Re: Again…. the same problem… wich sound card for my PII?

Posted on 2023-04-10, 09:26

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There is a slight nuance that I don't understand though, if the various ess or yamaha cards only set to simulate an AWE32, we might as well take an awe32 directly! The suggested cards have the following relevant advantages over the various AWE32 models for many people in the retro community: MPU …

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Re: Which sound blaster are worth to use? Please advise?

Posted on 2023-04-10, 07:35

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Edit: How about the SB32 or the AWE32? They're at least not using that weird DMA thing. Some SB32 models have a real OPL3, too, I vaguely remember. The name SB32 was used for marketing the low-end editions of the SB AWE32. For example, the name SB32 was commonly used for cards that didn't have the …

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Re: Boards with cool graphics on them.

Posted on 2023-04-10, 07:29

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't have the board near me at the moment, but there is a Compaq EISA server mainboard with a tennis racket, labelled "Wayne's World". I can't find a pure PCB photo on the Internet at the moment, but https://imgur.com/a/B9pAjzH (taken from https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=809063#p809063) …

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Re: Overclocking a TI486DX2

Posted on 2023-04-09, 21:32

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I recently pulled an ALi 1429-based VL board out of my parts bin, because I knew that it can drive 128MB RAM on 30-pin modules (using 8 16MB modules), which might make an interesting build, but I didn't do much with it, after I found that memory benchmarks were awful, even with a BIOS that allowed …

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Re: VGA cards with little RAM (256KB): Why were they made in first place

Posted on 2023-04-09, 20:50

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

However, decoding 4k video can be done very efficiently with a cheap chip. Rendering entire desktops and games efficiently in 4k requires a very powerful GPU. This is why the PC world is still struggling to make 4k the standard, and have effectively been overtaken by TVs now. Rendering games at 4k …

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Re: Why this BIOS post looks widescreen?

Posted on 2023-04-09, 16:35

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you hit it and it fixes it, I is likely a bad contact somewhere. hopefully it's a cracked solder joint which is easily fixable with a soldering iron. Excatly. Any TV technician that wants to fix this monitor will be able to. The fault is obviously in the horizontal deflection, which gets quite …

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Re: Cirrus Logic GD5429 VLB significantly slower than a TSENG ET4000

Posted on 2023-04-09, 12:00

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Doom while period correct is not the greatest benchmark of VLB cards due to the way it writes to memory one byte at a time because its rendering Columns of pixels. https://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/doomClassicRenderer.php And it's the ET4000 that looses more potential performance due to this …

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Re: VGA cards with little RAM (256KB): Why were they made in first place

Posted on 2023-04-09, 08:58

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

To programmers, using small or low-res 640x480 monitors must have been borderline already by the late 80s. -I mean, most DOS tools or IDEs had an optional 43 line/50 line mode, for example (DOS Shell, VBDOS). The 43-line mode is borrowed from EGA and uses an 8x8 character box in a 640x350 pixel …

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Re: Help needed in choosing a SoundBlaster 16 card

Posted on 2023-04-09, 06:48

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In short, Sound Blaster 16 cards are not a great choice if you want to use a wavetable daughterboard or an external MIDI device. For that reason, many people here either pair a SB16 with a secondary sound card for those tasks, or don't use a SB16 at all. The secondary card could be a Yamaha YMF719 …

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Re: Help needed in choosing a SoundBlaster 16 card

Posted on 2023-04-08, 17:02

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You might also take a look at cheap ALS100-based SB16 clones. They usually have a (unlicensed) copy of the OPL3, and do not have the MIDI issues ("hanging note bug") that is common on SB16 cards. There are threads on VOGONs about those cards. Analog quality of the cheapest ALS100 cards might be …

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Re: am486dx2-66v16bgc Experiences

Posted on 2023-04-08, 07:09

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have had the clock multiplier on the 3x setting and clk at 50mhz, 150MHZ cpu and haven 't even seen any signs of stability issues. Wow, but to my thinking 150 MHz seems too good to be true. 150MHz seems quite possible. The V16BGC variant contains the second revision of the 5x86 core, which was …

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Re: AWE synthesized music not playing on Sound Blaster 32 CT3600 after installing memory.

Posted on 2023-04-07, 09:06

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would describe it as distorted, garbled and phasing in and out with high to low modulation. Apposed to when I tried the 32MB setup where there was just blurbs of sound coming in with periods of silence at random intervals. With all the issues you are getting, please make sure that all address …

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Re: 486 board with UMC 8881E/8886B: The winner is: EDO without L2 (terms and conditions apply)

Posted on 2023-04-07, 08:42

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

But also, from my experience (and man, i tried extra hard) the board does not have the built in circuitry to handle 1mb l2 cache at 40mhz fsb or higher, with tight timings. Still, it will be very interesting to try that adapter and see if it improves on the current situation. My key idea is that …

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Re: I let the smoke out of a Pro Audio Spectrum 16. Can it be repaired and saved?

Posted on 2023-04-07, 07:24

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In regards to tacking on the caps to the back of the card, are there any potential issues or problems I might run into? I only ask because this isn't my card, and I don't want to destroy it. I'm going to answer this, even though you already found out your issue isn't caused by the caps, for other …

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Re: I let the smoke out of a Pro Audio Spectrum 16. Can it be repaired and saved?

Posted on 2023-04-06, 19:51

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you everyone for the help. I have gotten the replacement tantalum caps and I have replaced the caps near the ISA connector. The card lives. No smoke. However, now I'm facing another strangeness. The volume on the out is really really quiet and turning it up loud enough to hear results in …

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Re: Detecting if a CPU is an AMD Am486 or an Intel i486 - general advice

Posted on 2023-04-06, 10:33

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

To enable x4 mode, put the x2/x2.5/x3 jumper into the x2 position. Thank you for confirming what will happen, I recall reading x2 means x4 somewhere, but can't recall there. I just looked in the datasheet and can't find anything about which multiplies are supported. I am looking at AMD publication …

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Re: Detecting if a CPU is an AMD Am486 or an Intel i486 - general advice

Posted on 2023-04-06, 08:14

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, it is. It seems to show that the board is physically not compatible with the Intel &EW WB protocol, even though the chipset and the BIOS would support it if the required traces and jumpers were present.. I just spotted a cheapish AMD Am5X86 CPU on eBay which made me wonder if this would work …

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Re: Detecting if a CPU is an AMD Am486 or an Intel i486 - general advice

Posted on 2023-04-05, 14:40

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

try connecting that pin to Vcc (to be safe, you can use a 4.7K resistor or something like that) Thank you, I gave it a try, with 4K7 to VCC I saw about 4.6 Volts on T1, the system posted, said (WB) and corrupted the CMOS. I also noted the 463 meaning a speed of 63 rather than the usual 66 MHz. Is …

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Re: 486 board with UMC 8881E/8886B: The winner is: EDO without L2 (terms and conditions apply)

Posted on 2023-04-05, 10:18

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I will send you my Excel sheet from 2012. PM received. Thanks. Possibly some data points are useful. What I recall is that each component plays an important part when working on the edge of stability. The components are FSB, L2 size, L2 format (double/single banked), total RAM, how many RAM modules …

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Re: Detecting if a CPU is an AMD Am486 or an Intel i486 - general advice

Posted on 2023-04-05, 08:47

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by mkarcher

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

see whether your board has connectivity between C14 and pin T1. If not, you have one of the boards mkarcher was alluding to (I have one of them also). You can also check whether either side of the jumper has connectivity with either of those two pins. Thank you, C14 is connected to T1, but I can't …

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