Reviving an old 3DFX powered PC

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Bop

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Oct 1, 2003
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I'm about to take up the challenge to rebuild my first pure gaming PC. I'm a little worried that some components may not work anymore so I'm ordering back-up parts that are cheap enough. I will be using Windows 98 SE.

So far the parts are:

Intel Pentium II 450mhz
ASUS P2B
256MB SDRAM(no longer have the original memory, will a 1x 256MB work?)
Creative Riva TNT
2x Canopus Pure3D II's in SLi
Creative Sound Blaster Live

Unfortunately all my CRTs are now gone. :(

Now the issue is I forgot how to do things like install old copies of Windows. I really hope I didn't lose that Win98 SE clean install floppy! Also, since I assume Windows Update is now defunct for Windows 98, what is a good way to update the OS?

I also remembered the SB Live needed some sort of SB16 driver installed with it for DOS support. Again, I hope I still have that disc buried somewhere, but this site may have me covered: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/115...ve-sound-blaster-live-drivers-for-windows-9x/

And lastly, I need a PCI ethernet card that has Windows 98 drivers. I'm guessing I will have to head to ebay to find one plus locate it's win9x drivers. :(
ninja edit: Looks like I found one already! The Linksys LNE100TX. I now remember that I actually had one of these so I know it's good.

If anyone is interested I'll post pics once the project is complete.
 
I like pics. In for pics.

Are you using an old case, or building inside of a modern one?
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
I like pics. In for pics.

Are you using an old case, or building inside of a modern one?
Click to expand...

I have the original case, but let's say the years have not been kind to it and I'm lucky that the original parts are still not inside it. :p I can provide a pic of it later. I purchased a new beige but old school looking case, though.

I'm contemplating getting a 17" CRT off ebay, but I don't know if that is a good idea considering how poorly they age. :(
 
This is why I use vmplayer!

I tried to go to windows update but it just gets stuck in some eternal loop. The best bet is to just find service packs archived somewhere.
 
Found a Dell M782 17" new in box CRT on ebay; I couldn't resist. :p It won't match the old Optiquest Q95 or the NEC 21" I used to have, but it'll do.

For Windows 98 SE updates I found this: http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

It appears all four PCI slots will end up occupied on my P2B. The P2B-F has five slots, but I can't find any for a decent price. I may end up putting this build in a modern case to keep it extra cool. I want these parts to last!
 
i wouldn't worry too much about the win98se service pack..

most NICs will have win98 drivers, although my retro rig uses an nforce2 with built in ethernet..


the biggest thing i found is getting the Win98SE USB Mass Storage Driver going so you can transfer files with your thumbdrive.
http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php

256Mb of Ram is plenty for win98..

if you can make sure you find your SB Live's CD if you can find it. I use an audigy and it has a DosDrv setup that makes setting up the dos audio real easy.

If you do the Win98SE setup too i would suggest formating the Drive (Format c: /s) copy the Win98 folder off your CD to your Had drive and run the setup from the hard drive so you don't have to keep inserting the win98 cd everytime you update a driver etc.
 
Can I ask why a P2 450 and not something faster like a P3 800?
 
Oh just for reference too i just went through resetting up my retro rig this weekend.

it consists of a

AMD XP 3000+
Nforce2
1Gb DDR
40Gb HDD (Win98SE)
40Gb HDD (WinXP)
SB Audigy
SLI Blackdiamond Voodoo2 12Mbs
Nvidia 6800GT
 
H-street said:
the biggest thing i found is getting the Win98SE USB Mass Storage Driver going so you can transfer files with your thumbdrive.
http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php
Click to expand...
I'll definitely check up on that.

H-street said:
If you do the Win98SE setup too i would suggest formating the Drive (Format c: /s) copy the Win98 folder off your CD to your Had drive and run the setup from the hard drive so you don't have to keep inserting the win98 cd everytime you update a driver etc.
Click to expand...

Will I need to worry about HDD size? The smallest IDE drive at my place is an 80GB.

merlin704 said:
Can I ask why a P2 450 and not something faster like a P3 800?
Click to expand...
Because that is what I have on-hand. :) Though I do think there was something wrong with it. (It constantly froze) I don't think the P2B supports P3s faster than 600mhz. Also, all the games that I will be playing will all be pre-1999.

Now I need some games. I still have all my original CDs, but there are some games I never got back in the day but own now through GoG. Is there a way to burn those CD-Audio tracks that GoG has in .ogg form to a disc along with the game's data for disk-checks? (cd-audio with data track at 1)
 
Bop said:
I'll definitely check up on that.



Will I need to worry about HDD size? The smallest IDE drive at my place is an 80GB.


Because that is what I have on-hand. :) Though I do think there was something wrong with it. (It constantly froze) I don't think the P2B supports P3s faster than 600mhz. Also, all the games that I will be playing will all be pre-1999.

Now I need some games. I still have all my original CDs, but there are some games I never got back in the day but own now through GoG. Is there a way to burn those CD-Audio tracks that GoG has in .ogg form to a disc along with the game's data for disk-checks? (cd-audio with data track at 1)
Click to expand...

IIRC, you may have to partition the drive.

Edit: after some googling to refresh my memory, 137gb is the largest size recognizable by Win98.
 
You have to install IE6 manually for Win update to work in 98, but it does still work as of the last time I tried it. My win 98 setup has not changed in a long time, so I have not tried it recently. I just restore from ghost images from time to time.

I recommend ditching the SB Live, it is not 100%, or even 85% in my experience for DOS games that run under Win 98, it was the first card I had in PC 2 in my sig. If you have to actually use DOS natively you are hosed as often as not. The PCI SB16 and Pro are better, sometimes. But some of the newer ones are really Windows only. My AWE worked OK til it died. I ended up looking around til I found an actual ISA SB16.

I had a pair of Voodoo 2's, but getting them to work properly with the agp geforce 2 was a chore. Was able to get it working sometimes by manually swapping card slots on the V2' until I found a config that worked. It was a pain in the ass. Though that may have been due to the VIA chip set more than anything else. Then one of the V2's died, I don't even want to talk about how pissed I was. Any way I just use a single V2 now.
 
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H-street said:
If you do the Win98SE setup too i would suggest formating the Drive (Format c: /s) copy the Win98 folder off your CD to your Had drive and run the setup from the hard drive so you don't have to keep inserting the win98 cd everytime you update a driver etc.
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This right here. One of the biggest PITA with Windows 98 was the frequent use of the install CD when installing or configuring any hardware or OS components. I usually like to place all the setup files in C:\INSTALL. If you don't have a Windows 98 floppy, you can get an image of one from here.

DO NOT USE FDISK IF YOU'RE INSTALLING WINDOWS 98 ON A PARTITION LARGER THAN 64GB. Either use a third party partitioner like PartedMagic or Ranish, or grab a fix from Microsoft's web page here.

Unless you're planning on using a PCI SATA or IDE controller card, don't bother with the unofficial 48-bit LBA patches for Windows 98. Your motherboard does not have that capability (after doing some research, the ASUS P2B has an ATA-4 controller, whereas 48-bit LBA was introduced with ATA-6). You can get away with using IDE drives larger than 137GB, but that's the largest amount you'll be able to utilize despite drive partitioning.

The Windows Update webpage is still operational under Windows 98, though I recommend updating IE to version 6 before grabbing all the available updates. The unofficial service pack that you referenced works remarkably well.

The Plus! pack for Windows 98 introduced zip file support but I would recommend 7-zip or Winrar. The former, as of version 9.20, still works under Windows 98. Also, there's no native NTFS support under Windows 98 so I would recommend NTFS4DOS (personal edition) for any USB disks that are formatted with NTFS. Keep in mind that you will have to use the command prompt as it's not a Windows driver.

Hit your local Craigslist page or classifieds for CRT monitors instead of ebay. At least that gives you a chance to see if a monitor is in decent condition before you buy. Mine seems to have at least 2 or 3 listings per day for around 10-25 bucks.


Good luck with your "new" old machine. Can't wait to see some pics. :D
 
Bop said:
Because that is what I have on-hand. :) Though I do think there was something wrong with it. (It constantly froze) I don't think the P2B supports P3s faster than 600mhz. Also, all the games that I will be playing will all be pre-1999.
Click to expand...

What's the motherboard's revision number? I've heard that the older revisions aren't Coppermine friendly due to the VCore regulator.
 
So I finally got a look inside the old PC instead of basing this off memory. The board is actually a Rev 1.0 P2B-F. I still have the Linksys NIC I mentioned earlier. There was a 3.2GB HDD inside as well, but I think I'll use the 80GB instead.

I also appear to have lost my Windows 98 SE startup floppy, good thing one of you gave me a link :). Though now I will have get a USB floppy just to install it since none of my current PCs has a floppy drive connector. The CD is the OEM version of 98 SE. Does the fdisk hot fix simply extract onto the floppy?

I at least have my original Live! CD. I may get an ISA Sound Blaster 16 for full compatibility at some point, but I think the CPU is too fast for some older DOS games that ran by core clock. Should the Vibra be avoided?

Here are some pics:
My Voodoo 2s are sitting in a different PC so I will show those off later.

IMG_0175.jpg


IMG_0177.jpg
 
Quake 2 is going to fly on that rig. Also, so is the original Unreal game using Glide. :D:D
 
Bop said:
So I finally got a look inside the old PC instead of basing this off memory. The board is actually a Rev 1.0 P2B-F. I still have the Linksys NIC I mentioned earlier. There was a 3.2GB HDD inside as well, but I think I'll use the 80GB instead.

I also appear to have lost my Windows 98 SE startup floppy, good thing one of you gave me a link :). Though now I will have get a USB floppy just to install it since none of my current PCs has a floppy drive connector. The CD is the OEM version of 98 SE. Does the fdisk hot fix simply extract onto the floppy?
Click to expand...

I assume that the BIOS supports booting from CDs, yes? If so, you could try making a DOS boot CD following this guy's instructions instead of purchasing a USB floppy drive (you might want to download a disk image off the website he references over the one I referenced since the latter only offers images wrapped up in a self-extracting executable).

It looks like the fdisk hotfix extracts directly to floppy and it doesn't seem to be compatible with any version of Windows newer than Windows 98 :(. What you could probably do is use an image of a Windows ME OEM startup disk instead of the Windows 98 disk. You can still execute the setup file using that startup disk and it should contain all the fixes necessary for FDISK to operate correctly.
 
merlin704 said:
Quake 2 is going to fly on that rig. Also, so is the original Unreal game using Glide. :D:D
Click to expand...

Those were the two games that pushed me to get that Pentium II w/ Voodoo IIs. :D

GushpinBob said:
I assume that the BIOS supports booting from CDs, yes?
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From reading the manual, I don't believe it supports booting from CDs so usb floppy it is. It could be handy to have one around.

GushpinBob said:
It looks like the fdisk hotfix extracts directly to floppy and it doesn't seem to be compatible with any version of Windows newer than Windows 98 :(. What you could probably do is use an image of a Windows ME OEM startup disk instead of the Windows 98 disk. You can still execute the setup file using that startup disk and it should contain all the fixes necessary for FDISK to operate correctly.
Click to expand...

I think I have a floppy with a custom Windows ME image on it somewhere. Should all Win ME startup disks contain the fix? Out of curiosity, could I do something like create a Win 98 SE startup disk from Windows 7, create a VM to run Win 98, and then apply the patch?
 
Sounds like your off to a good start.

Easiest things to setup windows 98se (saying c: is HDD and d: is first optical drive with w98)
If you have a bootable copy of w98 just set that in the bios to start cd.
Fdisk if needed
Format c:\ /q /s

Move to the c: partition and make a folder for windows cab files
c:
md c:\windows
cd windows
md options
cd options
md cabs
cd cabs
xcopy d:\win98\*.*
setup.exe

This copies all the neccessary files over to c:\windows\options\cabs which installs windows ALOT faster and also will not be asking for the w98 cd all the time.

The next things needed are really just NUSB.3.3 / DirectX 9C / Windows Service Pack of choice (I'm still using SP2.1a)


As for the SBLive! it is a good card. Low resource usage vs. a ISA card. I do not bother with the Dos drivers and just play my dos games from a dos window.

Not long ago I posted pics of my 3Dfx rig in the case section. I recently added red lighting under the motherboard and now have a 32GB OCZ Onyx SSD and a IDE-2-Sata converter on the way to play with!!

EDIT: You can get bootdisk from bootdisk.com which is self extracting to a floppy. If FDISK isn't there then just copy from the Win98SE CD. I use a 120GB with that fdisk with no problem!! Just make sure FAT32 is in use.
Also about the 137GB limit is a BIOS issue. If you use a PCI- PATA card it will let you use over 1tb drives if you want.
 
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My dad and bro had one P3 450mhz slot 1 each.... they had em for years. Till 1 cooked and last mobo fried.
.
There' s an easy way to open the black box and the heatsink inside was clogged with dust.
Found it years later when i disassembled it, might wanna blow some air in there.

Bloody costy slot 1 ...was too costly to upgrade or get an addapter for the new p3's back then.

Fun times fun times
 
Okay, so I finally found my old Windows 98 disk so I'm going to throw this thing on a VM to refresh my memory on old Windows installs.

Bop said:
I think I have a floppy with a custom Windows ME image on it somewhere. Should all Win ME startup disks contain the fix? Out of curiosity, could I do something like create a Win 98 SE startup disk from Windows 7, create a VM to run Win 98, and then apply the patch?
Click to expand...

I created an 80GB virtual hard drive and FDISK had no problem seeing the whole thing. OTOH, the format command will show the incorrect capacity (around 16GB), though it will format the entire partition. Scandisk shows that the volume is clean so no problems there.

After partitioning and formatting the drive type these commands in the prompt. My instructions are similar to RogueTrip's, though I'd recommend putting the setup and cab files in a directory other than the Windows directory. Also, XCOPY is not available on the startup disks, so we'll use COPY instead.

Code: 
C:
MD INSTALL
X:
CD WIN98
COPY *.* C:\INSTALL
C:
CD INSTALL
SETUP /IM /IS /ID
X: is whatever the drive letter will be for your CDROM drive and the switches for windows setup will skip the memory, disk check , and space check, respectively. It's up to you if you want to use those switches or not; I'd rather save some time.

Bop said:
From reading the manual, I don't believe it supports booting from CDs so usb floppy it is. It could be handy to have one around.
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Really? I downloaded a PDF manual for your motherboard model and saw that CDROM is mentioned in the boot order menu. You might wanna double check the boot order of your BIOS.
 
I found the OEM Floppy! Thanks for the tips guys, I'm starting to get pretty excited about this project. :) Those spare parts can't get here soon enough.

Here are some pics you guys may find interesting:

IMG_0195.jpg


IMG_0186.jpg


IMG_0193.jpg


IMG_0191.jpg


I also found something I thought I didn't have anymore: A Voodoo Banshee! (Quantum 3D Raven) I even have the bundled games.

IMG_0189.jpg



EDIT: I've been doing some research on these Canopus Pure 3D IIs I have an apparently they use a proprietary pass-through cable. I only have one, but I wish I had two in case something happens. Googling hasn't brought up anything :( If anyone finds any information or a Canopus Spectra 2500 card please let me know.
 
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The Win 98SE retail CD is a bootable.
Though, like H-street said earlier, it is still better to just copy the contents of the install CD to a small partition and just use the boot floppy to install from the HD to the HD. Never having to reinsert the Win98 CD while updating and installing everything is a huge plus. I swear it seems like it asked for that disk every single time I installed a network protocol, driver, or piece of hardware.
 
Hehe. Maybe i will get off of my lazy but and rebuild one of my old machines. I have working or nearly working machines dating back to the 286 days. My poor franken box Dos game machine lost it's HDD last year, and i haven't fixed it yet. Many of these machines have not been powered up in a while, so i am betting some, if not all, will have dead CMOS batteries and/or other hardware failures from sitting around.
 
GORANKAR said:
Though, like H-street said earlier, it is still better to just copy the contents of the install CD to a small partition and just use the boot floppy to install from the HD to the HD.
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I will definitely utilize this method.

I took the Voodoo IIs out. Here they are:

IMG_0200.jpg


Here is that odd passthrough cable too:

IMG_0197.jpg


Anyone know if that is proprietary or not?
 
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yea i think it is.. i haven't been able to find one..

if you have a volt meter you may want to just do a pinout mapping the pins and then you could eventually make one if the need arises.

Infact i haven't found the pinout anywhere.. if you do decide to map it out post it here.. i have a pure3d Vodooo1 i need to make a cable for
 
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H-street said:
yea i think it is.. i haven't been able to find one..

if you have a volt meter you may want to just do a pinout mapping the pins and then you could eventually make one if the need arises.

Infact i haven't found the pinout anywhere.. if you do decide to map it out post it here.. i have a pure3d Vodooo1 i need to make a cable for
Click to expand...

I have a digital multimeter somewhere, but I'm not sure how to do something like that. First hit on Google: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-pin-out-a-console-cable-for-installation-on/?ALLSTEPS. My father is an EE so maybe I can enlist his help at some point. :D (I'm on the software side of things.)
 
We are in luck.. i dug up a schematic off of FalconFly.de (a great 3dfx resource)

Pure3d Passthrough Cable Pinout

minidin3dfx.png
 
H-street said:
We are in luck.. i dug up a schematic off of FalconFly.de (a great 3dfx resource)
Click to expand...

Excellent! Nice find. Does that work for both the Pure 3D and Pure 3D II? How would you go about making one? I noticed during my googling that you were searching for a Spectra 2500. Did you ever manage to find one? I remember that was the TNT I wanted to get back then, but I couldn't find it. That digital pass-through technique seems really nice.

EDIT: Are the pins in that diagram supposed to match their physical locations as well? If so it looks like #3 on the right and #13 on the right are in the wrong locations for the Pure 3D II.
 
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The last time I remember downloading Windows 98 updates was in 2007. I don't know if they can be downloaded anymore.
 
Bop said:
EDIT: Are the pins in that diagram supposed to match their physical locations as well? If so it looks like #3 on the right and #13 on the right are in the wrong locations for the Pure 3D II.
Click to expand...

I think he just used an image he found online..

if you had a volt meter just set it up for testing restistance (Ohms) and you can confirm a few of the pins.

if you do let me know as i'm probably going to work on testing it this weekend.
 
For CRT just go to craigslist. On eBay you'll have like $40 just to ship those things out.

On Craigslist you can find them between free and $20 max for a really good one. 17" though is too much for those cards though depending on the resolution, don't you think?

With my build in the sig I started out with a CRT but it really hurt my eyes despite setting it to 120hz. I got a Sony LCD 15" and it's a day and night difference. Highly suggest just going with LCD if you can
 
H-street said:
I think he just used an image he found online..

if you had a volt meter just set it up for testing restistance (Ohms) and you can confirm a few of the pins.

if you do let me know as i'm probably going to work on testing it this weekend.
Click to expand...

I can probably check this later on in the week.

thecrafter said:
On Craigslist you can find them between free and $20 max for a really good one. 17" though is too much for those cards though depending on the resolution, don't you think?
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The monitor used with these cards back in '98 was a 19". :D

I managed to score a Creative Sound Blaster 16 CT2290 for DOS games. There are so many different models! The AWE64 was tempting, but pre-Vibra cards apparently are better for DOS. I found a 486 DX2 CPU looking through my stuff and I have absolutely no idea if it works or not. At some point maybe that PC can be rebuilt for pure DOS games, but that seems like too much of a challenge right now. (would have to find all the compatible hardware and software; don't really have any floppy games left)
 
I still have a Voodoo5-5500 AGP in my mame machine... it's running on WinXP using amigamerlin's 3dfx drivers. Since the company was no longer around some other folks took to coding updates after Win98SE.

It's been like nine or ten years since I looked into it as I put that machine together in 2003. Still running even today! I'm going to attempt to salvage it when I rebuild it later this year because Unreal Tournament is just too good in Glide.
 
maboblivion said:
wouldn t a 3dfx 5000 be better ? :p
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V5 5500 has some DOS Glide incompatabilities.

When setting up my retro rig i initially had gone the route of the V5 5500 but in the end it posed too many problems in DOS glide games. (Tomb Raider, MDK)
 
Don't forget to put a piece of electrical tape over pin B21, use some PC133 ram and overclock that beast to 466. Going from 100 to 133 FSB will give you a nice little boost.
 
The owner of the CT2290 just told me one of the chips is cracked. :( Time to start hunting again. Has anyone found a good resource for all the different SB16 models?

EDIT: I just scored a 3dfx Voodoo 1! Anyone know if a 450mhz CPU is too fast for some old DOS glide games?
 
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