Irinikus wrote on 2022-10-17, 15:18:

Just as a matter of interest, the RAID card came fitted with a 64MB 168-pin PC100 ECC SIMM. […]
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Just as a matter of interest, the RAID card came fitted with a 64MB 168-pin PC100 ECC SIMM.

As a test I fitted a 128MB non-ECC 168-pin SIMM to see if there would be any performance difference, which there wasn't , so I've reverted back to the 64MB of ECC memory on the card. As I'd like to have ECC on the RAID 0 setup!

What model of these Hitachi hard drives?

Cheers,

Getcha one of these! :p

Arcea. Uses a intel controller. 16 ports sata 2 300 with ncq.

Doesn’t appear to have 9x support though. 🙁

That's pretty cool!

pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-12-10, 18:44:

What model of these Hitachi hard drives?

Cheers,

36 GB Hitachi Ultrastar 15K73 series, model DK32EK-36NW / HUS157336EL3600

I've neatened up the wiring in the system a bit, but I still beed to fit two more drives, so this will change a bit in the future.

I've also removed the SIMMconn from the AWE64 Gold, as it serves no purpose in Windows XP. (Makes space for the routing of the SCSI cables!)

I will get back on this system next year after the festive season!

The first thing that I'll do next year is order the 768MB of EDO RAM for the system!

You actually can load soundfonts in XP if you use the NT4 driver for the synth and run AWE Control Panel in NT4 compatibility mode.

Thanks for the info!

I'll experiment with it in due course!

So the SIMMconn's back in the system!!!

I've just committed to purchasing this MAC Voodoo5 5500 PCI, which is flashed for PC for this system:

Irinikus wrote on 2022-12-18, 15:28:

I've just committed to purchasing this MAC Voodoo5 5500 PCI, which is flashed for PC for this system:

First of all congratulations for the build..a really nice build 😀

Congratulations on the Voodoo5500 PCI MacEdition with bios mod: the DVI output is really an interesting element 😀

igna78 wrote on 2022-12-18, 17:12:

First of all congratulations for the build..a really nice build 😀

Congratulations on the Voodoo5500 PCI MacEdition with bios mod: the DVI output is really an interesting element 😀

Thanks Man! 😀

Dang, I wish I had one of those. How much did that set you back?

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-12-19, 06:43:

Dang, I wish I had one of those. How much did that set you back?

It's going to be costing me £1,176.70 including shipping and taxes!

sheesh. you wouldn't happen to have a k6-3+ you could bench it on would you? super curious about performance on one of those systems vs a radeon 7500

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-12-19, 06:56:

sheesh. you wouldn't happen to have a k6-3+ you could bench it on would you? super curious about performance on one of those systems vs a radeon 7500

I unfortunately don't have one at this point!

Nice, I got a Pentium Pro again recently (My Vectra VA 's PSU died 🙁 ) but it's something even weirder, a Pentium Pro DOS (not PC) compatible; the NEC PC-9821Ra. It has it's own port of Windows, NT, OS/2 and DOS as well. It has an i440FX chipset and uses EDO Parity SIMMs. It runs games, but not the same kind of games. I need to take PCB photos because the chipset is literally a mix of an i440FX and NEC customs (including a custom video card considered part of the motherboard with the PC-98 video chipset and a Trident VGA chip).

They actually made dual CPU PC-98s with Pentium Pro and II CPUs as well, those are pretty expensive used when they show up. I wanted a regular Socket 8 but this was only $25, and then I bought a Buffalo SXM-F sound card for FM in DOS.

Very interesting! Please post a pic of its internals when you can!

Here are the upgrades I still need to perform on this machine: (The items in red still need to be purchased!)

The Voodoo5's on its way from the UK and the card reader's on its way from the US:

I'd like to have both the Gravis Ultrasound and the Creative AWE64 Gold installed in the system so that I can compare them directly in the same system.

It looks great! MY OCD is going batshit crazy over the 2 different sticks of ram. It is 120% illrational, but good lord it screams at me like a room of small children high on sugar.

I would swap the modem for a USB ONE-POINT-ONE card. Putting 2.0 on win 98 is a hassle. External modems are cooler anyway. I would try to find a card that has 2 internal ports. 1 is very common, I cant remember the last one I saw with 2 internal headers.

Don’t worry about the RAM, as that’s going next month and will be replaced with 6x identical 128MB SIMMs! I received this RAM with the motherboard, hence I’ve been running it like this for now!

The modem’s already out of the machine to give the Voodoo5 proper ventilation! I’m unfortunately not going to be able to use that slot!!! Hence the card reader! I initially thought about slotting a JAZZ 1GB drive, but it would just end up making the internal cable management a nightmare, as it’s also SCSI, and routing a SCSI cable to that drive position will be messy! Also, the JAZZ isn’t that useful today!!!

I don’t want any blanks in the front panel, and I’m aiming for all of the installed drives to have the same shade of beige as the case!!! This card reader was pretty much the only beige one I could find on eBay!!! So I grabbed it!

The machine will end up with: SCSI DVD-R, IDE CD-RW, Zip drive, card reader with USB port and a floppy drive installed in its front panel.

All of the slots will be populated, except for the one adjacent to the graphics card! As there’ll be basically no clearance between the Voodoo’s fans and the adjacent card!

I received the Voodoo5 5500 PCI today and it's now slotted onto the machine!

Here's the initial Quake III performance: (Just bear in mind that the RAM is still a bottleneck as I'm currently only running 192MB of RAM with Windows XP Professional installed!)

The first result running @ 800x600 @MAX Settings:

Next, the performance @ 1280x1024 @MAX Settings:

I'm pretty happy with this thus far!!! Hopefully I can get it up to 30FPS with 768MB of RAM installed!

Unreal seems to run perfectly in GLIDE, however Quake III doesn't seem to want to!!! 🙁