First post, by rgart
- Rank
- Oldbie
After much indecision I have made an Intel 486DX2-66mhz system. I do have some fond memories of using my 486 back in the early 90's. I loved the early sierra EGA games and the VGA revisions....played the Ultima's to death....
Anyway the hardware is as follows.
Intel 486DX2 66 WB CPU
FOREX 486 (REV. VL3H) VLB/ISA Motherboard
256k 25ns Cache
4 x 4MB (16MB) 30 pin simms Fast Page Ram
S3 805i VLB Video Card 2MB DRAM
Tekram DC-680C Cache Controller with 16MB of DRAM with a 286 CPU (crazy fast)
Gold Star 16-Bit Controller Card (with everything disabled except IDE1 and Com1+Com2)
Creative Sound Blaster 16 CT-1750 (CDROM interface disabled)
Creative Infra CD4820E 48x Cd-rom
400 MB Connor Hard Disk (Master with OS)
Seagate Medalist Jumpered to 2.1GB
Seagate Medalist Jumpered to 2.1GB
Roland MT-32 Sound Module
Here are some photo's of the PC in a modest looking case + hardware.
The Tekram card is incredible! It has its own CPU and there is basically no HDD loading at all. The S3 VLB video card is a really solid performing card with excellent compatibility and the 66 MHz CPU runs most games perfectly. This PC is working great ......but there's a couple of things I'm having problems with. Here's the manual:
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/FO … ml#.Ue0Utaxc3Fk
http://www.t-zero.org/archive/old_jumpers_pin … m/txt/34238.txt
Two problems as I see it.
1) I'm using a WB 486DX2 66 CPU. However I cant find a WB jumper on the board or a WB setting in the bios. So the L1 is on WT as you can see below.
2) Creative CT-1750 (what a headache) The only reason I use it is because Its connected to a Roland MT-32 and doesn't have any hanging note bugs. The sound card itself is terribly noisy it crackles and clicks.... WORSE than that.......Three of my favorite games are having issues and I can't work out why.....
Monkey Island sounds all messed up. I load it with "monkey v r" for VGA and ROLAND. Every time I load it it sounds different. One day it works. The next it doesn't. Lately the Roland MT-32 doesn't start accepting midi messages until I enter the pirate bar...then it starts receiving and its messed up. I don't hear anything in the intro. (by the way all other games work great)
Serpent Isle Ultima 7: I select Roland and Sound Blaster - Intro plays great. Start the game and when I click "Journey Onwards" I get "Internal stack overflow, System halted"
Ultima Underworld 1 and 2 ..............When I select Roland and Sound Blaster "Internal Stack Overflow"
If I change the Sound Blaster CT1750 for anything else. The games work with the Roland perfectly but I don't have any other Creative cards that work with the Roland Mt32. For example I swapped the CT1750 for a Yamaha YMF18 and connected that to the Roland and I never saw the stack overflow messages - The games worked flawlessly.
It makes no difference if "stacks=0,0" or "stacks=64,512" in config.sys : if its the latter I don't get the stack error...but it still crashes.
The BIOS:
Ultima Underworld
Ultima 7 : Serpent Isle
Hoping you guys can throw some ideas around - help find a solution to both those problems or give me other options. Does anything look out of the ordinary in those pics? A setting perhaps?
Apologies this is long winded.
