Re: "Must Have" Best DOS games

Posted on 2016-05-04, 13:31

by

by FGB

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'd like to add "Z" from Bitmap Brothers to the category of best RTS games. Man that game is fast and fun and later maps are quite demanding. I love it! To all who don't know Z: It's not a Command&Conquer style clone-game, it brought a whole new concept to the genre: One had to control sectors on a …

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Re: a 586/90

Posted on 2016-05-04, 11:04

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Speedsys CPU scores are not accurate. F.e. a 386 without FPU scores significantly higher than a 386 with a FPU installed. The same occurs here: The NexGen has no FPU, hence the unusual high CPU score. I would use other programs to measure the ALU performance, NSSI for example. The DOS gaming …

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Re: Some 386 questions, FPU , and help identify board?

Posted on 2016-04-26, 22:05

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The board is the Shuttle HOT-317 PGA or OEM version of this board. A nice litte board. Have one in my collection as well. The revision of my board has the 495SLC chipset and does work well with either 486DLC and SXL chips. I hightly recommend to set the ISA divider to "4" in the advanced BIOS menu …

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Re: My Cyrix 5x86 systems : 120MHz vs 133MHz

Posted on 2016-04-23, 00:07

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Great thread and great effort and still surprising that the Cyrix is is still slower when compared to a much older CPU like the Pentium 66 on a proper board (Quake, PCPBench SVGA, L2 Cache)..

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Re: Opti 82c941 daughterboard - should I get it?

Posted on 2016-04-18, 21:58

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The EMU8000 on your AWE is a much much more advanced synthesizer. The OPTi board is one of the lowest possible quality boards one can get for General Midi music. Only get it, if you are into collecting these boards. But it is no match for the AWE. Yamaha, Roland or Korg boards sound just like from …

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Re: The Suitability of the PS/2 for Gaming

Posted on 2016-03-24, 10:56

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for the picture, pleonard. Do you actively use this sound card? How do the games work with it? How would you judge the general compatibility from your personal experience? Hello, I'm searching about replace MCA riser from my IBm ps/2 model 56 with a riser from another IBM model with ISA slots …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-24, 09:33

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice ATX board, you're already selling it on eBay :happy: I like that it can down to 75 MHz. Is that using a FSB of 50 MHz and 1.5 multiplier? Yes, I got a bunch of them, of course I don't need them all in my private collection. So I just keep one for my rig and one spare and sell the others. I can …

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Re: Post your unidentified hardware here! thread

Posted on 2016-03-23, 23:26

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It may be a "Primax Soundstorm", I have one shrinkwrapped here, looks the same from the picture. I don't know the differences (if there are any hardware differences) between the Altrasound, the Music Sound and the Soundstorm, but of course "Soundstorm" sounds the coolest ;) Maybe its just different …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-23, 22:20

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The ASUS is a nice board. The ATX form factor becomes more and more important as it gets harder to ob- and maintain AT-PSUs. But I think the RTC-module is soldered, ASUS soldered back in the day while Gigabyte for example spent some cents more and used socketed RTC-modules. However, the ASUS is not …

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Re: Adlib Gold 1000 ISA card on eBay

Posted on 2016-03-13, 02:53

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That is just a matter of rarity for a collectors item. Rarity often beats functionality. But who knows how far it goes. eBay deals don't always reflect real-life transactions.

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Re: Adlib Gold 1000 ISA card on eBay

Posted on 2016-03-13, 00:56

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry, I cant stand the discussion. The inner value of some retro item cant be determined by its value of use. Of course the Adlib GOLD is a very limited card from a perspective of gamers. Even Dune is a Music-Only game with the AdLib GOLD while it is a full SFX-MUSIC game with a SoundBlaster. But …

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Re: Musicians, Trackers, Players, Soundards

Posted on 2016-03-13, 00:45

by

by FGB

in Milliways

in Milliways

The PAS was actually quite a decent alternative to the Sound Blaster. It was compatible with SB (also digital sound), but was of considerably higher quality than the real thing (which wasn't that hard). No the first PAS , the PAS 8-Bit was not compatible to SoundBlaster, hence the combination link …

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Re: Orchid SoundWave 32 - What do you guys say?

Posted on 2015-11-14, 20:34

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The original InVision ROMs are 2x 1MB . The original Prosonus ROMs are 2x 512K. Hence the according jumpers on the card and the reference to the ROMs in the manual. I could provide pictures if needed. I have both versions and both firmware codes. One must use the updated firmware with the Invision …

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Re: Orchid SoundWave 32 - What do you guys say?

Posted on 2015-11-13, 19:58

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just to correct some wrong information provided earlier in this thread: The original ROMs (Prosonus) were 2x 512KB = 1MB ROM which contain 2MB sound font (compressed) The later ROMs (Invision) were 2x 1MB = 2MB ROM which contain 4MB sound font (compressed) Let me add just some lines about the sound: …

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Re: Help me identify this graphics gard

Posted on 2015-11-04, 09:45

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Post a picture that shows the whole PCB.

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Re: Pentium 3 retro computer

Posted on 2015-10-31, 16:31

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

idspispopd wrote: [...]The mainboard has an ISA slot so if it really is a P3 it doesn't have an Intel chipset. There were many P3 capable boards with Intel chipsets and ISA slot(s).

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Re: Miro Crystal 40SV VLB any good?

Posted on 2015-10-31, 14:54

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Vision968 (same as 964 + Video acceleration) There is a 20SV online at the minute which is Vision 964 (VRAM based without acceleration), and its VRAM memory is more suited to Windows than in Dos. Again, both claims/assumptions are wrong: The Vision 964 is a VRAM based accelerator card and of course …

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Re: Miro Crystal 40SV VLB any good?

Posted on 2015-10-31, 11:46

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Same scenario as above, this time with ELSA Winner1000AVI (S3 Vision 868) vs Diamond Stealth 64 Video (Vision 968). Please note that the Diamond Stealth 64 is known to be a very fast card (I don't know if the card is clocked higher or has just BIOS optimizations), other vendors did a more …

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Re: Miro Crystal 40SV VLB any good?

Posted on 2015-10-31, 10:57

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

VRAM got obsolete very quick. I think no one implied that VRAM won any "memory war", but of course the advantage of VRAM over DRAM showed in the Windows environment. One also has to take into account that VRAM was available way earlier than EDO DRAM and in a much lower density, thus VRAM was much …

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Re: Miro Crystal 40SV VLB any good?

Posted on 2015-10-31, 10:14

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, having VRAM doesn't stop it to perform well in DOS. Also it is not true that DRAM performs better in DOS, it is more likely that some VRAM cards are clocked lower and therefore have a DOS performance that lacks behind its DRAM counterparts. But by which margin? Well it depends, of course. And …

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