so i'm making a dosbox

[luckybob]

I miss playing the games I grew up with because I cant do it on my "main" system as its just way too fast and i do NOT like the software dosbox. In fact I hate playing with software of any sort.

You guys probably remember my dual p-pro setup that I nearly killed with a bad bios flash. Well its the center piece for my retro gaming system i'm building. I've set my wayback machine to 1998 ish when quake 3 and unreal tournament was installed on every computer around. my dad had just "upgraded" from a mac LCiii (I still have it) to a 400mhz celeron monster with 64mb of ram! Not to mention glorious onboard video!

Basically this is what I already have that I am cobbling together into a system:

Asus p65up5 mobo
2x pentium pro processors with 1mb cache
512mb edo ram
some random adaptec scsi card running at 80mb/s
hercules 3d prophet 4000xt pci video
1x voodoo2 from creative (ct6670)
and I *just* received in the mail today from ebay an AWE64 gold (ct4540)

I have the following spare parts:
asus p5a-b
amd k6-2 500mhz
368mb of pc100 (only will take 128mb sticks)


I've weighed the pros and cons and I want a "dual cpu" setup. I have resolved to only own asus boards and dual cpu ones at that. My target for gaming is quake 3 and unreal tournament. I remember spending many many hours on my dad's hp playing both until i had cramps.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I am open for suggestions, I am supposed to be getting my case for this setup tomorrow. I found on ebay a stripped ibm XT case that I'm going to fill with pentium pro goodness. Also I would love to have your opinions on what operating software to use and if I should get a 2nd voodoo2 or go for broke and try to win a PCI voodoo 5. I know for a fact if I was using my p5a-b I'd be going voodoo5 but I wish they had made a dual/quad p-pro with agp.

and before I go here are a few pictures of my setup so far:

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/173/1241487582128.th.jpg (http://img16.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1241487582128.jpg)
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/263/1242100374612.th.jpg (http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1242100374612.jpg)
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4669/1242100394251.th.jpg (http://img17.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1242100394251.jpg)

Everything should run fine under windows 2000 right? I've never messed with NT 4.0 so that should be a learning experience. Any suggestions?

[Unknown_K]

Title says DOSbox yet you are building a Win2k 3d gaming machine?

If you go 3dfx I suggest dual Voodoo 2 instead of a PCI 5500 (hard to find and the CPU(s) is too slow to make use of it).

I have a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI in my Dual PPro rig (333 overdrives and 1GB of RAM) but it is just my server.

Win2k runs great on a dual PPro, I have Win2k server on mine. You have to watch because plenty of mid 90's games do not like Win2k much (you need W98SE and that only uses one cpu).

[barythrin]

Already mentioned but figured you might want more than one opinion but your operating system will make the difference on your setup. NT/2000 will use the two CPUs, 9x won't so it wouldn't be worth pursuing that if you're going for that config.

2000 runs a lot of stuff, I only had problems with a few older applications not running. Honestly for gaming I used 98 more and only went to 2000 after XP had been out for a few years and games were being written for the newer components.

You may try googling around for ratings on tom's hardware guide or something on the video cards. If you already have those though I'd just set those up and then upgrade only if they're not cutting it for you. I was on AGP by that time so I'm not familiar with what performance PCI cards there were. I don't recall being able to play Quake 3 very well though. UT however ran great even on my 8MB ATI All in Wonder Pro (AGP) and I had a K6-3 450. One game from the time you need to play and/or get your friends to do a lan party with is Serious Sam. Like Unreal the engine is great and doesn't bog down your system like you'd expect.

[luckybob]

omg i completely forgot about serious sam....

but yea, i do plan on trying some late dos games as well. the origional lemmings comes to mind. as well as starcraft and diablo 2.

i guess i only called it a dosbox because of the program.

i havent really spent much on this, i guess i could go with a pentium 3 setup and max out with a voodoo5. its all still up in the air to be honest.