VOGONS


First post, by rkrenicki

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So, I am building two retro rigs. The Pentium 3 Win98 machine is cake.. but the other will be a Pentium based DOS gaming box. I have a couple of options when it comes to socket 7, and I am having difficulty deciding. I am looking for some input.

First let me start with what I intend on putting in the machine. I will likely be using a Matrox Millennium and 3dfx Voodoo 2 for video, and a Sound Blaster Pro 2 for sound. I also have an MT-32 and SC-55mkII. My primary goal for this box is to play Sierra games and other old DOS RPGs, as well as the typical Quake, Doom, etc.

First is the CPU. I have a Pentium 200, and a Pentium MMX 166. I know that there are some builds of Quake optimized for MMX, but I do not know if the benefit of MMX will outweigh the drop in CPU frequency. I am very open to opinions here.

Now, on to the board itself. I have two different ATX socket 7 boards. The first one is an Intel AN430TX. It is obviously a TX motherboard with surprisingly has Yamaha YMF704 and YMF715 on board.
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The second board came out of the Sony VAIO machine that I picked up this week. It has a 430HX chipset, Yamaha YMF701-S audio, and an ATI 3D Rage on-board video.
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I know very little about Yamaha audio, but given that these have the OPL and (for one at least) General MIDI logos.. to me, that indicates that I may not need to use my SBPro2 and/or the MT or SC units? Possibly?

I know that the HX is an older chipset, but not by much. The Sony board also only has 72pin SIMM slots, but it is loaded with 4x32MB modules. The TX board takes normal PC100 DIMMs, which I have plenty of but currently has 2x128MB modules.

I welcome any and all input. In the meantime, I will put together my P3 box.

Reply 1 of 6, by brostenen

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If it was me, I would set them both up outside a case. This way I would be able to determine wich one is the best for the job.
Swap cards around, do some benchmarks and check how it will perform with cache disabled.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

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Reply 2 of 6, by keropi

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For DOS I'd use the Intel AN430TX and the 200mhz p1 cpu.
Maybe couple it with another 2D vga, like an S3 (get a name one if possible since it should have better parts than chinese cards) since it will more compatible with DOS stuff.
The millenium has too many red blocks for my taste: http://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

My DOS ss7 build is a 233mhz mmx + via mvp3 mobo (HOT-591P) + S3 Trio3D/2x vga + SB16 CT2230 + MPU + GUS classic. It covers everything I want, from really old stuff to DOS software 3D games. Using ICACHE to disable caches on the fly brings it down to 386DX speed levels. Phil has some great videos on the ss7 situation too

🎵 🎧 MK1869, PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 3 of 6, by rkrenicki

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I do also have a Trident 9440 PCI card, which seems to be mostly green on that site. I do also have some S3 Virge somewhere too, but I havent dug it out yet.

Reply 4 of 6, by keropi

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Ah, the Virge is a good one - provided it has a nice signal output. There is a chance the image is too bright but there is a TSR now that fixes that: Re: S3 AGP Cards (and possibly others) Too Bright

Haven't used a PCI Trident card so I can't really comment on it - you can use Phil's benchmark suite to see which one is better 😀
http://www.philscomputerlab.com/dos-benchmark-pack.html

🎵 🎧 MK1869, PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 5 of 6, by meljor

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TX can only cache 64mb ram, HX can do more but only if it has the right cache stick (and a slot for it). 166mmx can do 200mhz without Any problems and is the better chip. At 166mhz it is almost as fast as the normal 200 chip.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 6 of 6, by gdjacobs

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Test register manipulation with SETMUL can be handy for tuning your effective CPU speed on older DOS titles. I'd check to see if your P166MMX exposes TR12 functionality (information is split). If not, it's another reason to consider using the P200.

See here for details:
Re: What's up with all those Setmul switches?

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