If you want to build a rig for DOS games, WinNT is not a good choice. But if you plan to play early 3D games from late 90s onboard CL-5446 is not up to the task.

dominusprog wrote on 2024-08-18, 15:11:

If you want to build a rig for DOS games, WinNT is not a good choice. But if you plan to play early 3D games from late 90s onboard CL-5446 is not up to the task.

For DOS games I have a 486 rig that works plenty. I do plan to run Win95 games, not necessarily 3D.
Thanks for the heads up with the CL-5446 though, will keep my eyes open for an alternative on PCI.

I think it would make sense to add a voodoo 1 here and install DirectX 3/5 for NT.

On my PPro I'm dual booting Win95 and NT.
Win95 gives me access to both early windows and dos for the dos games that are a bit too demanding for my 486.
NT is to take advantage of the 2 CPU's and lets face it just running 9x on a PPro is sacrilege!

I ended up getting a Voodoo 1 for my system as it's a good match but they aren't cheap! Took over 6 months until I found one that at least was a fair price.
but early windows games also didn't really demand much so would try out the onboard before spending money.

I really like the sliding panel that coves the drives.

Dual-booting W95 and Windows NT is the plan on this machine too, but I hope I can stay mostly in NT.

I just figured out how expensive Voodoo 1s and 2s have become around here, phew. But those are good pointers.
It could be I have a Riva 128 still around somewhere though ...

It's a nice box, strong 90s industrial design vibes.

Question on proper 3D graphics for the PPro -

What would best fit for unambitious 3D gaming in NT4.0 with W95-era games:

Nvidia TNT2 M64
Nvidia Riva128
3dLabs Permedia2
Voodoo1
Voodoo2 (really hard to get)

Any ideas?

All on PCI in a PPro200 box. I know there have been a few threads on similar Qs but am unsure on result.

You've already got an answer in this thread... Voodoo 1 or Banshee PCI or maybe Voodoo 2, if you can find / afford it.
V1 4 MB will give you best compatibility with early 3d titles.

TNT/2 is a bit demanding for PPro 200. Personally I wouldn't use it with anything slower than let's say PII 300 / Celeron 300 A.

VLIW wrote on 2024-08-19, 12:46:

What would best fit for unambitious 3D gaming in NT4.0 with W95-era games:

If you don't accept V1 for answer I suggest exploring this list by vetz 3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
Maybe you will pick Virge for S3D, it's also from that time period and unlike voodoos those are cheap.

Bruno128 wrote on 2024-08-19, 15:56:

If you don't accept V1 for answer I suggest exploring this list by vetz 3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
Maybe you will pick Virge for S3D, it's also from that time period and unlike voodoos those are cheap.

+1
This is what I typically recommend for any PC earlier then a PII
It's important though not to think of it as a 3d accelerator, more like a good 2d card with special features as typically the benefits of using the cards 3d don't offer much more then software mode.

I've got a Virge in a 486, it's got the most interesting games list, and a good compatible 2d card overall.

The PPro has a Matrox Mystique. Mainly for the Screamer games which do have a slight benefit and Destruction Derby which does look better but the game itself is pretty broken.

But I also like limiting myself to onboard hardware, as part of the challenge.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-08-19, 23:54:

This is what I typically recommend for any PC earlier then a PII

Thanks for the leads, I'll see if I can turn up a V1.
In the meantime, I will give the Matrox Millenium a shot if the onboard CL-5446 is too limited.

128MB EDO RAM has been added
"New" IDE HD on the way

Will start with W95 install then NT4 dual-boot.

I went through the PPRO graphics card dilema as well. I also did not go with a 3dfx card. Here's a benchmark chart I made with a few options you may want to consider: Graphics card for Pentium Pro build

Not in the above chart, but I tested an overclocked Radeon 7000 on a Celeron 300A system. Perhaps also suitable for a PPRO 233 system? What systems does the Radeon 7000 PCI have suitability in?

To be quite honest a few years ago GF2 cards used to be so cheap and plentiful that you just threw them in everything even if they weren’t suitable .

From what I remember a ppro works fine with a GF2 even if it’s not ideal, if you have access to one cheaply it’s certainly no worse than an old Cirrus or S3

If dual booting NT4 and w95, the GF2 will let that old Pentium Pro play some nice D3D and Glide games.

What's the going price for PCI GF2's? I haven't bothered checking, but if out of reach, PCI GF4's should work as well.

feipoa wrote on 2024-08-22, 04:06:

I went through the PPRO graphics card dilema as well. I also did not go with a 3dfx card. Here's a benchmark chart I made with a few options you may want to consider: Graphics card for Pentium Pro build

I read your thread in detail while researching graphics options for the Pentium Pro, you had so many options!

I'll see how far I get with the Matrox Millenium, maybe I can find something reasonable for PCI (M64 or Riva) - I'll report back then.

Currently messing with W95 and NT4.0 dual boot installation. I forgot what a pain computers and consumer OSes of the 90s were! I also forgot NT4.0 does not support FAT32 so had to do the start Win95 install again.

Windows 95 on a Pentium Pro is seriously fast though.

There should be some system adaptions, like FastFAT32 or NT4FAT32, which will let NT4 read/write to FAT32 partitions, but I think only once booted. Meaning, I don't think you can have your NTLDR and other NT4 start-up files on the FAT32 w95 partition.

Like any hobbyist system build, the builder is ultimately the one who determines what graphics specs they are after, but in particular, "does it need to be period correct, and what does that does that even mean to me? As I like to push old motherboard/CPU combinations a bit further, I tend to interpret that question more liberally, allowing for the max graphics upgrade that could have been possible if someone was trying to stubbornly hold onto their ageing computer system for as long as their patience would allow. This is the story of all the mainstream systems I've used throughout the years - my fastest computers at home, to this day, are all over 15 years old, yet still do everything I need them to do within my patience threshold.

All the graphics card options in my Pentium Pro thread were acquired for cheap prices in years past, so some options may not be financially realistic now.

Personally, I like all my systems to have something a bit unique in them. If you are wanting to follow that path, maybe a PowerVR card?

That's a damn fine system. Siemens made some good looking boxes.

Its hard to fail with a Matrox 2d card and voodoo 1 for this era of gaming.

You can indeed boot NT4 from a FAT32 partition, provided you replace the boot sector and NTLDR with those from win2k.
https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44400
http://web.archive.org/web/20060503174530/htt … ties/fat32.html

feipoa wrote on 2024-08-23, 01:09:

Personally, I like all my systems to have something a bit unique in them. If you are wanting to follow that path, maybe a PowerVR card?

This is actually an interesting idea, will have a look at PowerVR/Kyro cards.
How do they work with Windows NT 4.0?

Also, thanks for the NT and FAT32 pointers, I reinstalled W95 already on a FAT16 boot partition, makes it easier for all other OSs.

I haven't had time to get to my PowerVR ambitions, but I have a card waiting for me when the time comes. Thus, I cannot answer how well they work with NT4. Maybe someone else will chime in.

FAT16 on w95 and NT4 is certainly the easiest approach. Not liking numerous partitions, though, I tend to setup NT4 with 7.8 GB NTFS and w95 as FAT32 with however much space remains, typically under 120 GB. For systems which have a translation scheme limitation, I will either use XT-IDE and stick with the above partitioning scheme, or not use XT-IDE and to 4 GB w95 (fat32) and 4 GB NT4 (ntfs). If you aren't very particular about these details, sticking with fAT16 throughout requires the least time investment.