Re: EARLIEST CD-ROM Drives that could Read CD-R's ???

Posted on 2020-02-23, 17:44

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by Standard Def Steve

in Milliways

in Milliways

My 486 has a quad speed Creative drive from 1994 that’ll read most CD-Rs as long as they’re in immaculate condition. CD-RW is a big no-no. It really makes you appreciate the newer drives that much more eh? My LG BDXL burner will happily read even the most scratched up DL DVD-RWs that I made with my …

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Re: Why does the .wav on Windows 95 startup jitter on my PC?

Posted on 2020-02-23, 06:30

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Win98 used to do that to me back in the day. Enabling DMA on the hard drive cured it.

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Re: What music are you listening to?

Posted on 2020-02-23, 06:14

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by Standard Def Steve

in Milliways

in Milliways

Last six: Cat Stevens - Moonshadow Black Box Recorder - The Facts Of Life Exposé - Come Go with Me Macy Gray - Do Something Good Charlotte - Girls & Boys Mantronix - Bassline

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Re: What soundsolutions (speakers/soundbars etc.) are you using on your machines?

Posted on 2020-02-20, 18:41

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've always been a bit of a computer audio nerd. Here's what I use. Gaming PC - onboard Realtek ALC1220 to Swan M50W 2.1 speakers. These are probably the nicest sounding PC speakers I've ever heard, with lots of detail in the higher frequencies (yet not bright or fatiguing), and a nice, clean low- …

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Re: What music are you listening to?

Posted on 2020-02-16, 07:59

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by Standard Def Steve

in Milliways

in Milliways

Lately I've been finding great joy in just letting Foobar randomly pick the tunes. Last six: Pointer Sisters - Slow Hand Destiny's Child - Emotion Beatles - Rocky Raccoon Shaggy - It Wasn't Me Deniece Williams - Let's Hear It For The Boy Justin Hines - April On The Ground

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Re: Any love for AM2?

Posted on 2020-02-14, 01:51

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The E8600 is powerful enough that 264 and VP9 acceleration aren't even necessary, unless of course you want 4K. My E8600 w/ GMA X4500HD can handle VP9 at 1080p/60 or 1440p/30 in Chrome quite nicely. I'm seeing nothing wrong with Win10 GUI performance either. Of course, having dual-channel DDR3-1333 …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-02-07, 23:10

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Started cleaning up a Dimension 8100 system that I recently found a couple of alleys away from my place. Saw the P4 sticker and was about to leave it there, but then I noticed the weird RAM...RDRAM! And what an overbuilt motherboard! 6 slots, removable VRM, and completely proprietary, I knew I had …

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Re: I think it's time to include first gen phenom

Posted on 2020-02-06, 17:59

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't have any experience with the original Phenoms, and though I've heard that they're pretty weak compared to Core 2 and Phenom II, I can't imagine that they're that bad on the modern web. I mean, I still have an old Surface 3 with a quad-core Atom X7 that spends most of its time boosting to 2. …

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Re: AGPx4 AGPx8 what really takes advantage of it?

Posted on 2020-02-05, 18:35

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I've noticed that the CPU tests in 3DMark 2003 and 2005 really benefit from more bus bandwidth. Yet the actual graphics tests don't benefit much at all, at least once you're past PCI. Strange stuff. Anyway on a PIII-S at 1628MHz with Apollo Pro 266T, DDR-310 @ 2-2-2-5, FSB at 155, AGP at 77.5, and …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-02-02, 17:49

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I overclocked the two 1.25GHz G4 chips in my PowerMac MDD to 1.5GHz. With the 7800GS AGP video card, it can now crack 30 fps in Doom 3, which is still lame as balls compared to similarly clocked Athlon XPs and even PIIIs, but I'll take it! UT2K4 is in the ~40 fps range now, which is pretty decent …

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Re: Dos games that is too much for Pentium 133?

Posted on 2020-01-27, 16:34

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think Screamer 2 in SVGA struggled to maintain 60 fps even on my PIII-550 (katmai). Installing a Celeron-1400 on a Slocket fixed that issue right up. Not sure what the "minimum" CPU requirement would have been for a constant 60 fps. I'm guessing PIII-800ish. Course, Screamer 2 SVGA is the most …

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Re: MP4 Can Be Played on Windows 95/98/ME!

Posted on 2020-01-20, 23:27

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I did a bunch of video playback benchmarks a while ago. With an efficient software decoder, such as an older version of CoreAVC running through MPC-HC, a PIII-866 can do 852x480 res H.264 (main, L3.1) at around 70-90% CPU load. A PIII-S @ 1628MHz can pull off 720p H.264 (high, L4.1) as well. All of …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2020-01-15, 06:02

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by Standard Def Steve

in Milliways

in Milliways

-Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours -Alice: Madness Returns -Commander Keen: Atroxian Realm -Dungeon Siege

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2020-01-06, 08:05

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hey man, the Batcave started out with a 480i CRT projector and a laserdisc player. I'm still very much a Standard Def kinda guy at heart! :P Damn how bigs your house? Looks awesome. Is that snow? How many people do you have to share this playground with? It's really just a midsize '70s home with a …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2020-01-05, 09:18

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Here's my main computing area: -Assorted boxes, parts, software, and shelved computers. -An Apple IIe running Conan. 1MHz 6502, 128KB of RAM, dual Disk IIs, green Monitor II. https://i.imgur.com/2XVc8aU.jpg -486 DX2-66 running Raptor: Call of the Shadows on the CRT. 8MB of RAM, 540MB HDD, AWE64, DOS …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2019-12-30, 04:46

by

by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I played a bunch of DOS games...in DOSBox running on Tiger running on a dual cpu 1.25GHz PPC G4. It kinda weirded me out, seeing my old faves running on that thing. The games all looked and sounded normal. Gameplay even felt normal with no input lag at all, which, given the multiple layers of …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2019-12-22, 07:11

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Found this LG 42" plasma TV today. It's in great shape, with no hint of burn-in or image retention. Manufactured in 2014, it's probably one of the last plasma sets that LG made. Because of the grayish screen, however, it kinda has that "old school" plasma look. Most newer plasma sets, such as my …

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Re: To end the AMD v. Intel debate.

Posted on 2019-12-06, 23:50

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by Standard Def Steve

in Milliways

in Milliways

Actually Zen2 in the Ryzen 3000 series is slightly faster per clock than Coffee Lake. Unfortunately the AMD chips just can't clock quite a high, so overall Intel is still slightly ahead in gaming. That's about it though. You see the new Zen2 based Ryzens and Threadrippers ahead of Intel in nearly …

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Re: What modern activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2019-12-03, 05:56

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by Standard Def Steve

in Milliways

in Milliways

Did you run it at 4K resolution or just use the default settings? It looks like it's running in 4x3, and 999 fps seems really high for 4k. Default settings, because 1024x768 and 2001 go together like bread and butter. However the pre/pro was reporting that it was receiving a 4096x2160 signal, so …

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Re: My 3DMark01 Mega Thread

Posted on 2019-12-01, 08:42

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by Standard Def Steve

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

This is probably the most fun I’ve had with 3DMark01 since 2001. Here it is running on a 110" 4K screen. Despite the D-ILA projector not being designed for gaming, it has an incredibly quick pixel response time and great motion resolution. In fact, I don't think I've see such smooth, clear motion …

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