I would think that most P3 systems will be AGP 2x and AGP 4x at best... very likely no AGP 8x.

My initial thought would be that for a P3 system, an ISA sound card would be passe; you would be looking for an Audigy or Audigy 2, or something of that era. Audigy does actually have a game port, but you need a dongle to break it out from the internal header on the card to DB15.

I don't think you will find ISA and 8X without going industrial.

shaq wrote:

I know of at least two that cant use USB joysticks.

Oh? Which ones?

If you're going to go out of your way to accommodate these two games, then you'd best make sure the other components are on spec.

F22 Raptor is one and the other escapes me right now. I'm not going out of my way to accommodate those, but I need the ISA soundcard for a game port in Win95. I am building the system for mostly flight sims for the years 1995-2000 when the best ones were made like the Jane's series. And since I would have the game port through the ISA sound card I would be covered in Win98 as well for those games.

Why? PCI sound cards have been known to be equipped with a game port from time to time.

a flight sim from 2000 is going to want a beefy system.

If I was in this boat, I'd design a system around the p3 tualatins. Get an Intel OR840, win2k, and a fast geforce 3, the rest is up to you.

gdjacobs wrote:

Why? PCI sound cards have been known to be equipped with a game port from time to time.

I will look more into those. Is it just the Live! series? Do they still have good DOS compatibility? It would be nice to play some DOS games on this system too.

You might consider KT133A boards with an Athlon XP. For example, I run a Soyo K7VTA Pro with an Athlon XP 2400+ (2.0 GHz) with an ISA sound card. Only AGP 4X, however, and compatibility problems with SB Live! family of cards (Audigy too, I suppose). Still, it is an extremely fast 98SE machine that also runs DOS games with ISA sound. Build Engine games at 1600x1200 ftw.

from what I remember the LIVE! cards were very good. I dont remember anyone ever having any real issues. I would imagine you will REALLY want usb joysticks for flight sims. Also remember 2 cpu > 1. ^.^

luckybob wrote:

from what I remember the LIVE! cards were very good. I dont remember anyone ever having any real issues. I would imagine you will REALLY want usb joysticks for flight sims. Also remember 2 cpu > 1. ^.^

I see a couple OR840's on ebay but they are for slots and Tualatins are socket based. I have never had a 2 CPU system before. Are they transparent to games and do have to have W2K to use them?

NT4 or 2000. old games did not support them, so the 2nd processor will do little. However, in 2k it will help with overhead and background tasks when able.

Also those or840's are overpriced. wait for a deal. But the advantage was agp 4x on pentium 3, not a common thing. if agp 4/8 is required you need to goto the next generation of chips. P4 & XP.

If you can live with agp 2x, there is always this badass: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboar … SL/370DE6-G.cfm

I have found a few with AGP 4X and Pentium 3. The dual socket board has AGP pro which is 4X.
ASUS CUV4X-D Rev 1.03 Dual Socket370 P3 AGP AGPpro
Asus P3V4X single slot has AGP 4X and 1 ISA slot. This is one I'm leaning toward.
ASUS P3V4X Apollo Pro 133A
ASUS CUV4X

shaq wrote:

I have found a few with AGP 4X and Pentium 3. This is best one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Motherboard-Pentium-A … qIAAMXQ4YtSL3-k

Are we allowed to link to ebay to show people? If not I'll delete it.

Ebay links are allowed, I own that exact motherboard in a system right now. It cant support past 1.0ghz Coppermine P3's without socket adapters for the 1.4ghz Tually chips, the Via chipset has some pci spec issues, and AGP4x can be a PITA to get working properly if you dont know what you are doing. BUT it is rock solid, runs 4x/pro cards just fine, supports up to 4gb of ECC ram just fine, but has no ISA. So if you can suffer with a Yamaha or Creative pci card it should be great! But I wouldnt buy it at that price, that is ridicules.

boxpressed wrote:

You might consider KT133A boards with an Athlon XP. For example, I run a Soyo K7VTA Pro with an Athlon XP 2400+ (2.0 GHz) with an ISA sound card. Only AGP 4X, however, and compatibility problems with SB Live! family of cards (Audigy too, I suppose). Still, it is an extremely fast 98SE machine that also runs DOS games with ISA sound. Build Engine games at 1600x1200 ftw.

I'd agree here. In that day, the Athlon XP stomped all over Intel chips. and AGP 4x is still solid. Pair it with something up to a GeForce 4 series or the Radeon 9700 Pro and this would be solid gaming.

And I have an Athlon XP system with an 1800+ chip and a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 card. Never had a problem with it. And it has a gameport, but it's PCI.

shaq wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

Why? PCI sound cards have been known to be equipped with a game port from time to time.

I will look more into those. Is it just the Live! series? Do they still have good DOS compatibility? It would be nice to play some DOS games on this system too.

You have quite a large selection of options. Creative/ESS PCI cards previous to the Audigy series, Aureal Vortex 2 cards and Yamaha YMF7x4 PCI cards all have good DOS compatibility (sometimes superb with the right motherboard) and feature game ports.

I'd suggest following the rules of the Ebay: Not for Me. Maybe for You? thread when posting any delicious finds.

1. IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO PROMOTE YOUR OWN AUCTIONS IN THIS THREAD!
2. NO TRADING OR SELLING IN THIS THREAD.

I would not buy anything from that seller. I don't care if he is selling the cure for cancer.

I edited the link out but I added a few options up a few posts that have 4X and some have ISA too. The price of that dual socket board does include 2 P3 1Ghz chips.

I found a gaming benchmark on the Apollo 133A motherboards. http://www.anandtech.com/show/491/26

There is no point in having dual CPUs in a Win9x machine.

shaq wrote:

It would be nice to play some DOS games on this system too.

On a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz? Not likely. On such a system you would be much better off running DOSBox.

PCI Sound Blaster cards are particularly known for having terrible MIDI.

Ensoniq AudioPCI and its Creative Labs descendants will work fine in Win9x, have a game port, support DOS, and have good MIDI (but emulated FM).

However, if you run DOS games on a Pentium 4 you will likely run into speed issues, or they won't start properly.