A couple questions about building a DOS-based gaming battle station

[wowbobwow]

A couple years back I found a 486DX PC in a dumpster near my home. It's been collecting dust in my storage locker ever since, but I've recently gotten the itch to clean it up and build it out for some DOS gaming with my son. Here are a few pics of the machine!

That said, I have a couple questions, as it's been years since I did anything like this with a pre-Pentium / pre-Windows 98 machine.

• This system appears to have a Diamond Stealth64 GPU in one of its ISA+VLB slots. Is this a decent video card for DOS gaming, or should I be searching for something better?
• I'd like to install a non-mechanical / solid state storage solution, but of course DOS has its limits. I assume that an IDE-to-CompactFlash strategy could work well, but a lot of recent posts around the Web mention that modern IDE-to-CF adapters are "loose" with adhering to IDE standards, which can break things on vintage PC's. Any specific product recommendations on this topic are really appreciated!
• I already have a nice mechanical keyboard I can use with this machine, but I don't have a matching / appropriate mouse. Should I just pick up any old serial mouse from eBay, or is there a better solution I should pursue?

Thanks for any guidance or suggestions!

 

[NeXT]

- S3 chipset video card with native windows UI acceleration and 1994 it should be fine for both Windows and DOS with VESA modes.
- Typically I use a real hard drive unless there's some reason I'm not allowed (mostly embedded machines where it's up 24/7) but mostly it comes down to whatever card you use must be able to support LBA/CHA translation and your BIOS needs to be smart enough to detect said modes. Failing that, the Disk on a Module from PQI or Transcend usually just drop in and work with CHS translation.
-If you got a PS/2 port, anything will do. If you only have an available serial port, again at this point anything will do but I'm somewhat faithful to the Microsoft dove bar mice.

 

[wowbobwow]

- S3 chipset video card with native windows UI acceleration and 1994 it should be fine for both Windows and DOS with VESA modes.
- Typically I use a real hard drive unless there's some reason I'm not allowed (mostly embedded machines where it's up 24/7) but mostly it comes down to whatever card you use must be able to support LBA/CHA translation and your BIOS needs to be smart enough to detect said modes. Failing that, the Disk on a Module from PQI or Transcend usually just drop in and work with CHS translation.
-If you got a PS/2 port, anything will do. If you only have an available serial port, again at this point anything will do but I'm somewhat faithful to the Microsoft dove bar mice.

- Thanks for letting me know that I lucked out with the graphics card that's already in the machine, that's really nice to know
- Aside from my hunch that the drive in the machine is failing (it makes a lot of unhappy sounds and stopped booting after a couple reboots), I want to go with a solid state option mainly because my wife and son are both pretty sensitive to high-pitched sounds, so I've steadily shifted most of my vintage gear over to SCSI2SD-type storage.
- No PS/2 ports on this machine, unfortunately - that would've made this a much simpler topic. Good suggestion on the "Dove Bar" mouse, I'll keep an eye out for one!

Thanks for the quick reply!

Huxley

 

[NeXT]

Those dove bar mice are/were everywhere. Microsoft sold truckloads of them for serial, PS/2 and InPort and they had great DOS support.

 

[Svenska]

This system appears to have a Diamond Stealth64 GPU in one of its ISA+VLB slots. Is this a decent video card for DOS gaming, or should I be searching for something better?

Any VLB card is going to run circles around even the highest-end ISA card out there. Seems like all Stealth64 VLB cards used S3 chipsets (according to Wikipedia), which should give you good performance and compatibility for most things. Additionally, these chips were common enough that third-party tools exist to fix any issues which may arise. If it works, keep it - it is good.

I'd like to install a non-mechanical / solid state storage solution, but of course DOS has its limits. I assume that an IDE-to-CompactFlash strategy could work well, but a lot of recent posts around the Web mention that modern IDE-to-CF adapters are "loose" with adhering to IDE standards, which can break things on vintage PC's. Any specific product recommendations on this topic are really appreciated!

The IDE-to-CF adapters are passive, it's the CF cards being the problem (paired with software designed to expect slow devices). I won't give any product recommendations, as the sticker doesn't tell you much about what's inside. I believe your system is new enough to handle most cards just fine. In any case, you won't physically break anything - worst case is data loss and a lesson.

Unless you have a very late BIOS revision, you will be limited to 504 MB disk space without additional software. Your BIOS (given its 1993 date) may support auto-detection and translation, which should allow you to use cards up to 4 GB without issues. Otherwise, stick to a CF card with 256 MB or less. If you don't have one, you can manually configure a bigger one as 1024 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors.

Recommendation: Just try it. It's likely to work and a 4 GB card provides plenty of space.

Also, I highly recommend adding a network card on general principle. A 486 is fast enough to easily handle networking, and network cards often come with an EPROM socket. The XTIDE Universal BIOS can fully replace the BIOS IDE driver and tends to work well with CF cards even if the system BIOS doesn't. It also should handle large drives without issues.

I already have a nice mechanical keyboard I can use with this machine, but I don't have a matching / appropriate mouse. Should I just pick up any old serial mouse from eBay, or is there a better solution I should pursue?

Any serial mouse should work well, as well as some early PS/2 mice with an adapter.

 

[twolazy]

I have a bunch of ps2/serial mice if you are interested. Quite a few MS Intellimouse (have scroll wheel, but still ball based) mice.

 

[wowbobwow]

Coming back with a few quick updates and some questions:

Updates:

• Thanks to everyone who gave me info and suggestions above! I dug into my storage locker and found that a previously-unopened Microsoft PS/2 mouse I'd bought a while back also included a serial adapter, so I've got a working Model M keyboard and good mouse now. Thank you for your kind offer though @twolazy!
• The machine is working, mostly. The original hard drives were both very fussy for a while, and the secondary "D" drive was especially troublesome, mostly just making sad whining and clicking noises. I gave it a couple hard smacks with my hand, and it spun right up and has been working reliably ever since - a good reminder of the value of "percussive maintenance!"

Question:

• When I power the PC on, it always goes through its POST routine and counts up all 16MB of RAM. However, maybe 3/5 times, once it moves past the POST screen and should attempt to boot, it just goes to a black screen and sits there forever. Repeatedly power-cycling it usually gets it to move past this behavior and boot, but it seems like I have to leave it powered-off for a few minutes to get it to successfully skip the black-screen death loop and actually boot. Does this indicate that my PSU is failing? If yes, is there a modern PSU option that I should look for?
• Also, I've managed to install a few freeware DOS games like Shareware Doom, which is great. However, I notice that I'm getting absolutely garbage framerates in all games - I'd guess that Doom is running at 1-2 FPS at best. Very odd! Are there DOS drivers for the Stealth64 card which I should be searching for? I thought that only mattered in Windows...

Thanks for all the help on this project guys!

Huxley

 

[Makefile]

• Also, I've managed to install a few freeware DOS games like Shareware Doom, which is great. However, I notice that I'm getting absolutely garbage framerates in all games - I'd guess that Doom is running at 1-2 FPS at best. Very odd! Are there DOS drivers for the Stealth64 card which I should be searching for? I thought that only mattered in Windows...

Turbo button?

 

[Svenska]

The machine is working, mostly. The original hard drives were both very fussy for a while, and the secondary "D" drive was especially troublesome, mostly just making sad whining and clicking noises. I gave it a couple hard smacks with my hand, and it spun right up and has been working reliably ever since - a good reminder of the value of "percussive maintenance!"

I'd treat it as unreliable / dying from now on and keep backups. You might get similar problems whenever the drive has been stored for a while.

When I power the PC on, it always goes through its POST routine and counts up all 16MB of RAM. However, maybe 3/5 times, once it moves past the POST screen and should attempt to boot, it just goes to a black screen and sits there forever. Repeatedly power-cycling it usually gets it to move past this behavior and boot, but it seems like I have to leave it powered-off for a few minutes to get it to successfully skip the black-screen death loop and actually boot. Does this indicate that my PSU is failing?

Could definitely be a PSU issue, or maybe you have some leaky capacitors (or a leaky battery). In any case, something is already quite marginal and you should measure the voltage rails. If you have access to an oscilloscope, use it to check the ripple under load.

If yes, is there a modern PSU option that I should look for?

You can use an ATX power supply with an adapter, although you should look at the 5V rail requirements. Modern power supplies tend to deliver most of their power at 12V, while older systems mainly load the 5V rail. Shouldn't be a problem in your case.

A bigger issue is that modern ATX power supplies (including replacements such as the PicoPSU) do not provide any -5V rail. Many ISA sound cards require this voltage for their analog/amplification circuitry and won't work if this voltage is missing. There is a device called Voltage Blaster (explanation in this video, for example:

) which uses an ISA slot and generates -5V from the -12V rail.

The negative voltages don't need to carry much load, but they need to exist.

Also, I've managed to install a few freeware DOS games like Shareware Doom, which is great. However, I notice that I'm getting absolutely garbage framerates in all games - I'd guess that Doom is running at 1-2 FPS at best. Very odd!

Please run some benchmarks to see if your CPU frequency is set correctly. Also check the Turbo Switch. Your boot issue may be related. You might also want to check whether your cache is enabled and working correctly.

I had a 486DLC board with very slight battery damage, causing an unstable/erratic frequency. It appeared to work, but stability wasn't too great and benchmark results (and frequency reports) were all over the place. Neutralizing the acid and cleaning the board fixed it completely, but I think there was some cross-talk through leakaged fluid.

Are there DOS drivers for the Stealth64 card which I should be searching for? I thought that only mattered in Windows...

Most games drive the video hardware directly and contain their own drivers. However, some later games use VESA for higher resolutions and may benefit from proper VESA drivers. Something like UniVBE can improve performance on S3 chipsets by providing functionality not supported through the video BIOS. However, DOOM won't be affected.

Don't worry about it yet.

Good luck.