I love the build. As for the io shield. I would suggest playing around in Tinkercad to make 3d printable versions. Honestly if you find an existing model it doesnt take much know how and learning to create and modify some cutouts. Im doing this for my own mini 3dFX build.

fluxrez wrote on 2024-11-29, 04:07:

I love the build. As for the io shield. I would suggest playing around in Tinkercad to make 3d printable versions. Honestly if you find an existing model it doesnt take much know how and learning to create and modify some cutouts. Im doing this for my own mini 3dFX build.

Thanks for the feedback! As for the back panel, I can't believe I didn't think about 3D printing one, that's a great idea and it makes so much sense. I'm checking out Tinkercad now and I'll give it a shot.
Can't wait to see your 3DFX mini-build, glad to see I'm not the only one with this interest!

nice build 😀 ive got a similar board, EPIA M10000 with a VIA C3 i was planning on using for a small dos/98 build but it needs a recap as it keeps giving a bsod, wasnt sure whether to go for a pci gpu or a pci sound card, since ive discovered SBEMU and how well it works for dos games ill prob go gpu as well, also AC97 sounds good enough and if i want EAX creativealchemy is an option,

i dont really need a gameport either, in win98 i use a usb to playstation adapter and then use Xpadder to map keyboard to the controller, im not sure if this would work for you on win95 tho you may need 98 for that, your cpu will handle it no problem, im running 98 on a 166mhz pentium laptop and mounting iso's and it works fine, i have more nostalgia for win95 but it just wasnt cutting it.

as for the I/O shield i wouldnt worry what it looks like, the important thing is you have one and its doing its job, that being an earthing point between the I/O ports and the case, if you go for a plastic printed one theres no earth, ive got a system ive been using for years without an I/O shield, sometimes when i plug in a usb drive i get an ark of electric jump from the port to the stick, probably why ive got a few dead usb sticks.🤣

Very nice build- looks like that Banshee only just fits! Does the Banshee get hot in there or is the perforated case sufficient to cool it?

I've got a similar VIA C3-based 3dfx system in an old Morex mini-ITX case which I keep meaning to get around to documenting on here. My case has the PCI slot flipped the other way, and has just about enough space for a hard drive and slim optical drive, but requires an external power brick and picoPSU.

With very little in the way of case ventilation, I initially struggled to keep it cool. I resolved this in part by removing the inefficient linear VRM from the Voodoo3 card and feeding it with 3.3V from the PSU instead- I was expecting this to cause some stability issues but it's actually proven to be very a reliable Win98 gaming PC. The final piece of the puzzle was swapping out the 3.5" hard disk with a 2.5" laptop drive, which significantly reduced heat output as well as allowing enough space to attach a small fan to the Voodoo3.

sfryers wrote on 2024-11-29, 18:10:

Very nice build- looks like that Banshee only just fits! Does the Banshee get hot in there or is the perforated case sufficient to cool it?

I've got a similar VIA C3-based 3dfx system in an old Morex mini-ITX case which I keep meaning to get around to documenting on here. My case has the PCI slot flipped the other way, and has just about enough space for a hard drive and slim optical drive, but requires an external power brick and picoPSU.

With very little in the way of case ventilation, I initially struggled to keep it cool. I resolved this in part by removing the inefficient linear VRM from the Voodoo3 card and feeding it with 3.3V from the PSU instead- I was expecting this to cause some stability issues but it's actually proven to be very a reliable Win98 gaming PC. The final piece of the puzzle was swapping out the 3.5" hard disk with a 2.5" laptop drive, which significantly reduced heat output as well as allowing enough space to attach a small fan to the Voodoo3.

post pics please 😀

the VIA C3 board ive got came in a morex venus 669 theres also the 668 which one have you got? this is my one
Re: SHUTTLE XPC SN45G-V2 - Video card sizes

i picked mine up from a local carboot bit over 10yrs ago, also in UK.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-11-29, 18:32:

post pics please 😀

I've actually got two of these. Not sure what the model numbers are, but they're more of a thin client-style form factor than the squarer Shuttle/HTPC-style design. One houses the 3dfx build using a case I originally bought to use as a mini-NAS in the mid-2000s. I found the other similar but slightly different case on eBay a couple of years ago:

The 3dfx build looks like this inside:

The other is configured more for DOS gaming and MIDI use, with an ESS Solo-1 card equipped with a Dreamblaster S2 wavetable daughterboard.

Specs of my two machines are as follows:

• Gigabyte GA-6VLE - as far as I can tell, this was an OEM-only board from a thin client PC based on the CLE266 chipset. It has a heavy passive heatsink glued on, but I added a small fan to the side for some airflow. The Nehemiah CPU boots at 1GHz by default, but will happily run at 1.4GHz using SetMul.
• 1GB DDR266
• 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 PCI
• 160Gb 2.5" IDE HDD
• Slimline DVD drive - CD-audio cable is passed through to the line in jack at the rear due to the lack of an internal CD-audio input.
• Win98 SE

• VIA EPIA 800 rev.E, with a Nehemiah CPU and PLE133 chipset. The FSB jumper headers are connected to a mini toggle switch at the rear, enabling selection of 66/133MHz FSB at boot. Using this switch along with SetMul, it can run from 266MHz to >1GHz, with lots of cache options for pretty much any speed-sensitive game from the late 80's onward.
• 256Mb PC133
• Onboard Trident Blade graphics
• ESS Solo-1 + Dreamblaster S2
• 160Gb 3.5" IDE HDD
• Slimline DVD drive
• CF-IDE adapter (sticking out the back of the case)
• Win98 SE installed on hard drive, with option to boot other OSes from CF card

Love these ultracompact builds. I just wish there was a way to also add a decent sound- or other secondary card to these, but so far I've only seen a single person pull that off. Your system predates positional audio so it's not too bad, but it'd provide you with a gameport.

JonsBackLog wrote on 2024-11-29, 02:57:

Change red stripe on the front to blue.

I've got a bunch of Fujitsu's Futros sitting on my shelves and yeah, all those red stripes get old fast. May I suggest orange, as a subtle nod to 3dfx's logo?

JonsBackLog wrote on 2024-11-29, 02:57:

Change CPU fan to something quieter (Noctua)

On top of that you could also replace the PSU with a PicoPSU. Upside, one less fan, downside, now you have an external (but silent) power brick. (Which isn't optimal for a single machine, but not much of an issue if you reuse it for multiple ones.)

sfryers wrote on 2024-11-29, 20:10:

I've actually got two of these. Not sure what the model numbers are, but they're more of a thin client-style form factor than th […]
Show full quote

DudeFace wrote on 2024-11-29, 18:32:

post pics please 😀

I've actually got two of these. Not sure what the model numbers are, but they're more of a thin client-style form factor than the squarer Shuttle/HTPC-style design. One houses the 3dfx build using a case I originally bought to use as a mini-NAS in the mid-2000s. I found the other similar but slightly different case on eBay a couple of years ago:

The 3dfx build looks like this inside:

The other is configured more for DOS gaming and MIDI use, with an ESS-Solo1 card equipped with a Dreamblaster S2 wavetable daughterboard.

Specs of my two machines are as follows:

• Gigabyte GA-6VLE - as far as I can tell, this was an OEM-only board from a thin client PC based on the CLE266 chipset. It has a heavy passive heatsink glued on, but I added a small fan to the side for some airflow. The Nehemiah CPU boots at 1GHz by default, but will happily run at 1.4GHz using SetMul.
• 1GB DDR266
• 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 PCI
• 160Gb 2.5" IDE HDD
• Slimline DVD drive - CD-audio cable is passed through to the line in jack at the rear due to the lack of an internal CD-audio input.
• Win98 SE

• VIA EPIA 800 rev.E, with a Nehemiah CPU and PLE133 chipset. The FSB jumper headers are connected to a mini toggle switch at the rear, enabling selection of 66/133MHz FSB at boot. Using this switch along with SetMul, it can run from 266MHz to >1GHz, with lots of cache options for pretty much any speed-sensitive game from the late 80's onward.
• 256Mb PC133
• Onboard Trident Blade graphics
• 160Gb 3.5" IDE HDD
• Slimline DVD drive
• CF-IDE adapter (sticking out the back of the case)
• Win98 SE installed on hard drive, with option to boot other OSes from CF card

nice ive never seen those cases before, its rare to see slim cases with a pci slot, ive got a slim one but theres no option for any pci cards, it might be worth trying to source one of these since i hacked my morex up, anyway 2 nice builds 😀 and well thought out, you've now convinced me to go the dos route with mine as i would like some sort of dreamblaster/midi build, my board has onboard unichrome which should be sufficient for most dos games, also didnt know there were IDE adapters for slim drives that maybe another thing to look at once ive recapped my board and sourced a case, thanks for posting pics 😀

The hp thin clients like the...?t5720? have itx motherboards, and a 1000mhz athlon will crush every Epia ever made.

myne wrote on 2024-11-30, 01:12:

The hp thin clients like the...?t5720? have itx motherboards, and a 1000mhz athlon will crush every Epia ever made.

True, pretty much any socket A CPU has more than twice the clock-for-clock performance of a VIA C3, and the low power Geode variants will help avoid any thermal issues in a mini-PC. However, an Athlon 1000 is a bit overkill for most 3dfx Glide games. They're a great option for pairing with a PCI-based Geforce card though.

The Banshee runs extremely hot. This can't be healthy for the GPU, to run it fanless.

C3VCM6, at the bottom of the page you can learn how to upload photos and BIOS dump.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-11-29, 17:37:

i dont really need a gameport either, in win98 i use a usb to playstation adapter and then use Xpadder to map keyboard to the controller, im not sure if this would work for you on win95 tho you may need 98 for that, your cpu will handle it no problem, im running 98 on a 166mhz pentium laptop and mounting iso's and it works fine, i have more nostalgia for win95 but it just wasnt cutting it.

You know, I was thinking Windows 98 if I keep experiencing the driver issues that I keep running into. Two drivers have errors which is the native on board driver (Not a big issue as I'm not using it) but the IDE interface drivers are not working which might be related to the OS not shutting down properly (It always restarts instead of shutdown). The other benefit would be USB 2.0 working on 98 but I was really hoping for a 95 machine for this one.

DudeFace wrote on 2024-11-29, 17:37:

as for the I/O shield i wouldnt worry what it looks like, the important thing is you have one and its doing its job, that being an earthing point between the I/O ports and the case, if you go for a plastic printed one theres no earth, ive got a system ive been using for years without an I/O shield, sometimes when i plug in a usb drive i get an ark of electric jump from the port to the stick, probably why ive got a few dead usb sticks.🤣

🤣, yeah, it'll do for now. I like the idea a black 3d printed IO shield not just because of the look but also because it will highlight the banshee (The whole reason for the build) on the back as it will be the only mostly metal piece after that.

sfryers wrote on 2024-11-29, 18:10:

Very nice build- looks like that Banshee only just fits! Does the Banshee get hot in there or is the perforated case sufficient to cool it?

Oh, it literally just fits. Have to remove the front face panel just to take it out or put it in. Good question on the ventilation, I haven't had time to really push the system as I've been working on fixing some driver issues. The onboard GPU and the IDE drivers report problems (I'm only concerned with the IDE). But as soon as I get it fully up and running I'm going to start doing some benchmarks and system testing. I'll update this thread with those.

sfryers wrote on 2024-11-29, 18:10:

I've got a similar VIA C3-based 3dfx system in an old Morex mini-ITX case which I keep meaning to get around to documenting on here. My case has the PCI slot flipped the other way, and has just about enough space for a hard drive and slim optical drive, but requires an external power brick and picoPSU.

I saw the pictures, those are some nice builds. I'm a bit jealous on the optical drive too although my USB optical drive does work in windows, it just doesn't work well in DOS (BIOS recognizes it though). I'm sure there is a way to make it work, I just haven't taken a stab at it yet.

sfryers wrote on 2024-11-29, 18:10:

With very little in the way of case ventilation, I initially struggled to keep it cool. I resolved this in part by removing the inefficient linear VRM from the Voodoo3 card and feeding it with 3.3V from the PSU instead- I was expecting this to cause some stability issues but it's actually proven to be very a reliable Win98 gaming PC. The final piece of the puzzle was swapping out the 3.5" hard disk with a 2.5" laptop drive, which significantly reduced heat output as well as allowing enough space to attach a small fan to the Voodoo3.

Nice, that's some good troubleshooting skills there. So far everything seems to run without overheating but we'll see when I really push things. I only have the CPU and GPU generating heat and I upgraded the GPU to a copper heat sink with lots of fins over the aluminum with wide fins that came with it.

elszgensa wrote on 2024-11-29, 22:23:

Love these ultracompact builds. I just wish there was a way to also add a decent sound- or other secondary card to these, but so far I've only seen a single person pull that off. Your system predates positional audio so it's not too bad, but it'd provide you with a gameport.

Agreed, it would be nice to add a soundblaster, wish I could find a MB from the time period with two PCI slots and a case to fit (Like a Shuttle).

elszgensa wrote on 2024-11-29, 22:23:

I've got a bunch of Fujitsu's Futros sitting on my shelves and yeah, all those red stripes get old fast. May I suggest orange, as a subtle nod to 3dfx's logo?

Thats not a bad idea, it would go well with the banshee blue.

elszgensa wrote on 2024-11-29, 22:23:

On top of that you could also replace the PSU with a PicoPSU. Upside, one less fan, downside, now you have an external (but silent) power brick. (Which isn't optimal for a single machine, but not much of an issue if you reuse it for multiple ones.)

I'll have to take a look at that. depending on the power connector I might be able to reuse it because I have several Dell mffs with external power supplies but I'll definitely look into it.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-11-30, 16:32:

The Banshee runs extremely hot. This can't be healthy for the GPU, to run it fanless.

It came with an aluminum heat sink (No fan) but I upgraded it to a copper. I'll do some testing once I get all the driver issues ironed out. If it runs too hot I'll add a fan. I do have additional power connectors that are unused.