First post, by viper32cm
I need some advice about my realistic expectations with one of my systems.
Last year I purchased a Zenith Z-Station GT with a Pentium 100, 32MB of RAM, and a OptiViper Socket 7 motherboard with an integrated ATI Mach 64 with 1MB of VRAM. My initial intent for the system was to act as a DOS machine using SetMul to run a wide range of games. However, a few months ago I decided that it would be nice to add Windows 9x to the system to allow me to play some Windows 95 era games such as Earthsiege 2, Command: Aces of the Deep, and others. With MS-DOS mode and SetMul, the system should give the flexibility to play games from the early-90s through 1997 or so.
However, I decided that my Windows 9x performance could benefit from a little extra power, so I dropped a Pentium 200 (non-MMX) in and started looking at video card options. I ultimately decided to purchase a Voodoo2 12MB to run alongside the integrated ATI Mach 64. Performance, however, feels a little lackluster compared to what I remember of similar systems back then.
I haven't run through my library of early Windows 9x 3D-accelerated games yet, but at the moment I've noticed the following:
1. I can play NFS3 fairly well, but the frame rate seems a little on the low side at 640x480
2. Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator runs in the mid-teens
3. The original Rainbow Six seems playable without any persistent frame rate issues
4. I can basically play Unreal at the lowest resolution and with the window shrunk a bit. (I know Unreal is asking a bit much from this system)
Is there anything else I can do to this system to find some extra performance? The next logical step would seem to be upgrading the 2D card to something like an S3 Virge, but I have the option of adding 1MB of VRAM to the integrated card. Did I mess up getting a Voodoo2 instead of an original Voodoo which would have been more appropriate for my setup?