The Plan

My first attempt at a multi-OS Pentium 4 system using an Asus P4S533-E motherboard was not successful. I chronicled some of that build in this thread here: Quad boot with a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz (DOS / Win 95 / Win 98SE / Win XP)

Two main issues were:

1. Windows 98 installs were extremely fragile. Any minor hardware change resulted in the system freezing within 10 seconds after boot.
2. Using EAX reverb with the Audigy 2 ZS resulted in loud interference noise under Windows 2000 and XP. Attempts to troubleshoot this did not result in a fix: Audigy 2 ZS noise issue under Win2k / WinXP (seems related to EAX reverb?)

Rather than continuing to troubleshoot that build, I’ve decided to take a second attempt with a different motherboard, a DFI ITOX G7S620-N-G (Intel 865G chipset) and a 3.4GHz Pentium 4.

Planned System Specs

DFI ITOX G7S620-N-G motherboard (Intel 865G/ICH5)
Pentium 4 HT 650 3.4 GHz (Prescott 2M) Pentium 4 HT 651 3.4 GHz (Cedar Mill)
2 GB DDR400
MSI GeForce4 4200 Ti
Diamond Monster 3D II (Voodoo2)
Orpheus II + Yucatan FX wavetable daughtercard
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS (retail)
128GB Lexar SSD (SATA)
250GB Samsung EVO 870 SSD (SATA)
4GB Verbatim Compact Flash + Startech Compact Flash adapter (IDE)
DVD-RW Drive (IDE)
3.5” Floppy Drive (FDD)
Fractal Designs Define R5 case
Seasonic Focus GX-650 modular power supply

This motherboard has a few features I’m hoping to take advantage of including dual SATA ports, ISA slots (with DMA support), and USB 2.0. Curiously it is lacking in fan headers with only two on the board.

The biggest challenge I see will be managing hardware resources between all the motherboard devices and various video and sound cards. I’ve already disabled a number of motherboard devices including both LAN ports, all serial ports, parallel port, and on board graphics and audio. I may also disable the Primary IDE controller if I end up not using it.

Bootloader

I’m going to use BootIt Bare Metal as a boot loader and partition manager. In my prior setup it proved easy to use and fairly robust. It even supports more than 4 primary partitions per drive, something I will probably need.

Planned Operating Systems

DOS 6.22
Windows 3.11
Windows NT 4.0
Windows 95 OSR 2.5
Windows 98 SE
Windows Me
Windows 2000 SP4
Windows XP SP3

The main operating systems for practical use will be DOS 6.22, Windows 98, and Windows XP. I also plan for two Windows 98 installs, one for A3D and one for EAX.

Windows NT, Windows 95 and Windows 2000 are for experimenting. I’d like to try games under both Windows 98 and Windows 2000 to see how they perform.

Initial Testing

DOS

At last count I had tested over 50 games under DOS. This was using the Orpheus II sound card.

I was impressed with the general compatibility of both the Orpheus II card and running DOS games on a Pentium 4 at 3.4 GHz. Some games do require throttling to perform decently, but the only game I couldn’t make playable was Ultima VII: The Black Gate. Given how notoriously speed sensitive this game is, I was not surprised.

To make the Orpheus II work under DOS, I have reserved IRQ 5 in the BIOS along with DMA channels 1 and 7. Under DOS, I use A220, I5 and D1 for Sound Blaster Pro compatibility and A240, I3 and D7 for the Gravis UltraSound. P330 is used for MPU-401 support.

I also tested trackers like Scream Tracker 3 and Impulse Tracker, and those both worked with the Orpheus II’s Gravis UltraSound support.

MT-32 is well supported with the Orpheus II’s intelligent mode MPU-401. An exception are games that require IRQ support like Gateway. Since the motherboard uses IRQ 9 for ACPI, this conflicts with trying to use it for MPU-401 support. Disabling ACPI in the BIOS and reserving IRQ 9 allows it to work properly, however, I probably won’t bother with this. There aren’t many games that need IRQ support to begin with.

Windows 98

I’ve started doing Windows 98 testing with an install on a 4 GB Compact Flash card. The main goal was to get the Orpheus II and Audigy 2 ZS working at the same time. The intent is for the Orpheus II to support CD Audio, MPU-401 playback, and DOS compatibility, and use the Audigy 2 ZS for Windows digital audio.

So far this appears to work. I plan a similar test with the Orpheus II and Diamond MX300.

I also tested EAX effects with the Audigy 2 ZS and they appear to work without issues.

Windows XP

I conducted a brief test of Windows XP on a 4 GB Compact Flash card to see if the Audigy 2 ZS would work properly. No issues were noted; EAX playback worked fine and no extraneous noise was present.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-14, 21:31:

I’ve started doing Windows 98 testing with an install on a 4 GB Compact Flash card. The main goal was to get the Orpheus II and Audigy 2 ZS working at the same time. The intent is for the Orpheus II to support CD Audio, MPU-401 playback, and DOS compatibility, and use the Audigy 2 ZS for Windows digital audio.

If you use a regular Audigy 2 (SB0240) instead of the ZS, you can get digital CD audio under Win9x via its CD_SPDIF header, while leaving analog CD audio for the Orpheus II.

Regarding DOS games, maybe also add Duke Nukem 2 and/or Major Stryker to the testing suite for ADPCM compatibility.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-15, 01:47:

If you use a regular Audigy 2 (SB0240) instead of the ZS, you can get digital CD audio under Win9x via its CD_SPDIF header, while leaving analog CD audio for the Orpheus II.

I had considered doing a SPDIF connection, but it turns out I don't have a working DVD-ROM/RW drive with a SPDIF output. The drive I'm using for testing even has a couple pins that I thought would be for SPDIF output, but apparently they aren't connected to anything.

Regarding DOS games, maybe also add Duke Nukem 2 and/or Major Stryker to the testing suite for ADPCM compatibility.

While I haven't tried these, on the Orpheus II page they report that it is not compatible with the ADPCM compression used by Duke Nukem 2. Not sure about Major Stryker, but I imagine it would be the same.

you like a challenge!

with those specs.... windows vista,7, 8, 10 32 bit editions?
😀

gerry wrote on 2024-03-15, 14:04:

you like a challenge!

I don't like to do anything the easy way. 😉

with those specs.... windows vista,7, 8, 10 32 bit editions?
😀

If there are drivers available... maybe! 😁

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-14, 21:28:

Windows 98 installs were extremely fragile. Any minor hardware change resulted in the system freezing within 10 seconds after boot.

Strange... I use ITOX i845GL motherboard (without AGP but with CF-slot onboard) and it rock-solid on my experiments with Win98 and hardware change without reinstalling OS

Babasha wrote on 2024-03-15, 15:41:

Strange... I use ITOX i845GL motherboard (without AGP but with CF-slot onboard) and it rock-solid on my experiments with Win98 and hardware change without reinstalling OS

My previous attempt was a different motherboard, an Asus P4S533-E (SiS 645DX/962L chipset). For whatever reason, it did not like any h/w change. Even inserting a USB stick or plugging in a PS/2 mouse caused it to lock up.

In contrast this DFI / i865G motherboard has been rock solid so far.

Added the Diamond Monster Sound MX300 to the test setup.

After installing, I did get a warning message about it being connected to the secondary PCI bus. I guess the 4th PCI slot on this board is on the secondary bus, whereas the others are on the primary bus.

Digital audio does work, even if everything else is not installed. As long as A3D works I don't need this card for anything else.

The system also seems stable with all three sound cards installed. I haven't tried the official Orpheus II drivers yet nor installed the GUS PnP drivers. I may try that next just to see what happens.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-15, 17:03:

Digital audio does work, even if everything else is not installed. As long as A3D works I don't need this card for anything else.

If you're using Diamond's official drivers, you might want to switch to Aureal's generic 2041 drivers instead.

Apparently, Quake 3 doesn't like Diamond's drivers.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-15, 17:18:

If you're using Diamond's official drivers, you might want to switch to Aureal's generic 2041 drivers instead.

Apparently, Quake 3 doesn't like Diamond's drivers.

That's good info, thanks for pointing that out. I'll probably test different drivers and see how they all work. I also have the 2048 drivers (I think?), so not sure which would be better for broad compatibility.

I do remember getting A3D to work with some games back in the day was a challenge. I think Half-Life was also a bit finnicky.

Did a test fit of components in the case and ran into an issue. I didn't realize the AGP slot was shifted one slot down compared to most other boards.

Since the fanless heatsink I'm using on the GeForce4 blocks the adjacent slots, this means the first three slots are completely used up by the GPU. This leaves 4 remaining slots for the other cards. Unfortunately there is no space for the CF-IDE adapter slot bracket.

Since the case only has two 5.25" bays currently used by the 3.5" disk drive and DVD drive, there is no room to mount it there either.

At this point I have a few options:

1) Leave the CF adapter out altogether and just use the SSD drives.
2) Mount the CF adapter internally in one of the internal drive bays.
3) Replace the GPU heatsink with conventional fan-based cooling to free up the first slot.
4) Replace the 3.5" disk drive with the CF-IDE adapter.
5) Use a different case with either more slots and/or external drive bays.

At this point I'm contemplating just leaving it out. It is going to be less convenient for copying over DOS content, but I can make do with Windows & USB drives for copying files.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-15, 16:26:

Babasha wrote on 2024-03-15, 15:41:

Strange... I use ITOX i845GL motherboard (without AGP but with CF-slot onboard) and it rock-solid on my experiments with Win98 and hardware change without reinstalling OS

My previous attempt was a different motherboard, an Asus P4S533-E (SiS 645DX/962L chipset). For whatever reason, it did not like any h/w change. Even inserting a USB stick or plugging in a PS/2 mouse caused it to lock up.

In contrast this DFI / i865G motherboard has been rock solid so far.

Actually a P4S533 (not -E, though) was the last motherboard I bought with a non-Intel chipset ...

Very unstable indeed ...

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-15, 22:13:

That's good info, thanks for pointing that out. I'll probably test different drivers and see how they all work. I also have the 2048 drivers (I think?), so not sure which would be better for broad compatibility.

From what I understand, 2048 drivers are very buggy and should be avoided. They add limited (but broken) EAX support while causing a number of other issues.

Broadly speaking, 2041 should be the best version for later A3D 2.0 games, while some early A3D 1.0 titles may need older drivers. I usually default to 2041, which seems to be the general recommendation on this forum.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-15, 22:21:

At this point I'm contemplating just leaving it out. It is going to be less convenient for copying over DOS content, but I can make do with Windows & USB drives for copying files.

For a while I had SD-IDE adapter mounted inside the case of my P3 system since I had no free 5.25" or 3.5" bays and couldn't find an european seller for PCI bracket SD card adapter. You'd think it's not that big of a deal to open the side of the case, get the SD card out, transfer files to it and put it back in but it got really annoying really fast.

I even tried DVD+RW's for file transfers but that was a pain in the ass too, not least because Win98SE has a bizarre habit of setting every file copied from disc as read only. So I caved in and imported a PCI bracket adapter, way more convenient.

I also tend to copy files in Windows, I don't see it as a bother myself so I'd suggest just mounting the CF adapter somehere inside the case and letting some Windows install see it for file transfers. But if you want to mount the CF card to PCI I think I'd probably go with swapping the GPU cooler, Ti 4200 is a low TPD card so you could get a way with smaller heatsink + silent fan. Unless you happen to have bigger case sitting around already.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-03-16, 08:30:

But if you want to mount the CF card to PCI I think I'd probably go with swapping the GPU cooler, Ti 4200 is a low TPD card so you could get a way with smaller heatsink + silent fan. Unless you happen to have bigger case sitting around already.

I do have a Lian Li case which features 8 rear slots, as well as a boatload of front bays. It does have worse cooling options though.

I also considered removing the rear heatsink and heatpipe, and mounting a fan above the slots. The case I'm using does have side panel fan mount for 120mm or 140mm fan. So that's another option.

Or as you suggest, just swapping the GPU cooler entirely.

For now, I'm going to see how I get on without the CF adapter. It may end up I don't even miss having it.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-16, 00:00:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-15, 22:13:

That's good info, thanks for pointing that out. I'll probably test different drivers and see how they all work. I also have the 2048 drivers (I think?), so not sure which would be better for broad compatibility.

From what I understand, 2048 drivers are very buggy and should be avoided. They add limited (but broken) EAX support while causing a number of other issues.

Broadly speaking, 2041 should be the best version for later A3D 2.0 games, while some early A3D 1.0 titles may need older drivers. I usually default to 2041, which seems to be the general recommendation on this forum.

That's good to know, I'll try the 2041 drivers and see how it goes.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-03-15, 22:41:

Actually a P4S533 (not -E, though) was the last motherboard I bought with a non-Intel chipset ...

Very unstable indeed ...

It's too bad they are unstable under Win9x. I really liked the PCI/DMA compatibility for DOS gaming with the ESS Solo-1 card. It would have been an ideal board for a hybrid-OS build otherwise...

Hardware Details

Video Cards

The two video cards I'm using are an MSI GeForce 4 4200 Ti and a Diamond Monster 3D II (Voodoo2). I'm going for broad compatibility with DOS and Win9X gaming. The 4200 Ti is highly compatible with DOS titles in my testing.

I've replaced the stock heatsink + fan with a Zalman ZM80A-HP heatsink. It does put off some noticeable heat even when idle. I'm hoping between the dual 140mm intake fans and 140mm exhaust fan, there will be enough ambient airflow to keep things stable.

The Voodoo2 card is for legacy Glide support and can be made compatible with most of the games designed for the original Voodoo.

Sound Cards

For audio, I'm going with a triple sound card setup.

The Audigy 2 ZS will be used for Windows XP, 2000, and 98 SE. Its main purpose is EAX compatibility with support for up to EAX 4.0.

The Diamond Monster Sound MX300 will be used under Windows 95/98 for A3D 1.0 and 2.0 compatibility.

The Orpheus II is primarily for native DOS support for both Sound Blaster Pro and Gravis UltraSound. I also intend to use it under Windows 95/98 for CD Audio and MPU-401 support. For General MIDI, I'm using a Yucatan FX MIDI daughtercard. For other MIDI support, I have external MT-32, CM-64 and Yamaha MU2000 modules.