Re: SETMUL is incompatible with my CPU, alternatives?

Posted on Yesterday, 10:10

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interestingly, like the OP, I too have had sound issues with the Ishar series of games unless I start them with L1 cache disabled. This is both on a Am5x86 133, and a Cyrix 5x86-120, so way, way less powerful than the Athlon talked about here. I found the original Ishar to be most sensitive, and I …

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Re: Pentium Pro with ISA graphica card… inusable?

Posted on Yesterday, 10:05

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ISA is fine for typical 320x200 games (that's 320x200 pixels, by 1 byte per pixel, for a high refresh game like Doom lets say 30fps = just shy of 2mbytes/sec), but anything 640x400 (four times the bandwidth of 320x200 at the same frame rate) or above is going to have it's performance crippled by …

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Re: Pentium Pro with ISA graphica card… inusable?

Posted on 2024-05-31, 20:17

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a bit of an odd pairing. You are better off looking for an SBC with built in graphics. There are plenty of models with VLB or PCI VGA chips onboard. That would be a better option than a PPro and ISA VGA, plus only use a single (ISA) slot.

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Re: The King has left the Building.

Posted on 2024-05-26, 17:21

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Come on Guys, The Pentium CPU took Win3x to Another level. This is how Win3x was suppose to run. Made it possible to play MP3’s on the computer. Ran WinNT 4.0, Win95, Win98, WinME and Win2000, Novell, including UnIX, Solaris x86, and Linux Networked the World. Nation Wide Networks. Allowed for 56k …

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Re: Native PC Lightgun Games?

Posted on 2024-05-24, 21:17

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Seems like the best way to do light gun games these days is not natively, but via the sinden gun and emulators. I must admit that it does appear very, very tempting

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Re: Video stutter and shadow ram (Dos 6.20)

Posted on 2024-05-23, 22:28

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My copy is the combined WCP and Strike Commander combo release. Both are on the same cd, along with the Righteous Fire expansion. What equivalent Wing Commander engine does Privateer use? WC2? I don't have any issues in WC1/2/3. What exact point in the intro cinematic is the problem? CF cards don't …

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Re: Video stutter and shadow ram (Dos 6.20)

Posted on 2024-05-23, 15:20

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

WCP definitely seems to be a bit picky. I can't get digital audio to work on it at all, from any of my soundcards (2x ESS1868 + YMF719 + YMF718). The same copy of the game works fine on two other systems with two (different) genuine SB16 cards.

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Re: smallest computer that can run windows XP with supported hardware (especially video card?)

Posted on 2024-05-22, 08:07

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by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

HP T740 thin client has a 4c/8t Ryzen 1756 with embedded Radeon Vega 8. It also has a PCIe x16 slot which can take graphics cards up to 45-ish watts as long as they fit within the form factor (Nvidia T600 fits in the power and space envelope - approx equivalent to GTX 1050TI / GTX 1650). Not sure …

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Re: X68000 midi, bus conflict, Scsi

Posted on 2024-05-21, 19:45

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I really can't help any further - my only suggestion would be to try an alternate SCSI device. If you can boot from floppy then you could try a SCSI zip drive if you can get hold of one. Using the 'susie.x' utility you can map zip/mo/CDROM drives as normal drives on the x68000: https://www.target- …

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Re: Finalizing my 486 retro computer - advice is welcome

Posted on 2024-05-21, 18:18

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The clicking with the Yamaha was most pronounced in streamed digital audio (like .wav files), tracker music and longer sampled sound effects. In very short effects it was not present. Enabling that bios option removed it entirely.

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Re: Finalizing my 486 retro computer - advice is welcome

Posted on 2024-05-21, 18:15

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think your decision to focus on SB Pro + wavetable/midi support is entirely sensible and should cover pretty much everything. Yes, you may miss out on some unique sound implementations (GUS, AWE) on a very small number of titles, but almost anything that supports those will also have at the very …

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Re: Finalizing my 486 retro computer - advice is welcome

Posted on 2024-05-21, 18:10

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, Privateer is indeed odd. I would suspect that in the case where the same symptoms are observed with both cards there is probably an underlying issue that is not specific with either. I.e. in the WC:P case possibly a motherboard/dma problem. Also the majority of the MIDI playback issues occur …

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Re: Finalizing my 486 retro computer - advice is welcome

Posted on 2024-05-21, 16:29

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have done testing with around 250 games so far on both an ESS 1868 and the YMF-719 specifically to see how they worked on my recent 486 single-board-computer build. The verdict is that it's a pretty even set of results, both cards have a very (very) small percentage of games that they don't work …

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Re: X68000 midi, bus conflict, Scsi

Posted on 2024-05-20, 18:16

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How much ram installed on the base system and how have you configured the add-on memory? The x68000 only has 10mb maximum addressable ram due to the reserved windows for the graphics ram, text ram etc (it's all memory mapped io). Normally you need to configure the ram card to the correct amount: on …

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Re: eGPU question

Posted on 2024-05-16, 06:48

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd be interested as well, since the assisted suicide of VMWare by Broadcom I have a desire to rip out ESXi from my home lab server and replace with something else. Proxmox seems like the best all in one.

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Re: Best VGA for the Pentium MMX 200

Posted on 2024-05-16, 06:45

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

S3 Trio64 / S3 Virge + Voodoo (1 or 2) would be the best all round option for a machine like that. If I had to stick to one for cost reasons it would be the S3 for compatibility with the widest range of (non-3d) games and operating systems (Dos, windows, Linux).

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Re: Do you keep a tech-journal?

Posted on 2024-05-15, 18:28

by

by megatron-uk

in Milliways

in Milliways

I have a dokuwiki install on my website, so I use it to collect my thoughts, fixes, projects etc, as well more structured work like development work. Its a lower bar to entry than writing html, as I'd rather focus on the content than the layout, but it doesn't wrap your data up in a obnoxious …

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Re: Intel 486DX4 vs Cyrix 5x86 showdown (at high FSB frequency)

Posted on 2024-05-15, 16:53

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, the Phil benchmark pack timedemo. 54 seems awfully high.

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Re: Intel 486DX4 vs Cyrix 5x86 showdown (at high FSB frequency)

Posted on 2024-05-15, 08:48

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What’s the point of installing a DX4/586 processor without L2 cache? Since there's no cache upgrading stick available, I just test as is. I just bought a real Cyrix 5x86 120GP today, hopes Doom benchmark will run smoothly without a glitch. 40fps on my 586-120gp without the cyrix optimisations …

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Re: Ossc and x68000 xvi fm-towns 2

Posted on 2024-05-15, 08:20

by

by megatron-uk

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What connection are you using from the x68000 to the ossc? I use a simple VGA connector (via a rgb15-hd15 passive adapter which I sourced from Amazon JP) to the ossc. I used this on two X68000 Pros (both of which were broken in other ways, unfortunately) and on my working Super. The Sharp outputs in …

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