Re: To upgrade or not to upgrade? That is the question. (i486 DOSBox)

Posted on 2022-05-24, 14:01

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

There's Lost Vikings, Micro Machines, the Pinball games, Frontier: Elite II (Might not do high detail) Mortal Kombat, If you were trying to resell, I'd whack a DX2-66 and a GL-5428/29/30/34 VLB in it. 8MB and DX-2 then Doom 2 and ROTT get smoother, Duke 3D is doable in reduced screen size.

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Re: Members of Vogons, what shows do you currently watch?

Posted on 2022-05-22, 19:38

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by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

I mean I quite liked Howard the Duck and Joe Dirt, just gotta see some things for what they are, not what you want them to be.

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Re: Compaq armada 1750

Posted on 2022-05-21, 17:06

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

I haven't had a problem like that with mine (yet?).. I did recreate the diag/setup partition with a softpaq, I can only assume it read the serial from the BIOS and okayed it with no intervention. However, I have noticed this sort of thing on other Compaqs long ago, and the issue then was using a …

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Re: Favorite 4:3 games from the XP-era?

Posted on 2022-05-17, 18:35

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I have a recollection of some earlier games having a letterbox type mode, black bars top and bottom, merely to give the 3D card less to do, so frame rate was improved. Mostly those would be racing type games and shooters where the playing area was mostly a single plane vs a lot of vertical space.

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Re: Members of Vogons, what shows do you currently watch?

Posted on 2022-05-17, 13:03

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

In my memory, Scully uses a Mac a lot. The problem with X Files now, is that parts of it's style was much imitated, because it was popular and did new things, but they look corny now that many shows have done them. Though that can go for a lot of classic shows... it was innovative then, but it's …

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Re: What scary games require booze to take the edge off?

Posted on 2022-05-17, 01:55

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

I seem to have a little bit more than normal of natural glitch built in, so for this reason... https://whyy.org/segments/when-a-bit-of-booze-is-just-the-boost-you-need/ between one and two drinks make me super awesome... well a bit gooderer at rally and circuit racing games and real life pool and …

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

Posted on 2022-05-16, 18:15

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ISA cards are fun, working with PCI at low level is like kicking dead whales down a beach, to use a hardware hacker phrase used for something both disgusting and requiring extreme effort for small result. Part of that extreme effort is the additional work of resource allocation and writing much more …

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

Posted on 2022-05-14, 22:54

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The whole case style thing is a bit of a mess really, late 286es got into the first minitowers, and even early pentium P5s shipped in those huge "AT clone" horizontal desktop cases that looked too much like 1985.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-05-13, 13:03

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

that's the first time I read hama and "high quality stuff" in the same sentence :D Well, you can read that right there on the package! (the 10 year warranty might have run out, I lack the receipt... :() It's rather depressing, really. That's definitely still original sealed in one of those …

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Re: Home Computer - was it a toy or a Personal Computer for the masses?

Posted on 2022-05-12, 03:36

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by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

I smell revisionist BS... For instance many kids use tablets or smartphones today as basically a toy, but it has the power of a mid noughties desktop. So mid noughties desktops must have been toys. Maybe some kids never exploited their machines beyond games, but "basically a toy" applies to any …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-05-11, 23:24

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I used to find them alright in Windows Sound System mode, aztech cards. But that period I wasn't relying on them for real windows gaming, which wasn't really, really a thing until late 9x. Mostly for "multimedia" stuff, using WSS, not stuff using directsound.

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Re: m748lmrt PCI graphics card issues

Posted on 2022-05-10, 19:50

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Resistors in the area of the backside of the GPU control the visible memory size on GF1/2 boards, so in theory, you can cripple an MX down to 32MB if you really want to. It may not be power, but how it handles it's memory map and where it puts the frame buffer. Edit: Yah I realise what PC Chips …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-05-08, 04:11

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well if you want authentic for pre 1990 make sure your chosen CRT has some keystone, linearity problems, uneven focus and maybe even a slight tilt to the left. LCDs aren't all that bad to deal with after living through that. Yes some have horrible scaling, but I don't see how ppl pretend they're a …

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Re: SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod

Posted on 2022-05-08, 00:08

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ohhh my Ph.D is coming in handy here! Viscosity is going to matter a lot here. The thinnest possible layer of TIM is generally going to be preferable to a thicker, but more conductive one. Then there's mounting pressure and the flatness of the surfaces and everything else going on. the more and …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-05-07, 23:31

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I gotta stop buying every NEC multisync I see under $10 in case it's a good one. Serious question: Educate me, which specific criteria distinguish a good multisync LCD? With CRTs I understand, but I don't know much about LCDs, beyond the basic usuals. Well pretty much the same as the CRTs. Modes …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-05-07, 18:35

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I gotta stop buying every NEC multisync I see under $10 in case it's a good one. This latest is an LCD1760VM ... which turns out is just around average LCD monitor capable... but I liked that it has speakers built in, because not every setup needs a pair of 205mm phononwerfer howitzers pointed at …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-04, 21:35

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Those NEC x87 FPUs are CMOS. So they *might* overclock okay. But, according to CPUShack they are only rated at 8MHz. I'm not sure how that was determined though, since I wasn't able to decipher the production code. Even if you can only get it up to 10MHz, it still provides one advantage over …

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Re: Some eBay sellers are assholes

Posted on 2022-05-03, 03:39

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by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Scammers probably mostly want to monetise too though and have a quick sale so as not to draw attention for too long, so may list the item a month or two later at lower BIN.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-05-03, 01:50

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-03, 01:28: and GeForce 3 series didn't get very hot at all. Orly? Run a few passes of Aquamark on one then stick your finger on it.

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Re: need help disabling IR Thinkpad 380D with no boot

Posted on 2022-05-03, 01:43

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd figure that most of the real important stuff is in the lower part of the CMOS area, which is kinda semi standard. So anything in the extended (Bit 32 up? forgetting) is likely all extra peripheral stuff, so I don't think you can mess up too much if you twiddle that bit and see what happens... …

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