old school gamer man wrote on 2025-06-05, 21:27:

Socket3 wrote on 2025-06-05, 20:00:

old school gamer man wrote on 2025-06-05, 19:32:

some of the games you listed are games I play to and I never had a problem with them on faster systems. I always been so confused on the whole slowing down the system thing.

No offence but I vehemently doubt that. I know for sure the games I mentioned apart for stargunner (witch works fine on some fast machines but not others) are speed sensitive - in fact it has been extensively documented online. Perhaps it's been a while since you last played them?

i was last playing Descent on a system with a 1.4ghz piii about 3 weeks ago, before I purged my pc collection.
it's actually one of my favorite games. most of the other games people say can't be ran on faster systems I ran in the past on everything from a pii to a core 2. honestly I never understood why people get so worked up over having speed period correct systems.

people also say you can't run a voodoo1 in a system with a higher fsb of 100 or a clock speed over 1ghz but that never stoped me using one on a Alton 64 or with a 1.4gjz piiiz at 133fsb

old school gamer man wrote on 2025-06-05, 21:33:

people also say you can run a voodoo1 in a system with a higher fsb of 100 or a clock speed over 1ghz but that never stoped me using one on a Alton 64 or with a 1.4gjz piiiz at 133fsb

Voodoo 1 will run in faster systems, but it can cause issues with some games. I've used it with Whiplash in a Pentium 4 with no problem. Whereas Tomb Raider wouldn't launch most of the time.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-06-05, 21:39:

old school gamer man wrote on 2025-06-05, 21:33:

people also say you can run a voodoo1 in a system with a higher fsb of 100 or a clock speed over 1ghz but that never stoped me using one on a Alton 64 or with a 1.4gjz piiiz at 133fsb

Voodoo 1 will run in faster systems, but it can cause issues with some games. I've used it with Whiplash in a Pentium 4 with no problem. Whereas Tomb Raider wouldn't launch most of the time.

I never ran into those problems outside the 440bx chipset.

old school gamer man wrote on 2025-06-05, 21:31:

Archer57 wrote on 2025-06-05, 21:25:

If you never ran into "too fast" issues you simple have not played the games that have those. And probably do not need those gam […]
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If you never ran into "too fast" issues you simple have not played the games that have those. And probably do not need those games. This also removes a lot of soundcard related considerations (as you've mentioned yourself).

I am using AthlonXP 2200+/KT333/1GB/FX5900XT/Audigy 2ZS for seemingly what you describe. It works well for late DOS and 95/98 games, but with XP it becomes insufficient very fast. I could have replaced the CPU with faster one (and you should if you build something like this), but really GPU is the issue here. And going with GeForce 6 brings its own issues - it would make XP games run better, but would not be as compatible with 95/98 games. Something like Radeon 9800XT might be better, but good luck getting that.

But... i am not really trying to run XP games on this - have a different system for those.

Ultimately with what you are trying to do everything is a compromise. Get faster CPU - you can run later games, but lose compatibility with earlier ones. Get newer platform/chipset and lose isa port - the same thing. Newer GPU - the same. There are no perfect solutions to run everything on one system, you can only find some set of compromises acceptable to you specifically based on specifically your set of games.

thanks for the advice. how does hit and run play on that system?

I could probably make a few phones calls and get a 9800xt or two but what issues in 9x would a 6800 have? I ran them a time or two in 9x and never ran into problems. other than the lack of the 8 bit fog table thing and tbh I never seen any difference with that on vs off. nothing a voodoo 1 or 2 or wrapper couldn't fix, not that the 9800 supports the 8bit fog stuff

Have not played that game in a while and this system would not be my first choice to run it, but i'll try out of curiosity.

Regarding GF6 - i did not experiment with this much, i only have 6600 which is not really good and i've only encountered one game which did not want to run - vampire: the masquerade, but i also did not spend much effort on trying to make it work. IIRC there was a thread around here somewhere with much more detail. The issue is newer driver version required, which breaks some stuff.

Also yeah, that fog and 8 bit textures are another example of compromises you have to make. ATI did emulate fog on driver level though, at least in some driver versions, did not they?

All this ultimately a matter of games you use though. Many will run just fine on GF6 and new drivers. Some may not. Some need fog to look as intended, some do not.

Glide wrapper... is nice and all, but again - a matter of what you want. You can probably just run a lot of stuff in dosbox on modern system if you wanted to, glide wrapper may or may not be viewed as the same kind of emulation.

Simpsons Recommended hardware is:
CPU: P3 1Ghz
RAM: 256MB RAM
GPU: 64MB

I have a 845 chipset based P4 with a GF6 Ultra, in my experience.
Only 9x game that didn't work was C&C Generals, Which I did not experiment much past simply running the game.
I do know GTA3, struggled at 1600x1200 with AA, AF and everything set to max which has similar requirements as Simpsons.

Dos compatibility no matter if its speed, PCI sound card or video just come down to luck, however the vast majority do work fine. If your limited on space I'd just accept those few will need to be played in dosbox.

Even on nForce (3 250 at least) chipsets, you can have audio in DOS games if emulation of SB16 on SB Live! and Audigy 1/2/ZS cards is enough for you. You need install .vxd drivers, reserve IRQ 5 for Legacy/ISA in BIOS setup (and maybe disable ACPI, I don't remember exactly ). But VIA is safe bet.

Ydee wrote on 2025-06-06, 10:11:

Even on nForce (3 250 at least) chipsets, you can have audio in DOS games if emulation of SB16 on SB Live! and Audigy 1/2/ZS cards is enough for you. You need install .vxd drivers, reserve IRQ 5 for Legacy/ISA in BIOS setup (and maybe disable ACPI, I don't remember exactly ). But VIA is safe bet.

odd i never got it to work on any of the nf2 3 and 7 boards I tried in the past

The SB Live! should run in DOS on an Intel 865 motherboard since it would have the ICH5 hub which was the last to support DMA in the chipset. I think you need to enable the Non-maskable Interrupt in the CPU first on more modern systems. Look for a program called SERREN.EXE to enable the NMI.

I just tested my Sound Blaster Live! in DOS on my Asus P5PE-VM motherboard (with an Intel 865 Chipset). I got Sound FX and General MIDI working for the most part. The system would crash when I tried to use General MIDI in some titles. That could be related to my Core 2 Extreme X6800 that I have installed on the board. DOS programs start to act really weird with CPU clocks greater than 1 GHz. CPUSPD helps in a lot of cases, but it takes a bit of trial and error to figure out the optimal CPU settings for each game. FM synth worked in most cases instead.

On the other hand, Sound FX worked in every title I tested. I like that the SB Live! emulates a Sound Blaster 16 in DOS. My Ensoniq AudioPCI and my Yamaha YMF744 only emulate Sound Blaster Pro in DOS.

fosterwj03 wrote on 2025-06-07, 12:03:

The SB Live! should run in DOS on an Intel 865 motherboard since it would have the ICH5 hub which was the last to support DMA in the chipset. I think you need to enable the Non-maskable Interrupt in the CPU first on more modern systems. Look for a program called SERREN.EXE to enable the NMI.

every 865 and 875 board I tried it did not work in.

old school gamer man wrote on 2025-06-07, 20:21:

fosterwj03 wrote on 2025-06-07, 12:03:

The SB Live! should run in DOS on an Intel 865 motherboard since it would have the ICH5 hub which was the last to support DMA in the chipset. I think you need to enable the Non-maskable Interrupt in the CPU first on more modern systems. Look for a program called SERREN.EXE to enable the NMI.

every 865 and 875 board I tried it did not work in.

Both of my 865 motherboards allow me to reserve IRQs, which I think also helps.

old school gamer man wrote on 2025-06-06, 13:41:

Ydee wrote on 2025-06-06, 10:11:

Even on nForce (3 250 at least) chipsets, you can have audio in DOS games if emulation of SB16 on SB Live! and Audigy 1/2/ZS cards is enough for you. You need install .vxd drivers, reserve IRQ 5 for Legacy/ISA in BIOS setup (and maybe disable ACPI, I don't remember exactly ). But VIA is safe bet.

odd i never got it to work on any of the nf2 3 and 7 boards I tried in the past

It's possible that it doesn't work for all boards, depending on how their BIOS is set up and how the manufacturer has linked the chipset, but it's evident that even nForce chipsets can work with the SB16 via driver emulation on Live! and Audigy cards.This is how it works on MSI K8N NEO V2 with nForce3 250, IRQ 5 reserved in BIOS setup, ACPI on.
Of course, not everyone accepts the mere emulation of SB16 and if they want to use a fully-fledged OPL3/4 compatible PCI sound card, then it is preferable to use VIA or Intel chipsets (I have no experience with SIS, ATI and ALi).