Re: Geforce4 vs Geforce5 with athlon 64

Posted on 2022-06-18, 16:21

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I find these bottlenecking comments funny. Don't want the mighty FX to be bottlenecked by a measly Athlon64? Then try playing at a nice resolution like 1600x1200, or at least 1280x1024, and throw in some eye candy like AF and/or AA. And then you'll realize that the Athlon64 is perfectly capable of …

---

Re: Help me to choose 90s PC

Posted on 2022-06-15, 15:17

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For practical purposes, a Pentium can run at 386 and 486 performance levels by disabling different caches, and can do early 3D games as well. That one makes the most sense to keep. But the 486 and earlier are more interesting from a retro hardware perspective, with VLB, SIMM memory, AT form factor …

---

Re: How do you peeps store your parts?

Posted on 2022-06-08, 14:45

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Plastic bins on a wire shelving rack, inside a closet. Motherboards and expansion cards wrapped in antistatic foam and placed in antistatic bags. This works pretty well for protecting the components, and allows for efficient use of available space. P_20220608_102754_vHDR_Auto_HP_1.jpg P_20220608_ …

---

Re: AMD Catalyst drivers for Windows XP - newer is NOT better

Posted on 2022-06-08, 03:35

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Added additional results, this time using a much faster and newer LGA2011 platform and a Xeon E5 1660 processor. r6950 x79.png With the Radeon HD 6950, the overall trend remains unchanged. With the exception of Crysis, all other tests showed worse results when moving from Catalyst 12.4 to versions …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2022-06-06, 15:32

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I do think there's some merit to thinking that the situation won't be fully the same in 20 years, though. While there will be nostalgia for a lot of stuff, I can't help but think that Pentium 4 related stuff specifically will probably stay relatively low price. A lot of people remember a dell hunk …

---

AMD Catalyst drivers for Windows XP - newer is NOT better

Posted on 2022-06-04, 05:12

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

While looking into suspiciously low performance of my Radeon HD graphics cards, I stumbled on a nasty surprise - newer Catalyst drivers for Windows XP are slower than older ones, sometimes much slower. I tested several games and benchmarks from about the 2007 - 2009 time period, and you can see the …

---

Re: Low performance with Via C3 Nehemiah

Posted on 2022-05-25, 00:39

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, turns out both the Ezra and Nehemiah processors work just fine on my Asus P3B-F rev 1.03 board with the MS-6905 slotket. Even thought it's using an older chipset than either of the other two boards. Score +1 for the good old 440BX.

---

Low performance with Via C3 Nehemiah

Posted on 2022-05-21, 23:03

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My Via C3 Nehemiah 1.2GHz processor has severe performance issues on two motherboards I tried already. It performs as if the cache is not enabled, even if I manually use setmul parameters to enable everything. I'm getting only about 3fps in PCPlayer benchmark 320x200, and about 5fps in Doom. The …

---

Re: Illegal operation in NVDISP uninstalling NVIDIA 81.98 drivers

Posted on 2022-05-18, 01:44

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

As you found out, this problem is caused by a buggy nvudisp.exe from the driver package. If you replace the buggy one with the version from 77.72 or earlier driver, that should fix it. Another solution is to force install 77.72 drivers on top of the existing newer one, and then uninstall it.

---

Re: Ati Rage Mobility M1 Laptop find and story, help with games

Posted on 2022-05-15, 19:44

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

You're expecting too much from that graphics card. Back in the day I used a Dell laptop with the same Ati Rage Mobility and Windows 98. It could only run late 90's DirectX6 games like Half Life or Unreal at an acceptable level. In year 2000 games like Need for Speed Porsche it already struggled and …

---

Re: SX955 is the BEST 486DX2 CPU?

Posted on 2022-05-15, 16:06

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Doesn't the WB cache require support from the motherboard? The later 486 boards have that option in the bios, but they also support faster 3.3v processors. My earlier board that only supports 5v processors does not have that bios option to toggle WB/WT cache.

---

Re: Win98 machine just powers on randomly

Posted on 2022-05-15, 15:54

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My Abit AN7 likes to power on spontaneously, and I literally see it happen for no logical reason. I suspect that either the caps are in need of replacement, or there's something else faulty with the board. Maybe the circuit connected to the power on switch has some faulty components. Point is it can …

---

Re: Matrox Mystique 220 crash

Posted on 2022-05-13, 18:28

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

My Matrox Mystique experienced crashes on a i815ep socket 370 board whenever the CPU was running at 800mhz/133fsb or 600mhz/100fsb. Lowering the clocks to 400mhz/66fsb fixed the crashing issue. I was using Matrox drivers 4.11 with DirectX 7 installed on Win98 SE. Don't remember seeing any errors …

---

Re: Geforce 4 MX display problem on some games

Posted on 2022-05-13, 18:09

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Is there an option to disable pedestrians? I know in Midtown Madness 1 there were graphical glitches on all Geforce cards when pedestrians were shown.

---

Re: GPU 7970 vs 9800 gtx

Posted on 2022-05-13, 02:47

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Yes, you should try an earlier driver. I tested several Radeons from the hd5000, hd6000, hd7000 series, and they all perform slower with the latest drivers. Try some of the earliest XP drivers that support the hd7000 series, like 12.4. The whole driver thing with XP is why I run two XP OS drives, …

---

Re: GPU 7970 vs 9800 gtx

Posted on 2022-05-13, 02:38

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Yes, you should try an earlier driver. I tested several Radeons from the hd5000, hd6000, hd7000 series, and they all perform slower with the latest XP drivers. Try some of the earliest XP drivers that support the hd7000 series, like 12.4.

---

Re: 1GB vs 2GB for gaming XP build

Posted on 2022-05-08, 20:04

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

2GB is plenty for XP games up to about 2007, and even 1GB is enough for games up to 2004. Consult your motherboard manual to see supported memory speeds, because many AthlonXP or P4 boards would use lower memory speeds or slower timings if more than 2 sticks of RAM are installed.

---

Re: [Help]An acceptable Windows XP Gaming System

Posted on 2022-05-04, 18:28

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A high end Athlon XP was an acceptable XP gaming system back then, I personally ran a mobile XP2500 overclocked and with a Radeon 9800pro it handled Half Life 2 and Far Cry without problems. But nowadays, there are much better options. I would avoid AGP because you're limiting your choice of …

---

Re: Has anyone else tested hardware that seems defective but comes back to life on it's own?

Posted on 2022-04-14, 02:29

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Had a few instances of old artifacting graphics cards coming back to life after replacing thermal paste. Even more strangely, had a few cases where I replaced the thermal paste and the artifacts or instability gets worse, but then working fine after another round of reassembly and changing how I …

---

Anyone identify this card?

Posted on 2022-03-18, 18:15

by

by pixel_workbench

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have an ISA sound card, looks like an Opti 82c930 chipset with an Admos QS700 wavetable. But what's the make and model of the card? Is it any good? On the back the FCC ID sticker says LN5ADM-CM89405.

---