VOGONS


First post, by haker120

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I got FOXCONN G31MX-46GMX for free with a PC case and case was used with another project of mine (C2Q 9650 + GTX650) with phisically desoldered on-board VGA port (the rest untouched), I put for it crappy PSU I planned to get rid of (take me 400), I put unwanted Sound Blaster SB0220 (because of drivers), CPU is C2D 1.6GHz (and I'm too lazy to check model 😁) and GPU, for some time I had my only one spare PCI-E GeForce 710, now I put there with low profile bracket. Nvidia NVS300. My questions are simple.
1. Is actually used GPU a good choice?
2. Does SB0220 support Sound Blaster Pro (or any) in XP or in Win9X (for me SB0100 is decent in other machine but that OEM is annoying)? EAS works great as I tested in Half Life for example so card mostly work with painfully found drivers.
3. Does ANY of DOS games run under XP (x86)? I had luck with some 9x games, these that support any Glide emulation with DX9 what work surprisingly good with this machine.
4. I guess ME or anything under win2K is a no-no for LGA775?

As a bonus question that apply for either 9X OSes or XP, for PCI cards that support legacy DOS do exist any hassle free that actually works? For me close one is Solo-1 but compatibility depends from mobo and SB-Link that actually makes no sense to me as most of consumers mobos (I am aware of) that have it actually have legit non emulated ISA slot.
I have these: Solo-1, YMF7x4, CMI8738, Maestro-1, Maestro-2, Allegro (not -1 which I assume has no legacy DOS compatibility), Audigy 2 ZS and Aureal Vortex 2. If there exists something better and even sounds crappy, but decent as for that usage, I'd be more than happy to order one. 😁

That PC is made from trash parts, mobo was given for free with case as damaged. GPU I bought for veeeeeeery cheap as for my country pricing standards, sound card I literally found in box full of trashed parts with some other better ones), PSU... no comment 🤣, processor and stock cooling were already mounted, HDD was dead but tons of full formats revived it what still gives me huge WTF and SATA DVD drive picked from the same mentioned box of ewaste.

Reply 1 of 8, by Ryccardo

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1- Yes, even though I've heard the final drivers are inferior to some older version, this hasn't been an issue in my experience (where I "upgraded" from the original ATI X1300 mainly to have H264 acceleration)

4- I'd guess 9x is doable with the unofficial AHCI drivers, a contemporary PCI video card, and the like; but the CPU is kinda wasted...

Reply 2 of 8, by Joseph_Joestar

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haker120 wrote on 2023-01-03, 18:56:

2. Does SB0220 support Sound Blaster Pro (or any) in XP or in Win9X

You get SBPro support with WDM drivers and SB16 support with VxD drivers. I'm not sure if the latter can work properly on a LGA775 system though.

GPU I bought for veeeeeeery cheap as for my country pricing standards, sound card I literally found in box full of trashed parts with some other better ones)

That 710 is somewhat ok for early WinXP gaming. But if you want to run Win98 on that system, you'll either need an PCIe Radeon X800 (X600 and such might work too) or a PCI graphics card, which will of course be much slower.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 4 of 8, by haker120

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The thing is I do own dedicated WinXP PC with beefy GPU (GForce with 2GB VRAM, not sure 😁) and C2Q9550 and this PC I want to find usage other than throwing it away. 😉

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-01-03, 22:04:

You get SBPro support with WDM drivers and SB16 support with VxD drivers. I'm not sure if the latter can work properly on a LGA775 system though.

That 710 is somewhat ok for early WinXP gaming. But if you want to run Win98 on that system, you'll either need an PCIe Radeon X800 (X600 and such might work too) or a PCI graphics card, which will of course be much slower.

So how to make it work on Win98 then? I can replace GPU to chinese 'universal PCI' FX5500 where it expects 3.3V rail from PCI so I guess PCI GPU won't be a problem and not horribly slow. 😀

(Sorry guys, I suck at quoting... 🤣)
1- Yes, even though I've heard the final drivers are inferior to some older version, this hasn't been an issue in my experience (where I "upgraded" from the original ATI X1300 mainly to have H264 acceleration)
4- I'd guess 9x is doable with the unofficial AHCI drivers, a contemporary PCI video card, and the like; but the CPU is kinda wasted...

I don't mind making some power wasted as long as I can actually make use out of this PC. 😀 And drivers aren't too much of concern for me for XP and for 98 I'll swap to FX5500 anyway. 😉

Reply 5 of 8, by zyga64

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haker120 wrote on 2023-01-04, 14:35:

So how to make it work on Win98 then? I can replace GPU to chinese 'universal PCI' FX5500 where it expects 3.3V rail from PCI so I guess PCI GPU won't be a problem and not horribly slow. 😀

I'd rather buy Radeon X300, X550, X600 or X1050 which are R300 generation (same as Radeon 9550/9600) or more expensive Radeon X700/X800/X850.
Geforce fx5500 does not fit this computer (crappy performance, not period correct).

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA

Reply 6 of 8, by haker120

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Więc co byś radził ziomuś @zyga64, żeby cena nie zabiła? 😀

I mean what would you propose so price won't kill me? 😜 I guess X600 or X700? This PC doesn't have to be all XP games capable and I can use DOSBox for few DOS games that work and sound doesn't hurt my ears. 😁

Reply 7 of 8, by zyga64

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Z czystej ciekawości: https://allegro.pl/oferta/sapphire-radeon-x10 … cie-11855050560

This one won't be early Windows 9x games capable (no paletted textures/table fog), but you should at least be able to install native Windows 9x drivers with 3d acceleration.
VGA Legacy MKIII states that X1050 is in fact renamed X700.
So HL2, Doom3 etc. will be in your reach. I remember I've played Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay on Radeon X700.

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA