Another sound card, an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro it seems. It think it is a SB PRO 2.0 compatible card. Anyhow, so far only cleaned (dishwasher + IPA) but not yet tested. I'll do that this weekend as we have a long one here downunder.

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

The performance would be far too good with that. 😁

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:11:

make sure you get the slowest RDRAM for it . .and dont forget a 64bit FX5200 just to round it out.

YES! This is good stuff.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:11:

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:41:

Awesome, the worst one!

Are there socket 423 SD-RAM boards? 🤣

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

make sure you get the slowest RDRAM for it . .and dont forget a 64bit FX5200 just to round it out.

That would be a nice troll PC. 😁

Seriously though, RDRAM modules did have higher memory bandwidth at the time (DDR wasn't initially available) and gaming consoles used it too. Problem was that the company behind it (Rambus) had very insane demands.

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:28:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:11:

make sure you get the slowest RDRAM for it . .and dont forget a 64bit FX5200 just to round it out.

YES! This is good stuff.

I was going to suggest a Quantum Bigfoot as well but .. the parts are already cursed enough as is !

pan069 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:22:

Another sound card, an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro it seems. It think it is a SB PRO 2.0 compatible card.

edited: I stand corrected, it looks like it does have SB Pro compatibility.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:37:

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:28:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:11:

make sure you get the slowest RDRAM for it . .and dont forget a 64bit FX5200 just to round it out.

YES! This is good stuff.

I was going to suggest a Quantum Bigfoot as well but .. the parts are already cursed enough as is !

I do have a working Bigfoot.

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:41:

Are there socket 423 SD-RAM boards? 🤣

Yes - I have a MSI 845 Pro that's 423 + SDR, model number MS-6529.

Exactly same chipset, but 478 format, is on an AOpen AX4BS I recently bought at a car boot sale.

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:46:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:37:

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:28:

YES! This is good stuff.

I was going to suggest a Quantum Bigfoot as well but .. the parts are already cursed enough as is !

I do have a working Bigfoot.

😳

Now that's a truly rare bit of gear !

Yah, but what about a JTS Champion 😜

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:41:

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:29:

I finally have something terrible, and I might someday build something around it.
IMG_1264.jpg
Yeah baby, 1.3 GHz.

Awesome, the worst one!

Are there socket 423 SD-RAM boards? 🤣

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

To experience just HOW slow the slowest of NetBurst could be 🤣

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:01:

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:41:

Awesome, the worst one!

Are there socket 423 SD-RAM boards? 🤣

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

To experience just HOW slow the slowest of NetBurst could be 🤣

I think this would be a good candidate system to test just how far you can take the oldest and slowest mainstream desktop CPU with SSE2.

Get the most RDRAM you can fit in it, the most recent PCI video card you can find (8400GS, 9400GT or something), an SSD and see what it can run. I haven't tried it, but apparently it is possible to install Windows 10 (32bit obviously) on CPUs that don't support NX bit. The biggest hurdle to running 10 on really old systems is that they need SSE2 instructions, which this has.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:18:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:01:

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

To experience just HOW slow the slowest of NetBurst could be 🤣

I think this would be a good candidate system to test just how far you can take the oldest and slowest mainstream desktop CPU with SSE2.

Get the most RDRAM you can fit in it, the most recent PCI video card you can find (8400GS, 9400GT or something), an SSD and see what it can run. I haven't tried it, but apparently it is possible to install Windows 10 (32bit obviously) on CPUs that don't support NX bit. The biggest hurdle to running 10 on really old systems is that they need SSE2 instructions, which this has.

If I can find a motherboard at some point, I may just invoke this curse upon us all.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:37:

pan069 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:22:

Another sound card, an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro it seems. It think it is a SB PRO 2.0 compatible card.

The NX Pro is SB 2.0, not SB Pro compatible. It does have Disney Sound Source / Covox compatibility, so not a bad one to have.

SB Pro 2, stereo DAC + OPL3

And yes, it does support Covox and Disney.
The card was advertised as "Four cards in one": Adlib, SB, Covox, Disney.

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 07:15:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:18:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:01:

To experience just HOW slow the slowest of NetBurst could be 🤣

I think this would be a good candidate system to test just how far you can take the oldest and slowest mainstream desktop CPU with SSE2.

Get the most RDRAM you can fit in it, the most recent PCI video card you can find (8400GS, 9400GT or something), an SSD and see what it can run. I haven't tried it, but apparently it is possible to install Windows 10 (32bit obviously) on CPUs that don't support NX bit. The biggest hurdle to running 10 on really old systems is that they need SSE2 instructions, which this has.

If I can find a motherboard at some point, I may just invoke this curse upon us all.

And, please, add some AMR sound card. It would be a shame to have hardware accelerated audio.

PS : I have a 1.7Ghz Willammette at home. Working motherboards with i850 chipsets are quite hard to find. But i really love mine ! Look how great the RAM layout is ! https://retro.user-unfriendly.net/Parts/Mothe … 0727_225719.jpg

pan069 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:22:

Another sound card, an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro it seems. It think it is a SB PRO 2.0 compatible card. Anyhow, so far only cleaned (dishwasher + IPA) but not yet tested. I'll do that this weekend as we have a long one here downunder.

PXL_20230122_032112358.jpg

What's more important about these cards is they have built in COVOX/Disney Sound compatibility.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:18:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-25, 05:01:

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 02:57:

Why would I want anything but RDRAM for a 1.3?

To experience just HOW slow the slowest of NetBurst could be 🤣

I think this would be a good candidate system to test just how far you can take the oldest and slowest mainstream desktop CPU with SSE2.

Get the most RDRAM you can fit in it, the most recent PCI video card you can find (8400GS, 9400GT or something), an SSD and see what it can run. I haven't tried it, but apparently it is possible to install Windows 10 (32bit obviously) on CPUs that don't support NX bit. The biggest hurdle to running 10 on really old systems is that they need SSE2 instructions, which this has.

Is it easy to get 2GB of RAM in a consumer RDRAM board though? Win10 will install on 1GB and "run" where the definition of "run" is like 98SE on 8MB or XP on 128MB... coz 1GB will be too pathetic to find out how pathetic it is, apart from some smaller benchmarks maybe.

At issue I think is the number of lines/lanes, it's like PCIe, you run out of them. I've seen 16 line 512MB chips, but most boards only take 32 max??? Not sure your chances on getting 1GB modules.

Edit: I think my head got infected with too many random dude on a forum explains of RDRAM back in the day, basically you have a 32 bit wide pipe, and up to two of them on a dual channel memory controller, and if you have 16 bit wide RDIMMs you need two of them per channel, or 32 bit wide you can have 1 per channel. i850 supports 2 32bit channels and 2GB.

Grzyb wrote on 2023-01-25, 09:54:

SB Pro 2, stereo DAC + OPL3 […]
Show full quote

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:37:

pan069 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:22:

Another sound card, an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro it seems. It think it is a SB PRO 2.0 compatible card.

The NX Pro is SB 2.0, not SB Pro compatible. It does have Disney Sound Source / Covox compatibility, so not a bad one to have.

SB Pro 2, stereo DAC + OPL3

And yes, it does support Covox and Disney.
The card was advertised as "Four cards in one": Adlib, SB, Covox, Disney.

I stand corrected. I was going by the information published in the chart on DOS Days which doesn't list SB Pro compatibility: http://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/aztech.php

Looks like that chart is in error.

Does anyone know for sure if it suffers from the reverse stereo bug found in many SB Pro implementations?

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:46:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:37:

pete8475 wrote on 2023-01-25, 03:28:

YES! This is good stuff.

I was going to suggest a Quantum Bigfoot as well but .. the parts are already cursed enough as is !

I do have a working Bigfoot.

I remember thinking that I was speeding up my computer back in the day by putting the swap file on a dedicated drive. It was a Quantum Bigfoot...