears to have dual plane circuitry.

If interested in having me take a closer look send a high res pic of the top left part of the board particularly interested in those jumpers and what it says on that chip by that transistor without a heatsink.

There may be a jumper configuration for 2.0v-2.2v is what I’m suspecting. If so, then there shouldn’t be any hardware roadblocks to installing a k6-3+

Curious what voltage you get with the p55c/p54c jumpers totally removed also.

The outside corner of the processor where they removed one pin to make a notch. That center pin is vcc2 if you put a volt meter between it and black on the psu you can see core voltage with no cpu installed

I've attached photos of both "top left" corners, heh.

Okay,

Your board supports 2x
So you can set 6x 2x = 6x on k6-3+

That clock gen supports 75mhz
So you MAY be able to set up to 6x75 (450mhz)

They seem to talk about the 55mhz option as a high z option, whatever that is.

At the very least you can set a pentium mmx to 3.5x75 which is a pretty easy overclock.

I’m trying to figure out your vrm controller. I can’t find a data sheet for it. I think this is the chip for it, but I can’t confirm anything yet. It may be a chip for another function but location suggests it may be the vrm controller