Re: Most demanding DOS game, resource wise?

Posted on 2009-02-28, 23:19

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Don't worry about the visual glitches in PCPBench (flickering, banding, etc.). These are a peculiarity of the benchmark program, usually they happen when the frame rate is higher than the screen refresh rate. Yes, I kinda suspected something like that. Thanks for the useful info, although I am not …

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Re: Anybody know this Socket A cooler?

Posted on 2009-02-28, 20:52

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I almost started to dislike Athlon XP's for their heat output. Fortunately you can enable HALT state and STPGNT state (in your BIOS, or with 'Central Brain identifier' or with 'Cool-on'). For the CPU on this system I measure: 11,4 Watt, 37 degrees C.

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Re: Most demanding DOS game, resource wise?

Posted on 2009-02-28, 13:32

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I took the time to pcpbench various AGP video cards on the same system, the results are both surprising and boring: System: Soyo 440BX; Pentium-III-S 1000/105MHz; 512MB Ram. with... -Dell ATI Radeon 9800, 128MB DDR 256-bit: 50.9 fps -Abit Siluro Geforce 4 MX440, 64MB 128-bit: 50.5 fps -ASUS V9180SE …

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Re: Most demanding DOS game, resource wise?

Posted on 2009-02-27, 19:18

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Redneck rampage, no thanks. I am content with Jonof's/Proasm's Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior in OpenGl. That is cheating I know. : ) VastVid or MTRRLFBE, I will try these too later, But IIRC I read somewhere it was not needed for DOS 7.10? I tried pbpbench at default settings without anything else …

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Re: Most demanding DOS game, resource wise?

Posted on 2009-02-27, 12:04

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's kind of heart-warming news. So, in other words, it's not essential to go completely OTT on the speed factor. Get the frame rate anything above about 70, and you're OK. But I wonder what rig you'd need to get 1280x1024x32bpp at 70 frames per second? It strikes me as a bit odd to go for these …

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Re: (im)Possibilities wit Slotket CPU adapters?

Posted on 2009-02-25, 00:41

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

An update on this topic; I actually tried modifying the slotket for use with a tualatin CPU. The LunchBox Website seemed to have the most detailed plans, also suitable for generic slotkets. It seems I had a Pentium III supporting slotket, some do only celeron. I followed the instructions and checked …

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Re: CT1920 AWE32 Upgrade, Music volume

Posted on 2009-02-24, 23:53

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Both aweutil and awediag display '(AWE32 UPGRADE)' in their header. I put ctcm v1.08 in the place of v1.03, it made no noticable difference. The error message remains when using 'awediag /s', but loading ctcm instead of 'awediag /s' seems to make things work. Aweutil works properly now to emulate …

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Re: CT1920 AWE32 Upgrade, Music volume

Posted on 2009-02-24, 16:18

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Could someone please post hammersound's SF2Load utility. The links I found are all dead. 🙁 Also, there are 'sbk' Soundfont banks that obviously work. Can I also upload 'sf2' (Version 2) to this card?

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Re: Supermicro P6SBA 440BX mobo won't POST

Posted on 2009-02-23, 15:07

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The item you point at is an inductor. used in conjuction with the capacitors and some big transistors to create lower voltages required by the CPU. It is very hard to break this part (the copper wire is thick). I would guess this mainboard is from 1998, this is before the bad-capacitor incident …

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Re: Abit BE6 and BH6 - any good?

Posted on 2009-02-23, 13:51

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I suppose you want 3 ISA slots ;). 3-ISA boards are mostly first generation though (1998). The later generation boards are made like a year later: they lose at least 1 ISA slot, but have the benefit of many finetunings and Bios updates. You can often recognize the later ones by the colored …

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Re: CT1920 AWE32 Upgrade, Music volume

Posted on 2009-02-23, 13:12

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

awediag v1.02 ctcm v1.03 aweutil v2.01 I think they all installed with the awe upgrade Dos/windows 3.1 package. When I start awediag without parameters it runs properly and checks the RAM and plays a midi song. When I start it with the '/s' parameter it says it either cannot find the configuration …

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Re: Abit BE6 and BH6 - any good?

Posted on 2009-02-23, 12:55

by

by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

These Abit boards are in the overview sheet that I made for my own use, some time ago. See attachment.

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Re: CT1920 AWE32 Upgrade, Music volume

Posted on 2009-02-22, 23:25

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found the cause of the volume problems, it was just winamp. Winamp's midi volume slider was assigned to 'None', but still it seemed to mute the music if not set totally full. Maybe it sends general volume sysex commands to the card? Now how to configure this card for use in Dos 7.10? I have CTCM, …

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Re: CT1920 AWE32 Upgrade, Music volume

Posted on 2009-02-22, 14:00

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I got the software from here: Queststudios forum - Creative CT1920 "Goldfinch" drivers? . It is the AWE.rar file from the last post. @bestemor I saw that page before, as I was searching for info on the card yesterday. Be aware though that the 'Micron' cards offered there are without the normal 512kB …

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CT1920 AWE32 Upgrade, Music volume

Posted on 2009-02-21, 19:23

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I received a CT1920 AWE32 Upgrade card. My second creative ISA card next to a SB-16 Vibra-S CT2800. It is the back half of a normal AWE32, and it does only midi music. I don't have extra memory for it yet. but it has 512kB ROM samples and 512kB RAM on the card. I have three ways of getting the …

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Re: Slowing a 440BX based PC

Posted on 2009-02-20, 00:21

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Deschutes are 2.0 Volt instead of 2.8. It would be nice If I could use a deschutes, they run cooler. At first I thought of getting a 350, but I think chances are better with a 333. Then pick the product numbers with the oldest revision (dA0 or dA1). I just bought an SL2QF, so I can find out for …

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Re: Yamaha PCI FM and Windows XP

Posted on 2009-02-18, 14:58

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not quite the same, but; I use a YMF-724 card in windows 98, with legacy drivers enabled. I used to configure a windows program 'winamp with adplug plugin' to directly output to port 220 or 388. It worked most of the time. Currently I use adplug for Dos in a windows dosbox. When I tried that earlier …

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Re: Dream sound combo for old games: summary

Posted on 2009-02-18, 00:46

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, for Dos gaming you just have to cover roughly these requirements with acceptable SNR: -Sound: SB, SBPro, SB16. -Music: Yamaha Opl3 FM, Roland Soundcanvas Midi, Roland MT-32 LA Midi. SB16 and MT-32 are most hard to support, and fortunately the least important to me. The other items I can get …

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Re: Dream sound combo for old games: summary

Posted on 2009-02-18, 00:07

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It is certainly not bad at all, but not a dream either; Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 Should behave as advertised but might sound noisy/muffled. Sound Blaster 16 early DSP versions SBPro compatibility is defective, it is mono. Other than that it should behave as advertised but might sound noisy/muffled. …

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Re: SC8500 sound card - what does it do?

Posted on 2009-02-17, 21:43

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by gerwin

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@retro games 100 / amigaz. I cannot help with the dream synth config, but concerning the crystal chip: - For Windows startup, to get the card working properly it think it needs to be set to flexible PNP mode, so you need cwdinit.exe or cs4232c.exe loaded with the '/w' or the '/a' parameter in your …

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