Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-06-24, 18:14

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IMG_3798.JPG Got a bunch of motherboards today. Most are usual Socket 7 stuff by Asus and Lucky Star, but this board is something I don't have in my collection. It's a Retcon RT-4S3, also known as Kaimei KM-S4-1. It's really similar to Lucky Star LS-486e or Zida 4DPS: a SIS497 chipset, 3PCI/3ISA, …

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Re: Understanding old sound cards

Posted on 2017-06-23, 14:55

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Here's a nice overview with examples. Also, this.

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Re: DOSBox or old computer for MS-DOS Games?

Posted on 2017-06-21, 14:17

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by jheronimus

in Milliways

in Milliways

leileilol wrote: a disk cache driver Hm, why do I need a disk cache driver? Just curious

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Re: 5x86 not running most games

Posted on 2017-06-18, 18:19

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

meljor wrote: I think the jumper settings are wrong, as none of my 4 pci motherboards have the same settings for the Cyrix 5x86 vs the settings for Intel/Amd. How do I tell if they are correct? I don't think this motherboard has explicit support for 5x86

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Re: 5x86 not running most games

Posted on 2017-06-17, 22:01

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tried running AIDA16 — at Memory Specification it shows that DPMI and DPMS are "not supported". Aren't those the modes that are used by protected mode games?

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Re: 5x86 not running most games

Posted on 2017-06-17, 21:56

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Assuming the main memory and L2 cache are fine, have you tried setting L1 cache to Write-Through instead of Write-Back? Some 486 motherboards have very problematic WB cache implementations... Also, do the games run fine with other CPUs in the same board? According to CHKCPU the L1 cache is already …

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Re: How do I install a CD-ROM on a 486?

Posted on 2017-06-17, 21:35

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also, just a small tip: if you plan to use CD-R or CD-RW then you'd definitely need at least a late 90s CD-ROM. Any CD-RW, combo DVD/CD-ROM or a 52x CD-ROM drive will do, but definitely stay away from those old non-IDE drives.

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5x86 not running most games

Posted on 2017-06-17, 21:19

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, all I have the following system: AMD 5x86 configured to run as AMD 486DX4@100 2x8MB FPM RAM Chaintech 486SLP Cirrus Logic CL-5428GL with 2MB (VLB) AWE32 CT3990 VLB MIO 1.6GB HDD 16x CD-ROM MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.11 I can run benchmarks (such as 3DBench, Chris's Bench, Speedsys and SI8) just fine, I …

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Re: Need some help adding MMX capabilities to a P5-120 Gateway 2000

Posted on 2017-06-15, 23:00

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In my situation, I'm trying my absolute hardest to give my Gateway 2000 P5-120 (Which uses the late 80s AT configuration) MMX capabilities, for running a far larger amount of programs and games, such as GTA III, Need For Speed Most Wanted, and newer versions of my favorite 3D animation software …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-06-14, 19:53

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got my first XT motherboard for free today! It's something called Super 10-B (wasn't able to find any info on it so far) it comes with a Fujitsu MBL-8088-1 CPU and I don't know how much RAM. IMG_3770.JPG I have an 8-bit sound card for it (Sound Commander Ex if I remember correctly), an OTIVGA …

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Re: Soundfonts and Retrogaming MIDI

Posted on 2017-06-14, 15:23

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

appiah4 wrote: Creative 28MB What soundfont is that? Could anyone please point me to some recordings? I might have found a reason to get 32MB for my AWE32 after all 😀

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Re: Sound Cards Advice

Posted on 2017-06-13, 23:53

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Alternatively, since it looks like you're willing to spend some money (judging by your SS7/Glide setup) you might want to invest into something like a Dreamblaster X2 and use it with your Labway.

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Re: Sound Cards Advice

Posted on 2017-06-13, 23:49

by

by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Never played gems like DOOM, Quake1, Monkey Island, Heretic, Hexen, Duke Nukem etc... Then I'd probably start with AWE64 Gold. DOOM, Heretic, Hexen and Duke Nukem 3D all support it natively (AWE32 mode which is basically wavetable) and should sound nicely. Monkey Island might be a bit off (because …

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Re: Sound Cards Advice

Posted on 2017-06-13, 22:45

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Really nice haul! Covers a lot of eras. However, to get an advice, you'd need to be more specific: 1) what kind of a machine do you want to build? 2) what era of games you want to play? 3) what kind of music do you like in games? Basically, when it comes to music in DOS games, there are three main …

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Re: Pc games you played infinite times

Posted on 2017-06-12, 19:01

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by jheronimus

in Milliways

in Milliways

I don't think I ever tried to "master" a game (e.g. get a speedrun or unlock all secrets), but there's certainly a number of games I played «infinite times»: - Doom I/II - Quake - Duke Nukem 3D - Street Rod 2 - Sims (1-3)

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Re: Do pentium pros need both 32 bit o/s and app for optimal performance, or just 32 bit app?

Posted on 2017-06-07, 14:41

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I own a Pentium Pro@200MHz machine . Never bothered to run extensive benchmarks on it, but I'm yet to see any game that would run better on a regular Pentium/Pentium MMX. It is my understanding that a lot of late DOS games aren't really 16 bit. For example, DOS/4GW games like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, …

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Re: Vaporwave

Posted on 2017-06-07, 11:40

by

by jheronimus

in Milliways

in Milliways

I've seen a number of retrocomputing YouTubers actually complaining on the "a e s t h e t i c s" comments below their videos. 😀 Here's a nice short explanation behind vaporwave culture, and here's some explanation behind music.

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Re: SB CT2940 with OPL?

Posted on 2017-05-31, 10:37

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Here is mine CT2940 with OPL3. Sorry, the photo was taken before I cleaned the card: 2017-02-15%2020.23.35.jpg Unlike yours, it has an IDE header and chips for the controller, but you can see that the OPL chip is in the same place. Yes, it sounds great, and yes, it does have a noticeable hanging …

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Re: If you are forced to stick with just one sound card

Posted on 2017-05-30, 22:36

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

dr.zeissler wrote: - full mpu401 interface for mt32, or internal wavetable header Please enlighten me! Is there a soundcard that can act as an intelligent MPU device without things like SoftMPU?

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Re: Pentium III (440bx) parts suggestions

Posted on 2017-05-29, 12:35

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by jheronimus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ampera wrote: The CT3670 models are what I use. They are basically the AWE64 EMU on an AWE32 card. It doesn't have a wavetable header, but makes up for it with brilliant onboard MIDI out of the box. Does it sound different from stock AWE32 in MIDI games? I have a CT3670, but never bothered to try …

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