Tested out the Axiom Tech IMB200 motherboard.

I always get nervous when firing up a new acquisition for the first time. Fortunately this one seems to be working perfectly.

Today I crossed another item off the list.

Yes, a beautifully preserved Voodoo 4MB. Even came with the crossover cable. The best part is that it works completely. I haven't had any voodoo cards from before the 3, so I'm looking forwards to having a top of the line 1997 system. Complete with the MIDI bug ridden AWE64 Gold and the visibly desaturated output quality from the Voodoo.

I did notice that Tomb Raider didn't want to play the FMVs when in 3DFX mode. That seems a little odd.

BetaC wrote on 2024-06-12, 00:43:

Complete with the MIDI bug ridden AWE64 Gold

I thought that the AWE64 Gold DSP had all of the MIDI bugs fixed?

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:18:

BetaC wrote on 2024-06-12, 00:43:

Complete with the MIDI bug ridden AWE64 Gold

I thought that the AWE64 Gold DSP had all of the MIDI bugs fixed?

It is nearly bug free except for the MPU-401 stuttering that happens with certain games (Build-based games such Duke Nukem 3D being the most prominent ones) when using higher sample rates for digitized sounds.

Emulation thru the EMU8K chip isn't affected by this.

gerry wrote on 2024-06-11, 07:36:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-06-10, 23:20:

Received a handful of motherboards this week. […]
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Received a handful of motherboards this week.

ABIT VH6T (with 1.4 GHz Pentium III CPU):

Abit VH6T motherboard.jpg

ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA:

AsRock 4CoreDual-VSTA motherboard.jpg

ASRock 775i65G R.20:

ASRock 775i65G R2.0 motherboard.jpg

Axiom Tech IMB200:

AXIOM Tech IMB200 motherboard.jpg

all with CPUs? that's a nice selection, the AXIOM Tech IMB200 with its agp, isa and 775 is time-spanning!

Its also got CF support on board too, such a nice board, I wonder if it has correct ISA implementation or its using butchered ISA.

Its the best of the 4 there, glad to see it works !

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:35:

gerry wrote on 2024-06-11, 07:36:

all with CPUs? that's a nice selection, the AXIOM Tech IMB200 with its agp, isa and 775 is time-spanning!

Its also got CF support on board too, such a nice board, I wonder if it has correct ISA implementation or its using butchered ISA.

What do you mean by correct ISA implementation? It does have DMA support if that is what you mean (it works with ISA sound cards).

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:37:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:35:

gerry wrote on 2024-06-11, 07:36:

all with CPUs? that's a nice selection, the AXIOM Tech IMB200 with its agp, isa and 775 is time-spanning!

Its also got CF support on board too, such a nice board, I wonder if it has correct ISA implementation or its using butchered ISA.

What do you mean by correct ISA implementation? It does have DMA support if that is what you mean (it works with ISA sound cards).

Later ISA implementation on P4 boards usually had parts of it missing since industrial machines dont need full ISA, the missing parts were emulated via the chipset but usually caused issues with ISA cards expecting OG ISA.

Its a very nice board, Im glad its working fully, have you tried the CF slot ?

Gmlb256 wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:31:

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:18:

BetaC wrote on 2024-06-12, 00:43:

Complete with the MIDI bug ridden AWE64 Gold

I thought that the AWE64 Gold DSP had all of the MIDI bugs fixed?

It is nearly bug free except for the MPU-401 stuttering that happens with certain games (Build-based games such Duke Nukem 3D being the most prominent ones) when using higher sample rates for digitized sounds.

Emulation thru the EMU8K chip isn't affected by this.

And also TIE-Fighter. It also gets cranky when you have external MIDI, which I will always be using thanks to my SC-55.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:46:

Later ISA implementation on P4 boards usually had parts of it missing since industrial machines dont need full ISA, the missing parts were emulated via the chipset but usually caused issues with ISA cards expecting OG ISA.

Its a very nice board, Im glad its working fully, have you tried the CF slot ?

I'll test it with a variety of ISA cards and see how it goes. I've got a mix of older video cards and sound cards to try.

Haven't tried the CF slot yet, but I'll try it at some point once I figure out how it all works. 😀

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-11, 23:31:

luckybob wrote on 2024-06-11, 21:50:

Found this little gem on ebay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/126523091727?mkcid=1 … emis&media=COPY

There is a reason I tool 60 seconds to hit the buy-it-nao, and it is NOT obvious. The ones who know, will know why. I'll leave it a bit of mystery as a bit of a game for the younger players.

Well I see 3 or 4 hundred in PS/2 crap and 100 in processors, so I guess you just wanted to make 10x your money 🤣

thats the icing on the cake. In fact, the reason I jumped was the two 1mb ram simms. (3rd image) IBM really liked their special snowflake ram simms. These look like standard 1mb 30-pin sticks, but only work in the IBM SCSI cache card, the memory card they are currently in (for the model 50z/60) or for the 286 versions of the 25 & 30.

oh sure, you can modify standard 9-chip simms to work, but these are the "real deal"

Hah, and I ignored them because they were in the Intel Above Board 2 plus which I thunk took plain old boring SIMMs.

BetaC wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:56:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:31:

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:18:

I thought that the AWE64 Gold DSP had all of the MIDI bugs fixed?

It is nearly bug free except for the MPU-401 stuttering that happens with certain games (Build-based games such Duke Nukem 3D being the most prominent ones) when using higher sample rates for digitized sounds.

Emulation thru the EMU8K chip isn't affected by this.

And also TIE-Fighter. It also gets cranky when you have external MIDI, which I will always be using thanks to my SC-55.

I really dont get why people would want external MIDI with a AWE64 GOLD, I mean sure you can but it really defeats the purpose of buying an AWE64 GOLD to start with. The AWE64 with full ram has very good MIDI which is why you would be buying one, you wouldn't be buying it just because you needed a sound card as there are better cheaper options with flawless MPU401, OPL3 and would be far better for external MIDI than the AWE64.

/shrugs

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-12, 03:10:

BetaC wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:56:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2024-06-12, 01:31:

It is nearly bug free except for the MPU-401 stuttering that happens with certain games (Build-based games such Duke Nukem 3D being the most prominent ones) when using higher sample rates for digitized sounds.

Emulation thru the EMU8K chip isn't affected by this.

And also TIE-Fighter. It also gets cranky when you have external MIDI, which I will always be using thanks to my SC-55.

I really dont get why people would want external MIDI with a AWE64 GOLD, I mean sure you can but it really defeats the purpose of buying an AWE64 GOLD to start with. The AWE64 with full ram has very good MIDI which is why you would be buying one, you wouldn't be buying it just because you needed a sound card as there are better cheaper options with flawless MPU401, OPL3 and would be far better for external MIDI than the AWE64.

/shrugs

In my case, I only have it because I found it for $5 years ago. It even has an 8MB expansion unit. As for why I don't use the integrated MIDI, it just comes down to preference, which is in turn caused by what I play. DOOM/Duke/TIE Fighter all sound way too good with my SC-55. I probably will use it for more than just clean and high quality sample playback some day.

My last acquisitions:

1- an elpina M559 + p200mmx and 32mb ram.

Here in all its messy glory (I recovered the hard drive, floppy drives and an ATX psu from a (defunct) Asus tx97-e. I suppose the old mobo was better but this one includes a nice CM8330 sound chip that works really good in dos mode while I had a terrible CT4810 in the asus mobo. I had to buy an ATXtoAT psu adapter and a serial mouse but that's a side note...

2- an obscuriosity 😄

Got an EIZO Flexscan T563-T with pincushion issue. It still has decent brightness so probably worth fixing, I can't say no to cheap CRT.

I love a good CRT with little buttons and nobs. Those are always fun to play around with.

Posted the following cards to the VGAmuseum:

• AMD FirePro V3900
• ATI Firepro V5800
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 430
• Matrox Millennium G200

demiurge wrote on 2024-06-13, 01:49:

Posted the following cards to the VGAmuseum: […]
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Posted the following cards to the VGAmuseum:

• AMD FirePro V3900
• ATI Firepro V5800
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 430
• Matrox Millennium G200

Awesome photos. Can you describe your camera setup? In the past 5-6 years my collection has... erm... exploded... and I'd love to be able to take such clear and detailed pictures of the stuff I have.

"Grand slam" today:

- Radeon 9600TX by Medion - a sweet non-BGA RAM'd R300 card, for once. Wonder if this one can crossflash to 9700.
- Yamaha YMF-724 PCI
- GF2 MX reference design
- Gecube 9600 Pro
- ASUS A9250
- Lenovo G41 w/ E5700
- Epox 8HDA5I w/ A64 3000+ 754
- 2x ABIT VP6 from Topcat @ BCN
- Micronics w/ 486DX4, also from TC 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-06-13, 02:09:

demiurge wrote on 2024-06-13, 01:49:

Posted the following cards to the VGAmuseum: […]
Show full quote

Posted the following cards to the VGAmuseum:

• AMD FirePro V3900
• ATI Firepro V5800
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 430
• Matrox Millennium G200

Awesome photos. Can you describe your camera setup? In the past 5-6 years my collection has... erm... exploded... and I'd love to be able to take such clear and detailed pictures of the stuff I have.

Not sure what the OP uses, but the quality of the light will make much more difference to the final picture than the quality of the gear. Ideally you need a wide source of soft light to get the best results.