Aztech I38-MMSN824 vs. Win 3.11

Posted on 2020-05-10, 03:52

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I bought one of these Packard Bell labeled cards for my Dos6.22/Win3.11 build. Once I found the proper Aztech Voyager drivers, the card works fine in DOS. However, in all instances except once in Win 3.11, the system hangs upon entering the information concerning the base address, IRQ, etc., forcing …

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Re: Preserving a Cache of Hardware

Posted on 2020-05-06, 23:32

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm going to look at the systems Saturday. I think the real prize of whatever he has PC-wise will be the 386 and 486-era systems, but I'm trying to moderate my expectations since there's a decent chance of leaky barrel batteries, dead RTC chips, etc. I know that can all be fixed, but it will be my …

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Preserving a Cache of Hardware

Posted on 2020-05-06, 17:11

by

by viper32cm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So it looks like my next door neighbor may be sitting on a cache of vintage hardware. I'm not sure of the specific date ranges, but he was 100% certain he had CRTs as well as systems going back to the 386-era and he mentioned systems through perhaps 2002. I think a lot of it is OEM stuff--he …

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Re: AZ2316 v. ES1868F

Posted on 2020-04-26, 02:36

by

by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Maybe a change of plans. I have a P233MMX Win95 system with an Audician 32 Plus. What if I moved that card to my P100 and then put a CT4380 in the P233MMX? The Audician 32 is great for the 1995 and before time frame I'm shooting for with the P100, and the CT4380 seems like it would be a good upgrade …

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Re: AZ2316 v. ES1868F

Posted on 2020-04-24, 13:49

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I think the AZ2316 is the way to go. I'm not worried about speed sensitivity with a P100. While not the paragon of reliability or quality, Packard Bell shipped thousands of systems in the mid-90s with AZ2316-based sound cards , either as dedicated cards or as part of the a modem/sound card combo …

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AZ2316 v. ES1868F

Posted on 2020-04-24, 01:06

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

As referenced in some other posts, I'm building a P100 system with Dos 6.22 and Win 3.11. I have all the parts except the sound card. I'm leaning heavily towards a card based on the AZ2316 chipset since that's what my childhood P100 system had. It has a Yamaha OPL chip, and I've read good reviews of …

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Re: Integrated Mach64 vs. Anything Else

Posted on 2020-04-23, 22:53

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I don't know if you've seen this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_5suEoXTc8&t=107s It might help decide. I agree with Phil on this, the Cirrus Logic 5446 also gets my vote. It's performance is very good, compatible with many games and it can be obtained easily. Also the S3 is a valid option …

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Re: Integrated Mach64 vs. Anything Else

Posted on 2020-04-23, 13:41

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The Trio I bought has the additional RAM modules already installed. I had toyed with the idea of upgrading the video RAM on the integrated Mach64, but a new card seems like a better idea.

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Re: Integrated Mach64 vs. Anything Else

Posted on 2020-04-22, 23:11

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I bought a Diamond-branded S3Trio64V+ today based on the recommendations here. It will be faster and, most importantly, more compatible than the Mach64.

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Re: Socket 5 Processors and MB Cache

Posted on 2020-04-22, 21:39

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Packard Bell with a COAST slot? Sounds like the PB640 aka "Thousand Oaks", a pretty decent Intel OEM board in LPX form factor. They shipped with EDO, not FP, but regardless, FP vs EDO didn't make as much difference as oft touted, async vs PLB cache is a much bigger jump. Replace that 256kB COAST …

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Re: Socket 5 Processors and MB Cache

Posted on 2020-04-22, 17:15

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

When Intel introduced Triton chipset one of its propositions marketed to vendors, like Packard Bell, was that it allowed for cheaper cacheless systems. In those system the missing expensive L2 cache was meant to be compensated by reduced RAM latencies (EDO RAM). This didn't really work out. My old …

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Socket 5 Processors and MB Cache

Posted on 2020-04-22, 03:48

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How much does a Socket 5 processor benefit from the presence of motherboard cache? My recollection is that not all systems of that vintage had motherboard cache (e.g., a lot of Packard Bells) but the ones that did had 256KB.

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Re: Integrated Mach64 vs. Anything Else

Posted on 2020-04-22, 02:54

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The S3 Trio and Virge cards that I've tried from STB seem to have pretty good image quality. Agreed . The ones from good brands had decent output . Nothing wrong with the chips, just some implementations . Even some of the cheap ones were decent . My bargain basement old Virge 325 back in the day …

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Integrated Mach64 vs. Anything Else

Posted on 2020-04-22, 02:31

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I'm building a late-DOS/Win 3.x build around a Pentium 100 similar to the Packard Bell system I had in middle school. Much like that old PB system, the computer I'm using as a base has an LPX-motherboard with an integrated 1MB PCI video card. The PB system had a Cirrus Logic GD-5430, which I recall …

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Re: Video card for a PII/PIII (400 to 600Mhz)

Posted on 2020-04-22, 00:01

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

TNT2 or GeForce 256 DDR (or an GF2 or GF4 MX card) I would avoid the GeForce FX-series for a slot 1 build. The older (mid-2002 and earlier) Nvidia drivers are the best for Win9X IMO, and those drivers won't work with a GeForce FX.

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Re: Windows 3.11 vs. Windows 95

Posted on 2020-04-21, 22:59

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Windows 95 will be suboptimal with only 16 MB of RAM. Yes it will work but you'll wish you had more; it'll basically become a single-tasking OS if you don't want to use your swapfile all the time. I remember Win95 8MB being "crap" on my old P100, so much so that I downgraded to Windows 3.11 until …

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Old Joystick Repair/Restoration

Posted on 2020-04-17, 17:09

by

by viper32cm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A few years ago I bought a CH Flightstick Pro to go along with my DOS PC. I thought it worked fairly well when I bought it, but more recently I've noticed that it just won't hold steady electronically speaking even if the stick is stationary. I've taken it apart a few times, and it looks like there …

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Re: VESA feature connector devices

Posted on 2020-04-17, 03:20

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I purchased a Pentium-class Zenith workstation a few years ago that had a video conference card connected to a Matrox Impression video card using the feature connector.

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Windows 3.11 vs. Windows 95

Posted on 2020-04-16, 03:19

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I'm in the beginning stages of building a close representation of the computer I had between 1995 and 1998--P100, 16MB RAM, ~1GB HDD, 1MB PCI video, etc. When I bought the computer it had Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.22, and I played tons of primarily 1992 and newer DOS games with it (also some Sierra Win …

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Re: What makes Audigy 2 ZS so much better in Win98 SE than others ?

Posted on 2020-01-16, 01:28

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by viper32cm

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Audigs 2ZS bogged my Win9X PC considerably compared to the Live. I wound up switching back to the Live and forgetting about the Audigy altogether. I still have it, but I probably wouldn't install it anything older than a 2002-03 vintage system.

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