I wouldn't go beyond DirectX 6(.1) with these specs.

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-12, 17:59:

Well, as expected, i am now at this point. […]
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dionb wrote on 2025-12-11, 16:26:

Another thing to check is the BIOS version. You say the CPU speed isn't reported correctly. That could indicate the BIOS is older than your CPU. The Pentium 200 was released in June 1996. On TheRetroWeb two BIOS versions are listed, with the older being from the summer of 1996 and the newer from early 1997. It might be worth upgrading to the latter if you're not already running BFLUK4L.

Well, as expected, i am now at this point.

I've find a link with a bios dated from 1/22/99, but seems that my aptiva is not in this list:
https://aptivasupport.com/uas/bios/odyflash.h … rce=chatgpt.com

I should go exclusively with "BFLUK4L – circa 1997", right?.

You claim your Aptiva is a 2144-351. That link does not show a 351. It is probably not relevant to your system.

In a previous post I linked to an ECS motherboard which I suspected was in your system. I asked you to confirm if that was in your system. You didn't. Maybe that would be a good idea after all...

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-11, 17:48:

[...]

I see the problem... SIS5598 is the SoC, not the integrated VGA itself... sorry for the inconvenieces.

No, the 5598 SoC is not on your board. Or you do not have the board that you posted the jumpers for. You are confusing us and yourself repeating this all the time.

Could you *please* confirm what you have there, and if you think you have a 5598, please take a photograph of it and the rest of the board on it so we can finally unambiguously identify what hardware you have.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-12-12, 19:21:

Once you get the CHKCPU output we can probably help more, to determine what your CPU is being detected as, bus speed, multiplier etc.
Reinstalling Windows and buggy /broken unofficial service packs, plus a later version of DX9 that your hardware supports will not help you at all.

I reinstalled windows 98 SE, and thats all. I've downloaded "Security Update CD February 2004", just in case i would need it, but really i have w98 only with official updates.

dionb wrote on 2025-12-12, 20:56:

You claim your Aptiva is a 2144-351. That link does not show a 351. It is probably not relevant to your system.

In a previous post I linked to an ECS motherboard which I suspected was in your system. I asked you to confirm if that was in your system. You didn't. Maybe that would be a good idea after all...

This is clearly my motherboard, yes, every jumper and chip is located where it's supposed to be. This time i do not mistake xD

dionb wrote on 2025-12-12, 22:44:

No, the 5598 SoC is not on your board. Or you do not have the board that you posted the jumpers for. You are confusing us and yourself repeating this all the time.

Could you *please* confirm what you have there, and if you think you have a 5598, please take a photograph of it and the rest of the board on it so we can finally unambiguously identify what hardware you have.

I don't know where to hide now... yes, yo're right, this is a 5511/12/13 + sis 6205...

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-13, 01:10:

[...]

This is clearly my motherboard, yes, every jumper and chip is located where it's supposed to be. This time i do not mistake xD

Ok, in that case look at the BIOS images on theretroweb link I have. That latest should do the trick

dionb wrote on 2025-12-13, 17:57:

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-13, 01:10:

[...]

This is clearly my motherboard, yes, every jumper and chip is located where it's supposed to be. This time i do not mistake xD

Ok, in that case look at the BIOS images on theretroweb link I have. That latest should do the trick

I'm on it, thank you! 😀

P.D: Sometimes all is right, sometimes all is wrong...

Need for speed III is running between 3 and 5 frames per second (no software renderer). There is something i'm not seeing...

Hi,
Your retro-computer looks like it's from 1996, very nice gaming computer from this age.
It will run as a charm with Quake, but I think UT need an Voodoo Banshee and Pentium II.
A lot of games are very fun with yours setup, Diablo or Wipeout.

Haustor wrote on 2025-12-13, 19:48:

Hi, Your retro-computer looks like it's from 1996, very nice gaming computer from this age. It will run as a charm with Quake, b […]
Show full quote

Hi,
Your retro-computer looks like it's from 1996, very nice gaming computer from this age.
It will run as a charm with Quake, but I think UT need an Voodoo Banshee and Pentium II.
A lot of games are very fun with yours setup, Diablo or Wipeout.

Yes, all of this is for testing purposes only, but need for speed 3 performed very well on my old pentium 133 + voodoo 1, so... i installed the iceman drivers 3.01.01 (based on the official 3.00.01), and directx 7 (not 7a).

Possibly my aptiva doesn't benefit so much of any upgrade cause its motherboard, i don't know...

edit: Quake 320x240 24fps, and 360x480 10fps...

Is it normal?

IBM stuff is realy great, but their are maybe not made for gaming, I have an IBM PC300GL (Pentium 200 MMX) and it's won't accept any of my pci graphics cards. So I'm limited and use it with the integrated Cirus GPU... Very sad.

Haustor wrote on 2025-12-13, 20:08:

IBM stuff is realy great, but their are maybe not made for gaming, I have an IBM PC300GL (Pentium 200 MMX) and it's won't accept any of my pci graphics cards. So I'm limited and use it with the integrated Cirus GPU... Very sad.

I know about this so close... i had to discard the option of a IDE controller for bigger hard drives due to the lack of pci ports, and the rigid of proprietary riser.

dionb wrote on 2025-12-13, 17:57:

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-13, 01:10:

[...]

This is clearly my motherboard, yes, every jumper and chip is located where it's supposed to be. This time i do not mistake xD

Ok, in that case look at the BIOS images on theretroweb link I have. That latest should do the trick

If i'm seeing well, my aptiva is SL-A, and that two bios are for SL-H and SL-I, so it would brick my pc, Am i right?.

Since you have a video card installed, try removing JP37 to disable onboard video. The SiS 6205 is configured in UMA mode, so it's using system RAM shared through the chipset, even with the PCI video card. I wouldn't expect it to make enough of a difference to make those games playable, but I would expect a significant improvement.

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-13, 19:58:

edit: Quake 320x240 24fps, and 360x480 10fps...

Is it normal?

I see you're already on the "The Ultimate 686 Benchmark Comparison" thread where Quake 1 benchmark results can be found, I suggest you keep discussions on troubleshooting performance issues with your system to this thread. You should benchmark at the same 640x480 resolution as in that thread to have a chance of comparing it.

Anyway, I happen to have run Quake 320x240 benchmarks on some systems and the closest I have are:

• Dell Latitude XPi CD M166ST (Pentium MMX 166, Neomagic MagicGraph 128ZV, PicoPower Vesuvius-LS chipset): 32.1fps
• AMD K6 233, ATI Rage XL AGP, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset (SDRAM): 39.3fps

so your system is still underperforming. In fact you can tell by the P55C @ 133MHz in the table scoring 13.6fps @ 640x480 while you're getting only 10fps @ 360x480, 26.5% lower fps despite having 25% fewer pixels to render.

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-13, 19:58:

Yes, all of this is for testing purposes only, but need for speed 3 performed very well on my old pentium 133 + voodoo 1, so... […]
Show full quote

Haustor wrote on 2025-12-13, 19:48:

Hi, Your retro-computer looks like it's from 1996, very nice gaming computer from this age. It will run as a charm with Quake, b […]
Show full quote

Hi,
Your retro-computer looks like it's from 1996, very nice gaming computer from this age.
It will run as a charm with Quake, but I think UT need an Voodoo Banshee and Pentium II.
A lot of games are very fun with yours setup, Diablo or Wipeout.

Yes, all of this is for testing purposes only, but need for speed 3 performed very well on my old pentium 133 + voodoo 1, so... i installed the iceman drivers 3.01.01 (based on the official 3.00.01), and directx 7 (not 7a).

Possibly my aptiva doesn't benefit so much of any upgrade cause its motherboard, i don't know...

edit: Quake 320x240 24fps, and 360x480 10fps...

Is it normal?

Pentium 200 (no mmx), Full Yes INTEL 82430FX board, S3 Trio 64V2, Quake timedemo demo 1, 32.6fps on 320x240,13.8fps at 360x480 , totally fullscreen (no life bar)

lti wrote on 2025-12-14, 01:33:

Since you have a video card installed, try removing JP37 to disable onboard video. The SiS 6205 is configured in UMA mode, so it's using system RAM shared through the chipset, even with the PCI video card. I wouldn't expect it to make enough of a difference to make those games playable, but I would expect a significant improvement.

Yes, this is the next logical step. The IGP is stealing memory bandwidth. The difference should be significant.

lti wrote on 2025-12-14, 01:33:

Since you have a video card installed, try removing JP37 to disable onboard video. The SiS 6205 is configured in UMA mode, so it's using system RAM shared through the chipset, even with the PCI video card. I wouldn't expect it to make enough of a difference to make those games playable, but I would expect a significant improvement.

The AI tells me that jp37 isn't related to deactivating the sis 6205.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-12-14, 04:36:

Yes, this is the next logical step. The IGP is stealing memory bandwidth. The difference should be significant.

Jp37 and j13 seems to be related to vesa local bus, nothing to see with the sis 6205...

jtchip wrote on 2025-12-14, 02:00:

so your system is still underperforming. In fact you can tell by the P55C @ 133MHz in the table scoring 13.6fps @ 640x480 while you're getting only 10fps @ 360x480, 26.5% lower fps despite having 25% fewer pixels to render.

Yes, i'm realizing that it goes beyond a simple issue... or maybe there is not a problem, but the system itself...

Sorry, but it seems like a lot of energy is being expended trying to avoid taking advice from humans who do this stuff all the time.

Here is your board:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ecs-si … 8p-vio-rev-1-0b

Here is the jumper configuration provided on that page. There is always a chance that some of these could be inaccurate, but it is likely close to 100% right:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/33945.pdf

On board video enabled JP37 Closed
On board video disabled JP37 Open

Take the jumper off of JP37, take out your video card, then check to see if onboard VGA is disabled (it will likely beep a couple times and not POST). If it is, put your video card back in and run your tests again.

While you're at it, double check the CPU jumper configuration according to that chart to be sure it is set to 66Mhz. Also, I could be wrong but I think the last section labeled "CPU Multiplier Selection" is actually the PCI divider, so make sure that is set properly to 1/2 for the 66Mhz bus speed.

Finally, stop using AI bots to fact check human sources. AI is wrong 60% of the time even though it will offer advice 100% of the time. 😅

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-12-14, 05:23:

Finally, stop using AI bots to fact check human sources. AI is wrong 60% of the time even though it will offer advice 100% of the time. 😅

AI makes things up whilst giving the impression that it's 100% sure about what it just told you. I have been having fun with ChatGPT asking it various questions on hardware I have, or asking it for recomendations on hardware compatability or games to play on certain builds.

It definitely gives a mix of good advice mixed with a healthy dose of nonsense.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-12-14, 05:42:

AI makes things up whilst giving the impression that it's 100% sure about what it just told you. I have been having fun with ChatGPT asking it various questions on hardware I have, or asking it for recomendations on hardware compatability or games to play on certain builds.

On the subject of retro PC questions, for me I get about 20-30% hallucinated answers, another 20% is wrong or contradictory. It's too niche a subject to have a good database of information to learn from.

NeoG_ wrote on 2025-12-14, 05:46:

On the subject of retro PC questions, for me I get about 20-30% hallucinated answers, another 20% is wrong or contradictory. It's too niche a subject to have a good database of information to learn from.

Yes, exactly. I have no problem with that being the case. I just wish it would admit that rather than fabricate "knowledge".

Yesterday I was asking it for recommendations for a PSU on a SocketA Radeon 9800 XT build and it suggested a PSU with a weak 5v rail. I questioned it and it insisted that my motherboard used mostly 12v and so did the Radeon. Today, asking exactly the same question, its telling me that the power supply it previously recommended is not suitable and also has changed it's mind and says my motherboard and GPU mostly draw from 5v rail.

Señor Ventura wrote on 2025-12-14, 01:19:

[...]

If i'm seeing well, my aptiva is SL-A, and that two bios are for SL-H and SL-I, so it would brick my pc, Am i right?.

The BIOS doesn't care about anything other than the motherboard it's flashed on. If this is - as you have confirmed - your motherboard, the BIOS images listed with it are the right ones.

That said, take normal precautions: backup your current BIOS first so you can re-flash the EEPROM with it in case of issues with the new BIOS.