Vintage PC Build Help

[Shaina11]

I'm in the process of building a vintage PC to play older games, mainly DOS-based games, and I'd like your opinions on the hardware and performance and some advice on the performance of the system.

I'm using an ASUS P5S-VM(HP Pavilon 6640C) motherboard with an AMD K6-2 400AFQ, 256 MB PC100 RAM, and a Yamaha Labway LWHA151A00 ISA OPL3 soundcard.

It does not have an AGP slot, only PCI, but it does have integrated graphics, SiS530 with 8 MB(?) VRAM. Does anyone have any information on the SiS530, i.e. specifications? Clock speed, RAM clock, etc.

It seems alright for DOS games when using a slowdown utility, however when I try to play Windows-based 3D games, it struggles. For example, in Robot Arena, it requires a 266 MHz Pentium II CPU(450 recommended), 32 MB RAM(64 rec) and a DirectX compatible 3D graphics card with 8 MB VRAM.

Even on the lowest graphic settings at 640 x 480, the game stutters like heck and the CPU is constantly at 100%. I was forced to turn the graphics on the lowest as I was designing my bot, and the preview kept disappearing, I'm assuming due to VRAM.

I'm planing on eventually upgrading to a 500 MHz K6-2, and I'm getting a Nvidia GeForce 6200 PCI GPU. How much of a performance difference would I see between the PCI GeForce 6200 and the integrated SiS530? And would it make a difference to get another 100 MHz out of the CPU?

I know the K6-2 doesn't compare to a PIII, but at 400 MHz, what speed Pentium II/III would it be almost equivalent to?

Please reply soon, I'd appreciate any opinions, information, and advice.

 

[spdragoo]

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documentSubCategory?tmp_rule=23238&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=59928

Don't see any specs on the onboard video, but most likely it's the slowdown. Especially on older boards like that, VRAM was usually fixed, & your listed VRAM (8 MB) is the minimum listed for that particular game.

Your K6-2 is essentially comparable to a Pentium II of the same speed, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

 

[Victorion]

Excactly how old are the games you try to play? Most ms-dos-based games from the 90s era, doesn´t stutter at all, unless the pc is vastly underpowered.
I remember I had a commodore 64, then a 486 and then a pentium pc in that period. The 486 was clocked around 75 mhz and ran most games, then when I got the pentium and about 12 MB ram I never remember any lag or stutter in games like civilization, racing games and simple 3d games like Ultima VIII, Tomb Raider and Monkey Island (nostalgia hits me now haha).
I don´t even remember what video card I had (or if I really had a dedicated videocard) - i did have a soundblaster soundcard, as it was the soundblaster drivers that most games were compatible with.

Anyways long story short, why aren´t you just using a normal pc with dos-box? Dos-box allows you to run old ms-dos based games without any problems. I have it installed if I feel the need to play UFO - Enemy Unknown, Colonization, Masters of Magic or other old games that I still love and replay from time to time.

 

[Shaina11]

Thanks for the responses.

spdragoo
I figure the GPU is the cause, I just want to make sure. But the CPU usage in the games is what was concerning to me, it's always at 100% in-game. Heck, even browsing through regedit is slow when the CPU utilization cranks up to animate the drop down lists. I'm hoping that upgrading the GPU will take some load off of the CPU in games and even the OS. I still might end up getting a K6-2 500 MHz in the future, though it probably won't make much of a difference.

Victorion
Mainly DOS games, '90s and earlier, but also some 3D Windows 9x based games as well.

why aren´t you just using a normal pc with dos-box? Dos-box allows you to run old ms-dos based games without any problems.

DOSBox is nice, however nothing quite beats playing the classics on real-deal hardware. I just have a love for old technology. Plus it's a nice experience to give old hardware new life.

 

[spdragoo]

Have you double-checked that your FSB & multiplier jumpers are correctly set? I remember my old K6/K6-2 machine, back when your final CPU frequency depended on setting the jumpers on the motherboard (i.e. picking the 66MHz FSB instead of the 100MHz FSB turned a 400MHz CPU into a 266MHz CPU).

 

[Shaina11]

Yup, I checked all the jumpers according to the MB manual when I built it for the K6-2 400. Though the motherboard doesn't list a K6-2 500, I figure I could get it to work.

The jumpers are currently set as follows,

Host: 100 MHz
SDRAM 100 MHz
PCI: 33.3 MHz
Mulltiplier: 4.0x(4/1)
Voltage: 2.2v

Also I have a heatsink so it shouldn't be overheating at all.