Windows 98 Gaming PC: The Beige Build

cee-S-dee said:
Have you considered trying a S370 CPU in a 'Sloket'?
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I have thought about it, especially as it seems my CPU is a big bottleneck even for my TNT2, but going the slocket route would add a lot of complicated, which I don't really want at the moment as I am unable to get a officially supported CPU to work!!) I would need a decent slocket that change FSB speeds and control voltage to down to 1.8 etc, and no doubt i'll get one that isn't supported or something. I might go that route eventually, as it is the only way to get to 700+MHz on my early P2B. I'm basing all this on this guide: http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger/p2b_procupgrade_faq.html
 
Nice little build.

I picked up a old K6-2 Super socket 7 system over the weekend to add to my horde of tat and immediately found out how horrific they were for gaming, getting about half the FPS of my older P3 system despite being the same frequency :D

Still its nice to save some old stuff isn't it.

Got a TNT Pro on the way now, none of that M64 rubbish :cool:
 
slight update, the 112MHz FSB (504MHz clock speed) overclock isn't stable... i'm assuming because of overheating. My bodge thorough engineering solution is mounting a fan like this:

OstVuBbh.jpg.png

Games like Driver and No One Lives forever run noticeably smoother at 500MHz (I think it is minimums rather than average frame rate that is improved most of all) so I'd like to keep the overclock!
 
LePhuronn said:
*looks over at my dual socket 370 1GHz P3 board with 128MB SDRAM and wonders if it still works*

Loving this project!
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To be honest right now I wish I'd gone for a more simple Socket 370 build so it would be easy to put a faster CPU in! My Pentium II is really quite lacking even for games that I thought would be fine (eg recommending a 300MHz cpu...)
 
Over the weekend I manned up and bought a Slocket adaptor thing and a 700MHz / 100FSB / 1.75v Pentium III. I made sure I got one with voltage and fsb control. The good news is I can use the cooler from the 478 motherboard that came with the case, which is huge in comparison to the S370 heatsinks. I might try it without the fan once it is up and running. Also bought some games, having a good time playing Sea Dogs and Descent 3.
 
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Armageus said:
Looking forward to seeing it, although sorry the PIII 500 didn't work on your board :(
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No worries, I knew it was a 19 year old processor when I bought it and it could be my board still!

The CPU has arrived, looks CPU-y (but the pins look good):
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It turns out my S478 cooler can't be mounted onto a S370 so I bought a small cooler for it (i.e. not too heavy as it will be mounted sideways!)

Also expanded my game collection to include Descent 3 (which is great) Worms World Party (which is also great) Delta Force 2 (which runs at less than 10fps but could be good) and Sea Dogs (which is good!). My next step is trying to get the PC online in a convenient way (i.e. 'sharing' a connection with my Windows 10 PC).

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(it's quite hard to take a picture whilst doing doing something more interesting like getting into a fight!)
 
The project has life again! I have now received the cooler, CPU and slocket. Shameless repost from Vogons:

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I chose this slocket because a) it has lots of jumpers to set various frequencies and voltages and b) there isn't much choice of slockets on ebay UK. I have a Coppermine PIII 700MHz / 256k / 1.75 volts. How would I set this on the slocket and motherboard?

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1) White Sliders

I assume the white sliders in blue box control the voltage, with the different settings seen in table in the second image? I understand (http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger ... e_faq.html) these chips are quite happy over-volting. I chose a relatively high voltage chip to minimise this potential problem.

2) Jumpers

What are the five jumpers for? What does the Auto / Manual 'option' refer to?

3) Top Right settings

At the top right of the board as seen in image 2 it lists three options

1. Dual CPU M/B
2. Over Clock
3. VCore Selectable

I can see the nearby jumper to set whether overclocking is available (I assume some kind of multiplier lock protection?) But I'm not sure where the slider / jumper is to inform the board as to whether I am running two cpus, and that I would like to manually adjust the voltage!

I've set my multiplier to 7x on the motherboard (even though it shouldn't make a difference as it's multi locked I think?)

I don't want to just mess around with it to find the right setting because i'd like to avoid accidently putting 2.4v through it!
 
almoststew1990 said:
slight update, the 112MHz FSB (504MHz clock speed) overclock isn't stable... i'm assuming because of overheating. My bodge thorough engineering solution is mounting a fan like this:

OstVuBbh.jpg.png

Games like Driver and No One Lives forever run noticeably smoother at 500MHz (I think it is minimums rather than average frame rate that is improved most of all) so I'd like to keep the overclock!
Click to expand...

New AM4 bracket?
 
A little update on this; I've been building myself up (read: convincing myself to throw more money down the drain) to swapping in a Socket 370 Tualatin motherboard, the first step of which was getting 133MHz RAM. I might try overclocking again to see if the RAM was causing the problems as it evidently wasn't the CPU cooling.

I also swapped my C-Media CMI8738 basic soundcard for a Soundblaster Live! SB0200. This turned out to be a very stripped down DELL OEM version, and no drivers could recognise it as a SBL! card. So a member here kindly send me a legit SBL! SB0100 for cost of postage, which was picked up no trouble by the drivers and offers much better sound quality.

I am also playing around with MS-DOS, which I haven't done for 20 years or so and playing the shareware version of Wolfenstien and Doom but not having much luck getting DOS drivers for sound...
 
almoststew1990 said:
I am also playing around with MS-DOS, which I haven't done for 20 years or so and playing the shareware version of Wolfenstien and Doom but not having much luck getting DOS drivers for sound...
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It was a pain back then and google wasn't flooded with information as I remember people sending in letters and emails to TV shows for help. Remember Chips with Everything?
 
MS DOS sound is as follows:-

To get sound to work in pure MSDOS mode, as in cold boot into it, you need an ISA Sound card with MS DOS drivers.

I purchased an AZTech one. This needed help from VOGONS to find the correct drivers for the card. There is a silly number of cards and drivers can easily be mismatched and not work with your card.

If you boot into Windows 95/98, and run the game in a windowed DOS mode, then your sound card should work. Look in hardware to find the correct IRQ/DMA etc and use that with your game.

The 'rare' PCI card that does work in MSDOS is the Aureal 2 Vortex. They've gone up in price though, so keep your eye on the market for this card. Phil's Computing Lab seems to vouch for this card.

This is the AU8830 card, not the AU8820 which is the Vortext 1. Have a close look at the audio chip picture on auction sites.
 
Love this!

I found an original shuttle SV24 in a pile if stuff our old IT lead was going to throw in the skip. Plugged it in and it fired up first time! So asked if I could inherit it as its a bit of history really

https://www.shuttle.eu/_archive/older/en/sv24.htm

Have upgraded the cpu to a pentium 933mhz coppermine, 512mb ram along with a PCI fx5200 128mb which running voodoo emulation

Windows 98 has a driver to make xbox 360 pads work too! Been playing colin mcrae 1 on it lol

CEX have classic pc games for pennies literally. I bought a pile a while back

I desperately want a proper voodoo card for it but they go for so much money :(
 
phatboy said:
Love this!

Windows 98 has a driver to make xbox 360 pads work too! Been playing colin mcrae 1 on it lol

CEX have classic pc games for pennies literally. I bought a pile a while back

I desperately want a proper voodoo card for it but they go for so much money :(
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That's a great little setup in a nice small case! Have you considered using an SD card instead of a HDD?Something like this would keep things a bit tidier as it plugs straight into an IDE connector and doesn't require molex auxiliary power (it's also faster).

I also make the most of CEX's 50p PC games, I have had a couple of good hauls recently:
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Where did you get drivers for the xbox 360 controller on Windows 98? I was looking to get an old gameport controller for it, but if the 360 controller works, that would save a lot of hassle.
 
Lolol similar taste in games to me. PROJECT IGI is another absolute gem to get. I played it.through so many times on my old 700 duron at college!

Will try dig out that driver for you :)
 
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