First post, by TheIpex
- Rank
- Newbie
Greetings everyone, for your viewing today is a Pentium MMX 233 build I've recently completed.
The Goal
A machine for DOS and early Windows 9x gaming. Targeting a reasonable amount of compatibility within the confines of one computer.
I plan to have a separate machine for later 9x gaming so that's not on the agenda here.
- Age Of Empires
- Descent I and II
- Elder Scrolls Arena and Daggerfall
- Grand Theft Auto I and II
- Jetstrike
- Lemmings
- MDK
- Need For Speed I and II
- Sim City and Sim City 2000
- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
- Star Wars X-Wing/Tie Fighter series
- Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Pinball (don't judge me)
- Tomb Raider
- Various flight sims
- Wolfenstein 3D
- Worms 1 and 2
Before we begin
You'll be seeing a lot of Noctua fans in this build. The reason for this is that I was recently gifted a big box of them from a friend; he had no use for 3 pin fans of smaller sizes. I've gone out of my way somewhat to include a fair few of these in this build.
The Parts
Processor: Intel Pentium MMX 233
"I need it." - 8 year old me, unsuccessfully pleading to my parents
I've wanted one of these since forever, it's finally time. I'll be making use of SetMul for speed sensitive games.
CPU Cooler: Cheap Socket 370 heatsink
Topped with a fan made by... you guessed it. Noctua.
Motherboard: ASUS TXP4-X Revision 3.01
I'm quite fond of this board; it's quick to post and I've had no major issues with it. Shame about the 430TX cacheable RAM limit though.
RAM: 2 x 32MB MDV323S-28 SDRAM
"
640K64MB ought to be enough for anybody." - Intel
Double-sided and CL2 capable.
3D 2D Card: S3 ViRGE/DX 4MB
Yep, another boring S3 card. Can't argue with the excellent compatibility though. I have a few of these cards and have been spending time working out which has the best output quality. This one has the 2.01.16 reference bios and supports VBE 2.0
3D Card: Orchid Righteous 3D 4MB
"Holy Shit." - Me, playing Descent II with the 3DFX patch
The first Voodoo, and the first Voodoo I've ever owned. Using reference driver 3.01.00. Love the relay clicking noise.
Quantum Fireball Plus KX 20.5GB
"She's a screamer that one." - Bronn of the Blackwater
It's loud, it's too big for this build and I love it. Apple-branded; perhaps originally from a Power Mac/iMac G3?
Creative Sound Blaster Live! CT-4760
While I don't buy into the gold-plated malarkey, I do love the look of this card. I also like the functionality: General MIDI, SB16 emulation and digital output are standouts for me. Using this driver CD which worked without issue.
Creative Sound Blaster 16 Value CT-2770
"16 Bit Testing"
It's here for OPL duties. Not installed/active in Windows, just for DOS. This is the quietest Sound Blaster 16 I have.
Sony CDU5231
A bit fast for this build, but quieter than the other drives I possess. It can of course be slowed via software.
Gotek Floppy Emulator
Dealing with physical floppies is one thing I do not miss from the old days.
Ipex case and power supply
I have a few Ipex cases and peripherals and (just in case my name didn't give it away) I'm quite fond of them. They seem well made and relatively easy to work with/on. Our first family computer was an Ipex 486 Machine. The power supply is an Ipex-branded Seventeam model.
Windows 95 OSR2
I umm'd and ahh'd between 95 and 98 for some time, going as far as to install both during the test bench phase.
I settled on Windows 95 OSR2 for the following reasons:
- I like how lightweight and fluid 95 is (98lite is a close second)
- I didn't run into any major compatibility issues testing games
- I was able to get USB storage working
- I'm planning on doing a 98SE build in the future with more powerful hardware
- I'm quite nostalgic about 95
My only gripe is being unable to use Joseph_Joestar's excellent SB Live guide as the Audigy drivers used seem to need Windows 98 at a minimum. I am making use of the higher quality soundfonts from that guide however.
First on the agenda was some housekeeping regarding the case.
A removable motherboard tray with a mix of holes for brass and nylon standoffs. Unfortunately, I didn't have any nylon ones.
Fortunately, the issue was solvable with help of the 3D printer.
These standoffs simply protrude through and sit flush underneath the motherboard tray, giving the board a nice level surface to screw into.
Now at the front of the case, we have a pretty fancy PCB that handles the system LEDs, buttons and optionally speakers and USB. It even has jumpers for enabling/disabling amplification.
The USB/Speakers are connected by means of a cable that runs along the spine of the case to the rear, after which an additional breakout cable is connected to the rear USB and 3.5mm Speaker/Mic Ports.
As I won't be using any of that, the speakers and cabling are coming out (put away somewhere safe of course).
The question is what to do with those uniform empty spaces at the front of the case now? Well, that's where Mr. Noctua makes another appearance.
By way of a 3D-printed adapter plate, 4 x 40mm fans are mounted; the idea is to pull fresh air in through the front (ex)speaker grills. Let's be real: fans this small aren't likely going to make or break thermals in this build. However, when in operation I can feel airflow as far back as the PCI slots.
The small front fans were a good start, but I was still concerned about the Voodoo card. Given how hot I could feel it getting during bench testing I wanted to do something more for it in the final build.
This is what I came up with.
It allows a single 80mm fan to be mounted just in front of the PCI cards, with a conveniently placed fan connector just below it.
Here we are all installed. While I don't have equipment to take temperature measurements, the Voodoo felt a fair deal cooler to the touch with this fan in use.
Some perforated brackets to aid airflow out.
Additionally, a small cover plate to obscure the disconnected front panel connectors. The idea is to keep the case in an easy restore-to-stock condition.
About finished now, CD audio is straightforward: Digital to the SB Live, Analog to the SB 16. PC speaker headers on both cards are utilised.
Given the preceding bench-testing, I wasn't expecting any surprises on first POST. My only disappointment was no POST beep from either of the cards, as they aren't initialised early enough. I have a Full-PNP Vibra card that can do this, but it has no OPL chip. Not really a major concern, I can always connect a buzzer speaker if needed.
The Windows install proceeded smoothly, as did the driver installation. I've set up a rudimentary boot menu which allows me to select either Windows 95(SBLive) or DOS (SB16).
DOS
Courtesy of Phil's Benchmark Pack
Windows
Sandra 99
3DMark 99 Max / PC Player Direct3D
Final Reality 1.01
GLQuake 0.97 512/640
Wizmark 3.0
- Improve/Finalise boot menu
- Find some decent magnetically shielded speakers
- Look into de-yellowing the front panel
- Stop tinkering and play some damn games
So there we have it, a Pentium build I could only have dreamed about 27 years ago. I really enjoyed working on it and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I plan to do a fair bit of gaming on it; revisiting old titles and of course trying some new ones.
I also want to thank the Vogons community for this excellent forum; there were answers here for just about every question I had.
