AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-22, 03:14:

Just bought this not so beautiful beast off of Ebay. Was slightly more than I would usually pay for this kinda thing, but I didn […]
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Just bought this not so beautiful beast off of Ebay. Was slightly more than I would usually pay for this kinda thing, but I didn't have a PIII Machine with an AGP slot at all.
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Plus............... This computer is hiding a dark secret 😁!!!

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Couldn't believe it, a Geforce 256 DDR 64MB snuck in there next to the Network Card!! I can't believe they put it in like that hahah. Super happy to add this to the collection 😀

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Check the soundcard, maybe you're in for another pleasant surprise. 😁

Or is it a triangle of sadness.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-22, 17:21:

Or is it a triangle of sadness.

😂 😂 I don't know what the triangle of sadness is, but its definitely a triangle shape. Hahah.

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Check the soundcard, maybe you're in for another pleasant surprise. 😁
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Doesn't look like anything worth mentioning, but I don't really know my sounds cards well.

Here's some pics.

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-22, 18:07:

Doesn't look like anything worth mentioning, but I don't really know my sounds cards well.

That's a Turtle Beach Montego II. A very nice Aureal Vortex 2 card.

Great for playing A3D 2.0 games like Quake 3 and Voyager: Elite Force.

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-22, 18:07:

PXL_20240622_004116149.jpg

Doesn't look like anything worth mentioning, but I don't really know my sounds cards well.

Here's some pics.

If you don't want it, send me a PM / DM. 😁 Sold mine regrettably.

That's a Turtle Beach Montego II. A very nice Aureal Vortex 2 card.

Great for playing A3D 2.0 games like Quake 3 and Voyager: Elite Force.
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What's better for Win98? this card or one of these CT4780's that I kinda have like way to many of. Lol

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-22, 20:05:

That's a Turtle Beach Montego II. A very nice Aureal Vortex 2 card.

Great for playing A3D 2.0 games like Quake 3 and Voyager: Elite Force.

What's better for Win98? this card or one of these CT4780's that I kinda have like way to many of. Lol

Why so many of the same card? I'm a hoarder, but rarely have more than 2 or 3 of the same card 😀

What's better for Win98? this card or one of these CT4780's that I kinda have like way to many of. Lol

Why so many of the same card? I'm a hoarder, but rarely have more than 2 or 3 of the same card 😀

Long story 😆... Build I'll use about 5 of them..

I'm always partial to having an last one proper Sound Blaster in my Windows 98 machine for my SC-55 SoundFont, because it also works for games run in a DOS window.

Is I had to choose between an Aureal Vortex or a Sound Blaster Live!, I would choose the Live!

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-06-22, 22:30:

I'm always partial to having an last one proper Sound Blaster in my Windows 98 machine for my SC-55 SoundFont, because it also works for games run in a DOS window.

Is I had to choose between an Aureal Vortex or a Sound Blaster Live!, I would choose the Live!

I prefer a Vortex 2 with a X2GS installed 😉

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-22, 20:05:

What's better for Win98? this card or one of these CT4780's that I kinda have like way to many of. Lol

It depends on which games you wan't to play. If you're using mostly A3D titles, go for the Vortex 2. But if you're interested in EAX, use a SBLive. Due to Aureal sadly going down around the turn of the century, EAX is the more widely supported standard.

Note that Vortex 2 cards are more difficult to find, while SBLive cards are a dime a dozen. Also, A3D 2.0 has better positional audio over headphones and a somewhat unique wavetracing effect, which was way ahead of its time.

SB Live is one of those cards that I am in no way looking for, but they always just turn up in PCs or just a boxes of random parts that I buy. I now have 10+ of them and I keep putting off listing them for sale 🤣

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-22, 18:05:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-22, 17:21:

Or is it a triangle of sadness.

😂 😂 I don't know what the triangle of sadness is, but its definitely a triangle shape. Hahah.

Mainly an epithet I would apply to some literal corner cut Packard Bell Aztech cards, but like JoJo* says, that's a nice one.

So this turned up a couple of days ago... This was for a project that never took off in the first place, although I think I can still put this card to good use.

It didn't come with a bracket, but given how scarce these 10/100 ISA NICs are, I didn't think twice before buying it.

100Mbit certainly didn't get much home and SOHO penetration until 2000s, but that was switch and cabling costs, around I think what 10Gigbit is now, then it dropped a lot into the early 2000s... of course ISA was dead in mainstream by then. However, businesses had been on 100Mbit since mid 90s, so there was the situation where you could probably buy pulled 10/100 ISA NIC for "$1 a load, bring your own sack" in 99 going into 2000, because nobody wanted them right then. Then Realtek NICs really began to get cheap at the same time, buy Realtek new for $5 and have it work even if it's not the best/fastest, or buy "brand name" used off eBay, have to dig out the drivers, worry if it took a power spike, $20+ ... so yah, Realtek really killed the market for 2nd hand NIC so no surprising many got trashed, particularly now unpopular ISA ones.

I never really understood why you would want a 100Mb ISA NIC.

If you only want to transfer a small file a bit faster, sure, but in an ISA only system you end up saturating the ISA bus and bringing the whole system to a halt.

Overclock the ISA bus and it might be worth it.

A cool piece of hardware in any case.

Got a Virge VX with 8mb of unified VRAM ,
which is unusual since the other 8mb VX cards I own (STB Velocity 3D , IODATA GA-PG3DVX8/PCI) have add on boards and use a mix of EDO and VRAM.

Its missing a filter though and I haven't tested it yet so will need to repair it , I do have another spare card on the way but it'll take a while to get here.

Vynix wrote on 2024-06-23, 17:16:

It didn't come with a bracket, but given how scarce these 10/100 ISA NICs are, I didn't think twice before buying it.

I got excited at the thought of buying a 10/100 ISA NIC a few years ago and snagged some at a decent price. I was very disappointed by the performance. Even at maximum throughput, it's barely faster than a 10mbit NIC due to the bandwidth limitation of the ISA bus. It's definitely a marketing gimmick.

Boxed Gravis and MS sidewinder Gamepad, Yamaha MU80 and a box of Ultima 7 + Add-on.