Re: old servers as gamming pc's

Posted on 2017-10-27, 21:34

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would be interested to see what games would run on your quad Xeon MP system. As people have said trying to get a good GPU in there could be a big issue. I have seen PCIX to PCIE bridge cards but never got round to trying one. The standard PCI to PCIE work but they are a bit slow. It would be …

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Pentium D temp odd?

Posted on 2017-10-27, 20:37

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am building up a Pentium D system out of all 2nd hand parts and am getting a bit confused with CPU temp. I got my self a Asus Rampage Extreme motherboard, Pentium D, Noctua Cooler. With it all built up it was reading ~88C as soon as you turned the system on. I double checked the cooler was seated …

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Re: New Project: Windows XP machine with max compatibility

Posted on 2017-08-03, 07:46

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't think I would go with a high end 7000 series card. I say this for 4 reasons. Often people buy old cards to run in old systems or old games that have issues with newer parts. The 7000 is new enough to still have these issues. About the only plus on this card is you can hack the drivers to run …

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Re: What AMD processors did beat their Intel counterparts?

Posted on 2017-07-11, 22:43

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Loving that demo link. We used to have 060 4000ts and Draco's back when I was doing my degree. Oddly I later ended up lived next to Eyetech for many years.

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Re: IDE hard disk alternatives

Posted on 2017-07-11, 22:31

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a few issues whilst trying solid state drives on Win98. The issue mostly amounted to stuttering and drops in performance. So nothing to serious but still there.

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Re: What AMD processors did beat their Intel counterparts?

Posted on 2017-07-11, 20:59

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

NexGen had also been running RISC cores in X86 compatible chips for a long time. The P6 made it to the market the year before the K5. The K5 was for the most part a flop due to under performance especially floating point performance. The modeling number system was also heavily criticized. After this …

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Re: PCI-X graphics, anyone?

Posted on 2017-07-11, 18:18

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

This is the bridge I keep thinking of using https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot- … -Card~PCIX1PEX4 if it does recognise as a graphics card and does run at x4 PCIe it should be able to feed quite a quick card.

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Re: What AMD processors did beat their Intel counterparts?

Posted on 2017-07-11, 09:34

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Very true both the K7 and K8 were something really impressive when they came out. I can only imagine the panic at Intel when they realise AMD had actually bettered them.

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Re: What AMD processors did beat their Intel counterparts?

Posted on 2017-07-11, 09:09

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AMD often priced lower end chips quite aggressively so you could get performance for little cash but in general was normally playing catch-up in absolute performance . The whole PR system was an embarrassment though as AMD tended to be very optimistic with these numbers. The early K7 range was …

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Re: Windows 98 graphics card choices

Posted on 2017-07-10, 11:53

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by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Geforce 3 Ti 200 is a really good option for a period rig as it's got good compatibility and powerful enough for period games. On paper the 6200 is more powerful so worth a try if your looking to play later games. As Georgeman said the X1600pro does not support Win 98.

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Re: PCI-X graphics, anyone?

Posted on 2017-07-10, 09:41

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

As people have said most PCI-X cards are professional oriented. The Matrox Parhelia people have mentioned is a ok ish gaming card if your in to early Windows 2k/xp gaming and about the best PCI-x gaming card I have found. Driver support for early games was not so good and it was simply to slow for …

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Re: Windows NT Build

Posted on 2017-07-09, 09:17

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by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I always liked the PPro as used them back in the day. Though the biggest issue with NT4.0 as a gaming OS is limited software. Manny of the good games that can run on NT4.0 such as Quake III and Half Life work much better on a quicker CPU. Personally I would look at a late PII or better still PIII.

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Re: fx5200

Posted on 2017-07-09, 08:53

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have had a few of these and had one from new. Whist they supported the latest API back in the day the fx5200 was really to slow to support them. You will not be playing many if any DX9 games with higher settings. But in a retro rig that's not an issue and these cards do have good compatibility for …

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Re: Jaton 9500GT PCI BENCHMARKS/REVIEW

Posted on 2017-06-25, 12:43

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a Zotac GT 430 PCI that worked ok but also appeared to be swamped in some situations. I was always tempted to give a PCI-X to PCIe bridge a try with s newer card but those bridges cost quite a lot so could never justify it.

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Re: Good place for ISA IDE cards?

Posted on 2017-06-25, 08:44

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by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can still get brand new XT-IDE cards I believe. Some of the old sound cards had a IDE part of sorts. They where normally manual setup not P & P so a right pain and often only intended for CD drives. But if you have a CD drive it could free up one IDE space on your motherboard.

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Re: Any ATX PSU with 30+A 5V rail?

Posted on 2017-06-24, 20:52

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for all the replies there is some very useful information there. So it looks like my options are: New very high wattage quality PSU. New low cost / no name PSU. New old stock older style PSU. Used old style PSU. Or I guess go down the server rough of dual PSU. None are ideal unfortunately. I …

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Any ATX PSU with 30+A 5V rail?

Posted on 2017-06-23, 19:30

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are there any good ATX PSUs still being made with 5V rails of over 30W?

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Re: Problems with storage space on a Windows 98-era retro box.

Posted on 2017-06-22, 20:17

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds like you are not having much luck. So much so I may wonder if you have another issue with your system possibly or I may just be over thinking things. A good quality SATA card should work just fine. What SATA cards did you try? I always had good results from CF cards for read intensive …

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Re: Win98SE K7 what HDD ?

Posted on 2017-06-21, 19:41

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow thank you for all the great advice. I am tempted to give the SCSI route a go. I am struggling to find and U320 adapters with Windows 98 support. I did find two U160 adapters very cheap a Adaptec 29160N and Adaptec 2100S that I got for £1 and £2.99 respectively. I also got two manufacturer …

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Win98SE K7 what HDD ?

Posted on 2017-06-20, 20:42

by

by Bobolaf

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After many years of toying with the idea I am going ahead and building a retro k7 based gaming PC. I know what is required CPU, CPU and RAM wise to play the games happily I am after but I would like to have quick ish HDD so the system does not feel to sluggish so have a few questions regarding HDDs. …

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