Unless you have a strong nostalgic connection to a 486 (e.g. you had one as a kid) I would suggest going with the Pentium MMX.

Using slowdown utilities such as SetMul, you can easily make it behave like a 486 or a 386 for playing speed sensitive games such as the original Wing Commander. On the flip side, that machine will handle Win9x with ease at full speed. I use a similar system for DOS and early Win9x gaming (link in signature) and it works quite well.

For Win95, no doubt about it, the P200MMX.

For Win 3.1 it depends on your hardware. If drivers are available (particularly for the VGA card), either will be fine. If not, not.

For DOS 6, it depends on how slow the system needs to be able to go for your oldest software. You can clock the 486 back further than the Pentium, but chances are the setting to get the Pentium down to 2.0x50MHz is easier than whatever jumpers you need to do on the 486.

How old are those "older games"?

I don't have any connection to these machines as the ACER came from a thrift store a couple years ago and is a very cramped horizontal case with on board cirrus logic (I think 1meg). It has room for just a cd drive, a 5.25 and 3.5 floppy drives. It also has no VLB. Where the pentium is in a small tower, it could hold both types of floppy, cd, and I was thinking of putting an internal zip drive in it for copying larger files without burning a ton of CDs. I was wondering if using real MT32 and SC55 (well slightly different variations of them) would the pentium still be able to do that under dos?

dionb wrote on 2021-10-03, 17:57:

How old are those "older games"?

Maybe things like red baron, lemmings 1-3, secret of monkey island (and other early 90's point and clicks), we are talking probably 89-95ish era.

Enchurito wrote on 2021-10-03, 18:04:

I don't have any connection to these machines as the ACER came from a thrift store a couple years ago and is a very cramped I was wondering if using real MT32 and SC55 (well slightly different variations of them) would the pentium still be able to do that under dos?

Of course, I use a SC-155 with my MMX and it works great. You may need intelligent mode MPU-401 for the MT-32 games though.

As for the slowdown capabilities, with both L1 and L2 caches disabled, that CPU should reach 386 speeds. With just L1 cache disabled, it should be at early 486 levels. And by using the test register toggles via SetMul, you can reach some in-between speeds as well.

Pentium 200 can run DOS/Win3x/Win95 the best with best game play and application performance. In the bios if you disable CPU cache you can slow down this computer to a 486
its just like using the turbo switch on a 486 computer.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2021-10-03, 18:35:

Pentium 200 can run DOS/Win3x/Win95 the best with best game play and application performance. In the bios if you disable CPU cache you can slow down this computer to a 486
its just like using the turbo switch on a 486 computer.

Thank you for the information, probably gonna go for the pentium over the 486 then.

dionb wrote on 2021-10-03, 17:57:

For Win95, no doubt about it, the P200MMX.

Hi! Some doubt here.. 😉
I'd say it depends on the type of games and the Windows 95 version.

Windows 95 (RTM) is a bit like a WfW 3.11 on sugar and originates from the late 486 and early 586 days (roughly Pentium 60-90).
- It might thus have trouble recognizing certain PCI bridges, some APIC/ACPI implementations etc due to being still somewhat immature.

Personally, by the way, my first Windows XP rig was below a Pentium 200MMX, even (was a Pentium 166 MMX)!

I am a little confused on what you mean by not being able to recognize pci bridges.

Also what graphics card/cards would be best for that era of machine?

Enchurito wrote on 2021-10-03, 21:32:

Also what graphics card/cards would be best for that era of machine?

An S3 card such as a Trio64 will suit you. Cheap and common.

For sound, I'd pair one of keropi's PC MIDI cards with your ESS.

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-10-03, 22:00:

Enchurito wrote on 2021-10-03, 21:32:

Also what graphics card/cards would be best for that era of machine?

An S3 card such as a Trio64 will suit you. Cheap and common.

For sound, I'd pair one of keropi's PC MIDI cards with your ESS.

Would it be better to order the Orpheus?

The Orpheus would be the Rolls Royce for sure (as long as you include the PC MIDI option of course).

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-10-03, 22:35:

The Orpheus would be the Rolls Royce for sure (as long as you include the PC MIDI option of course).

Is an ESS better than an awe64?

So, for the era you're targeting, good FM sound is critical. A Yamaha OPL3 chip provides the real thing.

The AWE64 has CQM instead (an FM implementation Creative came up with after they decided to stop licensing the Yamaha chips). Debate rages on whether it's a good substitute. Many including me say no.

Your Vibra may be one of the few that has an OPL3 chip, which would make it a good option here. But most are CQM.

ESS has their own implementation called ESFM, and it's considered very faithful. I'm a fan of it and would choose the ESS card here, depending on which model you have - as there are a couple of exceptions to the rule. What chip is on it?

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-10-03, 23:21:

So, for the era you're targeting, good FM sound is critical. A Yamaha OPL3 chip provides the real thing. […]
Show full quote

So, for the era you're targeting, good FM sound is critical. A Yamaha OPL3 chip provides the real thing.

The AWE64 has CQM instead (an FM implementation Creative came up with after they decided to stop licensing the Yamaha chips). Debate rages on whether it's a good substitute. Many including me say no.

Your Vibra may be one of the few that has an OPL3 chip, which would make it a good option here. But most are CQM.

ESS has their own implementation called ESFM, and it's considered very faithful. I'm a fan of it and would choose the ESS card here, depending on which model you have - as there are a couple of exceptions to the rule. What chip is on it?

I'll dig through my collection of soundcards and see what I have access to.

Pierre32 wrote on 2021-10-03, 23:21:

[...]

ESS has their own implementation called ESFM, and it's considered very faithful. I'm a fan of it and would choose the ESS card here, depending on which model you have - as there are a couple of exceptions to the rule. What chip is on it?

Depends which one, the old 688 cards had an external OPL3 or clone. But agreed, OP should give full details on the sound cards.

im very nostalgic for 486 with its win 3.11 era, but in your case its best to use the pentium mmx
you can skip 3.11

Enchurito wrote on 2021-10-03, 21:32:

Also what graphics card/cards would be best for that era of machine?

I second the notion of using an S3 card for maximum compatibility. Try to get one from a reputable brand (e.g. Diamond) since they have better image quality than the generic no-name S3 cards.

Concerning sound cards, since you mentioned wanting to connect external MIDI devices, Creative cards are generally bad in that regard. See here for more details. An ESS card would be a much better choice for that. However, both Creative and ESS cards lack intelligent mode MPU-401 which is needed by your MT-32.

The Orpheus is a costly but excellent all-in-one solution since it offers genuine OPL3 along with a bug-free MPU-401 interface with intelligent mode support, if you get the version with PC MIDI on-board.