AlessandroB wrote on 2021-06-11, 12:30:

what do you think about this?

https://www.ebay.it/itm/373516347339?hash=ite … 1YAAOSwQkNgX3bH

i already have a very nice microatx case that i use with my asrock and i want to use also for this Asus. This model have DDMA feature right? tnks

Seems like it's the smaller micro atx brother of A7V8X-X. Haven't tested it myself, but it should be fine (as long as everything fits). It doesn't have DDMA (very few chipsets do, and some of them have a broken DDMA implementation anyway), but it is very DOS sound friendly 😀. You will need to use the DSDMA TSR (that I mentioned in my previous posts) in order to emulate DDMA.
Please note that you will need two sound cards: 1 x Sound Blaster Live 5.1 or Audigy/Audigy 2 (ZS) for Windows and the Yamaha YMF724 for DOS. Although the Yamaha card is usually fine for Windows, it does have some issues on the KT400/KT600/KT880 chipsets (i.e.: Quake 2 sometimes freezing on exit and other weird things).
So the best option is to stick to good ol' Creative cards in Windows (where you can also load great soundfonts like the SC-55 soundfont), and keep the Yamaha strictly for DOS mode.

Also, you would need to change that CPU with an Athlon XP (preferably a Thoroughbred with unlocked multiplier, but a late Barton FSB333 would also work OK).

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-06-11, 12:32:

For all of that I'd grab it as it's a great deal.

Indeed 😀

Today unfortunately I tested the famous asrock socketA and found that it is broken. I think I'll fall back to an ss7 card with k6-2 400mhz. I don't think I have any power issues as I am not interested in games after the year 2000/2001. In addition this card has ISA, PCI, AGP slots giving me more possibilities in installing the cards.

AlessandroB wrote on 2021-06-12, 21:29:

Today unfortunately I tested the famous asrock socketA and found that it is broken. I think I'll fall back to an ss7 card with k6-2 400mhz. I don't think I have any power issues as I am not interested in games after the year 2000/2001. In addition this card has ISA, PCI, AGP slots giving me more possibilities in installing the cards.

Although SS7 is great, even a K6-3+ (overclocked to 616 MHz, on one of the fastest boards) is too slow for many 1999/2000 games.
So a regular K6-2 400 will probably not get you very far.
Anyway, it depends on the actual game.

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-13, 07:02:

Although SS7 is great, even a K6-3+ (overclocked to 616 MHz, on one of the fastest boards) is too slow for many 1999/2000 games. […]
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AlessandroB wrote on 2021-06-12, 21:29:

Today unfortunately I tested the famous asrock socketA and found that it is broken. I think I'll fall back to an ss7 card with k6-2 400mhz. I don't think I have any power issues as I am not interested in games after the year 2000/2001. In addition this card has ISA, PCI, AGP slots giving me more possibilities in installing the cards.

Although SS7 is great, even a K6-3+ (overclocked to 616 MHz, on one of the fastest boards) is too slow for many 1999/2000 games.
So a regular K6-2 400 will probably not get you very far.
Anyway, it depends on the actual game.

The games I prefer are not the games like Quake but those like Age of Empire, I don't know if in that case the K6 400 is enough

As far as AoE is concerned, I remember playing AoE2 just fine back in the day, on a K6-2 500.

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-13, 08:49:

As far as AoE is concerned, I remember playing AoE2 just fine back in the day, on a K6-2 500.

With all due respect this is not true!
I have done numerous tests in AoE2 and not even a Tualatin 1400s can play this game at this settings: highest difficulty; 7 enemy AI in 4 different teams; huge map; population cap 200.

nd22 wrote on 2021-06-13, 12:14:

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-13, 08:49:

As far as AoE is concerned, I remember playing AoE2 just fine back in the day, on a K6-2 500.

With all due respect this is not true!
I have done numerous tests in AoE2 and not even a Tualatin 1400s can play this game at this settings: highest difficulty; 7 enemy AI in 4 different teams; huge map; population cap 200.

You always knew shit was about to go down when the game suddenly lagged. 😄

i don’t need to play at 1600x1200!

Doornkaat wrote on 2021-06-13, 13:00:

You always knew shit was about to go down when the game suddenly lagged. 😄

Exactly 😀) ! Played recently and during attacks if the CPU was not up to it it lagged horribly! Resolution has nothing to do with it - it simply needs raw horsepower to calculate all units movements and attacks.

nd22 wrote on 2021-06-13, 12:14:

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-13, 08:49:

As far as AoE is concerned, I remember playing AoE2 just fine back in the day, on a K6-2 500.

With all due respect this is not true!
I have done numerous tests in AoE2 and not even a Tualatin 1400s can play this game at this settings: highest difficulty; 7 enemy AI in 4 different teams; huge map; population cap 200.

This is not my experience at all. But, then again, I was far from an avid AoE2 player 😀. I only played the normal campaign missions (and never finished them, IIRC).
The situation you are describing is pretty extreme, and I think it would’ve tanked performance on most RTS games of the time. I remember that Starcraft Brood War also generally ran very well on my K6-2 500, but it would definitely struggle in a situation as the one you described 😀.

This is a situation that I encountered in the vast majority of games, not only in AoE2 or RTS in general! Today if I want to play a game from let's say 2006, I would like to play it at maximum settings so I can enjoy every single graphical/audio/physics enhancement that I was unable back than.
Practical example: Company of heroes 1 from 2006.
On the original system that I had back in 2006 I was only able to play at 1280*1024 medium settings and the performance was not that great! I still have all the original parts: Core 2 duo E6400, 2*1gb ddr-800, geforce 7600gt, Abit AW9D-MAX.
I made an ultimate 2006 dream PC with Windows Vista with the best parts available in 2006: Abit AW9D-MAX, 4*2gb DDR-800, geforce 8800gtx, Q6600 - I know this is not from 2006 but this one has a 95W TDP - WD raptor 150gb. You would think that such a system would smoke 2006 games! Far from it! in Company of heroes at 1600*1200 resolution with maximum settings I got between 10-15 fps on the Vire river valley map. The game destroys the 8800gtx - lack of VRAM and in general insufficient raw power to render the game at max details is the limiting factor! Switching to a GTX 285 from 2009 solves most of the performance issues.
As a matter of fact not even in Oblivion the 8800gtx can not provide smooth game play - it is mostly suited for older games that do not require a lot of graphical horsepower!
Please note the V-sync was disabled at all times!

With Socket A you have to make a compromise with resolution in later games as geforce 7xxx won't be able to handle them. If you're not happy with the performance then you're better off with playing the demanding games on a modern system as you noticed.

Socket A boards and CPUs are very cheap now and plentiful, chipset, AGP and PATA are compatible even with Windows 98. I would recommend getting a Socket A system while they are still cheap.

I use 3 socket A retro machines - they can be pretty flexible:

1st
- Athlon 1333 thunderbird -> but pan on experimenting with an AMD Geode NX1750 witch has an unlocked multiplier.
- FIC AD11 (AMD 760 + DDR)
- Voodoo 4 4500
- Creative CT4850
- DOS/Windows 98
Great for running late dos games in VESA modes (duke3D, Powerslave, Hexen, etc) and win9x 3d games as well as unofficial glide ports of descent and carmageddon under windows. Also great for Total Annihilation multiplayer games where things can get heavy.

2nd
- Athlon XP 2600+ AXDA2600DKV3D, Thoroughbred core
- Asrock KT400 board
- Leadtek Geforce 4 MX460
- Yamaha DS-XG YMF744
- Windows98
This is a guest machine. I use it when friends or relatives come over for lan parties. Mainly used for Quake II, Unreal Tournament, Carmageddon II, Descent 3, Diablo 2, Homeworld and so on. Very stable, but I used all new old stock parts. The motherboard is new old stock, came sealed. Video card as well, came from russia. Despite coming over sealed in box, I had to recap it since all 5 1500uf caps on it leaked. Replaced one with a 1500uf as per spec, and the other four with two low-esr 10v 3300uf caps since the card had them linked in parallel.

3rd
- Athlon XP 3200+
- Abit AN7
- MSI FX5950 Ultra
- Sound Blaster LIVE!
- Win98 and XP
This one is quite unstable in 98. Mainly due to it having 1 gig of ram. I use it mostly for XP, but it caps out at 2005 games so it's not very useful. It would be much improved with a faster video card, witch is why I'm considering replacing the 5950 with a x850 AGP.

Socket3 wrote on 2021-06-19, 12:30:

This one is quite unstable in 98. Mainly due to it having 1 gig of ram.

Use patchmem and you'll be able to use even more RAM without any issues.
I recently did some benchmarks on a similar socket A system with a KT880 & 2 GB RAM in dual channel: perfect stability, had no issues (with patchmem).

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-19, 12:36:

Socket3 wrote on 2021-06-19, 12:30:

This one is quite unstable in 98. Mainly due to it having 1 gig of ram.

Use patchmem and you'll be able to use even more RAM without any issues.
I recently did some benchmarks on a similar socket A system on a KT880 with 2 GB RAM in dual channel: perfect stability, had no issues (with patchmem).

Thanks a million for the link, I've been looking for something like this for years...

Don't thank me, thank Rudolph R. Loew for creating this amazing patch (may he rest in peace!), and his family for making it publicly available free of charge.

I was a player with a DX2 66 then with the RTS of the first generation (Pentium1 / mmx / 2) up to Red Alert or a little further, I have perhaps played lite with a mendocino 300A at 450. I thought that the ss7 with the K6 at 500Mhz could enough for my personal needs… no?

AlessandroB wrote on 2021-06-19, 17:30:

I was a player with a DX2 66 then with the RTS of the first generation (Pentium1 / mmx / 2) up to Red Alert or a little further, I have perhaps played lite with a mendocino 300A at 450. I thought that the ss7 with the K6 at 500Mhz could enough for my personal needs… no?

Possibly if you can buy such a rig cheap. Socket A is not yet valuable enough to be expensive as it is quite plentiful (as are other alternatives, but not K6s or PIII). People are giving away these computers almost for free. You can get the case with everything in it. Buy them cheap while you can.

I already have a socket775 machine for hyper high performance 98/xp/... games. if a faster socket5 can't have a isa slot i think i not need it, i use a Pentium1 for isa sound card games.