Vogons Wiki - User contributions [en]

S3

2014-05-26T06:42:55Z

RacoonRider: /* S3 ViRGE */

S3 Graphics, Ltd is a graphics hardware manufacturer founded in January 1989. Their proprietary API's were S3D for DOS and Windows 9x and MeTaL for Windows.

''*S3 chip sets were very popular among low-end graphic hardware manufacturers. Sometimes standard S3 drivers won't work on such cards. Use [http://transition.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/ FCC ID] to confirm the graphic card's origin.''

== Chips ==
=== S3 911, 911A ===
(June 10, 1991) - S3's first Windows accelerators. VRAM based (16/256-color, high-color acceleration)
=== S3 924 ===
Like 911 but with 24-bit true-color acceleration
=== S3 801, 805, 805i ===
first mainstream DRAM VESA Windows accelerators (16/256-color, high-color acceleration). VLB, ISA
=== S3 928 ===
Less buggy version of 924 with 24/32-bit true-color acceleration, DRAM or VRAM
=== S3 805p, 928p ===
Adds PCI support
=== S3 Vision===
[[File:S3_Vision968.JPG|thumb||S3 Vision968]]
High performance GUI accelerators during 1994 and 1995. The family includes the 864, 868, 964 and 968 chips. The 9xx series uses VRAM memory instead of fast-page DRAM, enhancing memory performance and improving high-resolution GUI performance. The x68 chips include motion video acceleration features including color space conversion and video scaling.

=== S3 Trio 32/64 ===
[[File:S3_Trio64.JPG|thumb||S3 Trio64]]
An evolution of the 864. The name refers to the integration of 3 components into one ASIC: RAMDAC, graphics core and clock generator. Higher integration reduces overall product cost.

Trio64 variants are popular for DOS gaming due to their high compatibility and good speed.

=== S3 ViRGE ===
[[File:VirgeDX.JPG|thumb||ViRGE DX 4MB]]
[[File:S3 3D2X.JPG|thumb||S3 Trio 3D/2X]]

The ViRGE is the first S3 chip with 3D acceleration support and launched in 1996. Aside from the 3D hardware, it is quite similar to the Trio64V+. These cards typically come equipped with 2-4MB RAM. S3 created the S3D API to program directly for the ViRGE accelerators although they also support Direct3D 3+.

There are several variants. The original ViRGE (marked 325), the ViRGE VX, ViRGE DX, ViRGE GX, ViRGE MX, ViRGE GX/2, Trio3D and Trio3D/2X. VX is slower at 3D but uses VRAM memory to somewhat improve high-resolution GUI performance. DX and GX are the second generation and GX supports SGRAM. MX was designed as a power-effecient mobile graphics solution, yet it made appearance on desktop due to low cost. GX/2 and MX are AGP capable and therefore mostly used on AGP cards. The MX and GX/2 might be called third generation. The later Trio3D model based on ViRGE architecture was marketed as an office solution with basic 3D capabilities and became successful in OEM market.

All ViRGE chips posses a fairly complete 3D feature set and can output quality 3D visuals. The original 325 chip and the VX have inadequate performance outside of S3D games. S3 Trio3D lacks support for S3D titles. The DX and GX have approximately double the 3D performance and can run some Direct3D adequately if the driver is compatible with the game. Later chips are somewhat faster still.

S3D games often only recognize the original ViRGE 325 chip but there is a third party utility to fix the game executable.

The similarity to Trio64V+ provides high compatibility for DOS games.

==== S3D accelerated games ====
*Demolition Derby
*Descent 2
*Mechwarrior 2
*Terminal Velocity
*Tomb Raider

=== S3 Savage3D ===
[[File:S3savage3d.jpg|thumb|Savage3D]]
Savage3D was released in 1998 and was S3's first 3D chip with useful Direct3D and OpenGL performance. Its performance is similar to [[3dfx|Voodoo Banshee]] or [[Matrox|Matrox G200]], and its image quality is excellent. GUI performance is excellent. It supports single-cycle trilinear filtering, meaning one can enable trilinear filtering with little speed impact. It can use textures up to 2048x2048 pixels. It is also fully AGP 2x compliant.

It is the first 3D accelerator to support texture compression, in the form of S3TC, which would later become the DXT1 Direct3D standard. Texture compression dramatically reduces the size of a texture while only minimally affecting quality, allowing very high quality textures to be used even with the limited 8MB RAM of the Savage3D.

S3 created a new API called Metal for the Savage family. Unreal Engine 1 games frequently support it, and may also have optional S3TC textures available. Like 3dfx Glide, it offers superior quality and performance compared to Direct3D and OpenGL with Unreal Engine.

Savage3D's greatest failing was, as typical with S3, driver quality.

=== S3 Savage4 ===
This is an enhancement of Savage3D. Clock speed was improved, AGP 4x implemented, and the cards typically come equipped with 16-32MB RAM. It doesn't have enough fill-rate to compete with the other 3D cards of 1999 such as NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 and 3dfx Voodoo3, and drivers are again sub par. However, S3 Metal support made it somewhat popular for Unreal Tournament because the S3TC textures were a dramatic visual upgrade.

=== S3 Savage 2000 ===
[[File:Dviper2z200.jpg|thumb|Savage 2000]]
Savage 2000 was an ambitious overhaul of previous 3D technology and was released at the end of 1999. It was to be a fully Direct3D 7 compliant part, meaning support for a hardware transform and lighting engine. Compared to Savage4, it has twice the pixel throughput per clock, and potentially quadruple the texture processing rate. It is superficially comparable to NVIDIA GeForce 256.

However, the chip is not entirely functional. It is faster than Savage4, but it is not Direct3D 7 compliant because the S3TL (HW T&L) engine is not entirely bug-free. S3TL is disabled by default, but can be enabled. It produces visual anomalies and it does not improve performance because it is not fast enough to outperform the CPU at the task. In many cases enabling S3TL can worsen performance. Overall the Savage 2000 is not as fast as GeForce 256, but it can beat Matrox G400, 3dfx Voodoo3 and RIVA TNT2.

Like Savage4, this chip was somewhat popular for Unreal Tournament. It is significantly faster than Savage4 and only the Savage series could run the game with the S3TC textures. Likewise with the Savage4, the Savage 2000 also support's S3's MeTal API.

== S3 Savage Comparison Chart ==
[[File:S3quake.png|thumb|S3 cards DOS performance]]
{| class="wikitable"
! Chip !! Release !! Die process !! Core clock !! Pipeline (Px × Tex) !! Fillrate (MT/s)!! Memory clock !! Bus width !! Memory bandwidth !! System interface !! Notes
|-
| Savage 3D
|| 6/1998
|| 0.25 μm
|| 100-120 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 100-120
|| 120 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 0.96 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2x
||Versions: 390, 391 with Macrovision.
|-
| Savage 4 Pro
|| 2/1999
|| 0.25 μm
|| 110-143 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 110-143
|| 125-143 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 1.00-1.14 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
||
|-
| Savage 4 GT
|| 2/1999
|| 0.25 μm
|| 110 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 110
|| 125 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 1.00 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
||
|-
| Savage 4 MX
|| 2/1999
|| 0.25 μm
||
|| 1 × 1
||
||
|| 64-bit
||
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
|| Notebooks
|-
| Savage 4 Xtreme
|| 8/1999
|| 0.25 μm
|| 166 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 166
|| 166 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 1.33 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
|| Diamond Stealth III
|-
| Savage 2000
|| 11/1999
|| 0.18/0.22 μm
|| 125 MHz
|| 2 × 2
|| 500
|| 155 MHz
|| 128-bit
|| 2.48 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
|| aka GX4. S3TL hardware is bugged and disabled.
|}

==Related links==
*[http://vintage3d.org/ Vintage3D] - has a section dedicated to the examination of performance and image quality of ViRGE cards.
*[http://www.servodata.com.pl/ftp/ELSA/GRAPHICS/ELSAWARE/S3DTOOL.ZIP S3DTool] - a game patcher that enables S3D games to run on later ViRGE chips.
*[http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=26 VOGONS Vintage Driver Library] - S3 file section
*[http://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/ Gona's PCI and AGP DOS game compatibility matrix]

[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Graphics Cards]]

S3

2014-05-26T06:39:12Z

RacoonRider:

S3 Graphics, Ltd is a graphics hardware manufacturer founded in January 1989. Their proprietary API's were S3D for DOS and Windows 9x and MeTaL for Windows.

''*S3 chip sets were very popular among low-end graphic hardware manufacturers. Sometimes standard S3 drivers won't work on such cards. Use [http://transition.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/ FCC ID] to confirm the graphic card's origin.''

== Chips ==
=== S3 911, 911A ===
(June 10, 1991) - S3's first Windows accelerators. VRAM based (16/256-color, high-color acceleration)
=== S3 924 ===
Like 911 but with 24-bit true-color acceleration
=== S3 801, 805, 805i ===
first mainstream DRAM VESA Windows accelerators (16/256-color, high-color acceleration). VLB, ISA
=== S3 928 ===
Less buggy version of 924 with 24/32-bit true-color acceleration, DRAM or VRAM
=== S3 805p, 928p ===
Adds PCI support
=== S3 Vision===
[[File:S3_Vision968.JPG|thumb||S3 Vision968]]
High performance GUI accelerators during 1994 and 1995. The family includes the 864, 868, 964 and 968 chips. The 9xx series uses VRAM memory instead of fast-page DRAM, enhancing memory performance and improving high-resolution GUI performance. The x68 chips include motion video acceleration features including color space conversion and video scaling.

=== S3 Trio 32/64 ===
[[File:S3_Trio64.JPG|thumb||S3 Trio64]]
An evolution of the 864. The name refers to the integration of 3 components into one ASIC: RAMDAC, graphics core and clock generator. Higher integration reduces overall product cost.

Trio64 variants are popular for DOS gaming due to their high compatibility and good speed.

=== S3 ViRGE ===
[[File:VirgeDX.JPG|thumb||ViRGE DX 4MB]]
[[File:S3 3D2X.JPG|thumb||S3 Trio 3D/2X]]

The ViRGE is the first S3 chip with 3D acceleration support and launched in 1996. Aside from the 3D hardware, it is quite similar to the Trio64V+. These cards typically come equipped with 2-4MB RAM. S3 created the S3D API to program directly for the ViRGE accelerators although they also support Direct3D 3+.

There are several variants. The original ViRGE (marked 325), the ViRGE VX, ViRGE DX, ViRGE GX, ViRGE MX, ViRGE GX/2, Trio3D and Trio3D/2X. VX is slower at 3D but uses VRAM memory to somewhat improve high-resolution GUI performance. DX and GX are the second generation and GX supports SGRAM. MX was designed as a power-effecient mobile graphics solution, yet it made appearance on desktop due to low cost. GX/2 and MX are AGP capable and therefore mostly used on AGP cards. The MX and GX/2 might be called third generation.

All ViRGE chips posses a fairly complete 3D feature set and can output quality 3D visuals. The original 325 chip and the VX have inadequate performance outside of S3D games. The DX and GX have approximately double the 3D performance and can run some Direct3D adequately if the driver is compatible with the game. Later chips are somewhat faster still.

S3D games often only recognize the original ViRGE 325 chip but there is a third party utility to fix the game executable.

The similarity to Trio64V+ provides high compatibility for DOS games.

==== S3D accelerated games ====
*Demolition Derby
*Descent 2
*Mechwarrior 2
*Terminal Velocity
*Tomb Raider

=== S3 Savage3D ===
[[File:S3savage3d.jpg|thumb|Savage3D]]
Savage3D was released in 1998 and was S3's first 3D chip with useful Direct3D and OpenGL performance. Its performance is similar to [[3dfx|Voodoo Banshee]] or [[Matrox|Matrox G200]], and its image quality is excellent. GUI performance is excellent. It supports single-cycle trilinear filtering, meaning one can enable trilinear filtering with little speed impact. It can use textures up to 2048x2048 pixels. It is also fully AGP 2x compliant.

It is the first 3D accelerator to support texture compression, in the form of S3TC, which would later become the DXT1 Direct3D standard. Texture compression dramatically reduces the size of a texture while only minimally affecting quality, allowing very high quality textures to be used even with the limited 8MB RAM of the Savage3D.

S3 created a new API called Metal for the Savage family. Unreal Engine 1 games frequently support it, and may also have optional S3TC textures available. Like 3dfx Glide, it offers superior quality and performance compared to Direct3D and OpenGL with Unreal Engine.

Savage3D's greatest failing was, as typical with S3, driver quality.

=== S3 Savage4 ===
This is an enhancement of Savage3D. Clock speed was improved, AGP 4x implemented, and the cards typically come equipped with 16-32MB RAM. It doesn't have enough fill-rate to compete with the other 3D cards of 1999 such as NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 and 3dfx Voodoo3, and drivers are again sub par. However, S3 Metal support made it somewhat popular for Unreal Tournament because the S3TC textures were a dramatic visual upgrade.

=== S3 Savage 2000 ===
[[File:Dviper2z200.jpg|thumb|Savage 2000]]
Savage 2000 was an ambitious overhaul of previous 3D technology and was released at the end of 1999. It was to be a fully Direct3D 7 compliant part, meaning support for a hardware transform and lighting engine. Compared to Savage4, it has twice the pixel throughput per clock, and potentially quadruple the texture processing rate. It is superficially comparable to NVIDIA GeForce 256.

However, the chip is not entirely functional. It is faster than Savage4, but it is not Direct3D 7 compliant because the S3TL (HW T&L) engine is not entirely bug-free. S3TL is disabled by default, but can be enabled. It produces visual anomalies and it does not improve performance because it is not fast enough to outperform the CPU at the task. In many cases enabling S3TL can worsen performance. Overall the Savage 2000 is not as fast as GeForce 256, but it can beat Matrox G400, 3dfx Voodoo3 and RIVA TNT2.

Like Savage4, this chip was somewhat popular for Unreal Tournament. It is significantly faster than Savage4 and only the Savage series could run the game with the S3TC textures. Likewise with the Savage4, the Savage 2000 also support's S3's MeTal API.

== S3 Savage Comparison Chart ==
[[File:S3quake.png|thumb|S3 cards DOS performance]]
{| class="wikitable"
! Chip !! Release !! Die process !! Core clock !! Pipeline (Px × Tex) !! Fillrate (MT/s)!! Memory clock !! Bus width !! Memory bandwidth !! System interface !! Notes
|-
| Savage 3D
|| 6/1998
|| 0.25 μm
|| 100-120 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 100-120
|| 120 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 0.96 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2x
||Versions: 390, 391 with Macrovision.
|-
| Savage 4 Pro
|| 2/1999
|| 0.25 μm
|| 110-143 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 110-143
|| 125-143 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 1.00-1.14 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
||
|-
| Savage 4 GT
|| 2/1999
|| 0.25 μm
|| 110 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 110
|| 125 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 1.00 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
||
|-
| Savage 4 MX
|| 2/1999
|| 0.25 μm
||
|| 1 × 1
||
||
|| 64-bit
||
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
|| Notebooks
|-
| Savage 4 Xtreme
|| 8/1999
|| 0.25 μm
|| 166 MHz
|| 1 × 1
|| 166
|| 166 MHz
|| 64-bit
|| 1.33 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
|| Diamond Stealth III
|-
| Savage 2000
|| 11/1999
|| 0.18/0.22 μm
|| 125 MHz
|| 2 × 2
|| 500
|| 155 MHz
|| 128-bit
|| 2.48 GB/s
|| PCI, AGP 2/4x
|| aka GX4. S3TL hardware is bugged and disabled.
|}

==Related links==
*[http://vintage3d.org/ Vintage3D] - has a section dedicated to the examination of performance and image quality of ViRGE cards.
*[http://www.servodata.com.pl/ftp/ELSA/GRAPHICS/ELSAWARE/S3DTOOL.ZIP S3DTool] - a game patcher that enables S3D games to run on later ViRGE chips.
*[http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=26 VOGONS Vintage Driver Library] - S3 file section
*[http://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/ Gona's PCI and AGP DOS game compatibility matrix]

[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Graphics Cards]]

Games compatible with COVOX Speach Thing

2013-05-19T16:22:48Z

RacoonRider:

''This page is under construction.''
===Amarillo Slim Dealer's Choice (1991)===
''Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)''

Slim Dealer's Choice is a poker simulation game. It can use Covox for music and speech playback. This includes speech comments on each action in the game (when you press "Bid" the covox says "Bid"), an intro melody in the main menu and an occasional beep on events like the end of a round. Different voices are available, male and female. You can enable Covox sound by activating "S-Thing" as "Sound board" in "Set Controls" menu. This is very strange, as the menu itself has little to do with controls and Covox Speech Thing is not a sound board. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

===Dinosaur Adventure (1993)===
''Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)''

This game has a lot of options for sound, Covox Speech Thing among them.
If you turn on "Covox Speech Thing" in options menu, covox will be used for dinosaur roaring and speech, while PC speaker will be used for beeping music-like tunes. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

===Aces of the Deep (1994)===
''Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)''

This game has "Speech Thing" option in the setup menu. However, it does not seem to do anything, the game remains absolutely silent if you turn it on.

==External links==
There's a list of games that are supposed to work with Covox Speech Thing. However, not all of them do support it. http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,43/

==Things to add==
*A brief introduction
*Some screenshots would be nice
*Recordings?

==If you want to help==
If you also have Covox speech thing, it would be nice if you tested some of the games from the list above that are not listed here yet. Plese don't forget to state what system you tested the games on and what COVOX you used.
If you know any other data on the games that use covox, please let me know in the "Talk" section.

Games compatible with COVOX Speach Thing

2013-05-19T16:03:23Z

RacoonRider:

''This page is under construction.''

===Dinosaur Adventure (1993)===
''Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)''

This game has a lot of options for sound, Covox Speech Thing among them.
If you turn on "Covox Speech Thing" in options menu, covox will be used for dinosaur roaring and speech, while PC speaker will be used for beeping music-like tunes. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

===Aces of the Deep (1994)===
''Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)''

This game has "Speech Thing" option in the setup menu. However, it does not seem to do anything, the game remains absolutely silent if you turn it on.

===Amarillo Slim Dealer's Choice (1991)===
''Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)''

Slim Dealer's Choice is a poker simulation game. It can use Covox for music and speech playback. This includes speech comments on each action in the game (when you press "Bid" the covox says "Bid"), an intro melody in the main menu and an occasional beep on events like the end of a round. Different voices are available, male and female. You can enable Covox sound by activating "S-Thing" as "Sound board" in "Set Controls" menu. This is very strange, as the menu itself has little to do with controls and Covox Speech Thing is not a sound board. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

==External links==
There's a list of games that are supposed to work with Covox Speech Thing. However, not all of them do support it. http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,43/

==Things to add==
*A brief introduction
*Some screenshots would be nice
*Recordings?

==If you want to help==
If you also have Covox speech thing, it would be nice if you tested some of the games from the list above that are not listed here yet. Plese don't forget to state what system you tested the games on and what COVOX you used.

Games compatible with COVOX Speach Thing

2013-05-19T16:03:00Z

RacoonRider:

''This page is under construction.''

===Dinosaur Adventure (1993)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)

This game has a lot of options for sound, Covox Speech Thing among them.
If you turn on "Covox Speech Thing" in options menu, covox will be used for dinosaur roaring and speech, while PC speaker will be used for beeping music-like tunes. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

===Aces of the Deep (1994)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)

This game has "Speech Thing" option in the setup menu. However, it does not seem to do anything, the game remains absolutely silent if you turn it on.

===Amarillo Slim Dealer's Choice (1991)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)

Slim Dealer's Choice is a poker simulation game. It can use Covox for music and speech playback. This includes speech comments on each action in the game (when you press "Bid" the covox says "Bid"), an intro melody in the main menu and an occasional beep on events like the end of a round. Different voices are available, male and female. You can enable Covox sound by activating "S-Thing" as "Sound board" in "Set Controls" menu. This is very strange, as the menu itself has little to do with controls and Covox Speech Thing is not a sound board. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

==External links==
There's a list of games that are supposed to work with Covox Speech Thing. However, not all of them do support it. http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,43/

==Things to add==
*A brief introduction
*Some screenshots would be nice
*Recordings?

==If you want to help==
If you also have Covox speech thing, it would be nice if you tested some of the games from the list above that are not listed here yet. Plese don't forget to state what system you tested the games on and what COVOX you used.

Games compatible with COVOX Speach Thing

2013-05-19T16:02:40Z

RacoonRider: /* Things to add */

''This page is under construction.''

===Dinosaur Adventure (1993)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)
This game has a lot of options for sound, Covox Speech Thing among them.
If you turn on "Covox Speech Thing" in options menu, covox will be used for dinosaur roaring and speech, while PC speaker will be used for beeping music-like tunes. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

===Aces of the Deep (1994)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)
This game has "Speech Thing" option in the setup menu. However, it does not seem to do anything, the game remains absolutely silent if you turn it on.

===Amarillo Slim Dealer's Choice (1991)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)
Slim Dealer's Choice is a poker simulation game. It can use Covox for music and speech playback. This includes speech comments on each action in the game (when you press "Bid" the covox says "Bid"), an intro melody in the main menu and an occasional beep on events like the end of a round. Different voices are available, male and female. You can enable Covox sound by activating "S-Thing" as "Sound board" in "Set Controls" menu. This is very strange, as the menu itself has little to do with controls and Covox Speech Thing is not a sound board. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

==External links==
There's a list of games that are supposed to work with Covox Speech Thing. However, not all of them do support it. http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,43/

==Things to add==
*A brief introduction
*Some screenshots would be nice
*Recordings?

==If you want to help==
If you also have Covox speech thing, it would be nice if you tested some of the games from the list above that are not listed here yet. Plese don't forget to state what system you tested the games on and what COVOX you used.

Games compatible with COVOX Speach Thing

2013-05-19T15:58:30Z

RacoonRider: Created page with "''This page is under construction.'' ===Dinosaur Adventure (1993)=== Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy) This game has a lo..."

''This page is under construction.''

===Dinosaur Adventure (1993)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)
This game has a lot of options for sound, Covox Speech Thing among them.
If you turn on "Covox Speech Thing" in options menu, covox will be used for dinosaur roaring and speech, while PC speaker will be used for beeping music-like tunes. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

===Aces of the Deep (1994)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)
This game has "Speech Thing" option in the setup menu. However, it does not seem to do anything, the game remains absolutely silent if you turn it on.

===Amarillo Slim Dealer's Choice (1991)===
Testing equipment: 486SX-25, 16MB RAM, Covox speech thing (7.5/15kOhm +-0.3% accuracy)
Slim Dealer's Choice is a poker simulation game. It can use Covox for music and speech playback. This includes speech comments on each action in the game (when you press "Bid" the covox says "Bid"), an intro melody in the main menu and an occasional beep on events like the end of a round. Different voices are available, male and female. You can enable Covox sound by activating "S-Thing" as "Sound board" in "Set Controls" menu. This is very strange, as the menu itself has little to do with controls and Covox Speech Thing is not a sound board. The sound is of low quality, but audible.

==External links==
There's a list of games that are supposed to work with Covox Speech Thing. However, not all of them do support it. http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,43/

==Things to add==
[*]A brief introduction
[*]Some screenshots would be nice
[*]Recordings?

==If you want to help==
If you also have Covox speech thing, it would be nice if you tested some of the games from the list above that are not listed here yet. Plese don't forget to state what system you tested the games on and what COVOX you used.

Sound Cards & Modules

2013-05-19T14:58:57Z

RacoonRider:

*[[Ad Lib, Inc.]]
*[[Advanced Gravis]]
*[[Aureal Semiconductor]]
*[[C-Media]]
*[[Creative Labs]]
*[[Ensoniq]]
*[[ESS Technologies]]
*[[Guillemot]]
*[[miro Computer Products]]
*[[Roland]]
*[[Terratec]]
*[[Yamaha]]
*[[COVOX]]

[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Sound Cards]]

3dfx

2013-05-14T04:13:22Z

RacoonRider: /* General 3dfx information */

[[File:3Dfxlogo old.png|right|150px|alt=Old 3dfx logo]]

3dfx (written as 3Dfx until 1999) was a 3D graphics chipset manufacturer and later on graphics card manufacturer. Founded in 1994, the company was one of the pioneers of 3D graphics in the PC industry in the mid to late 1990's. Their products were mainly popular for PC 3D game accelerators, but also used in arcade machines and professional visualization systems.

[[File:3dfxlogo new.png|right|140px|alt=New 3dfx logo]]

They played an important role in the 3D graphics industry until December 15, 2000, when most of their assets were purchased by [[NVIDIA]] Corporation, after which the company filed for bancruptcy and officialy went defunct in 2002.

== General 3dfx information ==

3dfx cards - namely their proprietary Glide API - can be considered one of the prime reasons to use vintage hardware today, because many early 3D games starting from 1996 had versions for at least some 3dfx cards, and in many cases these cards brought the superior image quality. A notorious example for this is Unreal (1998), a game that was geared towards software rendering at first, but had a Glide renderer added during development as soon as it was clear that Voodoo would come out as the best 3D accelerator. The game also had Direct3D and OpenGL renderers, but Direct3D was well in its infancy back in the day and even the OpenGL renderer wasn't their best effort, therefore players with competitor cards had to wait for Epic's patches to improve the graphics, but in the end it would take fanmade patches to provide competitive renderers.[http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/voodoo3-3000.html]

It was also common for game developers to put 3dfx logos on their games' boxes, leading to misconceptions for a decent amount of games supporting Glide which actually do not at all, or only provide a special MiniGL driver for 3dfx cards. This was again due to 3dfx being the dominant 3D solution at this time, and also a commonly known brand with PC gamers. If software does not straightforwardly access either glide.dll, glide2x.dll/ovl or glide3x.dll, it cannot be said to directly support the Glide API.

Since Glide was a proprietary interface, there were 3rd party efforts from early on to bring it to all 3D cards. Glide wrappers are at a level where they can properly emulate how those games would look on a real Voodoo card and can be considered a viable alternative to the real cards. A problem with them is that games written for Win9x are not necessarily compatible with modern operating systems, so only a (at best) period-correct Win9x system can be guaranteed to play all Glide games properly.

The main weak points of all vintage cards apart from incompatibility with modern mainboards/operating systems are lack of full screen anti-aliasing (addressed with V5) and anisotropic filtering (implemented in GeForce 256, only started to be useful with about GeForce 3).

A disadvantage of 3dfx's SLI multi-GPU solution (V2 SLI/V5 for consumer cards) is that it is somewhat prone to slight horizontal artifacts somewhat akin to screen tearing, which results from the multiple chips not fully working synchronously. This can be prevented by activating VSync in the drivers or in the games, a solution which itself has the problem of causing mouse lag in many cases.

All AGP 3dfx cards use the AGP port as a mere 66 MHz PCI port and do not utilize any of the special features that AGP offers. PCI and AGP versions of 3dfx cards perform almost identically. All AGP 3dfx cards are AGP 2x (3.3V) and must not be used in newer 1.5V slots. Only retail Voodoo 4 4500 cards are AGP 4x 1.5V capable.

Cards of Voodoo2 SLI/3 grade speed scale with CPUs up until about a ~1 GHz Intel Pentium III Coppermine, although a PIII 500 Katmai should be enough to play all Glide games fluently. AMD's K6 line can be considered second choice when building a 3dfx centered PC, because these CPUs can be a significant bottleneck with some later games. Pentium Classic and Pentium MMX CPUs will only be able to run early Glide titles full-speed. Older games should be able to cope with faster CPUs; exceptions are listed [[List of games that require specific CPUs to run properly|here]]. Lastly, it should be noted that Voodoo Graphics cards will not work with K7 (Athlon) CPUs, and Voodoo2 cards will need special 3rd party drivers to work with these CPUs.

Community-made resources for 3dfx cards include drivers, such as Amigamerlin, x3dfx and SFFT, which can provide more features and speed than the latest official drivers from 2000 and some of which allow the cards to be run under Windows XP, or tools such as V.Control which provide more in-depth tweaking options. For potentially better OpenGL compatibility or speed, one can use the MesaFX standalone OpenGL driver or Metabyte's WickedGL MiniGL driver.

All 3dfx cards share the fact that the graphics core and memory always run at the same frequency. This makes overclocking generally harder than on other cards, because in many cases the memory will hit the limit earlier than the core. Still it is possible: V1/V2 cards can be overclocked by environment variables, while the other cards contain an option in the driver for this. With most drivers this needs to be unlocked with a [http://www.falconfly.de/downloads/overclock.zip special utility from 3dfx], which will also allow the user to set VSync options for both DirectX and OpenGL. Better cooling, e.g. through means of a case fan is advised when overclocking.

Note that 3dfx cards can react quite sensitively to overclocked system buses, such as the commonly attempted 133 MHz FSB on 100 MHz-specified Intel 440BX chipset boards. Such an overclock on these boards will result in a 89 MHz (instead of 66 MHz) frequency for the AGP bus due to the lack of a proper divider, which can result in garbled BIOS screens and IDE drive corruption. Finally, note that all overclocking happens at the user's own risk.

== Getting the best compatibility ==

For better compatibility and versatility, it is common practice among vintage computer enthusiasts to have multiple video or sound cards in one system. Back in the day, this was typically widespread and necessary for 3D-only 3dfx cards with a loop cable (V1/V2). That way, one can easily have a faster card for OpenGL/D3D (or a card supporting one of the other proprietary 3D APIs) combined with e.g. V2 SLI which will automatically engage when Glide is chosen in games. This may cause issues with some cards if for some reason OpenGL/D3D would be needed on the 3dfx card(s).

Another way is to combine said non-3dfx card with a 2D+3D 3dfx card, one of them being AGP and the other one PCI. Due to both being full video cards one would need to perform the switch in the BIOS under "Primary VGA adapter", "Boot from AGP/PCI" or likewise (if it supports it) depending on what card is needed. This method has the disadvantage of requiring to relocate the monitor cable each time because there is no passthrough; a monitor with multiple inputs or a VGA or KVM switch would solve that problem, potentially with DVI for one of the cards if available. This should work very reliably without any conflicts.

It is also possible to take advantage of multi-monitor support in Windows 98, either with a multi-input monitor by switching between inputs on the monitor itself or two monitors. However, this has been reported to cause Windows to use the OpenGL software fallback mode as long as the secondary display is enabled, so it is perhaps not the optimal solution. Direct3D hardware acceleration only works on the primary display.

Finally, for maximum Glide compatibility, one could even use three cards (e.g. V1, V2 and V3/4/5) and switch between the cards by copying the appropriate glide2x.dll/glide3x.dll drivers into the game directory depending on which card the game should run with. When using this method, it is important to install the drivers in ascending order, so that games which access the drivers in the Windows folder use the newest 3dfx card. For DOS games, one would analogically copy Glide2x.ovl into the game folder.

To get games which were originally made for Voodoo Graphics to work with Voodoo2 boards, one can use the following SST variables in the autoexec.bat, either directly or by an external batchfile:

<pre>SET SST_GRXCLK=90
SET SST_FT_CLK_DEL=0x4
SET SST_TF0_CLK_DEL=0x6
SET SST_TF1_CLK_DEL=0x6
SET SST_VIN_CLKDEL=0x1
SET SST_VOUT_CLKDEL=0x0
SET SST_TMUMEM_SIZE=2</pre>

== Voodoo Graphics ==

[[File:Voodoo_1.jpg|200px|thumb|Diamond Monster 3D (4 MB)]]
[[File:Canopus_Pure3D.jpg|200px|thumb|Canopus Pure3D (6 MB)]]

The Voodoo Graphics chipset, based on the SST1 architecture, was 3dfx's first foray into the PC market. Its release in 1996 was primarily made possible by EDO DRAM declining in price, allowing good profits from an adequately-equipped ~$300 Voodoo Graphics solution. The PCI cards, which were manufactured by board partners, feature a frame buffer processor, a texture mapping unit (TMU), a RAMDAC and 4 MB EDO DRAM (some later versions were released with 6 or even 8 MB). Both the RAM and graphics processors operate at 50 MHz, with 2 MB RAM being used as framebuffer and 2 MB as texture memory. The RAM banks are on independent 64-bit buses. A Pentium 90 with 8 MB RAM was considered the minimal specifications for these cards.

The chipset was rich in features, boasting perspective correct texture mapping, bilinear texture filtering, level of detail MIP mapping, sub-pixel correction, polygonal-based Gouraud shading and texture modulation. It natively supported Direct3D 5 and was notable for supporting all of its required features with adequate speed, unlike previous 3D chipsets such as [[S3]] Virge and [[Matrox]] Mystique. It also introduced Glide, 3dfx's own proprietary API that worked initially under DOS and later under Windows 9x and NT 4.0/2000. Glide was essentially a subset of OpenGL, with no support for features deemed unnecessary for PC gaming at the time, and for some functions not supported by the SST1 architecture. OpenGL games were initially only supported through the use of MiniGL, which was an OpenGL driver with only the necessary functions implemented for a specific game, most notably Quake engines. In May 1999, 3dfx released a full OpenGL ICD, providing support for all OpenGL applications.

Voodoo Graphics does not have 2D functions like VGA or GUI acceleration, meaning that it has to be used in conjunction with a standard 2D card by means of a [[VGA passthrough cable]]. Voodoo cards have relays onboard that switch between passthrough mode and output mode, controlled by the driver or DOS game/Glide. Unfortunately the passthrough impacts 2D quality because of the signal passing through additional circuitry that may not be of optimum quality. High resolution GUI modes are most noticeably affected.

Thanks to 3dfx's efforts with game developers and publishers and the excellent performance of their solution, the company's technology was quickly adopted as the de-facto standard in PC 3D gaming. Voodoo 1 enjoyed lengthy support from game developers. Despite only supporting resolutions as high as 640x480 (800x600 without the usage of Z-buffering) and 16-bit color depth, the card was usable with games into 2000.

It has been reported that Voodoo1 cards produce artifacts on the screen and do not play most DOS Glide games correctly when the FSB is higher than 100 MHz, even if the PCI bus runs at default clock speeds.

The prime competitors upon its release were the [[PowerVR]] PCX1 and [[Rendition]] Vérité V1000 chipsets, the latter of which already featured complete 2D processing onboard. Other competitors include the [[Matrox]] Millenium II/[[Matrox Mystique]], [[ATI]] Rage II, [[S3]] Virge and [[NVIDIA]] RIVA 128, all of which had 2D functions, but only the RIVA 128 can be said to match the Voodoo 1 in performance, while of course lacking Glide support.

'''Bottom line:'''
The card's prime use case would be early statically-linked Glide games in DOS that depend on the first Voodoo chipset. Later games, starting with ca. 1997, are better played with the subsequent Voodoo cards.

Cards with higher than 4 MB are a trade-off: they have somewhat higher compatibility to later games, but lose some compatibility with first generation titles. 6 MB versions only have more texture memory and are therefore still limited to 640x480; 8 MB boards are able to show 800x600 resolutions due to extra framebuffer memory. Both offer somewhat smoother frame rates in games with more texture memory usage, such as Unreal and Quake 2.

== Voodoo Rush ==

[[File:Jazz Multimedia Voodoo Rush.jpg|200px|thumb|Jazz Adrenaline 3D (Alliance ProMotion)]]
[[File:Voodoo_Rush_with_Macronix_2D.jpg|200px|thumb|Procomp G108 (Macronix)]]

Voodoo Rush was released in August 1997 for the PCI bus and addressed the main shortcoming of the Voodoo Graphics by being a complete 2D/3D solution. The chipset combined either an [[Alliance Semiconductor]] AT25/AT3D or [[Macronix]] 2D core on the same board as the exact same Voodoo chipset (on some cards the 3dfx part came as a daughterboard).

The combination of two independent chipsets led to a bottleneck for the 3dfx part and therefore about 10% lower performance. The cards had 4, 6 or 8 MB total memory, with only 8 MB versions offering 4 MB for texture space, similarly to Voodoo Graphics. Some cards had slightly higher clocks to close the performance gap. The cards also sometimes weren't fully compatible to existing games, leading to specific Voodoo Rush patches for some games, e.g. Tomb Raider.

The AT3D chipset has rudimentary 3D functions which can be activated, meaning that Rush cards that feature it have two 3D chipsets.

'''Bottom line:''' Rush cards were an infamous early attempt at a 2D/3D card by 3dfx and should be avoided when building a vintage gaming system. Primarily a curiosity. Despite that, the cards may be potentially useful in fringe cases like in a system with only a single available PCI slot that does not support a Banshee or Voodoo 3 because of a weak power supply or weak voltage regulators. They shouldn't be difficult to acquire since the demand is not as high as for other 3dfx cards.

== Voodoo2 ==

[[File:3dfx_Voodoo_2.jpg|200px|thumb|Provideo PV830 (reference Voodoo2 with 110MHz rated RAM)]]

Released in early 1998, the Voodoo2 chipset (SST96) expanded upon its predecessor by adding a second texture processor, featuring 8 or 12 MB EDO DRAM and supporting Direct3D 6. The clock was increased to 90 MHz, almost doubling the performance compared to Voodoo1. Performance in games utilizing the Voodoo2's second texture unit by means of single-pass multitexturing is further increased. The first notable games to do so were GLQuake, Quake II (both 1997) and Unreal (1998). Single-pass trilinear filtering was possible as well.

The cards also support SLI (Scan-Line Interleave), a technique which allows 2 cards to be run simultaneously and draw the lines of the image in turn, boosting performance and enabling a resolution of up to 1024x768. With one card installed, up to 800x600 is possible regardless of memory. For SLI operation a special SLI cable is required. It is also possible to use a [[How to make a Voodoo 2 SLI cable|modified floppy drive cable]].

Following the same principle as the Voodoo1 there are three independent 64-bit RAM buses, one for the frame buffer processor and one for each TMU. While 4 MB RAM are available for the frame buffer, the textures have to be copied into the RAM of both TMUs. So even though there are technically 4 or 8 MB of texture memory on a card effectively there are only 2 or 4 MB available for textures. With SLI this amount does not grow, instead the textures will be copied two more times.

Voodoo2 still requires the passthrough cable and use of a separate 2D card. However, the chipset does have some 2D features and there is a driver for Linux that allows one to use Voodoo2 as a GUI accelerator.

A large number of cards from different manufacturers were released, with some deviating from the reference design and/or featuring extra cooling and even slight factory overclocks. The Voodoo2 remained the standard for PC 3D accelerator cards throughout 1998.

Competitors included the NVIDIA RIVA TNT, ATI Rage 128 and the Matrox G200.

'''Bottom line:''' The iconic Voodoo2 SLI setup holds nostalgic value for some people. Voodoo2 SLI is viable for almost all Glide games, and has the advantage over Voodoo 3 that it can play more Glide games originally only designed for Voodoo1, with necessary environment variable configuration. Weak points include occasional slight stutter due to the restrictive memory architecture and possible image quality problems due to the passthrough design.

== Banshee ==

Released in 1998, the Banshee was 3dfx's first fully integrated 2D+3D card. It combines a new 2D core, a single-TMU Voodoo2 and the RAMDAC into one chip. It is clocked at 100 MHz, meaning that the midrange Banshee was actually slightly faster in then prevalent single-textured games than the high-end Voodoo2, yet clearly falls behind in games utilizing multi-texturing. Banshee cards were the first 3dfx cards to universally feature some kind of cooling solution and came equipped with 8MB/16MB SDRAM or SGRAM, with PCI and AGP versions existent.

Its 2D acceleration was very capable. It rivaled the fastest 2D cores from Matrox, Nvidia, and ATI, consisting of a 128-bit GUI engine and a 128-bit VESA VBE 3.0 VGA core. DirectDraw is accelerated, and the GUI portion supports all of the Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) in hardware. The GUI engine achieved near-theoretical maximum performance with a null driver test in Windows NT.

'''Bottom line:''' Banshee cards are far superior to Voodoo Rush, although they have a few bugs in various areas such as video playback and DOS VESA modes. As such they are not ideal gaming choices, although they can be still useful for some games.

== Voodoo 3 ==

[[File:3dfx_Voodoo_3_3000.jpg|200px|thumb||Voodoo 3 3000 AGP]]
[[File:3dfx_Voodoo_3_3500.jpg|200px|thumb||Voodoo 3 3500 TV]]

The Voodoo 3, codenamed "Avenger", was announced at COMDEX in November 1998 and released on April 3, 1999. Following the buyout of STB, 3dfx was now manufacturing their own cards. The Voodoo 3 was basically a higher-clocked Banshee core outfitted with a second texture unit and some bugfixes. The cards were released in four different flavors: the 125 MHz Voodoo 3 1000, the 143 MHz Voodoo 3 2000, the 166 MHz Voodoo 3 3000, and the 183 MHz Voodoo 3 3500 TV with integrated TV tuner. Except for the low-end V3 1000, which could also come with 8 MB, all cards featured 16 MB. The V3 line came both in PCI or AGP versions, with the 3500 being AGP-only. Some PCI versions featured SGRAM instead of the standard SDRAM. Thanks to the integrated 350 MHz RAMDAC (V3 3000/3500), the maximum resolution is 2048x1536 at about 75 Hz.

Now facing stronger competition from [[NVIDIA|NVIDIA's]] RIVA TNT line, which already supported 32-bit color depth, 1024x1024 textures and AGP texturing, the Voodoo 3 line was somewhat panned by critics and called outdated in terms of features, but was still considered to be very competitive speed-wise, because 32-bit rendering introduced a big performance hit on competitor cards. At that time, 3dfx's marketing was centered around speed, but to demonstrate that the image quality was still better than their last year's high-end setup, they invented the term "22-bit", describing the fact that the RAMDAC of the card would perform either a 2x2 box or 4x1 line filter on the image, depending on the driver settings, masking some of the dithering.[http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/61/1]

Its prime competitor was the NVIDIA RIVA TNT2, of which the TNT2 Ultra was widely considered to be the better choice overall, mainly due to superior Direct3D performance and more features. Still, arguably 2048x2048 textures and 32-bit rendering were not as significant in 1999 as the better game compatibility of the Voodoo 3. Other competitor cards included the ATI Rage 128 Pro and S3 Savage 4.

The GeForce 256, which came out later that year, beats it both by features and performance in D3D and OGL games, yet can still merely tie it in some Glide-centric games such as Unreal Tournament.

A noteworthy problem with Voodoo 3 or other cards from this generation was the higher power demands, which certain mainboards at the time could not cope with. The issue lied specifically in the voltage regulators for the AGP slot. Intel specified 6A at 3.3V for this slot, but due to cost saving measures some mainboard manufacturers utilized parts that were specified for less than that. Voodoo 3 cards were reported to demand up to 4.8A, which could cause severe thermal issues, crashes and even hardware failures with these boards. One known manufacturer with this problem was Gigabyte. Also Asus had a similar problem, although only two models were reportedly affected; only Nvidia RIVA TNT cards are mentioned, but it is safe to assume that the issue is present for all AGP video cards from that generation and further. Lists for both manufacturers can be found in the links section.

'''Bottom line:''' A Voodoo 3 2000 roughly matches Voodoo2 SLI 12MB in speed, while only taking one slot and offering better real-world performance due to more texture memory (for 1024x768 as the highest resolution available with Voodoo2 SLI there would be 16 - 4.5 = 11.5 MB available instead of 4 MB, nearly three times as much). The image quality is slightly better due to more advanced RAMDAC filtering and the end of the passthrough design.

Like with all Voodoo cards, V3 will run games requiring early Direct3D features (8-bit paletted textures or table fog). If this is taken into account together with its good DOS compatibility/speed, wide availability and low cost, the Voodoo 3 can be considered among the best all-around cards for vintage gaming purposes of that time frame and before.

== Voodoo 4/5 ==

[[File:PowerColor_Voodoo_4_4500.jpg|200px|thumb||PowerColor Evilking IV]]
[[File:3dfx_Voodoo_5_5500.jpg|200px|thumb||Voodoo 5 5500]]

The VSA-100 (Voodoo Scalable Architecture), codenamed "Napalm", was the final product from 3dfx and was released in 2000. Only the single-chip Voodoo 4 4500 and the dual-chip Voodoo 5 5500 made it to market, both clocked at 166 MHz and released both in AGP and PCI versions. It is a further refinement of the architecture of all previous products, with some changes and additions such as two pixel pipelines with one texture unit each (instead of one pipeline with two texture units), larger texture caches and data paths expanded from 16-bit to 32-bit. The chip supports 32-bit color depth 3D rendering, 2048x2048 textures, FXT1 and DXTC texture compression.

Voodoo 4 4500 cards have 32 MB SDRAM. Voodoo 5 5500 cards have 64 MB SDRAM, although only 32 of it are actually usable due to the SLI method used, much like with Voodoo2 SLI. Voodoo 5 cards require supplementary power in the form of a single Molex connection.

The marketing was now more centered on image quality ("cinematic effects") than speed: Through the added "T-buffer" the Voodoo 4 4500 is capable of 2x RGSSAA (rotated-grid supersampling anti-aliasing), while the Voodoo 5 5500 supports up to 4x RGSSAA.[http://www.anandtech.com/show/350/2][http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/37/5] Compared to other methods such as MSAA (multisample anti-aliasing), this variant is considered higher quality, because it smooths the whole screen and eliminates texture flickering to a great extent, therefore generating a much "calmer" and more realistic image especially when moving in the game.

Unfortunately this comes with a large performance impact due to the high fillrate requirements from rendering at a higher resolution and sampling down to the actual resolution. Additionally, it has the weakness of blurring the text and UI in games; this undesired effect seems to be more detrimental with the 2x mode than the 4x mode. Generally speaking, the 4x mode is only practially useful up to 800x600 depending on the game.

Only very few applications are known to specifically take advantage of the added T-buffer hardware for effects other than anti-aliasing. These include a custom made Q3Test demo (ver. 1.08), in which 3dfx hacked motion blur support to promote their then new cards. Screenshots from this demo emerged around November 1999 and the actual program was released in December 2000, after 3dfx went bankrupt. The demo consists of three maps and does not feature bots; the motion blur effect is seen with weapons, powerups and moving players. It is only displayed correctly with 4xFSAA turned on for OpenGL and there is no known way to enable it in any other version of Quake 3.

Also, Serious Sam First/Second Encounter can make use of the T-buffer. It is used for depth of field effects and motion blur on certain objects. To activate it, the game must run in 16-bit color depth and the following commands must be written in the console:

<pre>ogl_iTBuffereffect=2
ogl_iTBufferSamples=4</pre>

The game is then supposed to confirm T-buffer usage in the console when starting it up. Other valid values for the second command are 2 and 8, depending on the number of VSA-100 chips on the used card. The FSAA implementation in this game is reported to be faster than in other releases. Still it is unclear whether the other effects work as intended or not.

Finally, it is possible that 3DMark2000 supports it for motion blur effects.

The Voodoo 5 generally performs similarly to the GeForce 256, but was not competitive with high-end GeForce 2 cards, especially since Glide support in new games was rapidly declining by that time. Likewise, the delayed Voodoo 4 4500 was considered obsolete by reviewers upon its introduction due to the GeForce 2 MX performing better at a similar price point. Despite this, reviewers pointed out that the VSA-100's SSAA implementation was superior to the competition.

Unlike the GeForce cards which were Direct3D 7 capable, the VSA-100 line was still limited to Direct3D 6, as it lacked Hardware T&L. This feature, which was introduced by Nvidia a year before, was slowly taking off in 2000 and games from that time which use it to a great extent are not optimally suited for these cards. After 3dfx came to an end, fanmade drivers tried to solve this problem and make 2001 and later games playable on these cards.

'''Bottom line:''' The V4 4500 is not a large improvement over the V3, since it performs similarly and its new features are of limited benefit due to this fact. V5 5500 is considerably faster and provides optimal Glide gameplay up to around 1280x1024 without AA, with the added possibility of adding anti-aliasing for higher image quality in lower resolutions, which may be especially useful with older games that are locked to these modes. For authentic hardware, VSA-100 can provide the best visual quality in these titles.

To attain the best possible frame rates, the cards can be combined with fast CPUs such as Athlon XPs with the KT333 chipset. AGP 3.3v support is necessary. Note that with 4xFSAA in any resolution or 1024x768x32 with no AA the Voodoo5 hits its fillrate limit in many games, making faster CPUs effectively useless.[http://www.rashly3dfx.com/products/images/133fsbCPU.gif]

Macintosh PCI versions of the V5 5500 have DVI outputs for clearer image quality. Using this with DOS games may [[General monitor advices|cause problems]] due to locked refresh rates though.

== Other 3dfx cards ==

The company also released other cards, such as the budget Velocity (name taken after the acquisition of STB) line, which only came with 1 TMU similarly to Banshee, although the second one can reportedly be enabled by a registry hack. Also, 3dfx had plans for a Voodoo 5 6000, which would have come with four VSA-100 chips installed and would have been powered by an external power supply, dubbed "Voodoo Volts". About 150-250 of these were made as prototypes. These cards beat Nvidia's GeForce 2 line and are even competitive with GeForce 3 when used with faster CPUs, and are also capable of 8x RGSSAA. The prototypes are considered "legendary" in the enthusiast community and are highly sought after, with prices easily as high as $1000 paid for them.

== User benchmarks ==

''Main article: [[3dfx Benchmarks]]''

== Video captures ==

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== External links ==
*[http://www.tdfx.de/eng/grafikkarten_alle.shtml Complete database of 3dfx cards]
*[http://www.falconfly.de/ Best resource for 3dfx drivers + other information]
*[http://www.3dfxzone.it/enboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1758 Glide games list]
*[http://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide/compatibility NGlide wrapper compatibility list]
*[http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=886 Complete list of Glide games for DOS]
*[http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2DC6912FD577F199 3D Acceleration Comparison with many 3dfx games]
*[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=ASCII&prev=_t&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.voodooalert.de/de/content/tests/index.php Many 3dfx tests and driver comparisons]
*[http://patrizio1.tripod.com/var.htm List of SST variables]
*[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=ASCII&prev=_t&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://web.archive.org/web/20000304054232/http://www.gigabyte.de/gigadeutsch/news/news.htm List of Gigabyte mainboards which will accept a Voodoo3]
*[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=ASCII&prev=_t&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://web.archive.org/web/20070304033237/http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq034_lx_tntrew.htm List of affected Asus motherboards with modding instructions]
*[http://www.3dgw.com/faq/moodys_voodoo2_faq.htm Moody's Voodoo2 FAQ]
*[http://floodyberry.com/carmack/johnc_plan_1998.html#d19980216 John Carmack on texture swapping with Voodoo cards]
*[http://www.falconfly.de/downloads/Q3_Motion_Blur.zip Q3Test 1.08 for Voodoo 5]

[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Graphics Cards]]

Intel CPUs

2013-04-28T12:25:52Z

RacoonRider: /* Pentium MMX */

Intel is probably the most well known CPU manufacturer in the world.
They've been making CPU's all the way from the earliest 8086 and are still designing and manufacturing CPU's to this day.

Even though in modern days, Intel CPU's only fit in Intel sockets and the other way around, in the old days there was a wide variety of manufacturers for any given CPU socket.

== Socket 4 ==

[[File:Pentium_66.jpg|200px|thumb||Pentium 66]]

Socket 4 was released around 1993 and housed the very first real Pentium processor. Very few different CPU's have been made to fit this socket, which is limited to the Pentium 60MHz, the Pentium 66MHz and the obscure Pentium Overdrive which ran at either 120MHz or 133MHz.
Because of the limited variety of CPU's manufactured for this socket and the limited speed options these motherboards provided, Socket 4 is a far less flexible platform when compared to Socket 3 or Socket 7.
Socket 4 supported the then new 60MHz FSB and 66MHz FSB (even though some Socket 4 motherboards were made that had slower FSB's like 50MHz and 40MHz).
Usually Socket 4 motherboards were fitted with ISA and PCI slots, though some VLB slotted Socket 4 motherboards were made. Socket 4 motherboards used either EDO or FPM memory modules and the memory modules had to be fitted in pairs where in it's predecessor, single modules were used. This was because Socket 4 was the first x86 motherboard that had a 64-bit memory bus (486 and earlier used a 32-bit, or a 16-bit memory bus).

All Socket 4 motherboards were made as AT motherboards or as proprietary boards. No ATX Socket 4 motherboards were ever made.
No AGP slotted Socket 4 motherboard was ever made.

== Socket 7 ==
=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chip set and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:Pentium166MMX.jpg|200px|thumb||Pentium 166 MMX]]
Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

''Note that mobile Pentium MMX processors ran at up to 300Mhz speed, however, they had a different core (Tillamook) and a different packaging.''

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

== Socket 370 ==
[[File:Pentium3_1400.JPG|200px|thumb||Pentium 3 1400MHz]]
Socket 370 was released on the 4th of January 1999 and was originally made as a budget CPU socket compared to Intel's higher-end Slot 1 solution. Later it became Intel's main CPU Socket until the release of the Pentium 4, after which it moved to the budget end of the market again before being phased out altogether.
A wide variety of CPU's exist for this socket, ranging from the 333MHz Celeron (with Mendocino core) all the way to the Pentium 3 1400MHz (with the 512 KB L2 cache version also being known as Tualatin-S). The Tualatin-S was also very popular for servers because of their low power consumption. 
VIA also made a variety of CPU's for this socket, though compatibility is somewhat sketchy. 
As this CPU socket went through a couple revisions, not all Socket 370 CPU's will work in any given Socket 370 motherboard, even though they will mechanically fit. Generally speaking there are 3 different types of motherboards using this socket:The early Celeron Mendocino-only motherboards (usually limited to a 66MHz FSB), the Coppermine capable motherboards (having a maximum FSB of either 100MHz or 133MHz) and the Tualatin capable motherboards. Sometimes Tualatin capable motherboards have their CPU socket colored blue instead of the usual white.

To prevent usage of newer CPU's in older motherboards, Intel switched a couple pins around to prevent operation of Coppermine CPU's in the earliest Celeron-only boards and Intel repeated that trick when it started manufacturing Tualatin CPU's. This prevented the use of later chips in older motherboards, even if the right (lower) voltage could be supplied by the motherboard.

Usually Socket 370 boards have AGP slots. The older ones have an AGP 2x (3.3V) and the newer ones have a universal 1.5V AGP 4x slot. Motherboards using ALi's M1631 (Aladdin TNT2) or Intel's i810/810E chipsets do not support an AGP slot. All Socket 370 motherboards have PCI slots and the older types of Socket 370 motherboards have ISA slots. ISA slots are more common on motherboards using non-Intel chipsets. Almost all Socket 370 motherboards are ATX (though a few AT Socket 370 motherboards are known to exist). Only very few Tualatin motherboards featured one or 2 ISA slots.
Usually motherboards with the Intel i815 chipset have no ISA slots, except when the motherboard is equipped with a bridge chip. The bridge chip may cause some problems when using ISA sound cards.

The Intel i810/815 chipsets also only support up to 512 MB of memory. Its main competitors didn't have that limitation.

'''Today:''' Popular choices these days are either a 1000MHz Coppermine or, if the motherboard supports it, a 1400MHz Tualatin-s. Both these processors are about the fastest of their kind and widely available. The 1400MHz Tualatin-s is about as fast as a 1400MHz AMD Thunderbird while consuming about half the power, which helps in keeping case temperatures down.
A number of BX Socket 370 motherboards were also made, just get the fastest processor available for your board.

Hanging note bug

2013-04-23T07:12:35Z

RacoonRider: - empty "cause" paragraph

The so-called ''hanging note bug'' is a hardware bug on certain models of the Creative [[Sound Blaster 16]] and [[Sound Blaster AWE32]] series of sound cards. The bug only occurs when affected cards are utilized for digital sound effects and MIDI music simultaneously, but it happens on any MIDI device regardless if connected to the internal [[Wave Blaster connector]] or externally through the game port.

''Although hanging note bug appeared in a wide range of Creative products, Creative never officially acknowledged its existence.''

== Type 1: Illegitimate hanging notes ==
This variant of the bug manifests itself as "rogue" MIDI notes being generated during MIDI playback. Since these notes are not part of the soundtrack, they are not stopped and hang for a long time. Also, these 'illegitimate' notes tend to be high-pitched, which makes this variant of the bug a rather annoying experience.

It occurs in the following games:

==== Games using the ''DMX sound system'' by Paul Radek: ====
*Doom
*Doom2
*Heretic
*Hexen
*Raptor
*Hocus Pocus

==== [[Wikipedia:Build_engine|Build_engine]] games ====
*Duke Nukem 3D
*Blood
*Shadow Warrior (Shareware)

== Type 2: Legitimate hanging notes ==
This type of the bug has been witnessed in many games, but occurs very rarely. In this case, the hanging notes are part of the soundtrack, but for some reason the "Note off" command is missed.

== Affected cards ==
Affected are all Sound Blaster models with DSP revisions 4.11, 4.12 and 4.13. 
Type 1 doesn't occur on cards with a CT1747 bus interface.

=== Bugged (Type 1 and 2) ===
*CT1740 (DSP >4.05) - SB 16 CSP
*CT1750 (DSP >4.05) - SB 16 Multi-CD CSP
*CT1770 (DSP >4.05) - SB 16 SCSI-2
*CT2260 - SB 16 Multi-CD OEM
*CT2800 - SB 16 Value OEM
*CT2860 - SB 16 Value OEM
*CT2910 - SB 16 Pro
*CT2940 - SB 16 Value PnP OEM
*CT2950 - SB 16 Value PnP OEM
*CT2980 - SB 16 Value PnP
*CT3600 - SB AWE 32 IDE PnP
*CT3990 - SB AWE 32 IDE PnP

=== Bugged (Type 2 only) ===
*CT2230 - SB 16 Multi-CD CSP
*CT2760 - SB AWE 32 Multi-CD
*CT3900 - SB AWE 32 IDE
*CT3980 - SB AWE 32 IDE

=== Bug-free ===
*CT1730 - SB 16
*CT1740 (DSP ≤4.05) - SB 16 CSP
*CT1750 (DSP 4.05) - SB 16 Multi-CD CSP
*CT1770 (DSP 4.05) - SB 16 SCSI-2
*AWE64 cards (DSP 4.16)

== External links ==
*[http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=20849 Related thread on the VOGONS forums]

[[Category:Sound Cards]]

Software guides

2013-04-16T09:32:08Z

RacoonRider:

*[[List of games that require specific CPUs to run properly]]
*[[How to create an autobackup batch script]]

How to create an autobackup batch script

2013-04-16T09:00:33Z

RacoonRider:

In dayly DOS experiments with retro hardware it is useful to have a script to automatically back up your autoexec.bat and config.sys files. While internet is full of different batch files and samples, but only few of them work in older DOS, namely 6.22.

Here's a script that automatically backs up autoexec.bat and config.sys:

<pre>
;This autobackup script backs up autoexec.bat and config.sys every day.
;Created for www.vogonswiki.com

@ECHO OFF
VER|DATE>TEMP.BAT
ECHO SET DATE=%%4>CURRENT.BAT
CALL TEMP.BAT
DEL TEMP.BAT
DEL CURRENT.BAT

md C:\AUTOBACK\
lmd C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%
lcopy C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%\AUTOEXEC.BAT /y
lcopy C:\CONFIG.SYS C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%\CONFIG.SYS /y
ECHO Backup created on %DATE%.</pre>

The first six lines of this script capture system date. Than a directory with a name formatted <code>dd-mm-yyyy</code> is created in C:\AUTOBACK\. Your autoexec.bat and config.sys files are copied in that directory. LFN Tools extension is used to handle long directory name containing system date.

With this script added to your autoexec.bat (via <code>CALL</code> function or by copying the lines directly), your autoexec.bat and config.sys will be backed up every time you turn on your PC. However, the files in the same <code>dd-mm-yyyy</code> directory are overwritten.

=External links=
*[http://www.robvanderwoude.com/batchfiles.php Rob van der Woude's Scripting Pages]
*[http://lfntools.sourceforge.net/ LFN Tools for long file name support]

How to create an autobackup batch script

2013-04-16T09:00:04Z

RacoonRider: /* External links */

In dayly DOS experiments with retro hardware it is useful to have a script to automatically back up your autoexec.bat and config.sys files. While internet is full of different batch files and samples, but only few of them work in older DOS, namely 6.22.

Here's a script that automatically backs up autoexec.bat and config.sys:

<pre>
;This autobackup script backs up autoexec.bat and config.sys every day.
;Created by Racoonrider for www.vogonswiki.com

@ECHO OFF
VER|DATE>TEMP.BAT
ECHO SET DATE=%%4>CURRENT.BAT
CALL TEMP.BAT
DEL TEMP.BAT
DEL CURRENT.BAT

md C:\AUTOBACK\
lmd C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%
lcopy C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%\AUTOEXEC.BAT /y
lcopy C:\CONFIG.SYS C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%\CONFIG.SYS /y
ECHO Backup created on %DATE%.</pre>

The first six lines of this script capture system date. Than a directory with a name formatted <code>dd-mm-yyyy</code> is created in C:\AUTOBACK\. Your autoexec.bat and config.sys files are copied in that directory. LFN Tools extension is used to handle long directory name containing system date.

With this script added to your autoexec.bat (via <code>CALL</code> function or by copying the lines directly), your autoexec.bat and config.sys will be backed up every time you turn on your PC. However, the files in the same <code>dd-mm-yyyy</code> directory are overwritten.

=External links=
*[http://www.robvanderwoude.com/batchfiles.php Rob van der Woude's Scripting Pages]
*[http://lfntools.sourceforge.net/ LFN Tools for long file name support]

How to create an autobackup batch script

2013-04-16T08:58:08Z

RacoonRider: Created page with "In dayly DOS experiments with retro hardware it is useful to have a script to automatically back up your autoexec.bat and config.sys files. While internet is full of different..."

In dayly DOS experiments with retro hardware it is useful to have a script to automatically back up your autoexec.bat and config.sys files. While internet is full of different batch files and samples, but only few of them work in older DOS, namely 6.22.

Here's a script that automatically backs up autoexec.bat and config.sys:

<pre>
;This autobackup script backs up autoexec.bat and config.sys every day.
;Created by Racoonrider for www.vogonswiki.com

@ECHO OFF
VER|DATE>TEMP.BAT
ECHO SET DATE=%%4>CURRENT.BAT
CALL TEMP.BAT
DEL TEMP.BAT
DEL CURRENT.BAT

md C:\AUTOBACK\
lmd C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%
lcopy C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%\AUTOEXEC.BAT /y
lcopy C:\CONFIG.SYS C:\AUTOBACK\%DATE%\CONFIG.SYS /y
ECHO Backup created on %DATE%.</pre>

The first six lines of this script capture system date. Than a directory with a name formatted <code>dd-mm-yyyy</code> is created in C:\AUTOBACK\. Your autoexec.bat and config.sys files are copied in that directory. LFN Tools extension is used to handle long directory name containing system date.

With this script added to your autoexec.bat (via <code>CALL</code> function or by copying the lines directly), your autoexec.bat and config.sys will be backed up every time you turn on your PC. However, the files in the same <code>dd-mm-yyyy</code> directory are overwritten.

=External links=
*[http://www.robvanderwoude.com/batchfiles.php]
*[http://lfntools.sourceforge.net/ LFN Tools for long file name support]

Gravis Ultrasound

2013-04-14T16:42:08Z

RacoonRider: /* External links */

The Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) soundcard family was released by Advanced Gravis during the 1990s. The original Ultrasound card was meant as a competitive product for the SoundBlaster cards as it provided sound mixing of 32 voices in hardware and came with up to 1MB of on-board sample RAM. The Ultrasound cards were quickly adopted by the demo scene as the hardware mixing ability used no additional processor power and allowed for playing back tracker modules in high quality.

The Ultrasound card family consists of the following cards:

* '''Ultrasound "Classic"''': released in 1991, 256 to 1024kB of RAM, GF1 based
* '''Ultrasound Max''': an extended GUS Classic with an additional CS4231 codec, 1MB RAM, GF1 based
* '''Ultrasound ACE''': addon GUS card without the codec and the SoundBlaster compatible control registers, can be used in combination with any SoundBlaster compatible card, GF1 based
* '''Ultrasound PnP''': released in 1995, complete re-design of the GUS based on the AMD Interwave chip, 8MB RAM (16MB with h/w mod), 16bit/44kHz playback and recording possible, 1MB of sample ROM, GUS compatible when RAM is installed, PnP compatible
* '''Ultrasound Extreme''': last GUS released by Gravis, GF1 based, ESS1688 codec for SoundBlaster comatibility, not PnP compatible, 1MB RAM

===Ultrasound Classic===
TBD

===Ultrasound Max===
TBD

===Ultrasound ACE===
TBD

===Ultrasound PnP===
Unlike any other Ultrasound card, the GUS PnP is not based on the GF1 but rather on the Interwave chip made by AMD. It is hardware compatible with the original GUS when initialized in GUS mode but differs from it in several aspects. First, it is able to play back 32 voices with the full 44kHz sample rate, where the GUS Classic went down to ~19kHz. Second, the on-board sample RAM can be extended to 8MB using SIMM, although the Interwave chip has an address space of 16MB. It also has a built-in effects processor and comes with 1MB of sample ROM filled with a GeneralMIDI compatible sound set.

As the GUS Classic, the Interwave chip is neither SoundBlaster compatible nor has it an integrated OPL3 FM chip. The card only provides the SB control registers (0x220H, 0x388H, ...), the actual SoundBlaster emulation is done in software. To be fully compatible with the original GUS, some RAM has to be installed.

Installing a GUS PnP can be quite a challenge due to its resource demand (three to four IRQs, three DMA channels, several IO ports). Fortunately these requirements can be lowered to two IO ports, two DMA channels and one IRQ when configured correctly. Prior to installing the card, any other soundcard and probably other extension cards should be removed from the system. They can be re-added when configuration of the GUS PnP is completed.

====DOS support====
For a DOS installation, the following files are required:
* PNPV22B.ZIP: the basic driver installation disk for DOS and Windows 3.x
* SETRAM.ZIP: a GUS compatible patch set, needed for GUS MIDI playback in many games
* IWAVECFG.EXE: part of the "GUS PnP XSS InterWave EEPROM Toolz", it will allow for substantially reducing the resource hunger of the GUS PnP

The contents of the installation disk should be extracted to a temporary directory, then the installation procedure can be started with INSTALL.EXE. The driver files will be copied to C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND, then the configuration utility SETUP.EXE will be called. Unfortunately, this program is quite buggy and may crash. If your computer hangs here, restart DOS and start it by bypassing CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. SETUP should run now and you can select and test the resources (IO, IRQ, DMA) the card needs. Do not worry if the GUS requests three IRQs, this can be changed later. If not needed, the CDROM interface and the gameport can be disabled here.
When finished successfully the SETUP untility will create the file IW.INI in the installation directory. It contains all configuration options of the GUS PnP and can be edited by hand now. SETUP also modifies AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. After first-time installation, SETUP should '''never''' be started again as it will probably mess up your configuration. The GUS patch set, SETRAM, has to be installed into a subfolder called MIDI in the installation directory (C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\MIDI by default).
The following entries will be added to AUTOEXEC.BAT, They can be moved to a separate batch file, which, in turn, can be called from AUTOEXEC.BAT.
<pre>
@REM ===== Gravis initialization (1.3) =====
@SET INTERWAVE=C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\IW.INI
@SET IWDIR=C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND
@C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\IWINIT.EXE
@C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\GETIWENV.EXE > C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\SETIWENV.BAT
@CALL C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\SETIWENV.BAT
@SET ULTRADIR=C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND
@REM ===== Gravis initialization ends =====
</pre>
The SETIWENV.BAT contains the ULTRASND and the BLASTER environment variables, it is overwritten on each reboot by GETIWENV. If you would like to modify the ULTRASND variable manually, remove the GETIWENV call above. The format of the ULTRASND variable is:
<pre>
SET ULTRASND=<io port>,<dma1>,<dma2>,<irq1>,<irq2>
</pre>
The "DEVICE=C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\IWINIT.EXE..." entry in your CONFIG.SYS is not strictly necessary for correct function of the card and can be removed. Now the computer should be rebooted, if all went correctly the Interwave driver will find and initialize the GUS. You should test the card with the PLAY.EXE tool and a wave/MIDI file before continuing.
If you plan to use an additional soundcard for SoundBlaster compatibility (which is highly recommended!) the SB and MPU emulation of the GUS has to be disabled. Start the IWAVECFG tool, you will see the PnP resources the card currently uses. Disabled devices will show "---", the IDE device and the gameport should be disabled already. You should deactivate the MPU emulation (I/O to "---") , the SB emulation (FM I/O to "---") and the second GUS IRQ if it is not already switched off. Your GUS PnP will now only use two I/O ports 0x220, 0x32c (for the CoDec, not shown), one IRQ and two DMA channels (preferably 6 and 7). You might want to change the I/O to 0x240 as most SoundBlaster cards like to have the 0x220 address for themselves. Save the changes and exit.
Now open the IW.INI file with an editor and change the resource values in the "[setup 0]" section to match the PnP configuration in IWAVECFG. An example for I/O 0x240, IRQ 7 and DMA 6,7 is shown below:
<pre>
[setup 0]
SynthBase=240
CodecBase=34c
CDBase=0
ATAPIBase=0
MpuBase=0
AdlibBase=0
GamePort=0
IRQ1=7
IRQ2=0
CDIRQ=0
MPUIRQ=0
SBIRQ=0
DMA1=6
DMA2=7
</pre>
Disabled resources are set to 0. Leave the other values in IW.INI untouched and save the changes. You can now reinstall other soundcards and configure them for SoundBlaster compatibility. The GUS PnP should not interfere with the configuration now.

====DOS games and the GUS PnP====

A lot of DOS games support the original GUS directly. The GUS PnP is mostly GUS compatible when DRAM is installed and the original GUS patches are present in C:\GRAVIS\ULTRASND\MIDI. However, some games will not detect the GUS PnP or crash, Epic games (Jazz Jackrabbit or One Must Fall) are some examples. Gravis has provided a multi-purpose patch utility called PREPGAME.EXE to deal with those incompatibilities, it will scan the current directory for supported games and update them to work with the GUS PnP. Simply change into the game directory and execute PREPGAME. Most games also look for the ULTRASND environment variable as defined in SETIWENV.BAT.
If a game does not support the GUS and you do not have a second SB compatible card, one of two SoundBlaster emulation programs can be used (GUS SB emulation has to be enabled in PnP configuration):
* IWSBOS: provides SoundBlaster, Adlib and GeneralMIDI compatibility, does not require EMM386 but has problems with some protected-mode games (DOS4/GW and friends).
* MegaEM: provides SoundBlaster, Adlib, GeneralMIDI and basic MT32 (only MT32 instrument mapping) compatibility, requires EMM386 or similar memory manager, should work better with protected-mode games

Both emulators support only SoundBlaster 2.0 (i.e. not SBPro) and have severe compatibility issues, Adlib sound playback quality is appalling. MegaEM, in addition, is very picky about the EMM386 version. Games using the Miles Audio Interface Library 3 (AIL) can use the Interwave chip directly with appropriate drivers (IWAV.DIG, IWAV.MDI). Some LucasArts games using iMuse can also be patched for Interwave support. To put the GUS PnP into Interwave compatible mode, IWSBOS has to be loaded.

====Windows support====

===Ultrasound Extreme===
TBD

==External links==
* [http://www.gravisultrasound.com Gravis Ultrasound Archive]
* [http://gona.mactar.hu/GRAVIS Drivers and software for all GUS cards]
* [http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=100 GUS PnP XSS InterWave EEPROM Toolz]
* [http://www.ninjacode.org/gf1/cards.html GF1 Museum: photos, descriptions, audio samples]

Main Page

2013-04-13T17:27:28Z

RacoonRider: /* User benchmarks */

'''Welcome to ''VOGONS Wiki''''', a reference site covering vintage computer hardware used for playing games that don't run correctly on modern computers.

Current goals:
*Write about the details, advantages, disadvantages and quirks of useful old gaming hardware.
*Write guides to help get old games running their best.

== Getting Started ==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup Wiki Page Markup Guide] (how to make Wiki pages)

== Gaming Build Guides ==

*[[Hardware guides]]
*[[Software guides]]
*[[Recommended Builds]]

== Hardware Info ==

*[[CPUs]]
*[[Graphics Cards]]
*[[Sound Cards & Modules]]
*[[Motherboards & Chipsets]]
*[[Input Devices]]
*[[Storage Devices]]
*[[Monitors]]
*[[Miscellaneous Components]]

== Game Setup Guides ==

*[[General DOS articles]]
*[[General Windows articles]]
*[[Specific DOS game guides]]
*[[Specific Windows game guides]]

== [[User benchmarks]] ==
*[[3dfx Benchmarks]]
*[[Socket 7 benchmark results]]

== [[Retrocomputing resources]] ==

== Related sites ==
* [http://vogons.zetafleet.com VOGONS Forum]
* [http://www.vogonsdrivers.com VOGONS Vintage Driver Library]
* [http://www.dosbox.com DOSBox]

Talk:Windows versions

2013-04-09T16:11:51Z

RacoonRider:

Please never write that something is best, like with Win98. Always write for which application. If you have a 386 system for vintage gaming, Windows 98 is definitely not the best because it wont even install.
You should also try to mention the drawbacks and disadvantages and f.e. Win98 has some.[[User:Enigma|Enigma]] ([[User talk:Enigma|talk]]) 20:32, 8 April 2013 (EST)

:Read the complete sentence. All-in-one. For a system of the OSs vintage, that means DOS+Win98 gaming with the possibility of rebooting into real DOS. For that task it is the best OS, I don't think there is any contest here. A 386 isn't even remotely fit for this task anyway, so of course to have an all-in-one gaming system you also need to have the appropriate hardware. As always, if you know something that I don't know just edit it in. Isn't this a wiki? @RacoonRider: What is this ADSL driver stuff? I can connect to the internet fine without any such 3rd party drivers. [[User:D1stortion|D1stortion]] ([[User talk:D1stortion|talk]]) 23:46, 8 April 2013 (EST)

That's for PPPoE (WAN port connection, requires authorisation). Windows 98 does not offer it by default since I'm not sure it was even available back in the days. I'm almost sure that your machine is connected to internet through LAN, so you need no special driver.
--[[User:RacoonRider|RacoonRider]] ([[User talk:RacoonRider|talk]]) 02:11, 10 April 2013 (EST)

Windows versions

2013-04-08T04:01:24Z

RacoonRider:

This is a list describing different Windows versions in terms of game compatibility.

'''Windows 3.x:''' 
'''Windows 95:''' 
'''Windows 98:''' Best all-in-one operating system for vintage gaming computers. Basically a much more refined continuation of Windows 95. Good DOS compatibility either by DOS window or rebooting into DOS. Emulates USB mouses and gamepads in DOS window as well. Has numerous features that Win95 got only with the OSR releases and which weren't present in its original release, such as support for P6 (Pentium Pro and up), FAT32, selection of IRQs, AGP, UDMA, USB and MMX. Furthermore, SSE and multiple monitor support is exclusive for Windows 98 and up. Windows 98 supports up to 512 MB RAM without tweaking, with tweaking up to 1 GB. 3rd party USB mass storage drivers, namely nusb33e, are only available for Windows 98 SE due to its newer USB stack, so this revision is by far preferable. 3rd party drivers are also available for ADSL connectivity (raspppoe). Long after Windows 98 SE release it's fans created an [http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html unofficial service pack] which includes all system updates after SE and several tweaks and fixes. 
'''Windows 2000:''' 
'''Windows XP:''' Last OS from Microsoft so far to support game ports, MPU-401 ports, the IPX protocol, out of the box MIDI device selection and EAX 3D sound hardware acceleration through the DirectSound HAL. Generally good Win9x game compatibility. DOS only via NTVDM emulation, has basic Sound Blaster support (SFX part only).

Windows versions

2013-04-08T04:01:05Z

RacoonRider:

This is a list describing different Windows versions in terms of game compatibility.

'''Windows 3.x:''' 
'''Windows 95:''' 
'''Windows 98:''' Best all-in-one operating system for vintage gaming computers. Basically a much more refined continuation of Windows 95. Good DOS compatibility either by DOS window or rebooting into DOS. Emulates USB mouses and gamepads in DOS window as well. Has numerous features that Win95 got only with the OSR releases and which weren't present in its original release, such as support for P6 (Pentium Pro and up), FAT32, selection of IRQs, AGP, UDMA, USB and MMX. Furthermore, SSE and multiple monitor support is exclusive for Windows 98 and up. Windows 98 supports up to 512 MB RAM without tweaking, with tweaking up to 1 GB. 3rd party USB mass storage drivers, namely nusb33e, are only available for Windows 98 SE due to its newer USB stack, so this revision is by far preferable. 3rd party drivers are also available for ADSL connectivity (raspppoe). Long after Windows 98 SE release it's fans created an [http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html unofficial service pack] which includes all system updates after SE and several tweaks and fixes. 
'''Windows 2000:'''
'''Windows XP:''' Last OS from Microsoft so far to support game ports, MPU-401 ports, the IPX protocol, out of the box MIDI device selection and EAX 3D sound hardware acceleration through the DirectSound HAL. Generally good Win9x game compatibility. DOS only via NTVDM emulation, has basic Sound Blaster support (SFX part only).

BEDO RAM

2013-04-06T16:40:06Z

RacoonRider: /* Sources */

[[File:Bedo_image.png|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM]]
[[File:Bedo.gif|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM Diagram]]
BEDO RAM means Burst Enhanced Data Out RAM. Burst EDO was a faster type of EDO that gained speed by using an address counter for next addresses and a pipeline stage that overlapped operations. EDO memory was superseded by SDRAM.

BEDO RAM was supported by the following chipsets:
*VIA Apollo VP
*OPTi ViperMax
*PCChips VXPro
*PCChips VXPro+

''Note that wikipedia states that all VIA chipsets up to Apollo Pro (Slot 1) support BEDO. This fact is not confirmed in any of the linked sources and is accepted "as is" for some mysterious reason.''

Burst EDO, while a good idea, was dead before it ever was born. The addition of a burst mode, along with a dual bank architecture would have provided the 4-1-1-1 access times at 66 MHz that many expected with SDRAM. Burst mode is an advancement over page mode, in that after the first address input, the next 3 addresses are generated internally, thereby eliminating the time necessary to input a new column address. Unfortunately, Intel decided that EDO was no longer viable, and SDRAM was their preferred memory architecture so they did not implement support of BEDO into their chipsets. In fact, several large memory manufacturers had put considerable time and money into the development of SDRAM over the past decade, and were not very happy with the BEDO design.

Except for support of bus speeds of 100 MHz and faster, BEDO would probably have been a much faster and more stable memory than SDRAM. Essentially, BEDO lost support as much for political and economic reasons as for technical ones, it seems.

=Sources=
*[http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-guide,89-7.html Tom's Hardware Guide]
*[http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/chipsets/ Motherboards.org chipset database]

BEDO RAM

2013-04-06T16:39:30Z

RacoonRider:

[[File:Bedo_image.png|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM]]
[[File:Bedo.gif|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM Diagram]]
BEDO RAM means Burst Enhanced Data Out RAM. Burst EDO was a faster type of EDO that gained speed by using an address counter for next addresses and a pipeline stage that overlapped operations. EDO memory was superseded by SDRAM.

BEDO RAM was supported by the following chipsets:
*VIA Apollo VP
*OPTi ViperMax
*PCChips VXPro
*PCChips VXPro+

''Note that wikipedia states that all VIA chipsets up to Apollo Pro (Slot 1) support BEDO. This fact is not confirmed in any of the linked sources and is accepted "as is" for some mysterious reason.''

Burst EDO, while a good idea, was dead before it ever was born. The addition of a burst mode, along with a dual bank architecture would have provided the 4-1-1-1 access times at 66 MHz that many expected with SDRAM. Burst mode is an advancement over page mode, in that after the first address input, the next 3 addresses are generated internally, thereby eliminating the time necessary to input a new column address. Unfortunately, Intel decided that EDO was no longer viable, and SDRAM was their preferred memory architecture so they did not implement support of BEDO into their chipsets. In fact, several large memory manufacturers had put considerable time and money into the development of SDRAM over the past decade, and were not very happy with the BEDO design.

Except for support of bus speeds of 100 MHz and faster, BEDO would probably have been a much faster and more stable memory than SDRAM. Essentially, BEDO lost support as much for political and economic reasons as for technical ones, it seems.

=Sources=
1: [http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-guide,89-7.html Tom's Hardware Guide]
2: [http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/chipsets/ Motherboards.org chipset database]

Talk:BEDO RAM

2013-04-06T16:14:51Z

RacoonRider:

Copying and pasting copyrighted material is a very bad idea. Or did you mistake Tom's Hardware for Wikipedia? [[User:D1stortion|D1stortion]] ([[User talk:D1stortion|talk]]) 00:54, 7 April 2013 (EST)

My idea was to preserve this info in case Tom's Hardware deletes obsolete pages and to make it wider and richer. It's a stub now, I'm still working on it. After all, we're not stealing, we provide a link to the original. --[[User:RacoonRider|RacoonRider]] ([[User talk:RacoonRider|talk]]) 02:14, 7 April 2013 (EST)

BEDO RAM

2013-04-06T04:16:31Z

RacoonRider:

[[File:Bedo_image.png|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM]]
[[File:Bedo.gif|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM Diagram]]
BEDO RAM means Burst Enhanced Data Out RAM. Burst EDO was a faster type of EDO that gained speed by using an address counter for next addresses and a pipeline stage that overlapped operations. EDO memory was superseded by SDRAM.

Burst EDO, while a good idea, was dead before it ever was born. The addition of a burst mode, along with a dual bank architecture would have provided the 4-1-1-1 access times at 66 MHz that many expected with SDRAM. Burst mode is an advancement over page mode, in that after the first address input, the next 3 addresses are generated internally, thereby eliminating the time necessary to input a new column address. Unfortunately, Intel decided that EDO was no longer viable, and SDRAM was their preferred memory architecture so they did not implement support of BEDO into their chipsets. In fact, several large memory manufacturers had put considerable time and money into the development of SDRAM over the past decade, and were not very happy with the BEDO design.

Except for support of bus speeds of 100 MHz and faster, BEDO would probably have been a much faster and more stable memory than SDRAM. Essentially, BEDO lost support as much for political and economic reasons as for technical ones, it seems.

=Sources=
1: [http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-guide,89-7.html Tom's Hardware Guide]

BEDO RAM

2013-04-06T04:16:06Z

RacoonRider: Created page with "BEDO RAM BEDO RAM Diagram BEDO RAM means Burst Enhanced Data Out RAM. Burst EDO was a faster type of EDO that gained sp..."

[[Bedo_image.png|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM]]
[[Bedo.gif|200px|thumb|BEDO RAM Diagram]]
BEDO RAM means Burst Enhanced Data Out RAM. Burst EDO was a faster type of EDO that gained speed by using an address counter for next addresses and a pipeline stage that overlapped operations. EDO memory was superseded by SDRAM.

Burst EDO, while a good idea, was dead before it ever was born. The addition of a burst mode, along with a dual bank architecture would have provided the 4-1-1-1 access times at 66 MHz that many expected with SDRAM. Burst mode is an advancement over page mode, in that after the first address input, the next 3 addresses are generated internally, thereby eliminating the time necessary to input a new column address. Unfortunately, Intel decided that EDO was no longer viable, and SDRAM was their preferred memory architecture so they did not implement support of BEDO into their chipsets. In fact, several large memory manufacturers had put considerable time and money into the development of SDRAM over the past decade, and were not very happy with the BEDO design.

Except for support of bus speeds of 100 MHz and faster, BEDO would probably have been a much faster and more stable memory than SDRAM. Essentially, BEDO lost support as much for political and economic reasons as for technical ones, it seems.

=Sources=
1: [http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-guide,89-7.html Tom's Hardware Guide]

File:Bedo.gif

2013-04-06T04:15:45Z

RacoonRider: From THG

From THG

File:Bedo image.png

2013-04-06T04:14:46Z

RacoonRider: From http://vinacliquerss.blogspot.ru/

From http://vinacliquerss.blogspot.ru/

Talk:Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-05T14:18:49Z

RacoonRider:

The presented VX Pro and TX Pro facts should be removed since they do not contain valuable information.
Even the linked Redhill Guide article mentiones that the VX Pro is slower and that the TX Pro ran quite well even at 75 MHz. Quite a contradiction to whats written here.

TX Pro is btw the SIS5591 chipset and VX Pro+ the Apollo VPX chipset.

I have boards with both chipsets and I don't have anything to complain about these boards. Lower performance compared to i430VX might be the case for the VX Pro+, i did no direct comparison.
The comparison should be done against another Apollo VPX board.[[User:Enigma|Enigma]] ([[User talk:Enigma|talk]]) 10:53, 4 April 2013 (EST)

Is that better? :)
--[[User:RacoonRider|RacoonRider]] ([[User talk:RacoonRider|talk]]) 16:54, 4 April 2013 (EST)

Yes. Still the fact with the high defect rates has no source. Redhill writes that PCChips builds mainboards with lowest quality, but defect rates for VX Pro+ and TX Pro are not given. So it is open, if these boards had high defect rates. At least the boards I have still work, but that doesn't tell statistics. Also defect rate tend to follow the bath tub curve. So if anyone gets such a mainboard and it is still working it is more unlikely to fail soon.

So I would change the argumentation this way, that the boards were manufactured by PC Chips, a company that is known to use lowest quality components. I would not mention defect rates for these boards, as I do not know them and there is no source for defect rates.
[[User:Enigma|Enigma]] ([[User talk:Enigma|talk]]) 02:12, 5 April 2013 (EST)

As a matter of fact, there is. http://redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html

''Second, they are made by PC Chips, renowned as the industry's cheapest, lowest-quality manufacturer. Their defective rates are legendary, between 10-15% in an industry where 5% or less is considered good. PC Chips was also the originator of putting "fake" plastic cache chips on motherboards. With these VX Pro boards you really do get what you pay for. ... The price is unbeatable, but price has always been PC Chip's sole selling point. ... Why would you buy a motherboard made by the industry's absolute lowest bidder?''
--[[User:RacoonRider|RacoonRider]] ([[User talk:RacoonRider|talk]]) 04:06, 5 April 2013 (EST)

I read this. My interpretation of this text is that they extend the prior defective rates to the at this time new VX Pro boards. For me this is rather speculative. It could has been as well that while the boards were cheap the defective rates were ok, especially since the TX Pro worked well. But maybe some native english speaker reads there something between the lines.

However, today the focus whats important is different. If you get such a board and it still works then it is still a Socket 7 system. If performance matters just get another board. No manufacturer knows how the defective rates change after 20 years.
[[User:Enigma|Enigma]] ([[User talk:Enigma|talk]]) 04:43, 5 April 2013 (EST)

Ok, I think, I got your point:) I really appreciate your attitude, it's pretty much scientifical and seems to oppose any kind of "holy war". I changed a few lines in hope this would be the most adequate angle, at which the user would know what he's dealing with, but would not worry much in case it works OK. Still, I think that the owner of the actual hardware should have the final word here. By the way, can you provide some benchmark results for the special section? It really lacks data collected from non-intel chipsets.

And what do you think of RAM paragraph?
--[[User:RacoonRider|RacoonRider]] ([[User talk:RacoonRider|talk]]) 05:38, 5 April 2013 (EST)

Well, most importantly that PS/2 SIMMs have to be plugged as pairs in S7 systems is missing. The 3.3V vs. 5V issue is not too critical as most memory chips support the whole voltage range. The heat dissipation as written should be considered. The golden rule for SDRAM is to choose DIMMs with a lot of ICs for high capacities. On the other hand it may not be a problem if only a partial capacity is detected. I would always recommend to run memtest86 at least 1-pass for a large memory setup to find out if chipset and DIMMs work in combination. PS/2 SIMMs are usually not problematic regarding memory layouts exceeding the memory controllers specs.[[User:Enigma|Enigma]] ([[User talk:Enigma|talk]]) 06:08, 5 April 2013 (EST)

Forgot to mention that SIMMS work in pairs. However, that's only partially true for EDO, on 2 of 3 boards I posess EDO RAM works well without the same stick in the adjacent slot.--[[User:RacoonRider|RacoonRider]] ([[User talk:RacoonRider|talk]]) 17:06, 5 April 2013 (EST)

A pair means same memory organization. It doesn't mean that it has to be the same manufacturer. Of course the risk is higher with different manufacturers to choose mismatched sticks. But this can be seen by the amount of detected memory.
Maybe it is also worth to mention that 430VX started to support EDO, while 430FX f.e. did not. And what about S7 boards supporting BEDO?[[User:Enigma|Enigma]] ([[User talk:Enigma|talk]]) 22:39, 5 April 2013 (EST)

I didn't think about BEDO, I own neither mobos that support it nor modules of it. I'll search the net on the matter. Concerning 430FX, it did support EDO. 430VX was the first intel chip set to support SDRAM.
Links:
* http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/chip/pop/g5iI430FX-c.html
* http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/chip/pop/g5iI430VX-c.html
--[[User:RacoonRider|RacoonRider]] ([[User talk:RacoonRider|talk]]) 01:18, 6 April 2013 (EST)

Talk:Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-05T06:06:51Z

RacoonRider:

TruForm

2013-04-04T18:43:21Z

RacoonRider: /* Games with support */

'''TruForm''' was an early tessellation implementation created by [[ATI]] and employed primarily on Radeon 8500 (R200). It was never accepted into the DirectX or OpenGL specifications.

== Overview ==
Before the adoption of pixel shader-enhanced bump mapping methods such as normal and parallax mapping that simulate higher mesh detail, curved 3D shapes in games were typically created with large numbers of triangles. TruForm creates a curved surface using the existing triangles, and tessellates this surface to make a new, more detailed polygonal model. By performing this geometry improvement on the graphics card, bus transfer and system memory utilization are reduced compared to if a complex mesh was used for the entire process[http://www.ati.com/products/pdf/truform.pdf]. For best results, Truform needs to be implemented in the models with flags that identify areas to be tessellated.

The Radeon R200 chip is the only chip that performs TruForm fully in hardware. Radeon 9000 and later use a combination of CPU and vertex shader processing to perform it[http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=2134065&postcount=5] and this impacts performance and stability. In later versions of Catalyst drivers, the TruForm feature is removed. Beginning with the Radeon R520 generation, TruForm was no longer advertised as a hardware feature.

== Games with support ==
*[[Bugdom]]
*[[Command & Conquer: Renegade]]
*[[Counter-Strike]] (ati_subdiv "2.0", ati_npatch "1.0")
*[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]] (unofficially, with the FPS Optimizer)
*[[FTE QuakeWorld]] (Quake World, Net Quake, Quake II, Quake, Quake III: Arena, Hexen 2, Nexuiz) [http://sourceforge.net/projects/fteqw/files/Full%20GL-only/3343/] [http://fteqw.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gl_ati_truform]
*[[Hexen II]] (TruHexen2 Patch, developed by RaVeN [http://hexen.clan.su/forum/7-804-1])
*[[Madden NFL 2004]]
*[[Neverwinter Nights]] (must edit the game's ".ini" file and set "Enable Truform=1")
*[[Quake]] (TruQuake Patch)
*[[Quake 2]] (TruQuake2 Patch)
*[[Quake III Arena]] [http://raven-05.narod.ru/Test-Quake-III-Arena-Truform.7z] (developed by RaVeN )
*[[Return to Castle Wolfenstein]]
*[[Serious Sam]]
*[[Soldier of Fortune]]
*[[Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix]]
*[[Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six]]
*[[Unreal Tournament]] (TruUT Patch)
*[[Unreal Tournament 2003]] and [[Unreal Tournament 2004]] (must edit the game's ".ini" file and set "UseNPatches=True")
*[[Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory]]
*[[Homeplanet]]

== External links==
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20080225041723/http://ati.amd.com/fr/products/gamesupport/index.html ATI's Official List of TruForm Enabled Games]

[[Category:Hardware]]
[[Category:Graphics Cards]]

Talk:Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T18:39:08Z

RacoonRider:

Talk:Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T18:38:05Z

RacoonRider:

File:SIMM72.jpg

2013-04-04T18:31:31Z

RacoonRider: 72-pin SIMM modules including both FPM and EDO

72-pin SIMM modules including both FPM and EDO

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T18:26:02Z

RacoonRider:

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

Note that TXPro chipset is not 430TX, but a relabeled SIS5591, while VXPro+ chipset is a relabeled Apollo VPX. TXPro and VXPro+ motherboards were made by the unfamous PCChips manufacturer and are known to have a rather high defect rate. However, if the motherboard you own is stable after all these years, it's probably not defective.

== Choosing RAM ==
[[File:SDRAM.jpg|200px|thumb|Different SDRAM modules]]
[[File:SIMM72.jpg|200px|thumb|left|72-pin EDO and FPM modules]]
Depending on the chipset, Socket 7 motherboards support either 72-pin SIMM or SDRAM, or both.

72-pin SIMM is compatible with most Socket 7 chipsets. There are two major types of 72-pin SIMM: FPM (Fast Page Memory) and EDO (Extended Data Out). FPM memory comes from the era of 486 and is older than EDO. EDO RAM is known to work no more than 5% faster than FPM. Larger EDO modules are also more common than FPM modules of the same size.

SDRAM(Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) has a whole new architecture comparing to EDO. It can be used by 430VX, 430TX, VIA VP3, ALi Aladdin IV, OPTi Viper chipsets. SDRAM gives a slight performance advantage over EDO, but it's main strength is in working with higher bus speeds.

Things to take into consideration when choosing RAM:
*If your board can accept both EDO and SDRAM, use only one type of memory, don't try to mix them. Only few motherboards are capable of working with both EDO and SDRAM simultaneously.
*EDO RAM works at 5V, SDRAM works at 3.3V. There's usually a jumper near memory slots that configures RAM voltage. It's not a good idea to run SDRAM at 5V, it will make the chips run much hotter than expected.
*Last one or two digits on EDO chips indicate RAM speed in nanoseconds, the lesser the better. For example, -60 or -6 is 60ns RAM, -70 or -7 is 70ns RAM. However, one should not try and compare EDO and SDRAM speeds that way.
*Newer SDRAM modules may not be fully supported by older motherboards. See [http://redhill.net.au/b/b-98.html redhill guide], "Single-sided and double-sided RAM" paragraph.
*It's a bad idea exceed cachable RAM limit (64MB for 430FX, 430VX, 430FX; 512MB for 430HX with TAG RAM upgrade)

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

==Things yet to cover:==
*AMD K6, K6-2, K6- III CPUS + image: File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200
*Choosing a motherboard +image: File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)
*Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards
*Choosing a monitor
*Choosing sound devices
*Choosing storage devices
*Choosing PSU and case
*What to play on a Socket 7 Build?

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T18:24:05Z

RacoonRider:

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

Note that TXPro chipset is not 430TX, but a relabeled SIS5591, while VXPro+ chipset is a relabeled Apollo VPX. TXPro and VXPro+ motherboards were made by the unfamous PCChips manufacturer and are known to have a rather high defect rate. However, if the motherboard you own is stable after all these years, it's probably not defective.

== Choosing RAM ==
[[File:SDRAM.jpg|200px|thumb|Different SDRAM modules]]
[[File:SIMM.jpg|200px|thumb|left|72-pin EDO and FPM modules; 30-pin SIMM modules]]
Depending on the chipset, Socket 7 motherboards support either 72-pin SIMM or SDRAM, or both.

72-pin SIMM is compatible with most Socket 7 chipsets. There are two major types of 72-pin SIMM: FPM (Fast Page Memory) and EDO (Extended Data Out). FPM memory comes from the era of 486 and is older than EDO. EDO RAM is known to work no more than 5% faster than FPM. Larger EDO modules are also more common than FPM modules of the same size.

SDRAM(Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) has a whole new architecture comparing to EDO. It can be used by 430VX, 430TX, VIA VP3, ALi Aladdin IV, OPTi Viper chipsets. SDRAM gives a slight performance advantage over EDO, but it's main strength is in working with higher bus speeds.

Things to take into consideration when choosing RAM:
*If your board can accept both EDO and SDRAM, use only one type of memory, don't try to mix them. Only few motherboards are capable of working with both EDO and SDRAM simultaneously.
*EDO RAM works at 5V, SDRAM works at 3.3V. There's usually a jumper near memory slots that configures RAM voltage. It's not a good idea to run SDRAM at 5V, it will make the chips run much hotter than expected.
*Last one or two digits on EDO chips indicate RAM speed in nanoseconds, the lesser the better. For example, -60 or -6 is 60ns RAM, -70 or -7 is 70ns RAM. However, one should not try and compare EDO and SDRAM speeds that way.
*Newer SDRAM modules may not be fully supported by older motherboards. See [http://redhill.net.au/b/b-98.html redhill guide], "Single-sided and double-sided RAM" paragraph.
*It's a bad idea exceed cachable RAM limit (64MB for 430FX, 430VX, 430FX; 512MB for 430HX with TAG RAM upgrade)

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

==Things yet to cover:==
*AMD K6, K6-2, K6- III CPUS + image: File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200
*Choosing a motherboard +image: File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)
*Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards
*Choosing a monitor
*Choosing sound devices
*Choosing storage devices
*Choosing PSU and case
*What to play on a Socket 7 Build?

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T18:14:36Z

RacoonRider:

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
[[File:B-vxpro.jpg|200px|thumb|VXPro chipset]]
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

Note that TXPro chipset is not 430TX, but a relabeled SIS5591, while VXPro+ chipset is a relabeled Apollo VPX. TXPro and VXPro+ motherboards were made by the unfamous PCChips manufacturer and are known to have a rather high defect rate.

== Choosing RAM ==
[[File:SDRAM.jpg|200px|thumb|Different SDRAM modules]]
[[File:SIMM.jpg|200px|thumb|left|72-pin EDO and FPM modules; 30-pin SIMM modules]]
Depending on the chipset, Socket 7 motherboards support either 72-pin SIMM or SDRAM, or both.

72-pin SIMM is compatible with most Socket 7 chipsets. There are two major types of 72-pin SIMM: FPM (Fast Page Memory) and EDO (Extended Data Out). FPM memory comes from the era of 486 and is older than EDO. EDO RAM is known to work no more than 5% faster than FPM. Larger EDO modules are also more common than FPM modules of the same size.

SDRAM(Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) has a whole new architecture comparing to EDO. It can be used by 430VX, 430TX, VIA VP3, ALi Aladdin IV, OPTi Viper chipsets. SDRAM gives a slight performance advantage over EDO, but it's main strength is in working with higher bus speeds.

Things to take into consideration when choosing RAM:
*If your board can accept both EDO and SDRAM, use only one type of memory, don't try to mix them. Only few motherboards are capable of working with both EDO and SDRAM simultaneously.
*EDO RAM works at 5V, SDRAM works at 3.3V. There's usually a jumper near memory slots that configures RAM voltage. It's not a good idea to run SDRAM at 5V, it will make the chips run much hotter than expected.
*Last one or two digits on EDO chips indicate RAM speed in nanoseconds, the lesser the better. For example, -60 or -6 is 60ns RAM, -70 or -7 is 70ns RAM. However, one should not try and compare EDO and SDRAM speeds that way.
*Newer SDRAM modules may not be fully supported by older motherboards. See [http://redhill.net.au/b/b-98.html redhill guide], "Single-sided and double-sided RAM" paragraph.
*It's a bad idea exceed cachable RAM limit (64MB for 430FX, 430VX, 430FX; 512MB for 430HX with TAG RAM upgrade)

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

==Things yet to cover:==
AMD K6, K6-2, K6- III CPUS + image: File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200
Choosing a motherboard +image: File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)
Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards
Choosing a monitor
Choosing sound devices
Choosing storage devices
Choosing PSU and case
What to play on a Socket 7 Build?

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T18:11:28Z

RacoonRider: /* Choosing RAM */

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

=== AMD K6 ===
[[File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200]]
=== AMD K6-2 and K6-III===

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
[[File:B-vxpro.jpg|200px|thumb|VXPro chipset]]
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

Note that TXPro chipset is not 430TX, but a relabeled SIS5591, while VXPro+ chipset is a relabeled Apollo VPX. TXPro and VXPro+ motherboards were made by the unfamous PCChips manufacturer and are known to have a rather high defect rate.

== Choosing a motherboard ==
[[File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)]]

== Choosing RAM ==
[[File:SDRAM.jpg|200px|thumb|Different SDRAM modules]]
[[File:SIMM.jpg|200px|thumb|left|72-pin EDO and FPM modules; 30-pin SIMM modules]]
Depending on the chipset, Socket 7 motherboards support either 72-pin SIMM or SDRAM, or both.

72-pin SIMM is compatible with most Socket 7 chipsets. There are two major types of 72-pin SIMM: FPM (Fast Page Memory) and EDO (Extended Data Out). FPM memory comes from the era of 486 and is older than EDO. EDO RAM is known to work no more than 5% faster than FPM. Larger EDO modules are also more common than FPM modules of the same size.

SDRAM(Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) has a whole new architecture comparing to EDO. It can be used by 430VX, 430TX, VIA VP3, ALi Aladdin IV, OPTi Viper chipsets. SDRAM gives a slight performance advantage over EDO, but it's main strength is in working with higher bus speeds.

Things to take into consideration when choosing RAM:
*If your board can accept both EDO and SDRAM, use only one type of memory, don't try to mix them. Only few motherboards are capable of working with both EDO and SDRAM simultaneously.
*EDO RAM works at 5V, SDRAM works at 3.3V. There's usually a jumper near memory slots that configures RAM voltage. It's not a good idea to run SDRAM at 5V, it will make the chips run much hotter than expected.
*Last one or two digits on EDO chips indicate RAM speed in nanoseconds, the lesser the better. For example, -60 or -6 is 60ns RAM, -70 or -7 is 70ns RAM. However, one should not try and compare EDO and SDRAM speeds that way.
*Newer SDRAM modules may not be fully supported by older motherboards. See [http://redhill.net.au/b/b-98.html redhill guide], "Single-sided and double-sided RAM" paragraph.
*It's a bad idea exceed cachable RAM limit (64MB for 430FX, 430VX, 430FX; 512MB for 430HX with TAG RAM upgrade)

== Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards ==

== Choosing a monitor ==

== Choosing sound devices ==

== Choosing storage devices ==

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

== Choosing PSU and case ==

== What to play on a Socket 7 Build? ==

File:SIMM.jpg

2013-04-04T18:10:21Z

RacoonRider: Different SIMM modules: 72-pin EDO and FPM; 30-pin SIMM

Different SIMM modules: 72-pin EDO and FPM; 30-pin SIMM

File:SDRAM.jpg

2013-04-04T18:05:15Z

RacoonRider: Different SDRAM modules. 32-128MB

Different SDRAM modules. 32-128MB

Talk:Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T17:06:32Z

RacoonRider:

Talk:Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T17:06:10Z

RacoonRider:

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T05:54:57Z

RacoonRider: /* Other chipsets */

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

=== AMD K6 ===
[[File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200]]
=== AMD K6-2 and K6-III===

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
[[File:B-vxpro.jpg|200px|thumb|VXPro chipset]]
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

Note that TXPro chipset is not 430TX, but a relabeled SIS5591, while VXPro+ chipset is a relabeled Apollo VPX. TXPro and VXPro+ motherboards were made by the unfamous PCChips manufacturer and are known to have a rather high defect rate.

== Choosing a motherboard ==
[[File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)]]

== Choosing RAM ==

== Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards ==

== Choosing a monitor ==

== Choosing sound devices ==

== Choosing storage devices ==

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

== Choosing PSU and case ==

== What to play on a Socket 7 Build? ==

Talk:Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T05:54:10Z

RacoonRider:

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-04T05:53:45Z

RacoonRider: /* Other chipsets */

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

=== AMD K6 ===
[[File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200]]
=== AMD K6-2 and K6-III===

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
[[File:B-vxpro.jpg|200px|thumb|The unfamous VXPro]]
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

Note that TXPro chipset is not 430TX, but a relabeled SIS5591, while VXPro+ chipset is a relabeled Apollo VPX. TXPro and VXPro+ motherboards were made by the unfamous PCChips manufacturer and are known to have a rather high defect rate.

== Choosing a motherboard ==
[[File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)]]

== Choosing RAM ==

== Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards ==

== Choosing a monitor ==

== Choosing sound devices ==

== Choosing storage devices ==

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

== Choosing PSU and case ==

== What to play on a Socket 7 Build? ==

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-03T16:49:27Z

RacoonRider: /* Other chipsets */

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

=== AMD K6 ===
[[File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200]]
=== AMD K6-2 and K6-III===

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
[[File:B-vxpro.jpg|200px|thumb|The unfamous VXPro]]
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

''Note that '''TXPro''' and '''VXPro''' chipsets have nothing to do with 430TX or 430VX. They were made by PCchips, not intel and should be avoided. The motherboards featuring TXPro and VXPro were designed to be very cheap, so they might have performance issues, fake cache, cheapest capacitors etc. For more info, see [http://redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html redhill hardware guide]. If you see TXPro or VXPro label, run. Run for your life!''

== Choosing a motherboard ==
[[File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)]]

== Choosing RAM ==

== Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards ==

== Choosing a monitor ==

== Choosing sound devices ==

== Choosing storage devices ==

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

== Choosing PSU and case ==

== What to play on a Socket 7 Build? ==

Socket 7 Builds

2013-04-03T16:45:52Z

RacoonRider: /* Choosing a chip set */

[[File:ATC-5030_430TX.jpg|200px|thumb||Socket 7 Motherboard]]
Socket 7 platform offers late DOS and early Windows games compatibility. Almost anything from 1990 to 1998 can be played at reasonable framerate and with enough comfort.

== Choosing a CPU ==

=== List of supported CPUs ===
*Intel Pentium (75-200MHz)
*Intel Pentium MMX (166-233MHz)
*AMD K5
*AMD K6 (sometimes K6-2 and K6-III)
*Cyrix 6x86
*idt WinChip, WinChip2

As you can see from the list above, there were plenty of CPUs for Socket 7 platform. However, the CPU of choice is usually either classic Pentium or Pentium MMX. They are better supported by chip set manufacturers (all most common chip sets were also produced by intel) and have good performance. AMD and Cyrix CPUs performance is subject of lots of arguments. WinChip processors were originally designed for low-cost market and though don't perform as well as Pentiums. They have more simple architecture and are closer to 486 and 5x86 rather than Pentium.

=== Pentium Classic ===
Classic Socket 7 Pentium CPUs have a wide variety of speeds, ranging from 75 to 200 MHz. They are supported by literally any Socket 7 chipset and proved to be fine performers. Pentium Classic is a good choice for Socket 7 Build, especially for beginners. They are easy to find and cost next to nothing.

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Pentium MMX ===
[[File:233MMXbottom.JPG|thumb|200px||Pentium 233 MMX]]

Pentium MMX CPUs arrived in 166, 200, 233MHz versions (66MHz x2.5, x3.0, x3.5).

Comparing to Pentium Classic, they have different core (P55C) with lesser 0.28 µm process. L1 cache was doubled (32KB vs 16KB). A new set of instructions called MultiMedia eXtensions was introduced, although the software to use them started to appear only by the time Pentium MMX processors were severely outdated.

Pentium MMX processors are supported by later Socket 7 motherboards with '''split rail voltage'''. Not every motherboard will accept such a CPU.

Overall Pentium MMX 233 can be considered the best choice of ''authentic'' CPU for a socket 7 system. When overclocked to 262MHz or further, it provides exceptional performance no other Socket 7 CPU can match. However, Super7 CPUs like K6-2 and K6-III still outperform Pentium MMX.

Pentium MMX CPUs are harder to find than classic Pentiums, but they are still quite cheap.

==== Overclocking ====
'''Disclaimer:''' Author does not take any responsibility for any damage caused by you in the course of overclocking.

Pentium MMX are known to work fine over clock. For that purpose 233MHz version should be used, as most 166 and 200MHz versions have '''locked multipliers'''. On a solid motherboard most Pentium MMX can work fine on bus speeds 60, 66, 75 or even 83 MHz (see table). However, RAM and PCI bus might not cope with 83 MHz FSB.

{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ FSB and Multipliers
! FSB
! x2.5
! x3.0
! x3.5
|-
! 60MHz
| 150MHz || 180MHz || 210MHz
|-
! 66MHz
| 166MHz || 200MHz || 233MHz
|-
! 75MHz
| 188MHz || 225MHz || 262MHz
|-
! 83MHz
| 207MHz || 250MHz || 291MHz
|}

''See [[Socket 7 benchmark results]] for detailed benchmark information''

=== Cyrix 6x86 ===

=== AMD K5 ===

The AMD K5 series for socket 7 reached the market late and was eventually introduced in 1996. The CPU design is a further development of AMD Am29000 RISC CPUs and was AMDs first attempt of an own CPU design in the x86 market. The K5s architecture is much more advanced compared to the Pentium and more related to the 6th generation x86 CPUs like Pentium Pro. These features result in a higher per MHz performance for Integer operations than a Pentium. Therefore AMD used a Pentium rating for K5 CPUs. The FPU is about 25% slower than a Pentium CPU clocked at the K5s P-Rating and does not support MMX. The early K5 series CPUs were produced in 500 nm, had an SSA/5 core and were labelled 5K86.
PR120 to PR166 K5s were produced in a 350 nm process, had a 5k86 core and were labelled K5. All K5s use a core voltage of 3.52 V. As the K5s architecture did not scale well with higher clock rates the fastest K5 officially released was the K5 PR166 running at 66x 1.75 = 116 MHz.
There are AMD K5 CPUs for 50, 60 and 66 MHz FSB and they use a multiplier translation:
{| border="1" class="wikitable"
|+ Multiplier translation
! Board
! CPU
|-
| 1.5x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.0x || 1.5x
|-
| 2.5x || 1.75x
|-
| 3.0x || 2.0x
|}
The 2.0x CPU multiplier was planned for the K5 PR200 running at 133 MHz that was not released because of new K6 series that arrived at the market at this time.

The K5 is a very compatible alternative to Pentium CPUs for low to mid-range socket 7 systems. On a clock to clock basis it has the best integer performance of any socket 7 CPU.

=== AMD K6 ===
[[File:AMD_K6-200.jpg|200px|thumb||AMD K6-200]]
=== AMD K6-2 and K6-III===

== Choosing a chip set ==

=== Intel chip sets ===
Intel released several chipsets for Socket 7. Compared to the earlier Pentium chipsets these were more reliable and feature packed.

The first chipset released by Intel for socket 7 was the '''430FX''' in 1995, codename Triton I. It introduced a new Southbridge chip called PCI IDE ISA Xcelerator - PIIX that included the functionality of several common I/O interfaces, including a PCI to ISA bridge and an integrated Dual Channel IDE controller.
The 430FX chipset caches up to 64 MB DRAM and supports PCI 2.0. For later Pentium MMX CPUs 430FX based boards usually require a separate voltage regulator plugged.

In 1996 the Triton II chipset '''430HX''' followed. It was targeted for professional users, supported tighter memory timings, SMP and is able to cache up to 512 MB. This usually requires a Tag-RAM upgrade.
It features an updated PIIX3 southbridge, that has PCI 2.1, USB 1.0, Busmaster DMA support for IDE transfers and independent IDE drive timings. Due to the lack of USB devices at this time board manufacturer often left the USB connector unsoldered.

The consumer version of the Triton II chipset was introduced at the same time and called '''430VX'''. While it also used the PIIX3 southbridge, it did not support SMP and could only cache up to 64 MB. The main difference is the support for SDRAM.

Finally in 1997 Intel released its last chipset for the socket 7 platform, the '''430TX'''. The chipset was consumer oriented and supported FPM/EDO/SDRAM while still keeping the cacheable area at max. 64 MB. The southbridge got replaced by PIIX4 that added ACPI and UDMA/33 for IDE.

Overall all Intel chipsets are easy to setup and supported directly by Windows98 up to Windows XP. Later chipsets offer better performance on average due to increased internal buffers.
If more than 64 MB should be equipped the 430HX chipset sticks out as the only option where the RAM is covered by the L2 cache.
The speed gain from using SDRAM compared to EDO is in the range of a few percent, same goes for the upgrade from 256 kB pipelined burst cache to 512 kB by using a COAST module.
As Intel left the Socket 7 platform with Pentium 233 MMX all chipsets support a max. FSB of 66 MHz maximum. Board manufacturers often offered higher multipliers for CPUs that allow to use faster CPUs like a AMD K6 on these chipsets. Of course higher power consumption of faster CPUs should be considered, since a lot of boards with Intel chipsets use simple linear voltage regulators.

''It's a common mistake to load up 430FX, 430VX and 430TX chip sets with maximum amount of memory supported by the chipset. With these chip sets, the use of more than 64MB of RAM results in a significant performance drop, as memory bandwidth over 64MB is considerably reduced resulting in about 40% system performance compared to working with L2-cached RAM. To avoid this, either remove extra RAM, or change motherboard for a 430HX based one. If specific applications require more RAM, it could be worthwhile to cover the RAM above 64 MB when using DOS by loading a RAM drive to the remaining top memory area. Some chip sets from other manufacturers are also known to cache more than 64 MB RAM.''

=== Other chipsets ===
[[File:B-vxpro.jpg|200px|thumb|The unfamous VXPro]]
Although the vast majority of chipsets of the era were made by intel, other manufacturers, like VIA, ALI, OPTi, SiS and PCchips, etc. also made chipsets for Socket 7 motherboards. Still, intel chipsets are the best choice for a novice enthusiast, since they cause least trouble and offer high performance. There is also much more info about them on the web.

''Note that '''TXPro''' and '''VXPro''' chipsets have nothing to do with 430TX or 430VX. They were made by PCchips, not intel and should be avoided. The motherboards featuring TXPro and VXPro were designed to be very cheap, so they might have performance issues, fake cache, cheapest capacitors etc. If you see TXPro or VXPro label, run. Run for your life!''

== Choosing a motherboard ==
[[File:Asus P55T2P4.JPG|200px|thumb||ASUS P55T2P4(430HX)]]

== Choosing RAM ==

== Choosing 2D and 3D graphics cards ==

== Choosing a monitor ==

== Choosing sound devices ==

== Choosing storage devices ==

== Choosing a network card ==
[[File:IntelPRO100.JPG|200px|thumb|Intel PRO/100]]
Generally, NICs in retro rigs are needed to copy large pieces of data, mainly *.ISO images from your main PC. They may be used to occasionaly access the internet, although modern internet becomes less and less compatible with retro rigs.

First of all, NIC has to support older PCI versions (mainly 2.0). Second of all, it should be compatible with Windows 98. And, last but not least, it should provide acceptible transfer speed. Some NICs may load CPU more than others, although substantial benchmarking is needed co confirm this point. There is no use for anything better than 100Mpbs in retro rigs, as CPU power bottlenecks the speed, so intel PRO/100 would work just as fine as Intel PRO/1000.

There's a [http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=32809 Vogons thread] on the matter. According to recommendations of various users, the following NICs are good choices:
*3Com 3C509 (ISA)
*3Com 3C905 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/100 (PCI)
*Intel Pro/1000 (PCI)
*Realtek 8139 (PCI)
*Tulip LNE100TX (PCI)

Today NICs are very cheap and fairly easy to find. There are other products, which may work fine, but the ones on the list proved to be fast and compatible.

== Choosing PSU and case ==

== What to play on a Socket 7 Build? ==

File:B-vxpro.jpg

2013-04-03T16:44:36Z

RacoonRider: Photo by redhill hadrware guide: http://redhill.net.au/

Photo by redhill hadrware guide: http://redhill.net.au/

How to make a Voodoo 2 SLI cable

2013-04-03T13:39:05Z

RacoonRider:

[[File:SLI3.png|400px|thumb|SLI cable pinout]]

Two Voodoo 2 cards can succesfully run in SLI mode. During SLI mode, one card renders every even line of the screen, while the other card renders every odd line of the screen. This results in higher resolutions (up to 1024x768) with higher performance. To arrange an SLI setup you need two Voodoo 2 cards, 1 [[VGA passthrough cable]] and 1 SLI cable. SLI cables are not common and are quite hard to find.

[[File:SLI_cable_opened.JPG|200px|thumb|left|SLI cable with lid removed]]
[[File:SLI_cable_result.JPG|200px|thumb|left|SLI cable - result]]
It's easy to make an SLI cable from FDD cable according to the pinout on the right:
*Open the lid with a knife. The plastic is very fragile, so do it very gently. You can see the configuration of the opened lid on the photo, it should be fairly easy to figure out what to do.
*Remove the connector and cut the cable. You can skip this step, but it surely makes the job more clean. It's a good idea to make your cable longer than the original SLI cable so that you would not be forced to use adjacent PCI slots.
*Find the pins 16,17,18,19. Notice that pin 1 is represented by a red line. Make two cuts and bend the cable, so that pin 16 on the cable is facing pin 19 on the conntector.
*Fit the cable inside the connector. Mind the lugs. Push it on the spiky pins as far as you can with your hand. Don't use a blade or a screwdriver of any sort, it might ruin the pins.
*Fit the lid. It won't close since the cable is not in it's position. Take a hammer and gently drive the lid inside the connector.
*If you have completed these steps the right way, the connector should look as if it was never opened in the first place.

''Special thanks to vogons user '''Stojke''' for detailed and colorful representation of the pinout.''

''Note that in early driver versions it was not possible to combine two cards of different manufacturer or revision. If your setup does not detect SLI, first of all try using the newest drivers.''

File:SLI3.png

2013-04-03T13:38:02Z

RacoonRider: SLI cable pinout and instruction by Stojke

SLI cable pinout and instruction by Stojke

How to make a Voodoo 2 SLI cable

2013-04-03T08:43:11Z

RacoonRider:

[[File:SLI_cable_pinout.jpg|200px|thumb|SLI cable pinout]]

Two Voodoo 2 cards can succesfully run in SLI mode. During SLI mode, one card renders every even line of the screen, while the other card renders every odd line of the screen. This results in higher resolutions (up to 1024x768) with higher performance. To arrange an SLI setup you need two Voodoo 2 cards, 1 [[VGA passthrough cable]] and 1 SLI cable. SLI cables are not common and are quite hard to find.

[[File:SLI_cable_opened.JPG|200px|thumb|left|SLI cable with lid removed]]
[[File:SLI_cable_result.JPG|200px|thumb|left|SLI cable - result]]
It's easy to make an SLI cable from FDD cable according to the pinout on the right:
*Open the lid with a knife. The plastic is very fragile, so do it very gently. You can see the configuration of the opened lid on the photo, it should be fairly easy to figure out what to do.
*Remove the connector and cut the cable. You can skip this step, but it surely makes the job more clean. It's a good idea to make your cable longer than the original SLI cable so that you would not be forced to use adjacent PCI slots.
*Find the pins 16,17,18,19. Notice that pin 1 is represented by a red line. Make two cuts and bend the cable, so that pin 16 on the cable is facing pin 19 on the conntector.
*Fit the cable inside the connector. Mind the lugs. Push it on the spiky pins as far as you can with your hand. Don't use a blade or a screwdriver of any sort, it might ruin the pins.
*Fit the lid. It won't close since the cable is not in it's position. Take a hammer and gently drive the lid inside the connector.
*If you have completed these steps the right way, the connector should look as if it was never opened in the first place.

''Special thanks to vogons user '''Stojke''' for detailed and colorful representation of the pinout.''

''Note that in early driver versions it was not possible to combine two cards of different manufacturer or revision. If your setup does not detect SLI, first of all try using the newest drivers.''