Nice build.
I believe it's hard to get a case like this, in good condition, nowadays.
Do you have any pics of the inside?

Why VIA?

Interesting sound card choice with the Santa Cruz. Sensaura is underrated, and can deliver some pretty good positional audio in games like Unreal Tournament.

Can you test if A3D 2.0 can be enabled in Quake 3 (version 1.17) or Voyager: Elite Force on that card? It didn't work on my Yamaha YMF744, which also uses Sensaura, albeit an older version.

Thanks for the reactions, I'll take a look.
Noting that I just completed a Deus Ex playthrough on this PC. With h/w 3D audio, 1024x768 high detail, 2x RGSSAA Glide. Had no performance/stability problems.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-07-12, 16:03:

Can you test if A3D 2.0 can be enabled in Quake 3 (version 1.17) or Voyager: Elite Force on that card?

A3D 2.0 in Quake 3 on Turtle Beach Santa Cruz didn't work. WDM driver ver.4193.

1s_enable_a3d
2Initializing Aureal A3D...
3failed
4Shutting down A3D...ok
5Initializing DirectSound
6locked hardware. ok

I used the occasion to benchmark Voodoo 4 in Quake 3 Arena 1.16n. 1024x768x16 high detail, max texture detail, 2x RGSSAA.
timedemo demo001 scores 28.1 fps which is too little for competitive game. One must either disable anti-aliasing or lax detail/resolution.

Bruno128 wrote on 2024-07-16, 16:37:

A3D 2.0 in Quake 3 on Turtle Beach Santa Cruz didn't work. WDM driver ver.4193.

Thanks for checking this.

Sensaura still sounds pretty good in A3D 1.0 games, but I guess A3D 2.0 support was too much to hope for.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-07-16, 17:19:

Sensaura still sounds pretty good in A3D 1.0 games, but I guess A3D 2.0 support was too much to hope for.

Isn't A3D 2.0 only supported by the AU8830 chip?

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-07-16, 18:25:

Isn't A3D 2.0 only supported by the AU8830 chip?

Officially, yes. But Sensaura has "Chaotic Wavetracing" which could technically emulate some aspects of A3D 2.0 if both the game and the driver support it. This may need some driver hacking/mixing though.

There a bit more info here: Best Sensaura Implementation

mln wrote on 2024-07-12, 15:49:

I believe it's hard to get a case like this, in good condition, nowadays.

I do actually have a somewhat similar case, no yellowing. But as I don't like beige, I have moved the contents to something black.
I plan to put the old case up on ebay (in Europe) later this year.

It has one floppy bay like this, where you hide the drive behind the case front. It also offers one more 3.5 and one more 5.25 ext. bay.
The extra 3.5 bay is nice for a card reader or some such.

It actually housed quite a similar project:
P3 1000@100fsb (on a slotket)
Asus P3B-F rev1.04 (2xISA)
256 MB ram
SB AWE32 CT-3980 & NEC XR wavetable
Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
VIA USB 2.0 PCI card
Intel Postville 80 GB SSD (with ebay sata-ide converter)
Plextor DVD+R
beige USB 3.5 multi card reader (removed after noticing the performance drop and getting nusb to work).

mln wrote on 2024-07-12, 15:49:

Do you have any pics of the inside?

Why VIA?

Hi thanks for the reaction. Today I added hardware monitoring with 2 NTC probes screwed to CPU and GPU heatsinks. The small display on the back side of the computer is powered from 12V fan header. So if the PC is in standby it's off.

As to VIA Apollo choice the bad reputation stems (in part) from cheap junk models where it was used. I fully recapped the board (Nichicon LXZ), updated it to latest BIOS and want to see how it actually is in the long run. So far so good.