smeezekitty wrote:

How do you deal with it? […]
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What are you doing to me? Now I want to play it all over again 🙁 I just wish I had a machine to run it, the most powerful I have ATM is Athlon 3200+...

How do you deal with it?

For a main machine, once you go multicore you never go back.

Things just don't run smoothly on single core processors anymore.

In fact I am likely going to buy a C2Q to replace my C2D

Oh, I do fine 😀 Most internet stuff works okay and I've got C2D-E6300 in the kitchen for movies (great CPU in an otherwise silly machine) and a Core i5-3450 at work for calculations. My main Q6700 rig is stuffed in an Ikea crate waiting for the new case - there's a local guy who's got a great case and is selling it once he gets his new one from ebay... Two months ago we established a deal, the first case he ordered got lost in the mail, now he ordered the new one and I have no idea when he gets it. Not that I'm unhappy 😀 3200+ has a lot of muscle for such an old single-core machine.

Today I helped lay the groundwork for Number Nine Revolution 512x32 emulation as an option for the PC core's videocard selection in MESS - thanks to:
* Vas Crabb for the suggestion
* per for the photos
* per and fzrfast for the manual
* elianda for the drivers
* crazyc for the coding
* Kale and micko for the original code
* myself for the organization/collaboration/cheerleading
Coming soon! 😁

Got a game off ebay, on floppies. And guess what? None of them would read correctly. Tried different floppy drives and all sorts of recovery programs, no dice. One of the drives even ripped the magnetic surface of disk 1 and 3 right off. (yes, it was a Mitsumi. should've known better...)
Oh well, abandonware sites saved the day eventually.

I've also been digging through my old shareware CDs, found some long forgotten gems and a full version of Catacomb 3D 😀

Took receipt of 5x 2ft floppy disc cables, all with ce34 and fd34 connectors for my 5.25" drives.

Unfortunately my good old 5.25" TEAC is refusing to work, "General fault" 🤣 It was working fine in my Amstrad CPC system, now I've changed the jumper positions back to PC /XT systems it no longer damn well works 😠 😠

My Diamond S220 came in today 😁
And I have a 3DFX Voodoo3 2000 PCI on the way.

MrEWhite wrote:

My Diamond S220 came in today 😁
And I have a 3DFX Voodoo3 2000 PCI on the way.

I love the PCI version.. The ability to put it into any machine is a great advantage, esspecially when there is seemingly no disadvantage of the PCI over AGP.

Got a CT1600 from Keropi today and installed it my 325T. I then tried to connect a NEC Multispin 2X (IDE): does not work with generic ATAPI drivers so I will donate it. I have started playing Syndicate. I love that game.

Blurredman wrote:

MrEWhite wrote:

My Diamond S220 came in today 😁
And I have a 3DFX Voodoo3 2000 PCI on the way.

I love the PCI version.. The ability to put it into any machine is a great advantage, especially when there is seemingly no disadvantage of the PCI over AGP.

Add a third vote of approval for the Voodoo 3 PCI. I hadn't used mine since at least 2001 and couldn't remember how much of a rockstar it was. Played some Jedi Knight in 1360x768 today after wiping Direct X 9.0c from 98SE and installing 7.0a. Also beat Battle 5 in TIE Fighter Collector's CD.

Decided to do a bit of a socket 478 cleanup. Installed an untested Thermaltake 500w PSU into a generic case, and powered up an Albatron 865PE pro with a P4 3ghz Prescott and FX5500.

All was going well until I exited the BIOS (didn't change any settings) and on restart the MOSFET next to the CPU started to smoke 🙁 guessing it was caused by the PSU, so yanked that and stuck in a 300w for testing. Thankfully the CPU RAM and video card are ok, tested them in an MSI board I had handy. Not sure if the board is salvageable or whether the PSU is reliable. Shame as it did look like a good board.

Next stop is the pile of Socket A stuff...

Built a Retro Gaming PC around the ECS P5GX-M that squareguy talks about in this thread: Anyone have interest in buying a NOS 200MHz system?

Produced a video around it and hopefully it will online by tomorrow. Quite an interesting solution if you are after a small micro ATX Retro Gaming PC. The video was a lot of work but should give a good overview to anyone looking at using this or a similar solution based on the Cyrix GMX processor / chipset.

Just got done playing Unreal Tournament 2004 on a PC with a Radeon X800 GTO 128 MB. Cranked all the settings up to max and enabled 4xAA + 4xAF and it runs smooth as silk. I'm impressed with the X800, it's a lot stronger than I figured.

Finally got around to strip and thoroughly clean these two cases I found at flea markets months ago, on which I intend to build a 386DX-33 and a 486DX4-100 VLB based systems.

Which system should go in each case? The one on the right seems more '386-y' to me but what do you guys think? 😀

I think a nice 486 could go in the left case. Turbo button power!!! And it's got that keyboard lock 😀

This is also factoring on the possibility of the display on the right being 2 digits, a bit more appropriate for 386 on that one.

JidaiGeki wrote:

Decided to do a bit of a socket 478 cleanup. Installed an untested Thermaltake 500w PSU into a generic case, and powered up an Albatron 865PE pro with a P4 3ghz Prescott and FX5500.

All was going well until I exited the BIOS (didn't change any settings) and on restart the MOSFET next to the CPU started to smoke 🙁 guessing it was caused by the PSU, so yanked that and stuck in a 300w for testing. Thankfully the CPU RAM and video card are ok, tested them in an MSI board I had handy. Not sure if the board is salvageable or whether the PSU is reliable. Shame as it did look like a good board.

Next stop is the pile of Socket A stuff...

Thermaltake isn't the worst PSU. Far from the best but it usually doesn't blow things up.

Might have been one of those things that "just happen". Still wouldn't hurt to atleast check the voltage on the PSU
And considering its a P4 and a board manufacturer I have never even heard of it really isn't a big loss IMO

133MHz wrote:

Which system should go in each case? The one on the right seems more '386-y' to me but what do you guys think? 😀

Yeah definitely with you in the fact the right one looks more 386'y! Can't wait to see the outcome of the build 😀

Just got back from Portland Retro Gaming Expo. It was only kind-of retro, and it was 98.6 percent console retro.

Did find a cheap no-box copy of Planescape Torment though, and attended some good panels. It was good to meet Pat the NES Punk, especially since I contribute videos to his website (shameless plug? nah, it's not THAT shameless).

133MHz wrote:

Finally got around to strip and thoroughly clean these two cases I found at flea markets months ago, on which I intend to build a 386DX-33 and a 486DX4-100 VLB based systems.
Which system should go in each case? The one on the right seems more '386-y' to me but what do you guys think? 😀

Great cases! I love this style and form-factor, very cute and minimalistic 😀 If you're going to have a 486 in one of them, I think you should check which one has more unobstructed space. 486 has a lot of jumpers you may wish to move and these cases are really small.

smeezekitty wrote:

Thermaltake isn't the worst PSU. Far from the best but it usually doesn't blow things up.

Might have been one of those things that "just happen". Still wouldn't hurt to atleast check the voltage on the PSU
And considering its a P4 and a board manufacturer I have never even heard of it really isn't a big loss IMO

Think Albatron wasn't that bad during that P4 era... To me it had the same "tier" status as Aopen, Epox. Anyway it's a pity to see another 865PE board go up in smoke.

Zenn wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

Thermaltake isn't the worst PSU. Far from the best but it usually doesn't blow things up.

Might have been one of those things that "just happen". Still wouldn't hurt to atleast check the voltage on the PSU
And considering its a P4 and a board manufacturer I have never even heard of it really isn't a big loss IMO

Think Albatron wasn't that bad during that P4 era... To me it had the same "tier" status as Aopen, Epox. Anyway it's a pity to see another 865PE board go up in smoke.

AFAIK Albatron was Gigabyte's budget brand, but I've never had one of these branded boards before. I would typically trust Thermaltake, but my only testing was to look over the PSU before using it. There were no bulging caps, etc. and relatively little dust inside it, though it had been sitting around in someone's stash for some time. Definitely felt like a shame to lose this board though. Would a budget eBay PSU tester be worth the $10-15?

133MHz wrote:

Finally got around to strip and thoroughly clean these two cases I found at flea markets months ago, on which I intend to build a 386DX-33 and a 486DX4-100 VLB based systems.

Which system should go in each case? The one on the right seems more '386-y' to me but what do you guys think? 😀

Love the cases, so clean and fresh 😀 nice find!

Agree that the one on the right looks more like 386 material; maybe the smoked front of the left side case looks more "futuristic" 🤣