Re: CL-GD5401-42QC-Bvs TVGA-9000B ISA

Posted on 2017-10-12, 20:46

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

If you insist on an ISA card, between those two the GD5401 would be my choice. However, I'd be looking for an ET4000AX or a later Cirrus card. On a DX/33 that might not be too far off, just a little slow. On a DX4, you'll definitely notice the difference between ISA and VLB or PCI.

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Re: Help me pick parts for Socket 3 486 rig (HDD controller, graphics)

Posted on 2017-10-12, 16:30

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Win95 doesn't, but Win98 does (and Win98 will run on a 486, but make sure you have enough RAM, 32MB+). There are a few DOS variations that do too, but all of them have various caveats and limitations. (Also, you get FAT32, you don't get LFN support, mostly.) You *can*, however, have the first 8GB …

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Re: Getting around that soundcard mess

Posted on 2017-10-12, 13:18

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by jade_angel

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yeah, I found them, just separately. They actually might ship with 4.52, true - didn't check that. In the original spirit of the thread, however - can folks think of specific games for which something other than an SB Pro (or ESS/YMF/etc) is the optimal choice, where you really want a PAS, or GUS, …

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Re: Getting around that soundcard mess

Posted on 2017-10-11, 20:03

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yeah, like with so many things, if there were one clear "always best" option, there would have been consensus long ago. For me, it's a tossup between ESS1868/1869 and AWE32/AWE64 - basically, ESS for anything that wants to do FM music (yes, I know, ESFM is not OPL, but IMHO it sounds as good or …

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Re: Help me pick parts for Socket 3 486 rig (HDD controller, graphics)

Posted on 2017-10-11, 17:27

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, that should do the trick. That's newer than my JX30GC, which does have LBA support. (It has an integrated VLB disk controller, however.)

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Re: Help me pick parts for Socket 3 486 rig (HDD controller, graphics)

Posted on 2017-10-11, 13:57

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's a good summary of disk size limits here: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html

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Re: Help me pick parts for Socket 3 486 rig (HDD controller, graphics)

Posted on 2017-10-11, 02:13

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The nice thing about both the AM5x86/133 and the i486DX4/100 is that they use a 33MHz bus speed, so that tends to make quite a bit of difference. From my experience, the Cirrus GD5428 works great at 33MHz (and is not appreciably faster in DOS than the ET4000/W32, but I'm told the ET4000/W32i is much …

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Re: Any point in picking up Slot 1 PII 400 machine for 50% DOS?

Posted on 2017-10-10, 23:35

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, it's definitely slower for anything 3D. For 2D, however, it's roughly on par, so it's a good card for DOS games, usually.

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Re: Any point in picking up Slot 1 PII 400 machine for 50% DOS?

Posted on 2017-10-06, 13:54

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's a pretty nice DOS machine, yeah. Enough power for all but the very most demanding games. My only compatibility worry would be the PCI sound card for DOS - but throw in a Soundblaster-compatible ISA card (SB Pro, SB16, AEW32/64, Audiodrive, YMF718, etc), and you should be in like Flynn.

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Re: Turbo Switch Options

Posted on 2017-10-06, 13:51

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by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For a switch, you just need any SPST switch - a rocker, a toggle, a latching pushbutton, whatever works best for where you intend to mount it. If you have a 3-terminal rocker, that's probably an SPDT switch, which will work fine (just ignore the third terminal).

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Re: ET4000AX ISA vs CL-GD5428 VLB

Posted on 2017-10-06, 13:48

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep. The ISA ET4000AX is one of the better ISA cards, but all but the worst of VLB cards outrace it. Phil (of Phil's Computer Lab) compares various graphics cards under DOS here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ha8Q_oLUr8 . Long story short, the GD5428 does quite well. The GD5429 is slightly …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-10-06, 01:46

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oooh, Voodoo Banshee + K6-2 sounds like a good combo!

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Re: CF to IDE adapter not detected by BIOS (Gigabyte GA-5AX rev 4.1)

Posted on 2017-10-06, 01:21

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My experience is that those adapters are shonky. The other type, that needs a cable, is more likely to work. As for burning out the CF, possibly a risk over a long enough period. Make sure you have enough RAM (128, or 512 if you have a K6-2+ or K6-III+, or 768 if you have a K6-III+ and are running …

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Re: AWE64 heat and audio issues

Posted on 2017-10-05, 18:25

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Alternatives? Depends on what you want to do with it. Do you need the wavetable synth, or would FM be sufficient? I like the Yamaha Audician32 (YMF718, IIRC) and ESS Audiodrive variants (ES1868 and ES1869) for DOS. If you don't need DOS compatibility, try the Audigy2 ZS - it's pretty easy to come by …

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Re: What should I put in the three foot tower?

Posted on 2017-10-05, 00:04

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The ne plus ultra here would be an AT-style dual Athlon MP, but I'm within epsilon of certain that those never existed. If they *did*, though, it'd be either Tyan or Supermicro that made 'em.

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Re: What should I put in the three foot tower?

Posted on 2017-10-04, 19:26

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd second Deksor here - find a big AT 440BX board. A dualie if you can. Or maybe a Slot 2 Xeon board, if you can find one in AT (IIRC they were all ATX, but you might luck out). It is, after all, a lot easier to put an AT board in an ATX case than vice versa.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-10-04, 17:51

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IIRC, Appian did that too - they had multi-chip Permedias, Trios, Matrox G100/G200, TNT2, and I think a few others. AFAIK, pretty much all of these multi-chip/multi-display cards evaporated pretty quickly after the G400 came out and was followed by multi-head cards from nVidia and ATI (and then …

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Re: Help with SCSI configuration in motherboard MSI-MS6120

Posted on 2017-10-03, 14:58

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by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks like you have the drives connected to channel 1, which has termination disabled in the BIOS. Turn on termination there and see if you have better luck. Also, remove the TERM PWR jumper from the drive in the middle of the chain and change one of the two drives to a different SCSI ID. (They …

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Re: Finding an IA-32 CPU most like the MIPS R3000A

Posted on 2017-09-29, 21:41

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by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The PS1's strength wasn't its integer or floating point power, it was its graphics co-processor & specialized instruction set. You might find a 486 with a 3D card is closer to what you're thinking. This is another very good point. What is it about the PS1 you want to replicate, exactly? If you're …

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Re: Finding an IA-32 CPU most like the MIPS R3000A

Posted on 2017-09-29, 20:07

by

by jade_angel

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Comparing performance here is tricky. I found some benchmarks here: https://www.linux-mips.org/archives/riscy/1993-06/msg00038.html Relevant points - a 40MHz MIPS R3000 gets 18.1 MFLOPS, while a 66MHz 486DX2 only gets 3.1 MFLOPS. So, the MIPS is downright Pentium-class for floating-point code. For …

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