X86 Discussion

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

Oh my ears and whiskers, great minds do think alike ! Let us know how it turns out. I think I am going to jump on the bandwagon and build a PIII based machine for Win98 SE / WinXP retrogaming. Too bad the Coppermines have locked multiplier.

If your Short of any Parts do let me know as I like to help a Fellow in Need

[nathanm1991]

I Currently have the PII and PIII Sat on my bed now and the PII is having a Case Swap along with my Vortex Being Removed from the System for the PIII and I now have another Awe64 Value on the Way to me :-) A Couple of people on Freegle have Reached out to me and i now have Ten or eleven computers along with Monitors etc coming my way and the Chap was Quite Excited to tell me the Specs of one of the Retro Machines which Features the Awe64 Value Card i have already and a Geforce Ti 4200 GPU! My Heartbeat just about Stopped when he said he was giving me that GPU! Beast!

[SquawkBox]

Originally Posted by nathanm1991

If your Short of any Parts do let me know as I like to help a Fellow in Need

That's nice of you, thanks. I still haven't made up my mind. Not too impressed with the range of GPU's one can run on a PIII including what you call "a beast", and not too sure I'd want to deal with the limitations of the older platforms (USB 1.1, my FAT PS2 can do that already , capacity and noise of these very old HDD's, potentially damaged capacitors etc.). Btw I should have room for a PC in desktop case but not for another tower. The specs of this P133 from Olivetti belonging to an Italian seller raised my curiosity as of late. Any thoughts guys ? It has a mere 1 MB of video memory through integrated ATI graphics, but it seems a nice branded period build nonetheless.
For my side of things, I could part with a Radeon 8500 from ATI (AGP, 64 MB of memory), and with a 8600 GT from Gigabyte (PCI-E, 256 MB of memory). The Geforce bears a stately Zalman fan and would scream on late P4's / early Dual Cores, without being too power hungry.

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

That's nice of you, thanks. I still haven't made up my mind. Not too impressed with the range of GPU's one can run on a PIII including what you call "a beast", and not too sure I'd want to deal with the limitations of the older platforms (USB 1.1, my FAT PS2 can do that already , capacity and noise of these very old HDD's, potentially damaged capacitors etc.). Btw I should have room for a PC in desktop case but not for another tower. The specs of this P133 from Olivetti belonging to an Italian seller raised my curiosity as of late. Any thoughts guys ? It has a mere 1 MB of video memory through integrated ATI graphics, but it seems a nice branded period build nonetheless.
For my side of things, I could part with a Radeon 8500 from ATI (AGP, 64 MB of memory), and with a 8600 GT from Gigabyte (PCI-E, 256 MB of memory). The Geforce bears a stately Zalman fan and would scream on late P4's / early Dual Cores, without being too power hungry.

Do let me know when you Build one as i've been trying to organise Quake or Unreal Tournament Deathmatches but not actually hosted one yet. I will if the interest is there for A Deathmatch Server

[SquawkBox]

Another addition to the candidates for powerful (relatively speaking) PCI graphics card for sets missing AGP port, meet the Geforce 6200 PCI . Here is one on auction with active cooling.
On second thought, what I could do is move the Core 2 Quad to the other desk, set 15K there (15K box I use is Win7 compatible), get rid of the Core 2 Duo + mobo kit that sits inside the current "mamebox", buy a PIII + mobo kit, assemble it in that other case, and finally install Win98SE / XP in dual boot. Only work to do, but no more researching, at least for now.

[SquawkBox]

Not only the Pentium III has locked multiplier (except engineering samples) but it is affected by the SSE bug when running Windows 98 (BSOD or similar inconvenience occurs when running simultaneously two SSE enabled applications).
After browsing eBay through and through, here is what I ordered :

• A Celeron MMX kit : It consists in fitting a Slot 1 with a "slotket", an adapter which will allow you to use a Celeron in socket format instead of a PII (higher multiplier and smaller L2 cache but -and that's a big but- running at full speed)
• The Celeron CPU from the kit runs @400 MHz
• A MSI MS-6119 mobo : It features the 440BX chipset, SB-Link
• 2 X 256 MB SDRAM, no picture of the RAM modules was provided by the seller, so I hope they are exact twins
• A Xwave Yamaha XG YMF724F PCI sound card that I plan to use with SB-Link
• I have a Maxtor 160 GB IDE HDD from a previous order. It should be silent as a mouse (one single platter!). Might hit the LBA 128 GB barrier though.

Now for those of you who would be interested in buying a similar kit while avoiding major inconveniences, here are a few pointers :

• Not all slotkets adapters are fully functional, it may be hit and miss with the less sturdy ones
• You don't need a huge amount of RAM for playing games, when it comes to Win98SE, 128 MB would be enough, heck even 64 MB. Personally, I like RAM in exact pairs in my machines. This said, Dual Channel wasn't invented yet as you may know, so a single 128 or 256 MB module should give you plenty headroom
• You don't need a Celeron bearing a high multiplier, the 300A (66x4.5) units can easily be bumped at @450 MHz through basic overclocking, they will then beat a Pentium II 450, performance wise
• QDI and MSI used to offer great PII / PIII mainboards too IMHO, e.q. little did I know that it was QDI, not ABIT who invented SoftFSB (adjusting FSB from BIOS, usually to overclock the CPU, without recoursing to jumpers) . If you're worried, just ask the seller about condition of capacitors, and if you want to stay on the safe side, just get a P2B or a P2L97 rev. 1.05 (these are ASUS mainboards)

[nathanm1991]

Lot's of useful Information, You know your Hardware :-)

[SquawkBox]

Well, I would willingly trade a little x86 knowledge in optimizing aging PC's with Amiga internals tidbits e.q. HKRM series and stuff, feel I am a little off balance here. Among other, I need to look up Google more often than I would like to in order to express my ideas. Anyway, did notice a couple of interesting "Frankenstein" kits while browsing eBay as of late : For those who can't stand the notion of a daughterboard (Slot 1 and these uber large CPU's that go with them), this kit which is based on the Mel-B from Asus could be tempting don't you think, only downside, it's AT (baby AT), not ATX. Another unusual kit : This time, it's PII @233 MHz + 64 MB EDO seated on an Intel mobo. Man, pairing a PII with EDO ram could be an interesting experiment for a non tool assisted slowed down Pentium II system aimed at playing DOS games, check it here. For the record, had to provide a link to eBay France this time since it's not listed anymore on eBay U.K. (someone bought it a couple of days ago).


Also, in no particular order :

• If you manage to find a Geforce 6200 PCI, main chip ought to get hot so fix a fan on top of it in case it wasn't sold with one, basically, it goes like this : 6200 >>> 9250 > 9100 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FX5500 > FX5200 performance wise in 3D
• Released between the LX chipset and the BX one, Intel used to offer the EX chipset to manufacturers, the latter being optimized for Celeron CPU's, check for example this seemingly well balanced kit from a Greek seller featuring 2x32 MB of RAM, a S3 based Powercolor GPU, a Celeron @ 300 MHz and the Excellent 1 QDI Legend mobo (it's the commercial name of that mobo from QDI aka the P6I440EX)
• My point is there is no need to reinvent the wheel / sometimes less is more, S3 Virge or Matrox G400 for classing gaming, TNT2 for those who have a knack for mid-res early FPS
• Go for CPU from the Tualatin range (1+ GHz) and VIA chipset only if you don't care for speed sensitive games and / or wish to overclock the CPU like mad
• Except for the blessed parenthesis at the time Glide was the thing back then, 3D games from that period were for the large part DirectX centric so don't aim too high e.q. dual CPU kits , Voodoo 2 or 3 in SLI, replacing the HDD with a CF card, recapped capacitors etc. any of these will cost you through the nose with presumably rather limited improvements, on the other hand, mobo's featuring integrated audio or on board SCSI should be Ok
• Non-Creative ISA cards can be a PITA to install in Windows even (especially ?) PnP ones, also some are reported to be noisy but I guess you already have noticed that haven't you ?

[nathanm1991]

Merry Christmas to ALL! :-)

[SquawkBox]

Managed to reset (thus restoring my backup after I had to reinstall from scratch) Windows 10 on a faster HDD, so, first thing I tried was PCem (well, 86Box v2.10, basically, it runs in a similar fashion IMHO) on my Core 2 Quad system running @2,83 GHz and bearing a mere 4 GB of DDR2. I emulate a Pentium 75, and the best I could obtain while playing Doom II in 16-bit colorspace was 78-84% accuracy (PCem users should be aiming at 90+%, generally speaking). I mean, no complaint here, Windows 95 loads in seconds and the host responsiveness isn't the least reduced when I play the game from within the Virtualizer. This said, for the purposes of the experiment, I feel I should mention I am not quite there yet (at 90% accuracy or more during a game session, that is).

[Retro_71]

Looking at this post makes me want to dig out and build my 486 DX 100 and my few PII and PIII MB with cpu's, but since i have limited room i may go the say of a nice PII installed with Win98SE (which i still have the original disks and manual), just got to find those storage boxes full of cards. Would a PIII be over kill for Win98SE I will only using it for games?

[SquawkBox]

Depends if it's an early PIII (indistinguishable from PII rated at the same speed except for SSE instructions) or end of cycle models (good for overclocking, but usually running on inferior chipsets i810, VIA...). This said, as it has been pointed a few times before, it would be nice to have a general idea of those old DOS / PC games you intend to play on that soon-to-be build, if that's Ok with you.

[dreadnought]

I'd go for PIII, since you will have to use a slowdown program for some DOS games anyway.

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by Retro_71

Looking at this post makes me want to dig out and build my 486 DX 100 and my few PII and PIII MB with cpu's, but since i have limited room i may go the say of a nice PII installed with Win98SE (which i still have the original disks and manual), just got to find those storage boxes full of cards. Would a PIII be over kill for Win98SE I will only using it for games?

Welcome to the Chat

These Guys are right, The PIII I would Definitely go for if your Limited on Space :-)

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

Well, I would willingly trade a little x86 knowledge in optimizing aging PC's with Amiga internals tidbits e.q. HKRM series and stuff, feel I am a little off balance here. Among other, I need to look up Google more often than I would like to in order to express my ideas. Anyway, did notice a couple of interesting "Frankenstein" kits while browsing eBay as of late : For those who can't stand the notion of a daughterboard (Slot 1 and these uber large CPU's that go with them), this kit which is based on the Mel-B from Asus could be tempting don't you think, only downside, it's AT (baby AT), not ATX. Another unusual kit : This time, it's PII @233 MHz + 64 MB EDO seated on an Intel mobo. Man, pairing a PII with EDO ram could be an interesting experiment for a non tool assisted slowed down Pentium II system aimed at playing DOS games, check it here. For the record, had to provide a link to eBay France this time since it's not listed anymore on eBay U.K. (someone bought it a couple of days ago).


Also, in no particular order :

• If you manage to find a Geforce 6200 PCI, main chip ought to get hot so fix a fan on top of it in case it wasn't sold with one, basically, it goes like this : 6200 >>> 9250 > 9100 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FX5500 > FX5200 performance wise in 3D
• Released between the LX chipset and the BX one, Intel used to offer the EX chipset to manufacturers, the latter being optimized for Celeron CPU's, check for example this seemingly well balanced kit from a Greek seller featuring 2x32 MB of RAM, a S3 based Powercolor GPU, a Celeron @ 300 MHz and the Excellent 1 QDI Legend mobo (it's the commercial name of that mobo from QDI aka the P6I440EX)
• My point is there is no need to reinvent the wheel / sometimes less is more, S3 Virge or Matrox G400 for classing gaming, TNT2 for those who have a knack for mid-res early FPS
• Go for CPU from the Tualatin range (1+ GHz) and VIA chipset only if you don't care for speed sensitive games and / or wish to overclock the CPU like mad
• Except for the blessed parenthesis at the time Glide was the thing back then, 3D games from that period were for the large part DirectX centric so don't aim too high e.q. dual CPU kits , Voodoo 2 or 3 in SLI, replacing the HDD with a CF card, recapped capacitors etc. any of these will cost you through the nose with presumably rather limited improvements, on the other hand, mobo's featuring integrated audio or on board SCSI should be Ok
• Non-Creative ISA cards can be a PITA to install in Windows even (especially ?) PnP ones, also some are reported to be noisy but I guess you already have noticed that haven't you ?

Yes I get Noise with a lot of my PnP Cards. I find Muting any inputs I don't use Reduces this Dramatically

[SquawkBox]

errr... Heard of the infamous SSE PIII bug ? Plus the fact that Coppermines multiplier is locked and ISA slots were starting to fade out on corresponding mobos (440BX chipset was almost history at that point).

SSE introduces new registers (unlike MMX, which was remapped onto the FPU registers for exactly this reason). In a multi-tasking OS, any task-switch will have to save all registers from the current task, and restore the registers for the next task.
Since Windows 95 doesn't 'know' that there are SSE registers (they didn't exist yet when Windows 95 was developed), it cannot save and restore them. As a result, if you run more than one SSE program at the same time, everytime the task switches, the registers will still contain the values of the other task, leading to unpredictable behaviour. With a single SSE program you 'get away with it', because no other task is using the SSE registers, so they will just retain the values by default.

If you want grunt, install 32-bit version of Windows Vista or Windows 7 on even the cheapest Core 2 Duo on the market (Conroe's with 4 MB L2 cache). It will provide you with a faaaaaast, cool & quiet setup and to a wide range of affordable PCI-E GPU's. No native DOS sure, but a lot of old titles you will have access to through GoG, DOSBox, Win32 ports so on so forth (it's even possible to run a few of these titles on a x64 Windows 10 setup, check Windows 10 thread in OTG). PIII is fun only as a socket CPU that one will attempt to overclock IMHO.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

errr... Heard of the infamous SSE PIII bug ? Plus the fact that Coppermines multiplier is locked and ISA slots were starting to fade out on corresponding mobos (440BX chipset was almost history at that point).

These factors are not really going to affect somebody who just wants to plays some DOS/old Win games natively. And if you want to go the Dosbox way, you might as well do it on your everyday PC. No need to build separate setups for that.

[SquawkBox]

Well, he didn't say which games he wanted to play so maybe everyday PC would do the job indeed. He mentioned that he had some spares in spades so it's not like he's risking much anyway. PIII overkill ? Just un-build and build a PII. PII overkill ? Just un-build and build the 486. Practice (and patience) makes perfect. Also, even Vogons guys use DOSBox for a handful speed sensitive games, it's part of the arsenal IMHO, no more no less. I also mentioned GoG. Before it turned into a mindless cash machine, I believe it was a great project when it all began : GoG'd Thief II, Rayman II, Decent II, Freespace II to name a few are worth playing if you experience issues with original release. One-click setup, great compatibility, all official patches slipstreamed etc.
Having said that, as you may know, there's PIII and PIII. Are we talking about early Slot 1 units (which implies, as I said earlier, that you're in a situation where it's just like you were using a similarly clocked PII, only fitted with SSE instructions) or later ones that you're bound to pair with a subpar motherboard, in addition deprived of any ISA port (the latter being crucial in order to plug an ISA sound card and be playing DOS games natively, or at least try ) ?
All things being equal, PII has the edge because of unlocked multiplier and lack of SSE (though I reckon running simultaneously two SSE enabled programs in Win98 by mistake is unlikely). Ask yourself, do you think nathanm1991 would trade his PII + i440BX Chaintech for a silly Tualatin PIII + i810 mobo ? I don't think he would. Even with a striving GPU, it's a much, much nicer period piece admittedly.

[nathanm1991]

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

Well, he didn't say which games he wanted to play so maybe everyday PC would do the job indeed. He mentioned that he had some spares in spades so it's not like he's risking much anyway. PIII overkill ? Just un-build and build a PII. PII overkill ? Just un-build and build the 486. Practice (and patience) makes perfect. Also, even Vogons guys use DOSBox for a handful speed sensitive games, it's part of the arsenal IMHO, no more no less. I also mentioned GoG. Before it turned into a mindless cash machine, I believe it was a great project when it all began : GoG'd Thief II, Rayman II, Decent II, Freespace II to name a few are worth playing if you experience issues with original release. One-click setup, great compatibility, all official patches slipstreamed etc.
Having said that, as you may know, there's PIII and PIII. Are we talking about early Slot 1 units (which implies, as I said earlier, that you're in a situation where it's just like you were using a similarly clocked PII, only fitted with SSE instructions) or later ones that you're bound to pair with a subpar motherboard, in addition deprived of any ISA port (the latter being crucial in order to plug an ISA sound card and be playing DOS games natively, or at least try ) ?
All things being equal, PII has the edge because of unlocked multiplier and lack of SSE (though I reckon running simultaneously two SSE enabled programs in Win98 by mistake is unlikely). Ask yourself, do you think nathanm1991 would trade his PII + i440BX Chaintech for a silly Tualatin PIII + i810 mobo ? I don't think he would. Even with a striving GPU, it's a much, much nicer period piece admittedly.

Although i wouldn't Trade my PII my PIII is Socket 370 and Does have one ISA Slot (Thank you by the Way :-) They know who they are if they are Reading this) and the Motherboard i have is Readily Available on eBay Usually . My Setups are Listed all through this Thread so Feel Free to Scroll back to the Pages where i Do List them

And honestly a Socket 370 Celeron with a Higher Clock Speed than my 700Mhz PIII Would be Cheaper, More Power Efficient and Dare i say it (Please don't Scold me lol) All Round better Performance Wise

[nathanm1991]

I have CPU's Coming out of my Ears of Many Different Socket's Both Intel and AMD is anybody looking for anything Specifically and I will be Able to Give a Lot away :-)