VOGONS


First post, by haker120

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Mobo: ASUS TX97-XE (V3.x)
Processor: AMD-K6-2E+/570ACZ (soon, just ordered)
RAM: 256MB
Graphic 1: S3 Virge 4MB
Graphic 2: Voodoo 1
PSU: Chieftek 250W

This particular PC bothers me for so long, processor was replaced 6 times already and soon 7 times. 😁 I'd love to max it out, I know processor will be downclocked to 500MHz (498MHz with FSB83) but the last piece to replace is graphic card, I still dunno if ordered Matrox G450 will be not too weak. I'd love to have DOS compatibility but with this processor I'm not even sure, maybe good 2D + 3D combo card?

I wanna finish it soon so I'll be glad for new advices, previous topic confused me and processor was different. 😀

Reply 1 of 53, by dr.zeissler

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K6+ is in my opinion to fast for dos and to slow for win9x/3D because of the weak FPU.
Please check a P2/333 DA0 so you can clock it from 133 to 333. In my Opinion the better choice.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 2 of 53, by TrashPanda

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dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-07-25, 09:55:

K6+ is in my opinion to fast for dos and to slow for win9x/3D because of the weak FPU.
Please check a P2/333 DA0 so you can clock it from 133 to 333. In my Opinion the better choice.

Uhh .. the K6 2+ is more than capable for Win9x, it will happily beat that P2 333, besides why would you recommend a P2 for a socket 7 system ?

The only thing that bothers me is im not sure a TX board will even run a K6 2+

Reply 3 of 53, by haker120

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Well, already I'm using K6-2/366MHz so K6s definitely work with patched BIOS from @Chkcpu. 😁 The thing is S3 is weak for anything 3D and I'm keeping Voodoo 1 for Glide. 😀
And @TrashPanda, did you mean P233MMX or actually P2 333MHz? 😉

Reply 5 of 53, by luk1999

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haker120 wrote on 2022-07-25, 09:28:
Mobo: ASUS TX97-XE (V3.x) Processor: AMD-K6-2E+/570ACZ (soon, just ordered) RAM: 256MB Graphic 1: S3 Virge 4MB Graphic 2: Voodoo […]
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Mobo: ASUS TX97-XE (V3.x)
Processor: AMD-K6-2E+/570ACZ (soon, just ordered)
RAM: 256MB
Graphic 1: S3 Virge 4MB
Graphic 2: Voodoo 1
PSU: Chieftek 250W

This particular PC bothers me for so long, processor was replaced 6 times already and soon 7 times. 😁 I'd love to max it out, I know processor will be downclocked to 500MHz (498MHz with FSB83) but the last piece to replace is graphic card, I still dunno if ordered Matrox G450 will be not too weak. I'd love to have DOS compatibility but with this processor I'm not even sure, maybe good 2D + 3D combo card?

I wanna finish it soon so I'll be glad for new advices, previous topic confused me and processor was different. 😀

I would look for GF2 MX400 PCI version - something faster will be probably overkill for this CPU. But this card is quite expensive...

Pentium 4 2.4C, ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe, 1 GB RAM, GF FX5700 128 MB AGP, SB Audigy, Chieftec GPS-400AA-101A, Win XP SP2
Celeron 400, Compaq Garry, 128 MB RAM, Voodoo Banshee, ALS100 Plus+, Compaq 200 W, Win 98SE

Reply 6 of 53, by TrashPanda

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dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-07-25, 10:30:

No way, the K6 3+ FPU is as weak as P233mmx, P2-233 in FAR FAR AHEAD.

You dont put a P2 into a Socket 7 board so there is little point in discussing it.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/211/4

The K6-3 is+ no where near as bad as you are making it out to be, its not super fucking amazing but isn't horribly bad either, in fact its more than adequate for any period game you wish to throw at it, the K6 2 is weaker yes but its also a much older CPU lacking L2 cache, the K6-2+ the OP bought is actually a cache halved K6-3+ 550 and as such will perform slightly worse than the K6-3+ 550. In fact a lot of the reason the early K6-2 CPU performed so bad is due to the lack of L2 Cache which the + series fixed.

Again it wont be as bad as you make it out to be and certainly not as bad as a P233 MMX ...Hyperbole will get you laughed at.

Reply 7 of 53, by dr.zeissler

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you dont't always get support for 3dnow. I used my K6 3+/450 for some years and went back to P2-333 which was a much better choice,
the dos-compatibility via slowing down the multi is hyped and still lot's of games have glitches or hickups even on 2x66.
If you want to play Dosgames, go for a 486/DX2-66 or P75.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 8 of 53, by haker120

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dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-07-25, 17:43:

you dont't always get support for 3dnow. I used my K6 3+/450 for some years and went back to P2-333 which was a much better choice,
the dos-compatibility via slowing down the multi is hyped and still lot's of games have glitches or hickups even on 2x66.
If you want to play Dosgames, go for a 486/DX2-66 or P75.

For me this is an invailid advice because I have 486-DX4/100 or 486-DX2/66 for this. My point is still to max this motherboard out, processor on the way, Matrox G450 on the way but I don't know it this fits to this build so I'm looking for something more adequate, maybe GF2 MX400 PCI as @luk1999 adviced? I don't really know. Also I have Slot1 P3 500MHz build (P2 disguised as P3) with Voodoo 3 and P3 1GHz with V2 SLI, 2x12MB. 😀

Reply 9 of 53, by 386SX

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From the DVD software decoders tests using a lot these FPU with every instructions they possibly had, the Pentium MMX could not decode a real time stable 25fps MPEG2 high usual DVDs bitrate (only around 20fps with lower quality settings on older sw decoder engines) and the various clocked K6-2/3 had difficult time too even using 3DNow! while the Celeron 333Mhz already could perform enough for a stable single task real time decoding (beside not the best choice anyway). It'd be interesting to test these older 350nm slower Pentium II to see how they ran in that task.

Reply 10 of 53, by drosse1meyer

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dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-07-25, 17:43:

you dont't always get support for 3dnow. I used my K6 3+/450 for some years and went back to P2-333 which was a much better choice,
the dos-compatibility via slowing down the multi is hyped and still lot's of games have glitches or hickups even on 2x66.
If you want to play Dosgames, go for a 486/DX2-66 or P75.

Q2 3dnow version gives me about 5 fps more in 320 res sw mode on k6-2 / 300 mhz OCd to 380 (31fps or so).. .DOS Descent seemed to run fine but I wasnt really looking out for speedups or anything?

P1 / 233 mmx gives 23 fps in q2 sw mode

eyeballing the numbers, i'd say if the k6-2 was at stock clock, it would be largely equal to the P1 for quake2 (sorry, too lazy to mess with jumpers right now)

of course these are two completely different systems so there are variables.

P1: Packard Bell - 233 MMX, Voodoo1, 64 MB, ALS100+
P2-V2: Dell Dimension - 400 Mhz, Voodoo2, 256 MB
P!!! Custom: 1 Ghz, GeForce2 Pro/64MB, 384 MB

Reply 11 of 53, by PC-Engineer

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I would go with a Voodoo3 3000 PCI if you want to max out the Board/CPU. The 3DNow! support of 3DFx drivers is superior. So it should be the fastest option for the most games, especially Glide games.
If you want to have the highest score in 3DMark2000, choose an early card with TnL, like GF256 DDR or GF2 GTS/Ti/Ultra.

Epox 7KXA Slot A / Athlon 950MHz / Voodoo 5 5500 / PowerVR / 512 MB / AWE32 / SCSI - Windows 98SE

Reply 12 of 53, by Sphere478

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I can’t speak much to dos compatibility but the dos games I have tried seem fine. I usually do 9x gaming so here is what I have found for my uses.

Pci radeon 7500 is my go to for these systems. Have been very happy with them.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265634597901?hash=it … LQAAOSwxkxiT7Sq
^dreamer pricing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333163967067?hash=it … a8AAOSw-mRhgWbB

I usually get the low profile green ones though. I don’t see one right now. I vouch for the short green 7500s

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Btw:

https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/893

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-25, 10:00:
dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-07-25, 09:55:

K6+ is in my opinion to fast for dos and to slow for win9x/3D because of the weak FPU.
Please check a P2/333 DA0 so you can clock it from 133 to 333. In my Opinion the better choice.

Uhh .. the K6 2+ is more than capable for Win9x, it will happily beat that P2 333, besides why would you recommend a P2 for a socket 7 system ?

The only thing that bothers me is im not sure a TX board will even run a K6 2+

Usually all voltage jumpers removed is 2.0v

And jan may have a bios update for it, if not you can ask him nicely for one 😀

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

Re: Diy modding support for k6+And 120gb hard drives into bios roms

I think I mentioned in the other thread that the 2+ 570 can be modded to a 3+ btw.

Sphere's PCB projects.
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Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
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SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 13 of 53, by haker120

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And now this is a lot of advices, for sure I'll buy one of proposed ones. As for now Matrox G450 PCI is on the way because I'm completely short of PCI graphic cards and I already installed patched BIOS for my motherboard, now I'm using K6-2/366MHz one without any issues. I noticed Half-Life was stuttering a bit with P233MMX and with this K6 this doesn't happen in miniGL through Voodoo 1 4MB. 😁

And any way to check if no jumpers means 2.0V? I don't really wanna fry anything, and so I'm waiting for Matrox and K6-2+/570Mhz and I have to order better graphic card. 😀

Reply 14 of 53, by Sphere478

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On socket, install resistor leg in the outer middle pin on corner with notch. Measure to case metal.

That’s your core voltage

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 15 of 53, by Slesar

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Funny. Your setup is really similar to mine, except I use k6-2 450 and verite 2200 8mb as a primary card. It's decently fast albeit a bit quirky and has a nice D3D compatibility for that period. A Voodoo 2 in this machine also works nicely.

Reply 17 of 53, by Sphere478

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haker120 wrote on 2022-07-28, 14:25:

Ok, I decided to buy ATI 7500 PCI 128MB RAM and it's on the way, hopefully this one will work and if compatibility for DOS will be poor I can always swap to S3 Trio64V+ or Virge. 😁

Interested to hear your dos experience with it. I’ve gotten pretty good 3d mark scores (windows) with mine on socket 7

Hopefully the red ones are as compatible as the low profile green ones. I suspect it probably is as it seems to have several regulators and is 5v keyed.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 19 of 53, by Repo Man11

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An FX/Quadro 280 card is another option.

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