TOMMY_THE_DOG wrote on 2023-01-25, 23:46:

This system features an Intel (HX?) chipset and is currently fitted with a Pentium MMX 166MHz and 32 megabytes of EDO RAM on a PC100-style SIMM. I ordered two more 32 megabyte SIMMs to occupy the two vacant slots.

The Pentium MMX is very versatile thanks to the ability to toggle test registers using the SetMul utility. This allows you to slow down the CPU to 386, 486 or early Pentium levels as needed, which can provide better compatibility with older games. See this video by Phil for more details.

I may upgrade the processor to the 233MHz MMX, but I am not sure if that is necessary.

For your use case, I would keep the MMX 166 since that one doesn't trigger the "Runtime Error 200" bug which some DOS games are affected by. It is possible to patch this, but it's annoying having to wonder whether a particular game suffers from this bug or not.

There is a Crystal 4236 FM chip onboard, which I think is one of the decent Crystal-FMs. I am hoping to be able to use this for Lemmings and such. I also have installed a Creative AWE64 Gold, which I intend to be the primary sound device for this computer.

You can use both cards together, as long as you ensure that each one is assigned different resources. I'm not familiar with that Crystal card specifically, but some SBPro compatible cards (like those from ESS or OPTi) have a nice low pass filter. This makes old adventure games sound a bit nicer compared to the brickwall filter that's used on SB16 and AWE cards.

TOMMY_THE_DOG wrote on 2023-01-25, 23:46:

My main concern is the power supply. The installed supply looks like a standard ATX supply, and I imagine that IBM machines stick to standards. So, is it safe for me to just plug my modern PSU into the daughterboard's ATX power socket? I know that Dell at some point used proprietary pinouts on their regular connectors.

I would test the pinouts just to be sure.

You mention the installed supply has a noisy fan, so the other option is to just replace the fan itself.

Overall, a 166 MMX is a good CPU for mid-90s DOS gaming. Should work well for adventure games of that era, though you'll likely still need to slow it down for some of the older Sierra games (e.g. stuff from the early 90s).

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-26, 03:47:

I would test the pinouts just to be sure. […]
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TOMMY_THE_DOG wrote on 2023-01-25, 23:46:

My main concern is the power supply. The installed supply looks like a standard ATX supply, and I imagine that IBM machines stick to standards. So, is it safe for me to just plug my modern PSU into the daughterboard's ATX power socket? I know that Dell at some point used proprietary pinouts on their regular connectors.

I would test the pinouts just to be sure.

You mention the installed supply has a noisy fan, so the other option is to just replace the fan itself.

Overall, a 166 MMX is a good CPU for mid-90s DOS gaming. Should work well for adventure games of that era, though you'll likely still need to slow it down for some of the older Sierra games (e.g. stuff from the early 90s).

A Pentium 166 MMX was my first Windows XP computer, back then in the early 2000s.
It wasn't the fastest perhaps, but it did well for what it was:
- 166 MHz
- 64 MB RAM
- 1,5 GB SCSI

To me, MMX was pretty new at the time.
I've seen PCs in the late 90s which I thought were fast that ran on 75, 90 or 133 MHz (non-MMX).

And unlike to my previous Pentium running 98SE, the MMX chip could install the drivers of my webcam/digital cam.
You know, these USB 1.0 pen cams with 320x240 pels..
Previously, the MMX-enabled driver would crash my Windows 98SE PC with a blue screen.

On the new Pentium MMX 166 running XP, everything now just worked.
This was amazing! My emulators now worked, too.
Both MZ700WIN and an early version of SNES9X.
They..just worked. Amazing. XP was such an upgrade over buggy 98SE! And it was pretty, too! Nolonger that moody look of concrete. Yay!

Edit: My main computer up until 2000 was my trusty old 80286-12 running MS-DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1.
Of course, I had other PCs, too. But I just couldn't let go of the 16-Bit system.
Still used Visual Basic 1.0 on Windows 98SE, too.
As well as on a separate Windows 3.1 installation on same HDD (vanilla 3.1 didn't use VFAT yet, so that DOS 7.1 patch wasn't needed, I believe).
The 640x480 screen and Win 3.1 GUI helped in the application design.

Edit: I have to explain: I wasn't a fan of the Win95/3D look.
I prefered the 2D look, so I renamed CTL3D.DLL, CTL3DV2.DLL etc to *.BAK to get rid of it.
My Windows 3.1x always had system dialogs with flat buttons and white backgrounds.
Windows XP later reminded me of those good times!

Of course, there also was a contrast. My father's main PC (386DX-40) got replaced by a Pentium III @733 MHz by the turn of the century.
Software wise, the change wasn't that huge. Windows 98SE replaced Windows 95.
At least, the PC now had FAT32 and DirectX. The old Windows 95 did come without it.
(He was a hard-/software developer and down-to-earth. RAM and HDD space always had top priority, though.)