Do the numerous Sound Blaster AudioPCI clone models have any material difference?

Posted on 2018-06-05, 13:01

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I bought an SB16 today, and it came with an SB PCI64 installation CD in addition to the SB16 install CD. That got me wondering.. What exactly are the differences between these dozens of models such as the SB Audio PCI, PCI 64, PCI 128, Vibra 128, etc? I know that some Ensoniq chips are 44KHz and …

---

Re: Are Cyrix mII CPUs multiplier locked?

Posted on 2018-06-05, 08:49

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

canthearu wrote: Cyrix MII processors are FSB and Multiplier unlocked. Just set whatever parameters you want. Excellent, many thanks.

---

Re: Cheap 1998 Voodoo alternative for PCI ?

Posted on 2018-06-04, 23:06

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

cxm717 wrote: I didn't notice the 98 part, my bad. The TNT2 isn't a 98 card either though Yes it is. EDIT: Wikipedia lists it as such but apparently it's early 1999? Regardless, it's much closer than the G450. A TNT PCI would be ideal but they are really rare I guess.

---

Are Cyrix mII CPUs multiplier locked?

Posted on 2018-06-04, 23:06

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I came into possession of a 75MHz FSB Cyrix mII 300GP 75MHz. I'm not comfortable with overclocking the PCI/IDE, so I was wondering if I could just use 66MHz FSB but up the multiplier to 3.5x as on the regular mII chips?

---

Re: Cheap 1998 Voodoo alternative for PCI ?

Posted on 2018-06-04, 22:56

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

G450 PCI is an overall fantastic card but not a 1998 card.. TNT2 M64 PCIs are certainly obtainable, I'm a newbie collector and even I landed one not long ago.

---

Re: Cheap 1998 Voodoo alternative for PCI ?

Posted on 2018-06-04, 13:07

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Aglenoth wrote: Its Windows 98 SE Machine 128 MB 100 Ram , I mostly want to play Quake I and II , Tombraider , and Rune if possible, my current budget is about 30 € If you want to be period correct for 1998 and play those games you need a nVidia Riva TNT PCI or S3 Savage3D PCI.

---

Re: Acer Magic S23A / Crystal CX4236B Question

Posted on 2018-06-02, 11:16

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Mine has the cs4289 fm/3d companion chip. Now I feel obliged to get the cx4226 if only to compare. Stii unsure what the difference between CS and CX 4236 are though.

---

Re: Acer Magic S23A / Crystal CX4236B Question

Posted on 2018-06-02, 05:17

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

gdjacobs wrote: I'm not sure why they are labeled differently, but regardless I'm referring to the Crystal Semi 4236B chip. DSA0068017.pdf I see. I already have a cs4232 card do these chipsets have any fundamental differences for example in crystal fm implementation? Is this materially superior to …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-06-01, 14:01

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've never had a post fill me with such nerdrage and envy at the same time.

---

Re: Matrox G400/G450 Quake III Performance

Posted on 2018-06-01, 09:19

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I'm a little confused. Could you clarify which was the best driver version in Quake 3 for the G450 and for G400Max under a) Win98SE, b) WinNT4, c)W2K, and d) XP? Were these driver revisions still the best under Quake 1 and Quake 2? EDIT: I'm also curious what the driver revision outcome is for the …

---

Re: Acer Magic S23A / Crystal CX4236B Question

Posted on 2018-06-01, 04:25

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

When you refer to CS4236 do you mean CX4236 because the card is equipped with the latter? So no wavetable functionality on this card unlike other S23As?

---

Acer Magic S23A / Crystal CX4236B Question

Posted on 2018-05-31, 16:08

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I found the below card for sale; it's a Magic S23A but unlike others I saw online it doesn't have the CS4237B chipset + CS9233 wavetable; instead it's a very sparse PCB with empty solder points for the wavetable etc. components and has only what I assume is a very integrated CX4236B chip on it. I …

---

Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2018-05-31, 15:36

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Intel486dx33 wrote: IBM 380 with Pentium 166mhz, 48mb ram, 3gb. IBM travel-star HD, CDROM, Crystal Audio, 3com Ethernet PCMCIA. Running WinNT3.51 and Win95b Is it an active or passive matrix? I passed up on one due to being a passive matrix very recently..

---

Re: Floppy Drive stuff

Posted on 2018-05-31, 15:35

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a similar issue with my BX-2000 board, I've tried multiple drives and ribbon cables, and multiple diskettes, it has issues reading disks. The said drives, cables and disks work in other systems. Is it possible for the FDD controller on a board to go bad like this? Years ago (2010?) I throw a …

---

Re: Floppy Drive stuff

Posted on 2018-05-31, 12:04

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Could we both be dealing with (in my case multiple) floppy disks with misaligned heads due to being knocked around etc? I will try tonight to see if my drive works in DOS and/or can read disks it formats itself.

---

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

Posted on 2018-05-31, 05:01

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

oeuvre wrote: not enough shortcuts Ran out of HDD space 🙁

---

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

Posted on 2018-05-30, 23:47

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finished setting up my 1997-2000 P3 system, now I can move it to storage and start working on something else.. Desktop.jpg The only issue is that the floppy drive does not work properly and always gives read errors.. the issue has persisted after changing the drive, ribbon cable and the PSU so I'm …

---

Re: Matrox G400/G450 Quake III Performance

Posted on 2018-05-30, 21:16

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

That is a very peculiar card, I have never seen a G450 PCI without DVI out in the wild, and certainly no 16MB G450s.. The one with two vga connectors is actually more common (see http://www.matrox.com/graphics/de/products/legacy/g_series/g450/). The one with DVI was called "G450 Dual Head DVI". I …

---

Re: Matrox G400/G450 Quake III Performance

Posted on 2018-05-30, 21:10

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

derSammler wrote: misterjones wrote: As it shows here as well as in the card properties screenshot, D3D is supported and enabled by the 5.96.004 driver. Are you sure about the version of the driver? There is a WHQL certified driver with the same version that has D3D support.

---

Re: Matrox G400/G450 Quake III Performance

Posted on 2018-05-30, 21:07

by

by appiah4

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I think that over time Matrox just focused purely on driver stability as opposed to performance, as they sold (and still do sell!) these cards for basic display systems, such as signage and basic dual display output. Under Windows XP, I found that the whilst the 5.93.009 drivers are the last to …

---