Apparently it's sound is very similar to the DB50XG wavetable. I say apparently because I don't have a DB50XG 🤣

But yeah, I really like the XG synth. A shame it only works under windows and not DOS (however nothing is preventing you from playing those DOS games under windows)

And the DB50XG produces sounds similar to the MU80 (in lower quality obviously)

I've not found any DOS game that doesn't work with that card yet. Apparently few of them won't like it but for now my YMF744 does a really good job !

Putas wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Replace the FX5200 with a Radeon 8500/9000 for first class DirectX 8 performance is my first recommendation.

What makes you think the FX5200 is of lesser DirectX 8 class?

Being alive back then and knowing what is what.

Fx5200 was the shittiest among a whole line of shitty cards.

moawkwrd wrote:

Found a Radeon 9100 64MB for sale for £14 with delivery. Looks like it's 128bit with 8 memory chips (Etrontech?). Might lowball […]
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Found a Radeon 9100 64MB for sale for £14 with delivery. Looks like it's 128bit with 8 memory chips (Etrontech?). Might lowball him and see if I can get it for less than £10.

Now as for the third machine, I'm not really sure what I should do with it.

DSC00225.jpg

DSC00226.jpg

It's got a Gigabyte GA-6WMMC7 motherboard with the 810AGPset chipset, 512MB of PC133 SDRAM, Intel Pentium 3 1GHz Coppermine, Excelstor 10GB IDE HDD. The floppy drive and CD-RW/DVD don't read anything so they need replacing. I'd probably want to replace the HDD too as I'm not sure I trust the Excelstor that much.

Sell it for parts or fix it up and keep it? Stick the Voodoo 3 PCI back in it? I kinda like the case. I just think the Voodoo 3 is better suited to a slower processor like the 500MHz Pentium 3 in the Gateway machine. Would it be greedy to have one machine for Dx6/Glide, one for Dx 7 and one for Dx8? 😎

I have a similar dell pc with the i810e. Your best choice is a V3 PCI and it scales really well with 1ghz cpus at 1024x768. Those things cost ridculous prices where I live so o grabbed a radeon 7000 and a Matrox G440 instead. You will be happy with a Voodoo 3 and an Aureal 2 or SB Live.

I decided today that I'm going to buy a new motherboard and CPU for the third desktop machine, something different - AMD Duron or early Athlon XP to go with the Radeon 9100. Should make a nice pairing.

I think that'll be a better pairing of CPU/GPUs, so I'll have Pentium III 500+Voodoo 3, Pentium III 1000+GeForce 4 MX460, AMD Athlon XP+Radeon 9100. Windows 98SE, Windows Me, Windows XP SP1.

I am not a fan of the FX-5xxx line too. I find them a kind of last in line for Win9x gaming.
Other than the obvious performance drawback in some cases, they really are picky regarding the correct drivers.
And sometimes you need patches, and patches, and patches for some games.
Finally, you need to finetune AF and AA for a perfect gaming experience.

Nope...
TNT2 to GF4 are the way to go, when dealing with Win9x gaming and nVidia products.
For some odd reason, I never have the same issues on Voodoo-2/3 and Matrox G400's, that can arise with nVidia.
Here I am talking about what drivers to choose, what exact patches to install and fiddeling with settings.
Even Radeon-9600/9800 cards seem like a better choice than FX-5xxx's.

Deksor wrote:

Apparently it's sound is very similar to the DB50XG wavetable.

Thanks... 😀 That was indeed the module that I have been told it sounds like.
It's just my memory that was a bit vague...

Deksor wrote:

A shame it only works under windows and not DOS (however nothing is preventing you from playing those DOS games under windows)

True that... This is exactly what I was talking about. Mmmm... For a Win98 setup with the need for late era Dos games,
the YMF-724 is one of the absolute top dogs of them all. I know it is a personal preferance, yet I really do not like surround
sound on that pc era. It's pure stereo all the way for me.

brostenen wrote:

I am not a fan of the FX-5xxx line too. I find them a kind of last in line for Win9x gaming. Other than the obvious performance […]
Show full quote

I am not a fan of the FX-5xxx line too. I find them a kind of last in line for Win9x gaming.
Other than the obvious performance drawback in some cases, they really are picky regarding the correct drivers.
And sometimes you need patches, and patches, and patches for some games.
Finally, you need to finetune AF and AA for a perfect gaming experience.

Nope...
TNT2 to GF4 are the way to go, when dealing with Win9x gaming and nVidia products.
For some odd reason, I never have the same issues on Voodoo-2/3 and Matrox G400's, that can arise with nVidia.
Here I am talking about what drivers to choose, what exact patches to install and fiddeling with settings.
Even Radeon-9600/9800 cards seem like a better choice than FX-5xxx's.

Oh, Well I guess the FX5200 is such a piece of shit GPU it deserves to be recycled out of existence much like what people have said about Willamette Pentium 4s in the past, in fact I am actually considering recycling a Dell Dimension 4300S desktop for the main reason of "I don't like it" because of its shitty Small Desktop chassis restricting its AGP slot to dumb Low-Profile cards and the last time I've checked non-gimped LP AGP Radeons cost a fortune, this is one reason why I'd rather not settle for an nVidia card to the point where I might as well just stick to its original bottleneck ATI Rage 128 Ultra video card, not only that but its mobo uses PC-133 SDRAM which is said to not be good for a P4 and its i845 chipset only supports 400 MHz FSB CPUs and it's bad enough I've spent some time finding one for my Compaq I'd rather not have to risk getting a 2.4+ GHz Northwood-400 just to find out that its small ass heatsink isn't enough to satisfy, Oh, and the front USB hub is broken... does that sound like a system that deserves to be recycled?

Excuse me for this post, I was in a bad mood and I wanted to express my anger on how I felt about my former 9x build. 🤣

On Topic: I really don't know what to say in the topic since it seems that everything has been figured out for those builds, but if you have any more questions, I'll try to help you out, Good luck re-purposing the third system into an Athlon XP rig.

appiah4 wrote:

Being alive back then and knowing what is what. […]
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Putas wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Replace the FX5200 with a Radeon 8500/9000 for first class DirectX 8 performance is my first recommendation.

What makes you think the FX5200 is of lesser DirectX 8 class?

Being alive back then and knowing what is what.

Fx5200 was the shittiest among a whole line of shitty cards.

They were shitty back when they were new (especially the FX 5200), but the same could be said about Voodoo 4 and GF2MX/GF4MX back when those were new as well.

brostenen wrote:

I am not a fan of the FX-5xxx line too. I find them a kind of last in line for Win9x gaming. Other than the obvious performance […]
Show full quote

I am not a fan of the FX-5xxx line too. I find them a kind of last in line for Win9x gaming.
Other than the obvious performance drawback in some cases, they really are picky regarding the correct drivers.
And sometimes you need patches, and patches, and patches for some games.
Finally, you need to finetune AF and AA for a perfect gaming experience.

Nope...
TNT2 to GF4 are the way to go, when dealing with Win9x gaming and nVidia products.
For some odd reason, I never have the same issues on Voodoo-2/3 and Matrox G400's, that can arise with nVidia.
Here I am talking about what drivers to choose, what exact patches to install and fiddeling with settings.
Even Radeon-9600/9800 cards seem like a better choice than FX-5xxx's.

Granted, I've only used the FX 5900u and used it in an XP rig. Drivers seemed to be working fine, but I guess you're referring to 9x drivers instead of the ones for XP?
The FX 5900u was horribly slow compared to the GF 6800 Vanilla I replaced it with, difference of day and night and a real upgrade.
But still it's performance should be at least on par with the faster GF4 cards, right?

Btw, I don't think I actually ever used a GF4, only used the MX's and the GF3 🤣

appiah4 wrote:

Putas wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Replace the FX5200 with a Radeon 8500/9000 for first class DirectX 8 performance is my first recommendation.

What makes you think the FX5200 is of lesser DirectX 8 class?

Being alive back then and knowing what is what.

How unique.

appiah4 wrote:

https://i.neoseeker.com/a/fic_r92p/3dmarks2001se_noaa.png

Fx5200 was the shittiest among a whole line of shitty cards.

I take it you are talking about general performance in games of that era, rather than DirectX8 itself. Alright then, FX5200 ain't gonna win awards there.

moawkwrd wrote:

Those were roughly my thoughts too. Both machines actually have ISA slots.

Regarding sound cards - is the Audician 32 Plus a solid choice? From some reading it seems the onboard Creative chip in the Gateway, the ES1373 is essentially an onboard Ensoniq AudioPCI so I'm wondering whether that's worth replacing?

Had a Gateway P2400 with same onboard sound. haven't looked up your part number but pretty sure this is actually a Intel SE440BX-3 basically a OEM version of Intel's legendary SE440BX-2

The sound card is pretty good IMHO, step down from the Live! but better then most PCI cards of the time.
a lot can be found here.
Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

For Windows gaming its fine, for playing dos games in windows its fine, for playing dos games in true dos its ok, but much better off using an isa card.