It really comes down to what you want to play and what you can get your hands on.

If you want to play many 3D games from 1997 to 2000 you're really going to have to upgrade. By 2000 we're talking a Pentium III and Voodoo 3 or GeForce 2.

That's why I keep two PCs set up for gaming: a Pentium 200MMX for later-era DOS and a Pentium III 1000 MHz with Voodoo 3 for late 90s Windows 98 stuff.

You didn't mention any late 90s 3D games though, so perhaps you can stretch a Super Socket 7 far enough.

No, 3D performance from around then is minimum priority, I don't even really care about things like Quake 2. The kind of games I'm interested in building for are largely ones that kinda run on the computer currently, but could be a lot better with another 100mhz or so and maybe a slightly better video card.

What's the current motherboard, it may support some others, even if it's not full SS7 (voltage selection below 2.9V MMX for alternative 66MHZ FSB CPU).

S3 Virge? the 3D decelerator?
Additional 3D card... Voodoo? Expensive, great if you want Glide support for things in DOS when it's Glide or nothing, but For Windows most things are going to use D3D or OGL and that opens up so many better value choices

If your MB support it just go for a K6-III.

On the video side almost anything is better than the Virge, I would go gor a Banshee (or a Vodoo3), But if you want to stay on S3 a Savage4 isnt that bad either.

Matth79 wrote on 2026-10-02, 13:01:

What's the current motherboard, it may support some others, even if it's not full SS7 (voltage selection below 2.9V MMX for alternative 66MHZ FSB CPU).

S3 Virge? the 3D decelerator?
Additional 3D card... Voodoo? Expensive, great if you want Glide support for things in DOS when it's Glide or nothing, but For Windows most things are going to use D3D or OGL and that opens up so many better value choices

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/chaintech-5vgm

And It's just 'S3 Virge/DX/GX Rev B' with 2mb of VRAM according to dxdiag, I'm not really familiar with it but it came along with the motherboard.

DeiwosN wrote on 2026-10-02, 13:22:

Matth79 wrote on 2026-10-02, 13:01:

What's the current motherboard, it may support some others, even if it's not full SS7 (voltage selection below 2.9V MMX for alternative 66MHZ FSB CPU).

S3 Virge? the 3D decelerator?
Additional 3D card... Voodoo? Expensive, great if you want Glide support for things in DOS when it's Glide or nothing, but For Windows most things are going to use D3D or OGL and that opens up so many better value choices

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/chaintech-5vgm

And It's just 'S3 Virge/DX/GX Rev B' with 2mb of VRAM according to dxdiag, I'm not really familiar with it but it came along with the motherboard.

They were among the cheapest cards where the 3D label was somewhat applicable, practically, you did a better choice either using a a S3 Trio [V2], with no 3D features at all (sparing some money) or spending a bit more and getting a real 3D card. Practically they were pointless cards, borderline to a proper scam.

Haha fair enough. Yeah back in the day I had a Trio V2. But a thought was to either get like a Voodoo card if I can find one I can afford, or look towards a Super Socket 7 motherboard with AGP.

But yeah, problem with my current board is the multiplier jumper settings only go up to 3x which isn't going to help with going any further. I will need to replace it eventually anyway.

Im dont remember all the details, but some newer faster CPUs recycled the slowest multiplier settings to as their fastest multiplier. So that *could* be the lesser problem.

The bigger one is BIOS, you need to check what's supported. The voltages can be a problem as well

Whatever. CPU or not a better VGA is an upgrade for sure, and can be recycled if/when you replace your MB.

DeiwosN wrote on 2026-10-02, 11:40:

The question arises in how to upgrade. Would I be best suited getting a Super Socket 7 motherboard with an AGP slot that I can use to overclock this CPU up a bit? Should I try an AMD K6-2? Pentium 2? Keep the S3 card and add a 3D accelerator? I don't really have any personal experience in this area, after my original Pentium machine I basically used cheap hand-me-downs from friends and stuff until like 2010, so I have no idea what is considered good hardware around this period. So could I get some suggestions here?

You already have a retro-PC that is good for DOS stuff, so why not get something more powerful while you are at it? After all, super socket 7 is relatively close to a Pentium MMX. 😀 Pentium III would be a decent option and apparently not too expensive unless you go for the high-end options. Athlon XP with ISA would be an even more powerful option (some KT133/KT133A boards have an ISA slot), but they seem to be relatively expensive. Industrial Socket 478 boards with ISA would be another option, and they seem to be surprisingly cheap at the moment. For example, AIMB-742, which should have functional ISA slots, goes for $127 as asking price on eBay. It's not cheap, but you can still get CPUs and memory for that platform for a very low price or even for free.

For GPU, Geforce FX series seems to be decent for retro use, and something like FX 5600 can still be had for relatively cheap.

Most of the games you listed would be best with a CPU a generation beyond Socket 7. Not to mention that many Super Socket 7 boards were cursed with buggy AGP.
Think Slot 1, Socket 370, or Socket A. These CPUs would have been what was targeted when these games were new.
All three game examples you listed were capable of utilizing a 3d accelerator. Something with at least Voodoo Banshee level of performance would be recommended.

akimmet wrote on 2026-10-03, 16:56:

Not to mention that many Super Socket 7 boards were cursed with buggy AGP.

Sold tons of SS7 boards at the time, w/o major problems, maybe late s7 capable of reaching 100MHz of bus speed had troubles, but those were never officially considered SS7

The Solutor wrote on 2026-10-03, 17:03:

akimmet wrote on 2026-10-03, 16:56:

Not to mention that many Super Socket 7 boards were cursed with buggy AGP.

Sold tons of SS7 boards at the time, w/o major problems, maybe late s7 capable of reaching 100MHz of bus speed had troubles, but those were never officially considered SS7

SS7 boards worked fine in general, but many had speed or compatibility issues with AGP graphics cards. Only early AGP cards that used the bus as a faster PCI slot would be trouble free.

Voodoo3s were usually fine with SS7 boards (and historically were a popular budget combination as voodoo was the low end) but Geforces, Rages, PowerVRs and Savages were another story of blips and hardlocks (on VIA MVP at least)

Anyway "up to the year 2000" will probably ask for more of the 450-600mhz range (of either P3 / K6). Battlezone II, NOLF, Alice, Giants and Deus Ex will crush that PMMX200.

For reference, I got Alice working on a 400mhz K6-2 on a P55i T2P4, 64MB EDO, with a PCI RAGE XL/XC card and it was about "Quake on a fast 486" level of playable. i.e. you could do it, but it could be a lot better.

akimmet wrote on 2026-10-03, 20:19:

SS7 boards worked fine in general, but many had speed or compatibility issues with AGP graphics cards. Only early AGP cards that used the bus as a faster PCI slot would be trouble free.

Fake AGP cards were a thing not just in the early days. 3dfx cards being the most obvious example

Other proper AGP card may have been released with a speed higher than what the MB supported, in that case limiting the agp slot to 4x or 2x in the bios, was more than enough to solve 99% of the problems.

The Intel 740 cards may have been an exception, given we all know about the unfair practices adopted by Intel at the time, so i740 drivers may misbehave on non Intel MBs, but that was done on purpose.

That said AGP solved a problem that no one really had anymore, by the time the AGP standard really took off.

It was meant to use the system's RAM to store textures and to transfer them quickly, but by the time the AGP slot become mainstream, the price of RAM dropped dramatically, the GPU started to have 2x 4x 8x the vRAM they used to have, making the purposed of AGP slot irrelevant.

leileilol wrote on 2026-10-04, 00:38:

Anyway "up to the year 2000" will probably ask for more of the 450-600mhz range (of either P3 / K6). Battlezone II, NOLF, Alice, Giants and Deus Ex will crush that PMMX200.

But in another post the OP said he doesn't want to play 3D games like those.

Diablo 2 requires 233 MHz and Red Alert 2 requires 266 MHz minimum. I have no idea how they actually play at those low CPU speeds, though.

Wifey's office box, early noughts, had MII-366 in, 2MB Trident and C&CRA2 was played on it by family, as being the best available online machine. My K6-450/V3 was off limits and also we hadn't figured how to share the early cable modem setup at the time. Anyway, I wasn't much into it at the time, it ran, think I did a couple of early levels. I would imagine it bogged down when "busy" with enemies.

Edit: I just remembered that my nephew, found the K6-233, first gen, no 3Dnow etc, space heater, in his household too sluggish for C&CRA2 and he worked a summer job and bought a celeron 1100 system with onboard intel GFX and that did the trick for him.

I don't think a PMMX200 could even play the RA2 cutscenes with stability...

Based on OP's requirements, a super socket 7 board and fast K6-2/K6-III processor should meet the requirements.

Though if OP wants a bit more performance headroom, a Pentium II 450 or mid-range Pentium III would be a step up from an SS7 system.