Setting up my precision 470 workstation, just got my dual xeon processors in the mail today. Im hoping to have a killer xp setup for farcry.

sgraffite wrote:

Sure, might as well, I don't see how it could hurt. I haven't actually built a retro machine and done a set of benchmarks yet. Did you do Windows 98 or XP?

Windows98se, P-III-500, 256mb PC-800, Compaq TNT2-Ultra, SB-Live.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzzash5ZKLeK … iew?usp=sharing

Here is a picture I took back then, of the machine without any cables mounted.

brostenen wrote:

Ahhh yeah... It should have been SB-Link/PC-Pci. These two names covers the exact same technology. […]
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sgraffite wrote:

What is SB-Link?

Ahhh yeah... It should have been SB-Link/PC-Pci.
These two names covers the exact same technology.

It is a technology in wich you can make a PCI soundcard act as an ISA card. Roughly speaking.
You connect a ribbon cable to the motherboard and connect the other end of the cable to the soundcard.
Not all PCI soundcards have a SB-Link or PC-Pci header.

Anyway...
Doing this, you do not need to load EMM386.EXE in dos, in order to use the soundblaster standard.
You know.... On cards like the SB-Live soundcard, when running MS-Dos 6.22.
The easiest card to buy, that has this header are an Yamaha YMF-724 the hardest seem to be an AWE64-PCI.
Or something like that. The PCI edition of the AWE64 is the only card from Creative that has this header.
Shure you can find other cards with this header, such as Chrystal based cards.

Looks like my motherboard does have it. There is a 6 pin header (one pin missing) in the bottom right of the board labeled PC/PCI.

sgraffite wrote:

Looks like my motherboard does have it. There is a 6 pin header (one pin missing) in the bottom right of the board labeled PC/PCI.

That's the one. 😀

You guys are making me miss my Slot I machines

Also I ran Topbench on my 486 DX2 66 and it got a score of 201.

Sorted out a new process for my benchmarking and installing Windows.

I used to install my unattended Windows 98 installation from a Boot CD, but now I'm partitioning and formatting the drive on my main desktop (Paragon free partitioning and imaging software), then copy a set of folder with Windows 98 setup files, drivers, tools, patches across. Then I just boot from a Floppy drive and run the Windows 98 setup from the drive 😀

I then install everything I need, apart from the drivers, shut-down the machine and take an image. My USB 2 HDD dock is a bit slow, so rather than buying a USB 3 one, I remembered that I took apart this Seagate storage drives and saved the USB 3 to SATA adapters 😀 So now I can image them at full speed, it takes less than a minute 😀

Experimenting with retrobriting for the first time. 😁

Before:

After:

and one extra. 😜

While not really retro, I did recently have a raid array failure in my file server. There is a good amount of data that I would REALLY have a hard time finding again. Turns out it was jsut a faulty cable. But It did spur me to upgrade my array from raid 5 to 6, and because I found this deal: http://www.ebay.com/itm/201650243597 $100 for a raid-6 capable 24 drive controller? YES PLEASE. I also added a 400gb tape drive and a pair of 320gb drives to act as a space for the important things to get regular backups. They are mirrored drives.

Only using 12x 1tb drives at the moment, with raid 6 I lose 2, and writing is horrible slow. That said, it is neat!

Had another Diamond video card die on me today, second card in a few days since my Virge croaked last week. 😒

This time it was a Viper V550 (TNT), but unlike the Virge this one didn't even had the decency of artifacting to let me know it was about to kick the bucket. It just died.

Yesterday it was working perfectly but today I turned on the machine and... long beep followed by two short beeps. I tried reseating the card, visually inspected for damage, installed it in other systems, but nothing. It's completely and utterly dead. I know these TNTs are worthless, but it's annoying. 😠

luckybob wrote:

While not really retro, I did recently have a raid array failure in my file server. There is a good amount of data that I would REALLY have a hard time finding again. Turns out it was jsut a faulty cable. But It did spur me to upgrade my array from raid 5 to 6, and because I found this deal: http://www.ebay.com/itm/201650243597 $100 for a raid-6 capable 24 drive controller? YES PLEASE. I also added a 400gb tape drive and a pair of 320gb drives to act as a space for the important things to get regular backups. They are mirrored drives.

Only using 12x 1tb drives at the moment, with raid 6 I lose 2, and writing is horrible slow. That said, it is neat!

I hate to be "That guy" but.... most likely the reason it's cheap is because it doesn't include the battery-backup-unit (AKA BBU) battery in this listing, and those are nearly unobtanium, at least for these model cards. And without the battery, you're stuck in write-through mode for all arrays, and you don't get the write-back speed boost of full speed.

I know it's probably too late since you already bought it I think, but for a few bucks more, one with the battery included: http://www.ebay.com/itm/112072317395

Also.. these are only Sata-II / 300 Mbps controllers, another reason they're cheap.

I they were in the same motherboard and/or PSU when they died i would not put another card in there to be sure.

TheMobRules wrote:

Had another Diamond video card die on me today, second card in a few days since my Virge croaked last week. 😒

This time it was a Viper V550 (TNT), but unlike the Virge this one didn't even had the decency of artifacting to let me know it was about to kick the bucket. It just died.

Yesterday it was working perfectly but today I turned on the machine and... long beep followed by two short beeps. I tried reseating the card, visually inspected for damage, installed it in other systems, but nothing. It's completely and utterly dead. I know these TNTs are worthless, but it's annoying. 😠

Last week was exhausting. This was our area as part of the 1600 m^2 Retrogaming Area at Gamescom 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rWy3PC7gs

elianda wrote:

Last week was exhausting. This was our area as part of the 1600 m^2 Retrogaming Area at Gamescom 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rWy3PC7gs

Very cool!

elianda wrote:

Last week was exhausting. This was our area as part of the 1600 m^2 Retrogaming Area at Gamescom 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rWy3PC7gs

Yeah that is so cool! I also hang over at AtariAge when I can spend time on some 2600 Programming.
I wonder if they also made it there this year.
[edit]🙁 nope, but they did do retrocon eariler in Jul. I always love seeing the new stuff they program for that 2600 console, haven't made anything cool for it myself but one day I hope to.
Eventually I'd also like to program something for the C64.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I used to install my unattended Windows 98 installation from a Boot CD, but now I'm partitioning and formatting the drive on my main desktop (Paragon free partitioning and imaging software), then copy a set of folder with Windows 98 setup files, drivers, tools, patches across. Then I just boot from a Floppy drive and run the Windows 98 setup from the drive 😀

Sounds a bit like the same Win98 install process, that I have used since 1995 (started using this with Win95)
Partitioning and formatting, using a Win98 boot disk. Then I am copying everything from a special made backup
cd of Win98. (Don't want to scratch the original cd) Copying win98 to a folder called "win98se" doing this:

- c: (enter)
- cd\ (enter, and just in case I am in some folder)
- mkdir install (enter)
- cd install (enter)
- mkdir win98se (enter)
- d: (enter)
- copy *.* c: (enter)
- c: (enter)
- install (enter)

This way is a bit faster than reading from cd every time, and Win98 remember the install path, so I avoid
using the cd every single time it asks for the install media. When I install some new software.
The only thing that are not really standard, is that I had to copy stuff like "fdisk.exe" and "format.exe" to
the boot floppy from a Win98 install, in order to fill out the missing stuff for partitioning and formatting.
As far as I remember, a standard boot floppy, only has the basic stuff like cdrom drivers.

TheMobRules wrote:

Had another Diamond video card die on me today, second card in a few days since my Virge croaked last week. 😒

This time it was a Viper V550 (TNT), but unlike the Virge this one didn't even had the decency of artifacting to let me know it was about to kick the bucket. It just died.

Yesterday it was working perfectly but today I turned on the machine and... long beep followed by two short beeps. I tried reseating the card, visually inspected for damage, installed it in other systems, but nothing. It's completely and utterly dead. I know these TNTs are worthless, but it's annoying. 😠

Nope. They are not worthless. I have a V550-PCI in a Compaq Deskpro EN (pizzabox style case). The computer has no AGP slot,
and the V550 is a 128bit one. Top notch image quality, and it can run the early Win98 games, up to and including NFS Porche.

Yeah.... Really a shame when old stuff is dying. Well.... Nothing lasts for ever I guess. 🙁

elianda wrote:

Last week was exhausting. This was our area as part of the 1600 m^2 Retrogaming Area at Gamescom 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rWy3PC7gs

Cool.... What was the age ratio?
Did people have more in dept questions geared towards the hardware and stuff, or were they only in for the games? Would have loved to see how all the guests reacted. I am also interrested in how young teenagers react when they try old pc's for the first time.

Might be a good video idea. How I install Windows 98 🤣 Something like that...

I don't like ghosting when doing an OS install, as these old computers can make an effy install some times.
I am more of a clean-install person. Feels more right to me. Only want to do few "tricks" to speed it up.
The entire Win98 installer can even be seated on a slave-drive if wanted. It will still remember the install
path, and will not ask for it when installing stuff like drivers. You know "insert windows installer" question.