Re: MSI's LGA1151 Motherboard Takes Us Back to 1992 With PCI Slots

Posted on 2020-05-08, 01:15

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by ynari

in Milliways

in Milliways

So this board has two onboard ethernet ports, onboard video, and enough slots to make anybody happy. Is there a use case where you could build a couple of VM's and pass hardware to them directly? One ethernet port, a PCI Voodoo card, and a PCI sound card is enough to play Diablo II in its best …

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Re: Anybody Folding@Home?

Posted on 2020-05-08, 01:05

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by ynari

in Milliways

in Milliways

Just a note to say that Folding@home has had plenty of work units recently - my CPUs and main GPU are constantly occupied. I did need to tell it not to use the Quadro 6000, though, it's far too slow compared to the Vega 56. Speaking of Vega, if you have one ensure the latest bleeding edge driver is …

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Re: Going SAS for storage - downsides?

Posted on 2020-05-08, 00:49

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by ynari

in Milliways

in Milliways

Only downside I can really think is like SCSI its a dead end technology once drive supplies run out that controller is useless unless it can do SATA. All SAS controllers support SATA natively, you can plug the drives in transparently. Don't try doing it the other way around, your system really …

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2020-04-03, 23:17

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by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That's a stellar case, definitely!

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2020-03-27, 22:29

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by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'm finally not ashamed to show the setup of my study/computing room. With the UK in lock down and spending more time in this room than any other due to home working, I figured I'd better get the room ship shape. Bar a couple of unfinished builds, a coat of paint, and tidily wiring everything the …

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Re: PCI-E Bandwidth and you

Posted on 2020-03-03, 14:18

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by ynari

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

You'll be fine. Ages ago I did some comparison of PCI-e 1.0 speeds. 16x PCI-e 1.0 was faster than 4x PCI-e 1.0 but not /that/ faster, using an HD6950. PCI-e 2.0 4x is the same as PCI-e 1.0 8x so I doubt you'll even notice. On the other hand, PCI-e 1.0 1x is slow as dirt (much slower than AGP 2x), …

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

Posted on 2020-03-03, 13:03

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by ynari

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I added some extra shelves to my study, and extended KVM cables so that a Powermac G4 and an SGI O2 could sit on them. The O2 (running NetBSD) is a pain, because due to a crappy PS/2 controller prone to key repeats it needs a USB card, a PS/2 to USB converter, and then also a PS/2 emulator connected …

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

Posted on 2020-03-02, 12:46

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by ynari

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Loving that hinged case. Really wanted that when I took the case off my Powermac 4400/200 to press the PRAM button to get it working again! Also started up my main retro PC f or the first time in ages, but there's no video 🙁. Maybe a card has come loose, as I've tried a different KVM cable.

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Re: AMD stopped producing Radeon VII

Posted on 2020-02-28, 11:28

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by ynari

in Milliways

in Milliways

Radeon RX 5950 XT 24 GB HBM2e ;) Fake, apparently. The Radeon VII is a fairly useless GPU unless you need to do compute, in which case it's a bargain. There's no truly decent GPU at the moment. The Nvidia cards are fast, but expensive, and with poor open source support. The AMD cards have had a …

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Re: Jerky scrolling in Commander Keen 6

Posted on 2020-02-28, 10:38

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by ynari

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

use DOSBox, Keen 4-6 under it is indistinguishable from real hardware. losing that border is pretty distinguishable Oddly, I don't remember a cyan border, so either I was being blind when doing a comparison (I did a Dosbox vs Real DOS Keen 6 A/B comparison), or it doesn't appear on my system. I'll …

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Re: Builds general discussion

Posted on 2020-02-28, 10:31

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by ynari

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

None of those are bad builds. The XP system is definitely under powered, I'd echo the advice of going to Core2Duo/Quad, a faster graphics card, and using a later EAX capable soundcard. You also have the option of an A3D card. The DX2-66 is a bit fast as mentioned, you may be able to jumper your …

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Re: Proposed OS/2 Build

Posted on 2020-02-27, 16:29

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by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice. SMP is mostly pointless in OS/2, it's only available in ArcaOS, and Warp Advanced Server as mentioned. Not all drivers are SMP safe either, despite the fact they only run on CPU 0. You'll need to upgrade to the latest service pack and run the latest patched kernel to effectively run Firefox, …

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Re: The millenial troll PC - A Socket 423 Rambus build

Posted on 2020-02-27, 15:58

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by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

You're a sick bunny - well done! About the only thing that could make it worse would be a full height SCSI drive..

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Re: What are builds you want to make someday?

Posted on 2020-02-27, 10:29

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by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'm repeatedly tempted to do a 286 build, to play really early games, but it would be an expensive faff and DOSBox is easier unless there's something specific I can't run in my 486 system that's not been rebuilt. Also tempted by an old Macbook that supports 16 colour modes. May try and get emulation …

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Re: Jerky scrolling in Commander Keen 6

Posted on 2020-02-27, 09:45

by

by ynari

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

root42 wrote on 2020-02-27, 09:35: Maybe it's simply bad VGA compatibility in the Ati. Keen uses some sophisticated EGA and VGA features. Yep, see https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/. Try a different card, or use DOSBox, Keen 4-6 under it is indistinguishable from real hardware.

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Re: The Budget 1997 OS/2 Warp PC

Posted on 2020-02-26, 14:31

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by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Personally I always use OS/2's Boot Manager for multiboot - this should be installed as the first partition. If you're doing it in that order, following it by Primary FAT32 is fine with everything else logical. However, I'd allocate it in the order Boot Manager, FAT32 Win95, OS/2 Boot, Linux root …

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Re: What are builds you want to make someday?

Posted on 2020-02-26, 13:56

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by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I suspect the PS/2 mouse port availability depended on whether the 486 motherboard was VLB, or PCI. I bet the PCI support chips basically provided PS/2 'for free'.. In that time period, PS/2 mice were also ball mice. I even used the original IBM PS/2 mouse for a while (a horrid aberration)

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2020-02-26, 13:49

by

by ynari

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Oh, I'm liking the socket seven build! I have a S7 motherboard with a Cyrix MII 300 lying around somewhere, which I stopped using because the fan was too noisy.

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Re: Advice on making a stable VLB build

Posted on 2020-02-26, 13:41

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by ynari

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's no doubt that VLB was a stopgap bus that wasn't very good, but I have to say my 486 box was bomb proof, the Multi I/O was quite fast, and the Cirrus Logic 5426 compatible and reasonably quick. I did use a 5V 33MHz 486 with it at the time though. When I rebuild it, it's going to have a DX2-66 …

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Re: For *only* 2002-2006 era games any benefit to Win Xp 64-bit over 32-bit?

Posted on 2019-10-24, 12:17

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by ynari

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

The 8800GTX is such a lovely card, I had one but it kept failing, and after the fourth time baking it in the oven I gave up. I think I'd be inclined to use just one card and keep the other as a spare for when it probably fails. Absolutely agree you should run 32 bit, some software doesn't even …

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