Building the 3 in 1 DOS Retro Gaming PC: 386 486 and Pentium

[@screamengine]

You definitely have the best approach to presenting retro computing I've seen. It might be the attention paid to midi & sound that I resonate with most. I just love it. My veins are 5 pin din cables. :)

[@philscomputerlab]

+screamengine Your veins are MIDI cables? WOW, now THAT is a statement :) Yea I thought about adding MIDI gear to this project, but at some point you just got to set boundaries otherwise it never gets done and becomes to much information...

[@screamengine]

LOL and I have optocouplers in place of eyes! Cant beat an AWE 64 Gold like you got there. That thing does it all and is the perfect all around 90's card. I think you can even load a soundfont under dos if necessary. Yeah dont change a thing. Your video style is perfect as it is. Leave the midi "heavy lifting" to the Ataris! :)

[@philscomputerlab]

To the Ataris, that's hilarious :) There will be plenty of MIDI action on this channel, I like to mix it up, show different ways of doing things. And sometimes it's great to keep it simple with just one sound card rather than an entire fleet of MIDI modules.

[@shuveb]

I had just given up on a CF card I had hooked up to a 386 machine I'm building when I got reminded by you of the "fdisk /mbr" command! It's booting now :)

[@CLUBNEON-m6i]

Videos like these remember my first 'gaming' pc: Athlon 550MHz SlotA, 384MB PC100 RAM, 4.3GB Quantum HD + 20GB Seagate HD, Satellite 300W PSU and a Savage 4 16MB which I later updated to a Geforce MX4000 and managed to get Windows XP, instead of Millenium.

[@euclideszoto997]

How can you not love doing this? That's why I love doing retro!

[@millennium677]

Operating System Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3 CPU Intel Xeon X5460 @ 3.16GHz Harpertown 45nm Technology RAM 2.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 533MHz (7-7-7-20) Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. G41M-Combo (Socket 775) Graphics Sunplus TV (1440x900@60Hz) 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (ASUStek Computer Inc) most games work great like trespasser doom system shock quake but theres some dos games that just run too fast so I use dosbox to slow them down it works great :) I can run pretty much any old game

[@davetheitguy4516]

Back in the old DOS days, I used to have this DOS utility / diagnostic software called CheckIt. What was really cool about it was that it had a clock speed benchmark built into it. For all the systems I ran it on below a 486 DX2/66, it very accurately reported the actual clock speed of the processor based on benchmarks. The old software didn't recognize anything above a standard 486 DX CPU though, so what ended up happening was it would benchmark the CPU and then report it as a 486DX running at whatever MHz that specific CPU would have to run at in order to match what was actually benchmarked. For example, my AMD K5 CPU running at 233MHz ran at (according to CheckIt for DOS) somewhere around a 486DX at 2,000 MHz. (It wasn't exactly 2k MHz, but it was around that number. It was really cool because it basically told you what speed a standard 486DX would have to run at in order to match the speeds that the system being tested was actually putting out. I may have a copy of that old program somewhere on my server. I'd be happy to share it with you if you'd like to test the different settings and see exactly what MHz equivalency you're getting.

[@ddniUK]

Lifelong Amiga user just getting into and building an ms-dos rig. Enjoyed your video, right up to the Xenon2 music. PAULA please forgive me!!!

[@newtmonkey]

Thanks so much for posting this!!! I had wanted a dedicated DOS machine for some time, as PC-compat. MSDOS has always been my favorite platform for games. However, I knew a lot of earlier DOS games are speed-sensitive, and I don't have the space to get a 386, 485, and early Pentium to cover it all... so this video was really informative! I was able to track down all the parts I need to build something very similar to what you show in your video, so thanks again!!

[@philscomputerlab]

Do checkout the 136 in 1 CPU project, it's even better! Only difference is using a Pentium MMX.

[@newtmonkey]

@@philscomputerlab Will do!!

[@kennyj4366]

Thank you once again Phil.👍

[@sabsthecat]

Wow! A blast from the past! Thanks for this.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Euge Corley Glad you liked it :D

[@JorgeCarvalho_web_dev]

Hi Phil! Once more a very good video, great explanation of all the stages in order to make this build. Thank you for your hard work. Regards from Portugal

[@philscomputerlab]

+Jorge Carvalho I appreciate that! Quite a few have asked me to show the steps, so I think that's something I should do more often. Especially DOS can be a bit tricky when you haven't used it in a while. I often watch my own videos because I forgot the details :P

[@JorgeCarvalho_web_dev]

+PhilsComputerLab Can I cast a challenge? A build that can do some old XT games, simulate an 8086/8088 8Mhz, CGA or ega graphics to run some very old games like digger, original tetris etc

[@philscomputerlab]

Hey that sounds interesting, but I'm afraid I draw the line with the 386. That's as "far back" as I'm going.

[@18cuchu]

really complete video. Nice job!!

[@philscomputerlab]

+18cuchu Thans :)

[@dries86]

2:40 Man where is the time you had to put the jumpers correct for the pc to boot..

[@xeruffurex]

Thanks for the Drivers and all your website files / info. Getting a p4 2.6 to conform into a Win98 / dos powerhouse is quite the task. Especially with no wifi drivers for my ASUS USB-N13 300Mbps 11n Wireless dongle lol

[@Slot1Gamer]

seeing as the different systems are basically different bios setting in this case, you can actually have 3 physical BIOS chips and switch between them using a switch on the front of the case.

[@philscomputerlab]

3 BIOS? Hmm, maybe watch the video another time?

[@Alex4SiliconValley]

Would it be okay to use a Pentium 200 or 233 mhz ? Can you still slow these down to a 386 ?

[@connarcomstock161]

Heard Gotek floppy emulator as "Goat-tech floppy emulator" and had a sensible chuckle.

[@armorgeddon]

For my taste it was perfect that you only played music when you're not talking. Do you know if Wing Commander and Test Drive 3 are already to fast on a 486 SX33?

[@philscomputerlab]

+armorgeddon Cool :D Yes that 486 would be too fast, BUT, you got a turbo button and also L1 cache option in the BIOS. So give it a go first.

[@armorgeddon]

+PhilsComputerLab No turbo button on my 486 sadly (it's an IBM 330 - 433SX). But I'll have a look into the BIOS options then. It's been a very long time since I last entered the BIOS on that machine, so it'll be interesting to see in general, which options it offers. Thanks!

[@philscomputerlab]

And even if there is no BIOS option, there is software to toggle L1 cache. SETMUL for example, you can find it on VGONS website. Just search for the two names.

[@armorgeddon]

+PhilsComputerLab Cool, I didn't know that such software existed for 486 CPUs. Thanks!

[@anonymoususer3835]

Is there a PCIE to floppy controller card?

[@Wushu-viking]

Pentium 133. Maybe The best compatible Retro CPU for 1987-1997 DOS games. That CPU runs rock solid, very cool(with a fan), and the option to slow it down to a 386@40-ish, is a great feature. But the authentic choice should be a PCI Graphics card. Something like a TSENG ET 6000, a S3 Virge 4GB. Or if you're lucky... The first Matrox Millenium! (everybody's dream card back in the days)

[@brostenen]

Funny.... My Shuttle HOT 555-a version 3.2 died yesterday, so I moved all the parts to a FIC PA-2013 board. So now I have a computer like this, just with a P-166, 16mb Ram and Number Nine S3 Virge. Same soundcard though. Great work on this video.

[@philscomputerlab]

+brostenen Yea I saw your post on VOGONS. Sucks when parts just die on you :(

[@brostenen]

True.... True.. Anyway. Not that big a loss, as the board I am using now is more recent. And has 1024kb L2 cache. I will be using it for really early Win98 games and 94/96 Dos games, and I have a V1 in this machine as well. 1024kb makes this a snappy Win98 setup.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice.

[@pentiummmx2294]

+brostenen I have that same Shuttle HOT 555A, but it's dead, no post, haven't got around to fixing it yet, maybe a bad bios, bad capacitors, RAM, etc. im currently using a ASUS VX97 that works fine.

[@nathan386dx40]

Do you know why it is that a Pentium or K6 with disabled caches is comparable to a 386? It seems like 133MHz is so much faster than a 40MHz 386, which is already too fast for some earlier 386-optimized games. Or is the Pentium with no caches more similar to a 386 with a motherboard cache?

[@Wushu-viking]

@Nathan Hardy: When you disable the cache, it slows down the performance big time. It's not excactly a Downclock, but the crippled performance is comparable to the lower 386/486 chips. I think a Pentium 133 with both cache disabled, should perform equal to a full optimized 386 DX40'ish. For early speed sensitive DOS games like shown here, you should aim for a Pentium 100 to 133 for a true DOS machine, as these can be "slowed" down to a "386 like" performance. The faster 200 Mhz Pentium or K6 might still be too fast for the early speed sensitive games like Wing Commander. But if you can cut down their multiplier to x2, you can downclock a 200 to 133, and then with caches disabled... = 386DX40'ish performance!

[@PrzeszczepiX]

Athlon 1400 Thunderbird with all cache disabled is comparable in speed and performance to 486dx2 66 :D tested myself

[@gerryroberts662]

I love all of this,.. This is just what i am looking for... Nice video ,,, love it...

[@itsaPIXELthing]

Awesome video! Thank you very much for this ;) Cheers!

[@philscomputerlab]

+It's a Pixel THING Awesome that you liked it :D Hey, I'm working on a video about the Mist FPGA computer. I've done two already, but I'm now working on the Amiga core! I'm having so much fun. I had an A500 for a short while as a kid, but now Amigas are quite expensive, so the Mist is a really good alternative. Doing all the game footage recordings, quite some work as you know :P

[@itsaPIXELthing]

I'm sure that you're having a lot of fun doing that! :) Looking forward to it ;) Still got your Voodoo 5 vid on my watch list! Hope to have a bit of spare time later ;) Cheers!

[@retrokompott]

isn´t that a P200 MMX you are inserting?

[@pentiummmx2294]

that's a pentium classic 200 mhz

[@Marsandrey]

I am wondering: if to disable CPU and MB cache a Pentium will turn into 386. It means its higher frequency and better architecture bring no gain?... Any idea why? And via versa: for Dos games 386 tacted at 166mhz would be faster then Pentium (caches disabled) true?

[@sarahts21]

Whilst somewhat odd, disabling the cache's might not be sufficient depending on when the game (or application) was written and who wrote it using what compiler. Some of the libraries used back then spew glorious quantities of NaN when you go beyond a certain amount of raw Mhz. Turbo Pascal 7's CRT module being somewhat legendary for this, anything faster than 100Mhz and the wheels come off but you'll find Watcom C misbehaving occasionally as well.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea that Turbo Pascal bug is well known. AFAIK it's around 200 MHz when it gets triggered. The K6 can be lowered to 66 x 2 = 133 MHz, that gets the job done :)

[@sarahts21]

PhilsComputerLab The exact speed seems to be a matter of some debate, Personally I've had NaN @ 100Mhz. Seen some Watcom C compiled programs do similar so it's not unique to Borland compilers either. Can the K6 do 66x1?

[@philscomputerlab]

Nope, 2 is the lowest. However the plain Pentium, like the 133, 166 and 200 supports 1.5x. So it can do 66 x 1.5 = 100 MHz. I use this in my main DOS PC :)

[@psilimit]

But why use a PATA drive instead of Compact Flash or SATA (either one using an adapter).

[@mdrumt]

No thermal paste?! Or is it on the heatsink?

[@philscomputerlab]

+Maurice Timbers (Moet) Yea it's not needed. Some machines back in the day didn't even have a fan :)

[@brostenen]

+PhilsComputerLab 486-DX-33 is were you should start consider a passive heatsink. Dx2 is were you need a heatsink and a fan.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

But even some on the i815 chipset on my CUSL2. Just to feel better about it.

[@jedits1988]

You didn't need any on those chips - Also sometimes there was this weird substance on the heatink itself.

[@EliaForce1984ita]

Damn, I recently put a Pentium-S 120 in a Socket 7 AT motherboard and when I mounted the heatsink I put the thermal paste on the CPU as I usually would. The board runs just fine, I just hope the thermal paste won't be a problem on the ceramic CPU, though.

[@menofmayhemmm]

How did you get that power button? Or is any new power buttons from the nowaday case are fine to use?

[@wyrmtalk6317]

Hi Phil, it would be cool to see what configuration I have to do one the DOS game side in order to configure midi out.

[@RenoxMTA]

Can you please make a video on reducing Southbridge/Northbridge temps? And if you have a brand new motherboard, please show before and after adding new thermal paste, because I am planning to do it.

[@brostenen]

+Renox CS:GO Thermal paste is not needed on Pentium-133 up to aprox 150/166. I run mine without.

[@RenoxMTA]

Nonono, I told him to do a video about new motherboards that have a Southbridge chipset. :D

[@brostenen]

My bad.... Sorry. I was replying to one of those "Why don't you use thermal paste" replies to the video. It just wen't the wrong place. Sorry.

[@RenoxMTA]

+brostenen np bro its fine

[@JustinFrost302]

how are you video capture the game play?

[@pentiummmx2294]

both caches on - Pentium CPU cache disabled but external cache on - 486 both caches disabled - 386

[@Ray-dx2pf]

Im feeling that music bro.

[@Bige4u]

Ahhh... the good old days of DOS gamming.

[@spidermcgavenport]

Utilizing a isa 386 isa 486 daughter board, with a Pentium main motherboard?

[@spidermcgavenport]

Because this would be very interesting too see. If functional?

[@Wushu-viking]

Hi Phil, What is the name of the track that starts at 1:20 ? (no luck with Soundhound on this)

[@philscomputerlab]

Not sure, it's from epidemicsound, that's all I know I'm afraid.

[@Wushu-viking]

No worries. Thanks for your reply :)

[@AiOinc1]

Which song played at the beginning? I'd have to know what it's called to look it up on your posted reference.

[@philscomputerlab]

No idea it's been too long. I just grab them from a music website that provides them.

[@AiOinc1]

PhilsComputerLab Ah, well thanks anyways.

[@AiOinc1]

That doesn't seem to be it. Looking for what's before 1:23.

[@senesiano]

Hello Phil, first of all, I wanna thank you for such a complete video, the memories come to me right away. I'd like to know where can you find all the components (mobo, cpu, video and sound cards). I'm doing a search of the motherboard in ebay but can't seem to find it. I'd love any information you can provide. Thanks a lot! :D

[@philscomputerlab]

Well I got these parts many years ago. It has become harder no doubt.

[@senesiano]

I couldn't find the exact hardware you use in this video, but I found pretty similar things on ebay. I made the payments yesterday, so I'm now waiting. I promise to post a little video with the parts I'm using so you can check it out. Thanks a lot for such an amazing video!

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice, I hope it all works out for you and you have a blast.

[@Michael-79]

The real shit begins at 6:48, but a pretty good introdution nevertheless Phil :D Back in 1996-1999 i had the exact same BIOS, thanks for taken me back in time yet another time :)

[@helldog3105]

Quick question, why didn't you just xcopy your driver folder to C Drive? It would have saved you a few steps. Just curious.

[@nathanmilnthorpe11]

Hi Phil would my PII 400 be to Fast for this Type of Setup? have Found a Pentium bundle on Ebay for £40 maybe i should go for it?

[@L5Rocks]

Will this 3 in 1 build work on a regular socket 7 or does it have to be super socket 7?

[@VoiceActingGod]

is there an option without the boot menu? Or do we have to use the boot menu?

[@philscomputerlab]

+VoiceActingGod Just skip that step to go without it.

[@VoiceActingGod]

PhilsComputerLab ah ok

[@rdxdt]

+VoiceActingGod but beware that some games will have issues with memory configuration.

[@VoiceActingGod]

Rodrigo B.P +PhilsComputerLab I installed it anyway getting the mouse and cd drivers was a pain for me. PCL made it way easier to get drivers up an running in under 20 seconds. I was very happy to see that c: I wasn't aware of that issue as well until he stated that some games would require less memory and stuff. I want to do a video and how he inspired me to get all these old pc's and make them gaming beasts!

[@philscomputerlab]

No problem, glad it worked out for you :)

[@2tailedfox711]

What makes 'super' socket 7 super? Extra voltage regulators? Like. What is different from 'regular' socket 7?

[@philscomputerlab]

100 MHz FSB that some CPUs can take advantage of for higher performance. Intel's Pentiums run at only 66 MHz FSB.

[@simbin.]

Is it possible to get Zone 66 working with sound and mouse? I've got the same setup -- Starter Pack + AWE64 Thanks

[@philscomputerlab]

+simbin That game sounds familiar.

[@simbin.]

+PhilsComputerLab It's an old shmup by Epic MegaGames that's picky about memory managers. It runs using conventional memory option - just no sound.

[@philscomputerlab]

+simbin I'm sure I had it running on a P100 before.

[@WaybackTECH]

Now I want to play Theme Park again. I have not played that for so many years.

[@philscomputerlab]

+WaybackTECH Mission accomplished :D

[@MelsRNRETRO]

Wonder why those Sound Boost settings are not on by Default? I mean Creative Labs is the Best!, Great Video Phil.

[@ZeitreisenderDrache]

What's is the first music track in the video ?

[@mikespikeey4625]

just spent 10mins tryin to fit a stick of ddr memory in to slot cos i never seen a ddr2 stick that looks like a ddr1 stick b 4,all ddr 2 sticks i have seen have small memory modules on them this ddr2 stick has long ones like ddr 1 never had one before????team 1gig ddrII 533mh

[@rikmid]

I'll try it

[@jedrula77]

As usual, very professional material with lots of useful information. The monitor in the movie is ASUS VB178TL? I am looking for the best LCD 1280x1024 17-19 "for a retro PC. I have a Samsung 757DFX CRT 17 "but it's already old and can end its career at any time. 24 "1080p EIZO 2333 IPS is suitable for retro medium. Which will be the best choice NEC 1770NX, ASUS VB178TL or maybe such a brand new EIZO S1934?

[@MaskedGEEK]

Man, jumper settings rather than BIOS settings, I remember those days.

[@MaskedGEEK]

And ISA sound cards before PCI was the standard, before the current standard now that sound is onboard the mobo.

[@ThrakaAndy]

I need one of those mobo mounting plates!

[@philiphanhurst2655]

5:47 My first thoughts were: "weren't those the guys that made Bubsy?"

[@RenoxMTA]

Hey Phil, have you wondered about getting DOS on a modern machine like yours? And if it can get installed, can you test Wing Commander and Test Drive 3? It's gonna be like the speed of light! :D

[@Fr0ns]

+Renox CS:GO To answer that a little, I've recently gotten an Intergraph TD310 with a Pentium Pro 200MHz processor and TD3 is going way to fast on that CPU haha.

[@RenoxMTA]

I want to test it on my 2-core 4.1GHz AMD CPU! Can I (try) to run DOS without like formatting my hard drive and erasing my precious data?

[@mingzhezhang2992]

Does the fan not require thermal paste?

[@philscomputerlab]

Nah, these CPUs draw very little power.

[@Manawyrm]

What hardware are you using to record the old machines? a vga to hdmi converter and then one of the gaming capture cards? I haven't had much luck recording the VGA text modes with my cheap hdmi grabbers.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Tobias Mädel (Manawyrm) Over time I have accumulated an arsenal of capture gear, converters, scalers and whatnot. So it depends on the situation. For this one I swapped the graphics card and used the DVI out from a GeForce FX5000 series card :)

[@NooNaN926]

Nice video, Phil. You never did show how to set the IRQ though. I believe I know the utility, but looks like 7 is always occupied already. Any insight as to how to free up or reassign other resources?

[@philscomputerlab]

+Anthony Miller Yea I totally forgot that part. I put a little blurb in the description: ♦Additions / Corrections♦ I totally forgot to record how you change the interrupt from 5 to 7. What you do is go to C:\CTCM and run CTCU. At the screen with the resources, change the configuration profile from 0 to 1. Now you can change the resources manually! If this isn't enough info check out my AWE64 Gold mega review :D AWE64 Gold review: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYnFZJqEn5Jgr9E

[@brostenen]

+PhilsComputerLab Or manually edit "CTPNP.CFG" with MS-Dos Edit. ;-) Much faster than going through any Creative tool. Another tip is to attrib -r the ctmixer configuration file, if you play a game like pinball fantasies. That game interfer with the sound volume, making it too lound. I allmost fell of the chair, playing Syndicate, after have played Pinball Fantasies.

[@NooNaN926]

+PhilsComputerLab Thank you!

[@philscomputerlab]

Good tips. And making the mixer file read-only stops pinball fantasies changing the volume? I wonder how that works...

[@brostenen]

Yes. Making it read-only is something I do everytime it is a MS-Dos only box. This works for every creative card, as well as PF will change the volume on every card from Creative. You know.... Vibr16's, AWE64's and AWE32's. Some cards will probably not have this issue, and I don't know about non-creative cards. Making the file read-only has to be done, when settings are the way you like them to be, obviously. And in some cases there might still be some issue. Well... Can't say for every situation. It is only an effective way of locking down and preventing any changes to the volume. The useability will not be affected however.

[@iloihplar]

Did that hard drive come out of an xbox? Because I have the exact same drive and it was the oem drive in my xbox.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Ralph Dreijer Is that right? That's interesting :) The drive came out of an old computer.

[@iloihplar]

PhilsComputerLab The model number of my drive is ST310211A. Is yours the same?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes it is!

[@stevenspasstime5339]

hi,., just wondering where you can find these files for the disks, like dos boot disk and the games your using. ? great video, thanks

[@lightdark28]

the P133 was for quite a while a common chip , it could really run games quite decently until 1998 or so , at least if you added in 3D acceleration. Personally I would go with a P166 or P200 , which would let you run Duke3D at 640X480 more easily for instance , while still being slow enough for DOS. Of course one could also go with something like a PPro (in my eyes its the best DOS/WIn95 chip) , but then it starts getting harder to find parts for a good price

[@philscomputerlab]

+lightdark28 Yup, there are so many variations of this machine. For Wing Commander III for example the 166, 200 or even a MMX 233 might be better. The main idea is really the concept with using the caches to slow things down. There are also performance differences between motherboards, chipsets, memory and BIOS settings :) That's why I didn't do any benchmarks because it's just too variable. I do know that some old DOS games have issues with clock speed, even without caches. So yea, you make a good point, it's different for everyone depending on what you are doing.

[@TheGuruTech]

+lightdark28 If you look closely, you can see that Phil actually did use a P200, but just clocked it as a 133.

[@philscomputerlab]

Eagle eyes you have :D

[@MrJmannik]

did you run theme park in svga mode? It looked like it was in vga mode (I could be wrong)

[@philscomputerlab]

+Jake Mannik Hmm, yes it's in VGA. It's the floppy version. I do have the CD version from GOG, but had issues running it do I "sourced" the floppy version. For SVGA I guess it would need the Pentium mode?

[@MrJmannik]

I can't remember lol but I would assume that Pentium mode would be needed. Ill test it out this weekend if I get the chance

[@nascar241993]

Does that power supply require any adapter, or does it work right out of the box for the older hardware?

[@philscomputerlab]

The motherboard is ATX standard, so is the PSU :)

[@nascar241993]

I can tell that the PSU is ATX, but that's good to hear. :) I'm thinking about building my own DOS rig at some point.

[@philscomputerlab]

You should! It's a great hobby!

[@nascar241993]

Yep. I'm already a vintage electronics enthusiast, but having a DOS machine in my collection would be awesome. I have games spanning from the original Falcon to Quake in terms of DOS games.

[@fatjaysgarage]

is it bad to have your speaker that close to the hard drive?

[@cwgducky2870]

What's the second game he plays??

[@cammelspit]

Do you ever use FreeDOS? A comparison would be really cool. Benefits VS Tradeoffs analysis.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Kevin “cammelspit” Connolly I did give it a go years ago. There were issue with the memory (EMS) and many games would crash. Because old computers often have issues, I stuck with MS-DOS to avoid having another variable of things than can go wrong :D But yes, it could make an interesting video, good idea.

[@cammelspit]

+PhilsComputerLab I'll bet it works much better now too.

[@Adamsnadler214]

Is there a part list?

[@dabombinablemi6188]

Ok. I already have a SS7 board, a K6-2 500, Ti 486 DX100, Riva TNT2 16MB, 20GB Seagate U5, various SDRAM sticks ranging from 32MB to 512MB. However....a cap died on the motherboard, and my 386 DX40's board has some corrosion around the I/O headers (from another boards barrel battery, it had a battery pack with the barrel battery as optional).

[@senesiano]

Hey Phil, I have a question for you. I recently got a PC-CHIPS M570 motherboard which reports to have 1024KB of pipelined burst L2 Cache. I'm not completely sure why, but in my Win 98 SE installation I don't seem to be using this L2 Cache at all (I checked with Everest software). I installed Rainbow Six and a couple of other games and they run and look like ass. Is there a way to force Windows to use all this L2 Cache from the Motherboard? As a note, I have internal and external Cache enabled in my BIOS.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nope, there is nothing you have to do. Just got to be enabled in the BIOS, which you have.

[@senesiano]

Well then, I think I fucked up big time buying that motherboard... The motherboard just doesn't work correctly, not even with any of the 3 processors I bought, I just don't know what else can I do or change to make it work right. I even updated the BIOS with no results.

[@andywolan]

Did you make the pc speaker to awe cable yourself or can you purchase it somewhere? (If the former, what type on connector did you go with?)

[@philscomputerlab]

Search for Dupont connectors! You can buy kits with all the different plugs. For the wires, search for Arduino or Raspberry Pi cables.

[@shawn57187]

What's the 2nd song playing in your video? Its super catchy!

[@craigpilkington4323]

Love this! Could an IDE > SD (or CF adapter) be used as a replacement for the IDE HDD?

[@pentiummmx2294]

yes, but never run Windows on it, cause of the limited write cycles, and Windows 3x, 9x, NT, 2K, etc. use pagefiles which can make the CF or SD card die after a while.

[@Sudz3]

Not entirely sure how that works.... but could you ad the SBboost.bat file to be triggered by autoexec?

[@TomSchuster26]

Hey Phil. I'm interested in trying something like this. Can it be done with a standard Socket 7 mobo, or is a Super Socket 7 required to turn off the caches?

[@philscomputerlab]

It works just as well with a Socket 7 board :)

[@nicholaswilliams1197]

You may have answered this in the past, but what are some video cards that you would recommend for a DOS build? I'm piecing together a DOS 6.22/Windows98 build (dual boot) and have a spare ATI Radeon 9550 AGP. If it works, great. Otherwise, I would like to get something that will be as compatible as possible whilst still performing well. Oh, and I'll be using an AMD Athlon 700mhz Slot A CPU. I suppose that I'll need to under clock it for older games. Thanks!

[@philscomputerlab]

+Nicholas Williams This is a great resource: gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/ But note that 99% of all DOS games will work on any card. It's just that there are a few games that are picky. That Radeon should work well for you, especially for the newer games at high resolutions.

[@nicholaswilliams1197]

Thanks for the help!

[@bassblaster505]

Heres an idea, how the potato Socket 478 chips like the celeron compete with the P4, especially the SL6PG or testing modern GPU's like the 7xx and 9xx series with older games and an older OS like WinXP. i know the GTX960 has a WinXP driver. i used it to test my XP rig. EDIT: 4:50 HOLY JESUS THAT LOOKS RIDICULOUS

[@philscomputerlab]

+bassblaster505 Gaming I like it. Though, seeing how cheep you can get P4 chips, I'm not sure why anyone would pick a Celeron :D

[@bassblaster505]

PhilsComputerLab Me Neither, but my dell 2400 had a celery in it, gotta give the cheap chips some love aswell!

[@philscomputerlab]

+bassblaster505 Gaming True!

[@jskalicky]

Nice. Thank you. How you record screen (for example from games) at old PC? In dark by cam(GoPro)? thx :)

[@AlariAvila]

Did old CPU's like the one you were using in this video require thermal paste?

[@laplacesdemon45]

They do, but Phil for some reason doesn't use thermal paste. It's not as messy I guess.

[@Hoelenforscher300]

Thermal paste is not needed on *Pentium-133* CPUs they draw very little power and don't get hot

[@Jivemaster2005]

Very nice and informative :-) Will this work with an AMD K6-III+ or will this strictly work with a P1 133mhz?

[@philscomputerlab]

+Jivemaster2005 This will work with other processors including AMD K6, Intel Pentium MMX and Cyrix. The effect with the caches is very similar, but you get different speeds. In general, the K6 is the slowest CPU without caches (this is often a GOOD thing), whereas the MMX and Cyrix are the fastest (in 386 mode they are too fast to play Wing Commander and are on the level of a tuned up 386DX-40.

[@madzen112]

Always hated that my mid-90s Pentium couldn't run TSR-rpgs without lotsa Moslo 👍

[@GamingReDefined1]

Nice video man

[@philscomputerlab]

+Brennan Cooper (BMCTechReviews) Thanks :D

[@MisterIndeciso]

And for Windows 98 games?

[@philscomputerlab]

+MrIndeciso This machine is exclusively for MS-DOS!

[@DxDeksor]

+MrIndeciso Put a fast K6-2 (or 3), install a better graphic card and then you'll be okay for windows 98 games ^^

[@kaczan3]

You're not using any thermal paste on the CPU?

[@omfgbunder2008]

Didn't have to back then, in some cases you could even run without a heatsink... Thermal paste got popular around P3/P4...

[@redexstaktika]

how does this old stuff look so clean? did you buy it brand new? or did you just cleaned it if yes how?

[@philscomputerlab]

Haha, not doing much cleaning. Some parts I can clean with a cloth, but the boards or graphics card I don't really clean. Maybe the sellers cleaned them I don't know.

[@RubyIsBored]

wheres the thermal compound

[@philscomputerlab]

+BrianGriffin1999 Not needed for these old processors. They generate very little heat and the cooler I used is quite large.

[@RubyIsBored]

oh, also heres a funny story, i found a pentium 4, there was no thermal paste on the cpu

[@manuelpena4547]

Is this the one you shown on LGR video?

[@philscomputerlab]

Very similar to that one, same concept.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

Can you do one on setting up DOS gaming in VirtualBox?

[@philscomputerlab]

No, I'm about building real DOS PCs!

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

PhilsComputerLab :-(

[@omfgbunder2008]

VMs can't change the CPU speed, dosbox is close but they don't make it easy to choose 386/486/pentium, and there isn't a 8086/8088/286 mode

[@oscar5oo941]

Which motherboard are you using?

[@MrWhtgst]

Turbo Button?

[@philscomputerlab]

On Super Socket 7?

[@MrWhtgst]

Bad goof.

[@oscar5oo941]

What motherboard did you use? And what type of RAM? (DDR, DDR2...)

[@pentiummmx2294]

SDRAM, motherboards from the 90s used EDO SIMMs or SDRAM DIMMs

[@PittyGT]

Hi Phil, is there any chance to get the MS-DOS starter pack with the bootmenu? The link doesnt work anymore. Secondly i will say you do a great job with your Retro PC Videos. :) I like it so much! Thank you and best regards...

[@philscomputerlab]

Odd, I will fix the link later. Just go to my website and browse around, the pack is on there for sure.

[@christiann7320]

Looks good,but wouldn't a pentium 1 MMX 200 be better?

[@philscomputerlab]

No the MMX is too fast when caches disabled.

[@SorryforMinecraftin]

Great Video, I find myself using a Pentium II for most of needs, since ironically from what I heard Pentium II has Better DOS Emulation than Pentium did not sure if that's true or not, but for main part it's because I can use USB Ports on back to Transfer Data which is awesome ( Yes , MS-DOS Supports USB 1.1 , It was some Ghetto Drivers from Panasonic or something but it works) I do have Pentium Board with USB on it, but its running Windows 95 kinda would like to leave it that a way

[@philscomputerlab]

+Numbers Nice! The Pentium will run into limits with higher graphics resolutions nuder DOS. It was still mostly processed on the CPU. The board I used does have USB, there is a generic USB storage driver for Windows 98, you can find it on my website in the Windows 95 / 98 section.

[@SorryforMinecraftin]

Yea, Well, I was lucky enough to find a copy of Windows 95 with USB Support so I upgraded the Image on the Pentium Machine with so it does support USB , but I could only get it to read Sandisk Drives using some old Sandisk Drivers, so that was only issue I had with it , while MS-DOS USB Drivers with MS-DOS its problematic since you can't hot swap it on the go , but its handy

[@JoabeDutra]

How. Did. You. Record. That.

[@AiOinc1]

Tripod.

[@JoabeDutra]

I mean the gameplay and stuff

[@AiOinc1]

TheJoabed VGA capture card.

[@XtremeKremaTor]

no thermal compound underneath the heatsink? wtf....

[@philscomputerlab]

+Szymon Krasuski I never bother on these socket 7 CPUs. They draw very little power.

[@pentiummmx2294]

song name: 1:20 - 2:27

[@rdxdt]

Great video, this ressemble a lot with my retro rig that i'm building as i have posted on vogons, i will run a Pentium 133 so i should stick with fsb 66 , multiplier x2 and voltage set to 2.5v, is this correct or i will fry my cpu?

[@philscomputerlab]

+Rodrigo B.P The FSB and multiplier is correct. But the voltage seems low, for the Pentium I used I set the motherboard to 3.3V. The voltages vary a bit depending on what chip you got. I always check Wikipedia or one of these CPU databases. You can also use a Pentium 166 or 200 and clock it just lower, that's what I did actually :)

[@rdxdt]

+PhilsComputerLab i just got the info from intel ark ark.intel.com/pt-br/products/49963/Intel-Pentium-Processor-with-MMX-Technology-133-MHz-66-MHz-FSB But i dont know if i looked up the correct chip, when the cpu get delivered to me i will post something on vogons with pictures so it will be more precise. Thank you again.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea, the MMX is faster and runs on lower Voltage.

[@Morpheus776]

i will build a 486 retro machine next year

[@philscomputerlab]

+I HOPE ALL GOOGLE BASTARDS DIE A PAINFULL DEATH Nice! But we warned, they can be expensive to obtain and tricky to work with. If you want something straight forward, finding an old Pentium machine is the way to go :)

[@Morpheus776]

yes i know thats why i do it next year so i hvae not so much worry about money. but i dont want a pentium machine. i try to build the machine we had back in the 90s it was 486 for nostalgia lol and i wanne build it myself

[@philscomputerlab]

That's awesome! All the DOS installation stuff applies to the 486 too :) So you can just use that when you start building next year.

[@TheMorc]

and one year later: did you built it?

[@Wushu-viking]

4:45.Have you seen today kids playing CS:GO ?. They might be able to keep up with that speed!! Phil, we are getting old and slow. :-D

[@philscomputerlab]

Haha yea. When they get upset about the TV having 100ms lag, man I don't want to know what my reaction time is. Three times as much???