Re: BUILD LOG - AM386SX PC

Posted on 2018-06-25, 17:43

by

by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here is a nice easy question for everyone. My HDDs are IDE and have 39 pins and one blank in the middle where the 40th pin would go. The cables have 39 pins and one filled in bit in the middle where a middle pinhole would go. My controller card arrived today and the IDE connector has 40 pins - no …

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

Posted on 2018-06-23, 23:20

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've spent all day trying to play GTA III. I put together a PC with a 2.8GHz P4 and ATI X1650 but it kept crashing; just doing a black screen immediate reboot. This was pretty much straight after a clean install. No drivers installed even, but was fine during the Windows XP install. I even swapped …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-06-23, 12:06

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh that's a bit boring then 🙁 It also has Word Perfect 5, MS Works 2.0, "Individual's Professor DOS" and "Individual's SmartGuide for DOS" which seemed to come with a book when they were new.

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Re: BUILD LOG - AM386SX PC

Posted on 2018-06-23, 10:24

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well a few bits arrived! https://i.imgur.com/pdqpIpqh.jpg Fortunately one of my cases had mounts for BabyAT. It surprised me how small the board is. https://i.imgur.com/gr6T4xth.jpg An ATX to AT power cable adapter arrived too. Also, a random selection of floppy disks I regret buying. It's got lots …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-06-23, 10:16

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure that this counts... I bought a bunch of floppies "contains DOS software disks and unused disks. Plaster holder included". No idea why I bought it do be honest! https://i.imgur.com/oIyhW7wh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/UPELhIeh.jpg On that note does anyone know what "Paradox" software could be?

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Re: Easiest way into "authentic" DOS gaming - recommend me some hardware!

Posted on 2018-06-22, 06:18

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looking at the cards and benchmarks available, the ACUMOS AVGA2 looks to be the most sensible purchase, depending on how much the auction ends for. I see on the benchmarks that the ISA bus is essentially saturated in the last few benchmarks. Does the 512kb of vram instead of being 1mb not matter for …

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Re: Easiest way into "authentic" DOS gaming - recommend me some hardware!

Posted on 2018-06-21, 12:40

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Video: Getting an ISA videocard is a bit of a pain now, I ended up getting a WD90C11-LR card, which places quite well out of the ISA cards benchmarked here: http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/benchmarks I think it's best not to spend out on a Tseng ET4000 card, since the system will be going pretty …

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Re: Easiest way into "authentic" DOS gaming - recommend me some hardware!

Posted on 2018-06-20, 18:12

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, I bought the board. I guess that this PC is happening now! I'm now thinking about sound cards. I've got my eye on a couple of AWE64's (non gold), as well as a SB16. Whilst I'm not too bothered about period correctness, I would like to have proper CMS support, which I think limits me to SB2? …

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Re: Easiest way into "authentic" DOS gaming - recommend me some hardware!

Posted on 2018-06-19, 18:05

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I will probably go the CF route as that sounds a lot easier. I suppose I could format it in any old PC using its IDE adapter. I'll probably put XP on something to sort out the floppies and CF IDE adapters etc. Am I OK to use a modern power supply with a ATX to AT adapter? I don't suppose it'll be …

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Re: Easiest way into "authentic" DOS gaming - recommend me some hardware!

Posted on 2018-06-19, 12:20

by

by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A little update and questions, I'm certainly keeping my VIA C3 PC for Windows 98 DOS gaming but I also want to get a 386. I've going to get that board above (it's £35 with an AMD 386SX at 40MHz and 4MB of RAM) but the seller notes it has some corrosion from the old battery leaking (which has been …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2018-06-15, 21:14

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by Almoststew1990

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm playing SimCity 1 since I've got the panning speed sorted thanks to slowing my VIA 733MHz CPU down (thanks helpful forum member, who's name I can't remember!) I also completed the shareware version of Jill of the Jungle and I'm going to have to track down the full three episodes I've been having …

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

Posted on 2018-06-12, 22:16

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Started messing with autoexec and config.sys for the first time to get sound in dos. Quite pleased when I got it working and noise drivers too.

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2018-06-10, 22:00

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Modern and retro side by side

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Re: Easiest way into "authentic" DOS gaming - recommend me some hardware!

Posted on 2018-06-10, 21:43

by

by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

> Panning speed in SimCity is impossible to use, TD3 runs a bit too fast, some games complain about not enough memory. It's a Via c3 733MHz Wait...have you used SetMul to slow that baby down? You may already have a great DOS gaming machine and not know it. The Live has a TSR that allows it to work …

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Re: Easiest way into "authentic" DOS gaming - recommend me some hardware!

Posted on 2018-06-10, 21:35

by

by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

TD3 was just an example, if this game is a bit picky then I am not fussed if it can't play well if it affects the rest of the machines / my other games! At first glance a 386 seems to cover the time periods I would like to play, although Sim City 2000 suggests a 486 33MHz is recommended? Is it …

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ECS P6VEM3 - Soldered Via CPU System

Posted on 2018-06-10, 21:24

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'm always one for trying something a bit different , so here is my latest Windows 98 / DOS build. It's a ECS P6VEM3 motherboard, which has a soldered on VIA C3 CPU. Whilst it's a lowly 733MHz CPU, it is from spring 2001; around the time the Tualatin was released, so I hoped it would be faster than …

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BUILD LOG - AM386SX PC

Posted on 2018-06-10, 19:12

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Title changed as this will hopefully become a build log! Hi everyone I am getting into DOS games using Windows 98 but I am having a few speed related issues e.g. Panning speed in SimCity is impossible to use, TD3 runs a bit too fast, some games complain about not enough memory. It's a Via c3 733MHz …

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Preferred driver for SBL! in W98SE for 'DOS from command line' gaming

Posted on 2018-06-10, 10:35

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi everyone I have been wanting to get into DOS gaming (as I was really just a bit too young for DOS gaming) and the most cost effective way of doing so it would seem is to just use my W98SE PC! I am using a Soundblaster Live! SB0100. What is the best driver for dos compatibility from within Windows …

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Re: Fullscreen mode in Direct3D8 games on Windows 10

Posted on 2018-06-10, 09:04

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by Almoststew1990

in Windows

in Windows

Yeah it definitely is - I've updated the drivers, reinstalled windows etc. On the Intel support page, people have been having the same issue since September. I can run Dosbox in OpenGL, which works fine. But other games not so much!

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Re: Ideal 'steps' for old Windows compatibility

Posted on 2018-06-09, 18:55

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by Almoststew1990

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My overkill-with-no-fuss XP pc uses a ivy bridge i3 (because it is what I happened to have available). I did use a core 2 duo 8500 3GHz which was more than adequate for those games. It did bottleneck my graphics card though - a Gtx 285 which itself is overkill really. If you're looking for a minimal …

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