Re: Any others given up on the hobby?

Posted on Yesterday, 11:58

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Milliways

in Milliways

Collect less, play more, do you must. Pretty much this. I currently have three rigs which cover DOS, Win9x and WinXP era games fairly well. I'm still interested in building a Pentium MMX system for its superb slowdown options, but that's very low priority. Honestly, I'm just happy with the hardware …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 & AWE: From best to worst

Posted on Yesterday, 11:02

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

anakin94 wrote on Yesterday, 10:54: I can test only Doom, i don't have the other games. The examples are very clear, interesting. Skyroads has been made free by the original developer. You can download it from their website. WarCraft 2 had a shareware demo back in the day. You can still find that …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 & AWE: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-02-26, 15:05

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

anakin94 wrote on 2021-02-26, 14:14: Then i can also check if the card has the clipping issue. Is there a special audiofile to check it? Doom, WarCraft 2 and Skyroads seem to be good test cases for the Vibra distortion bug. Check here and also here for distortion examples documented by James-F.

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Re: Best and worst sound cards you have ever owned?

Posted on 2021-02-26, 06:00

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Best Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe (model SB0880). Pretty much the perfect WinXP sound card, with no noticeable drawbacks. Optical in/out, EAX 1-5 support, excellent resampling algorithm and soundfont loading capabilities. My card of choice for the 2001-2007 era of gaming. I also have one in my …

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Re: Are there other S3 Trio64 V2 Drivers Available?

Posted on 2021-02-25, 13:06

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

On my Win95 OSR2.5 CD, there is this folder: Copy code to clipboard 1 D:\DRIVERS\DISPLY\S3_2 According to the readme file, it contains drivers for S3 Trio32/64. Not sure if these will work on your card, but it might be worth a look.

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Re: PC games on consoles

Posted on 2021-02-25, 08:19

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Milliways

in Milliways

Diablo 1 for the original PlayStation is pretty interesting. The overall resolution is lower, but it has some nice visual effects such as water reflections and improved lighting from torches and spells. It also uses non-interlaced intro/outro movies which look great on a CRT TV.

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Re: Cyrix 166+ Instead MK2 Build **Photo Heavy**

Posted on 2021-02-24, 09:19

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

For me though, its solely UniVBE is causing the issues. Since you're using a Virge card, try S3 VBE instead. Regarding performance in S3D games, some of them really want 4MB of video RAM. Overclocking the card using MCLCK can provide a boost as well. Running Tomb Raider in S3D mode, my overclocked …

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Re: YMF724F card picks noise from... spinning optical discs?!

Posted on 2021-02-23, 09:55

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Try a different CD audio cable first. If that doesn't help, make sure the cable is correctly aligned on both ends. If you look at the back of the CD drive, there should be some markings above the CD audio connector, usually "RGGL". Those need to be aligned to the pins on your sound card. So, if the …

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Re: What made you join VOGONS?

Posted on 2021-02-21, 11:39

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Milliways

in Milliways

Watching Phil's videos rekindled my interest in retro PC hardware. He referenced this forum a lot, so I figured it was a useful source of information. After several months of lurking, I decided to join up so that I could actively participate in some discussions that were of interest to me. I also …

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Re: FF7 music loop bug

Posted on 2021-02-20, 07:23

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I am also aware that my machine is overkill. Word of caution, some mini games like the bike chase play way too fast even on my Celeron 466 machine. This makes it very hard to complete those sections. As others have said, you want either an XG capable device or a Sound Blaster AWE with at least 4 MB …

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Re: I give up. And usually i'm a though one.

Posted on 2021-02-20, 07:06

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Any PC component with moving parts (CD-ROM drives, HDDs, Floppy drives...) is likely to have some issues after 20+ years. If you can get a BIOS update which supports disks over 8 GB, I would suggest using an IDE to SATA adapter paired with a cheap 120 GB SSD. Don't go over that amount as Win98 can't …

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Re: Gabriel Knight 1 - General Midi hangs sound device on exit (ESS Audiodrive 1878 + Roland Sound Canvas)

Posted on 2021-02-19, 17:55

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Interesting. I had a different issue with my ESS 1868F. Gabriel Knight would somehow mute the Line In on that card, so I would get only sound effects. But if I connected the Sound Canvas directly to my speakers instead of going through the ESS card, music would play normally.

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Re: Struggling with an old Athlon XP 1800+ Build

Posted on 2021-02-17, 14:31

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You might need a better PSU. Check this video by Phil for more details.

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Re: Using Audigy drivers with a Sound Blaster Live

Posted on 2021-02-16, 19:42

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Just noticed that Phil made a video based on this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x6T_OWT0WU It might be easier for some people to follow the visual instructions as presented there than to go through my huge wall of text. Cheers Phil! :) P.S. I see that my username has already flooded your …

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Re: Using Audigy drivers with a Sound Blaster Live

Posted on 2021-02-16, 18:12

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

1 device even tho probably just the gameport is malfunctioning, not a big deal but the DOS driver cannot be installed at all. Does anyone know a trick to fool ME thinking it's a 98SE and install it anyway? The VxD driver works in ME as well. I haven't personally used this under WinME, but maybe …

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Re: Using Audigy drivers with a Sound Blaster Live

Posted on 2021-02-16, 18:06

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Would it be possible to use the Live! with these drivers at the same time as an AWE64? I'd like to use the AWE64 for DOS games, and the Live! for anything needing EAX. Yes, I believe so. Skip everything under steps 4, 5 and 6 and you should be good to go. You will lose the ability to load …

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Re: Which one of your builds are you most fond of and why?

Posted on 2021-02-16, 15:19

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Probably my AthlonXP rig . Mainly because it's so versatile. That system can play DOS games just fine with the help of slowdown utilities. Win9x games work great on it, including late-era stuff like Deus Ex. And even some WinXP titles like the original Splinter Cell run on it with acceptable …

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Re: PC games on consoles

Posted on 2021-02-15, 08:47

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Milliways

in Milliways

mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-02-15, 08:31: Doom of course! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doom_ports Just chiming in to say that the 3DO port of Doom has some amazing music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m35pIk5wfNk The ported game is poorly optimized and doesn't play that well, but the …

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Re: What Soundcard is as good if not better than the SoundBlaster AWE64 line of cards?

Posted on 2021-02-12, 14:15

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

If low self-noise is what you're primarily interested in, the ESS AudioDrive 1868F cards are great in that aspect. Be advised that this may vary between different manufacturers. In so far, I can only speak for my 1868F which is practically noise-free when the relevant jumper is set to the Line Out …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 & AWE: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-02-12, 12:16

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

You can have up to 8 simultaneous sound effects in Doom, and they have to account for distant sounds that are quite soft and also users with 8 bit sound cards so they could not attenuate them too much. So they must have accepted a certain level of clipping in edge cases because otherwise the sound …

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