Building a rig for late 90's/early 2ks gaming \ VOGONS

Building a rig for late 90's/early 2ks gaming

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First post, by swampfox

Posted on 2013-02-11, 03:15

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I have a Pentium I 100MHz machine already for DOS games, but now I'm building a rig for late 90's/early 2000's. Focusing on Windows 98SE, I want to maintain a better amount of compatibility with 16-bit and some later DOS titles than XP's NTVDM has to offer.

This weekend, I attempted to build a rig for this job, a PCChips M599LMR (Super Socket 7) mobo, an 500MHz AMD K6-2-CXT, 128MB SDRAM. Unfortunately, this mobo is based on the horrible SiS 530 chipset. No AGP slots only two PCI slots, one ISA. Strange jumper configurations to disable onboard components and they hardly work. Not gonna mess with it. Couldn't get my PCI TNT2, S3 Trio64V or Virge to work, my SB Live barely worked, SB16 ISA didn't work. I could only use the onboard video, which is horrible, and UniVBE 6.7 could only help in DOS, SDD wouldn't pick it up. Doom crawled (vanilla, MBF, and Doom95) although Quake II in software was okay. Anyway,

I have two other mobos and two CPUs, both Socket A/462, so its pretty late in Windows 98's life.

One is a DFI AK75 EC Rev E, based on the VIA KT133A. 3 pc133 SDRAM DIMM slots, 1 AGP 4x, 5 PCI, 1 CNR. USB 1.1, AC97 sound. I hear the Sound Blaster Live has problems with this particular chipset.
The other is a Gigabyte GA-7VA, similar, actually. However, this uses the VIA KT400 chipset, has 3 DDR333 DIMMs, and AGP 8x, and USB 2.0. No CNR, not that I have anything that uses it. Also has AC97, though no matter what I'm going to use the Sound Blaster Live.

For CPUs, I have one AMD Duron Morgan 900MHz. The other is an Athlon XP 2000+ at 1.67GHz.

My video card, I'm debating between a 32MB TNT2 Pro, a 64MB Radeon 7000 TVO, and a 64MB Geforce 2 MX, though I'm probably going to start with the TNT2, mainly because I can't find the Geforce, which would be cool cause it has Hardware T&L. And since none of the mobos have an onboard nic, I have a PCI Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet card. And although I have modems, what good would they be now?

I was curious as to which CPU and mobo do you guys think would have the least amount of issues for Windows 98 SE? I'm fairly sure either would be powerful enough for even the harsher Quake/Unreal demos and other benchmarks.
I would appreciate the advice and I apologize if it turns out this part of the forum is not appropriate for this topic or if I am in violation some board rule(this is my first post here)

Reply 1 of 14, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-02-11, 03:34

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KT133A and KT400 will both work fine for 98SE. However, KT400 does not support 3.3v AGP cards. That means no AGP 2x cards, like Voodoo5. On the other hand, some KT133A boards need the VIA PCI Latency patch to work properly with SBLive.

Duron vs. Athlon XP is a matter of how much CPU you want/need. More speed rarely hurts in Windows games.

NVIDIA cards have the best compatibility with old games. Well, other than a Voodoo2/3/4/5.

Reply 2 of 14, by luckybob

Posted on 2013-02-11, 04:03

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Choose your favorite game from that particular era. I chose Quake 3 & Unreal tournament. Then design a system to cater to that game with no compromises. Problem solved.

My systems revolve more around what I want to play, more so than what they actually are.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 3 of 14, by swampfox

Posted on 2013-02-11, 06:39

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swaaye wrote:
KT133A and KT400 will both work fine for 98SE. However, KT400 does not support 3.3v AGP cards. That means no AGP 2x cards, like Voodoo5. On the other hand, some KT133A boards need the VIA PCI Latency patch to work properly with SBLive.

Duron vs. Athlon XP is a matter of how much CPU you want/need. More speed rarely hurts in Windows games.

NVIDIA cards have the best compatibility with old games. Well, other than a Voodoo2/3/4/5.

Although a 3dfx card would be neat, I can't seem to get my hands on one now. Too bad, I had a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP back when it came out, that thing was beastly, and lasted me quite well until I got a Radeon 9800 in 2003. Parents probably sold it when I moved out.
The only other AGP 2x card I have around that I would even consider using is the ATI Rage 128 Pro, but I think i'd rather use the TNT2, which is 4x. Don't think i would be using an 8x, like what the KT400 can handle.

Would the DDR memory in the KT400 have a significant enough performance benefit over the KT133A's SDR SDRAM?

Reply 4 of 14, by Putas

Posted on 2013-02-11, 07:09

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swampfox wrote:
The only other AGP 2x card I have around that I would even consider using is the ATI Rage 128 Pro...

That is also AGP 4x .

Reply 5 of 14, by F2bnp

Posted on 2013-02-11, 10:22

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I have a spare Voodoo 3 3000 AGP that's just eating space. It's yours if you want it 😜.

Reply 6 of 14, by leileilol

Posted on 2013-02-11, 11:20

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Voodoo3 won't work in AGP4x/8x.

long live PCem

Reply 7 of 14, by elfuego

Posted on 2013-02-11, 13:48

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I could warmly suggest getting an Abit KT7A; you get a much more useful ISA slot instead of crappy CNR, full compatibility with all AGP cards (e.g. all Voodoos) and if you grab a V1.3 you can even use a Mobile Barton inside (from 600 Mhz to ~2.1-2.5Ghz). What more can you ask for in a retro machine? 😉

Reply 8 of 14, by nforce4max

Posted on 2013-02-11, 15:42

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If you go with the KT7A get a mobile version cpu instead of the regular as they run with much lower volts and easy to work with. If you are lucky you might get it working with Barton but must likely Thoroughbred depending on the revision and bios.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 9 of 14, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-02-11, 19:32

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He has motherboards already.

Reply 10 of 14, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-02-11, 19:33

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swampfox wrote:
Would the DDR memory in the KT400 have a significant enough performance benefit over the KT133A's SDR SDRAM?

It won't matter in practice.

Reply 11 of 14, by luckybob

Posted on 2013-02-11, 19:53

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swaaye wrote:
swampfox wrote:
Would the DDR memory in the KT400 have a significant enough performance benefit over the KT133A's SDR SDRAM?

It won't matter in practice.

http://www.anandtech.com/print/715

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 12 of 14, by swaaye

Posted on 2013-02-11, 20:53

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Pentium III doesn't have enough FSB bandwidth to benefit from > SDR SDRAM bandwidth. You're 1:1 with SDRAM. Dual CPU boards are a different matter.

K7 chips have 2x the FSB bandwidth. So DDR is a perfect match. But SDRAM gets you around 80% of max practical performance.

Reply 13 of 14, by Filosofia

Posted on 2013-02-11, 21:26

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Yes Socket A are perfect for very late win 98 machines, especially with an unlocked cpu ranging from ~500MHz - ~2000MHz , later Geforce and Voodoo2 SLI for instance...

BGWG as in Boogie Woogie.

Reply 14 of 14, by swampfox

Posted on 2013-02-12, 01:38

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Thank you for all of your input, guys!
Probably going to go with DDR RAM, even though the performance increase isn't all too significant with things like games.
Not too worried about not being able to use AGP 2x cards, probably wouldn't use any anyway.
Gonna go with the Athlon, because higher clocks, 266MHz FSB, and more instruction sets.

However, I found another motherboard in my garage. MicroATX, though.
An ECS Elitegroup L7VMM, also Socket A, AC97, USB 1.1, DDR SDRAM.
Unlike the other mobos, this one has onboard video, which I will disable (S3 ProSavage 4 DDR), and onboard NIC (Realtek 8100 Fast ethernet, which is AMD PCNET compatible so no problem finding DOS or WfW drivers), eliminating a need for the Linksys card. Has 1 AGP 4x slot, 3 PCIs, and an ANR. This mobo is based on the VIA KM266 chipset.

Any thoughts on this one? I'm gonna put the KT133 board with the Duron and put it to use somehow. Now I'm debating between this KM266 and the KT400 board.

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