Any tips for getting old floppies working?

Posted on 2016-03-07, 17:09

by

by clueless1

in DOS

in DOS

I have an old game ( Inca by Coktel Vision ) that came on 10 floppies. Some of the disks give read errors when trying to install. Any tips for trying to get these floppies working well enough to complete a game install? I'd just buy the CD version on ebay , but it's not worth $30 to me. :exclamation …

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Re: Geforce3 Ti 500 vs Geforce 6200

Posted on 2016-03-07, 15:16

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That's why we benchmark. 😀 Have fun testing it, record lots of results with both cards, then you can make a better choice than any of us ever could. Best of all, you can share the bench #s here and we can all ogle them.

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

Posted on 2016-03-07, 12:10

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I started the weekend off with some benchmarking for Phil's spreadsheet.I then swapped the SB16 Vibra (CT2800) with an Audician that arrived Saturday and did some testing with it. Lastly, made some progress in some retro games--I'm now 2 missions away from beating WC2, got to the boss on Duke3D …

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Re: Possible Game Incompatibility with Audician 32 Plus

Posted on 2016-03-07, 00:15

by

by clueless1

in DOS

in DOS

Nice call, falloutboy. I guess this game doesn't need much CPU. LOL. disabling L1 on the Celeron basically turns it into a fast 286 or slow 386, but it runs Atlantis fine. Thanks! You can get a bit of a sense of speed with the NSSI benchmark. I use speedsys usually. The Celeron scores 384.08 with …

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Re: Possible Game Incompatibility with Audician 32 Plus

Posted on 2016-03-07, 00:03

by

by clueless1

in DOS

in DOS

Nice call, falloutboy. I guess this game doesn't need much CPU. 🤣. disabling L1 on the Celeron basically turns it into a fast 286 or slow 386, but it runs Atlantis fine. Thanks!

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Re: Possible Game Incompatibility with Audician 32 Plus

Posted on 2016-03-06, 23:45

by

by clueless1

in DOS

in DOS

Why not just disable the CPU cache in BIOS or by software tools for DOS. I also have this sound problem with the Audician 32 Plus on my K6-III+ rig, but with "Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle". Just need to lower the CPU speed by disabling cache or lower the FSB, multiplier. The Celeron does not …

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Re: Possible Game Incompatibility with Audician 32 Plus

Posted on 2016-03-06, 23:07

by

by clueless1

in DOS

in DOS

What CPU are you using? Try to lower your CPU speed. Some games are more CPU speed sensitive on some sound cards. I appreciate the tip. I'll try putting the Audician back in my slower DOS PC to see what Atlantis does there. For reference: the PC it is in is a Celeron 333 my slower PC can be …

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Re: Best graphics card for a P3 1.13 GHz?

Posted on 2016-03-06, 13:07

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As for 5xxx I have doubts about their 2D speed in real DOS and handling 89 MHz AGP compared to 4xxx. I can't vouch for 89Mhz AGP compatibility, but 2D DOS speed of at least the FX5200 was excellent. Pretty much on par with TNT2 M64 and GF2 MX. So perhaps that gives hope for the rest of the 5xxx …

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Possible Game Incompatibility with Audician 32 Plus

Posted on 2016-03-06, 02:26

by

by clueless1

in DOS

in DOS

After installing the Audician today I went through my game library and came across one game I couldn't get sound working on: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. This is the GOG version and it worked with both the SB16 Vibra CT2800 and the Aztech ISA SB Pro-compatible. I tried various launch …

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Performance impact of sound quality

Posted on 2016-03-05, 19:54

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I noticed on my slower DOS PC that Duke Nukem 3D took a noticeable hit in framerate when bumping the sound quality to 44khz. Duke allows you to adjust between 44, 22, 16, 11, and 8 khz. I tested 3 ISA sound cards: Soundblaster 16 Vibra (CT2800), Audician 32 Plus, and an Aztech SBPro-compatible. I …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-05, 16:37

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This arrived in the mail today. It took quite awhile (14 days) but it eventually made it. That vocalist on the boxart looks like Kes from Star Trek Voyager. Now the fun begins. 😀 Filename audicianbox.jpg File size 246.97 KiB Views 6418 views Filename audiciancard.jpg File size 294.5 KiB Views 6418 …

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Re: Best graphics card for a P3 1.13 GHz?

Posted on 2016-03-05, 12:37

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

leileilol wrote: clueless1 wrote: But I'm not sure with your cpu if they'd be noticeably faster than something like the FX5200. They will. I wondered because on my P3-933 there is a lot of CPU bottlenecking with the bunch of graphics cards I've tested on it and 1133 is only 21% faster.

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Re: Best graphics card for a P3 1.13 GHz?

Posted on 2016-03-05, 04:15

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a 128-bit Geforce FX5200 on my 933Mhz P3. It's about as fast as a GF3 Ti200 without AA/AF, and slightly faster with AA/AF. Plus, it is fanless and runs cooler, so may last longer. Lastly, it supports Directx 9, so it will support the Unreal patch that enables D3D9: http://www.oldunreal.com/ …

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Re: Phil's Ultimate VGA Benchmark Database Project

Posted on 2016-03-05, 03:26

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just added the 2nd Celeron 333 score to the database. With FASTVID (MTRRLFBE yields identical scores except for a slightly lower 3dbench score).

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Re: The Giant Robot - a Pentium 4 machine?!

Posted on 2016-03-04, 17:09

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I expected the case to look like... Filename untitled14.jpg File size 20.3 KiB Views 722 views

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Re: 500MHz P II v.s. 500MHz P III v.s. 550MHz K6-III+ benchmarks!

Posted on 2016-03-04, 15:27

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you for posting this! Very good read. I appreciate the time that went into it.

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

Posted on 2016-03-04, 12:17

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Testing MS-DOS VESA performance with my new radeon 9100 PCI card. First test was Descent2 & Duke3D, on my 1.8 ghz AthlonXP system in DOS 6.22. Duke @ 800x600 went smoothly and rather fast. Descent2 even played up to 30-35 FPS @ 1280x1024 with this card. So I set a 'base' and know the card is indeed …

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Re: Issue with Voodoo 3 at 320x200

Posted on 2016-03-03, 22:05

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep, I had the issue with other 320x200 games too. I recently downclocked the CPU and pulled the Voodoo3 out of my system to intentionally slow it down for older games. Currently using onboard Cirrus Logic 1MB and the issue is gone. Sorry I don't have a better answer. 🙁

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Re: For a good DOS gaming machine... is the Pentium III Tualatin overkill?

Posted on 2016-03-03, 17:54

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I prefer the original Adlib/SB/SB Pro/SB16/AWE32 sound to CQM myself, but I don't get the reasoning in excluding the OPL3-L. Same like in case of OPL3 vs CQM you need direct comparision. I address you to OPL3 page on wikipedia. Music made for OPL3 plays on OPL3-L differently and these uplaned by a …

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Found these game discs!

Posted on 2016-03-03, 17:30

by

by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

Going through old file folders with monitor driver CDs and such and came across these two Win95/98 gems. Saved from going into the dumpster. Filename games.jpg File size 561.81 KiB Views 511 views

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