Re: Help me decide on a ISA soundcard!

Posted on 2019-05-05, 13:36

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

You are going to struggle getting things to work properly with 8-gig of RAM in your computer. Windows 98 gets wonky when it sees more than 512meg RAM. ISA sound cards may not work properly, as the chipset doesn't properly support ISA DMA signalling. (I am sure there are people with actual experience …

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Re: A 440BX platform with Asus P3B-F

Posted on 2019-05-04, 09:43

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Your PSU doesn't actually supply -5V, so that voltage is floating, probably influenced by a -12V trace nearby. Shouldn't affect anything with your hardware choices. Only a few ISA cards need -5V/.\\.

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2019-05-02, 14:28

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

retardware wrote: So I guess, 4 diodes instead of bridge rectifier block does not necessarily indicate that the PSU is of inferior quality... That is fair enough. It is a small PSU, with otherwise good components and accurate specifications on the label. It isn't a 300W or higher PSU with tiny …

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2019-05-02, 10:48

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Crapxon are terrible capacitors and I always replace on sight. Only the main voltage caps 200V/400V/450V are ok. There are much worse IMO. I've seen plenty of devices years and years old working just fine with Capxon capacitors. In addition, capacitor brand is only a single factor as to why a …

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2019-05-01, 15:21

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have replaced the 8 capacitors identified in my last post, and the PSU is working nicely now. What is interesting is that the Rubycon ZLH capacitors are actually significantly smaller than the Fuhjyyu capacitors I replaced. Normally it is the other way around, with the stock capacitors being …

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Re: Miro S3 Trio32 VLB opinions

Posted on 2019-04-30, 07:53

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Anonymous Coward wrote: For example: ET6000, CL-GD 5436 (maybe 5446), ARK2000, Trident 9680 and s3 Virge. Can you get those in any kind of quantity anymore. It looks like the board design is for some kind of FPGA module that could emulate a VGA chip and maybe some highly compatible blitter.

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Re: Ryzen 7 most powerful windows 98 computer?

Posted on 2019-04-30, 02:23

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hmmm, USB boot drive running windows using INT 13 real mode drivers would definitely kill performance and add to stuttering, along with generally anaemic performance of most USB drives under random workloads. Would probably work a lot better just using a small SATA hard drive and INT 13 real mode …

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Re: Descent won't work in DOS

Posted on 2019-04-29, 05:47

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Strange, never had any real issues with Descent 1 working in MSDOS, with or without the standard Microsoft memory managers. Have you done a full memtest to see if the memory is working right?

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Re: Aureal Vortex, Is it any good ?

Posted on 2019-04-29, 05:44

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I found mine in the recycle. :) I got my vortex 2 for $10 off Gumtree, but still, it isn't the sort of card I'd recommend you go get if you needed a PCI card for DOS games. Need a good sounding card for windows, both thumbs up, great choice, but just on the awareness that DOS support is not the …

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Re: Aureal Vortex, Is it any good ?

Posted on 2019-04-29, 03:59

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The Vortexes have a working wavetable header in real DOS and / or soundfonts in a DOSbox, so the awful FM isn’t a big deal for later DOS games with GM support. Then you also need an kinda expensive dream or other GM wavetable daughtercard. For a card that already has a wavetable synthesises on it. …

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Re: Media vision Pro audio spectrum 16 compatibility List

Posted on 2019-04-28, 13:54

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Probably. They are a little too new to suffer heaps of tantalum capacitor failures. But not exactly impossible for it to occur.

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Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-28, 13:48

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hmmm, could also be the motherboard's fault. I have an Abit SL10T (815 motherboard with Tultian CPU support) board here and it refuses to do any sort of PCI dos sound card emulation, except for vortex cards. You will need to try with a different card to see.

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Re: Searching for Abit PG5 manual..

Posted on 2019-04-28, 13:20

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It doesn't have the voltage regulation required for these CPUs https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/A … um-PG5-PCI.html

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Re: USB to 34pin Floppy Interface adapters

Posted on 2019-04-28, 00:53

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have an old IBM 3.5 inch USB floppy drive that I got with a retro pickup. Works great with windows 10. Just don't put things on top of it or shake it while it operates, as it can scratch disks and ruin them.

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Re: Aureal Vortex, Is it any good ?

Posted on 2019-04-27, 12:57

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The Vortex SoundBlaster-emulation sounds every bit as good and works as well as other cards, that is to say that digital audio sounds great (better than original hardware) but the FM synth sounds generic and boring (worse). I actually alternate between my ESS AudioDrive 1886 and the Vortex …

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Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-27, 06:24

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Nothing outside of pure DOS will probably really work for the emulation of a DAC through FM synthesis

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Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-27, 01:26

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I should test with an ESS Solo-1 next, or Yamaha PCI YMF724 Ok, I chucked a pentium 200-MMX onto my test bench, installed a clean copy of windows 98. I tested wizardry 7 with the following sound cards in pure MS-DOS mode, as windows messes up the timing of emulated digital sounds over OPL: ISA - …

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Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-25, 23:16

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by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Just tried Wizardry VII with dosbox. It works, but the OPL2 DAC stuff doesn't work properly. I'll need to throw a slower PCI system on my testbench and try the other PCI cards (Solo-1 and Yamaha YMF724)

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Re: Ensoniq / Creative AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-04-25, 14:21

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Tested with SB-Live. It tries really hard, but sounds like a cat dying, and the "digital" sounds do not work at all. I should test with an ESS Solo-1 next, or Yamaha PCI YMF724

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2019-04-25, 14:17

by

by canthearu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have 2 PSUs I want to rebuild and use: The first: IMG_0094.jpg IMG_0095.jpg This is one of these utterly generic PSUs, however, they look to be mostly intact and not price reduced or under-built for it's wattage. Replace the dodgy bloated capacitors, it will probably work great for years. I've …

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