Skyscraper wrote:

I benched with a Zalman CNPS7000C air cooler which only let the P4EE run at ~3750 MHz or so. Without PAT the result was hardly better than the stock result so I posted the overclocked result for the good old 533 mhz FSB 845E single channel Asus P4B533-E instead, it seemed a more impressive score all things considered.

The Gallatin P4EE will return @4GHz with water sometime in the future. If you think the Prescott is a power hog you have not experienced an overclocked Gallatin! 😉

A small note, my P4C800 is not the -E version but the 2.0 revision of the original one, also have the 1.0 revision somewhere I think. This only matters for overclocking which I think the -E version does better. Im on the lookout for a P4C800-E as I have used the 2.0 to the point where it's impossible to remove the cooler without the CPU tagging along for the ride.

The SI-120 cooler i have is pretty good, and I clocked my Prescott (G1) to 4.25mhz (250fsb), but it was only stable at 1.6v vcore which is the maximum the P4C800-E can provide to a Prescott without voltmod. I got 1.5 more FPS in Doom 3, so I deemed it not worth it in terms of power and heat and scaled back to 240fsb (4.08ghz). I'm pretty sure it can go higher given voltmod and water cooling (or higher RPM fan). I'm probably gonna get a 3.2 EE and try my luck.

One thing to notice regarding the P4C800-E is that there are two revisions there as well. The second revision have MOSFETS designed for Prescotts, which makes it better suited for overclocking (according to info I found in an old forum post, so take it with a grain of salt).

1600 x 1200 4:3 Retro Gaming

Gaming at 1600 x 1200 represents the ultimate in retro graphical fidelity. It is a resolution that requires hardware that most of us couldn't afford back in the day.

In this video I am showing you why I like this resolution so much, discuss monitor options, challenges and we learn why this resolution is perfect for DOSBox.

Note: When choosing a 1920 x 1200 monitor, make sure it supports 1:1 pixel mapping, aspect ratio control or 4:3 mode. Under XP and with newer graphics cards you can use GPU scaling, but if you're using an older system like a Voodoo 5, the monitor needs to support the 4:3 aspect ratio. The monitor shown in the video, the Samsung S24C450 supports this.

Enjoy this video!

Mighty cool vid, 1600x1200 rocks!

I have a Samsung SyncMaster T240HD as my daily PC monitor and I can attest to the fact that 1600x1200 works like a charm with this monitor. No need for widescreen patches/hacks 🤣 . When I upgrade to something a little more sleek, I'll definitely keep this monitor around for the rest of my PCs!

Nice video Phil. I used to have a Sony Trinitron 21" CRT "back in the day". 😀 It had BNC inputs. I remember the first time it stopped working, I had to lug it out to a repair center 50 miles away in a car with very little interior room. 🤣. It was just inside the warranty period. But about a year later it broke down again so I tossed it. Your video brought back some fond memories...thanks.

Thanks guys 😁

Nice looking Samsung. Same 5ms as mine, I'm very happy with it.

I had a 21" Compaq CRT back in 2004. Got it second hand, arrived via freight. It was a great screen, but took 20 minutes to warm up and get the correct geometry. I remember playing Call of Duty and Medal of Honour at 1600 x 1200 on a P4 with Radeon 9800. Good times.

Ultimate retro hard drive? Seagate SSHD

Have I found the ultimate retro hard drive? It certainly is extremely fast and flexible!

It's Seagate's SSHD! Featuring SSD technology, but you don't have to worry about TRIM support and running SSD maintenance software.

With the SeaTools software you can set the capacity to whatever drive you like. Great for making the drive compatible with older computers with BIOS or OS capacity limitations such as 32 or 120 GB.

SmartAlign keeps the performance high, even on misaligned partitions that don't fit the 4K format (Windows XP and older).

The drive is also nice and quiet.

Enjoy this video!

Just a quick comment after watching the video--it's sometimes hard to hear what you're saying over the music, especially in the first part of the video. I thought the information you presented was very useful and will benefit many retro gamers.

Thanks!

clueless1 wrote:

Just a quick comment after watching the video--it's sometimes hard to hear what you're saying over the music, especially in the first part of the video. I thought the information you presented was very useful and will benefit many retro gamers.

Thanks!

That's a shame. Make sure you don't have any smart volume or loudness feature turned on in your audio driver.

Sounded just fine to me, his voice was way more powerful than the background music and I had no problems following along.

Also, another great video. Myself, I use a PATA drive in my retro system.

Thanks, I'll give it another listen and see if I can figure out what my problem was.

Okay, this is on a laptop. First I tried earbuds and had no problems hearing your voice over the music. Without earbuds and at low volumes, it's hard to hear your voice. This laptop has pretty decent speakers, but they are on the bottom in the front, so I'm guessing the bouncing of the sounds off my desk and back up has something to do with making the music louder. But wait! When I disable Dolby (which is on by default), the music suddenly becomes much quieter at low volumes. So my apologies, Phil. 🙁

No worries, glad it was some setting 😀

If you shortstroke the SSHD to 8 GB for a DOS system, do you know if the data will be living entirely in the solid state cells?

clueless1 wrote:

If you shortstroke the SSHD to 8 GB for a DOS system, do you know if the data will be living entirely in the solid state cells?

Interesting question 😀

It might cache it all, but that will be tricky to determine.

Building the 3 in 1 DOS Retro Gaming PC: 386 486 and Pentium

In this video I am building the 3 in 1 DOS Retro Gaming PC. Based around an Intel Pentium running at 133 MHz and slowing it down by disabling caches, we can play games from the 386, 486 and Pentium era.

Games that run well on a 386, but too fast on later machines are for example Wing Commander and Test Drive 3. Some game run too slow on a 386, but too fast on a Pentium, Theme Park is such a game. Here we put the machine into 486 mode.

And finally, at full speed we can play Doom 2, Wing Commander 3 and System Shock at 640 x 480.

I am showing the entire process of building the machine, partitioning and formatting the hard drive.

You can download my MS-DOS starter pack which gets up and running in no time with working mouse, CD-ROM and boot menu for memory options.

I am also showing you how to install the Sound Blaster drivers, configure the mixer, route the PC speaker through the Sound Blaster and how you can use Reverb, Chorus and 3D Stereo Enhancement to bring new life to FM sounds.

Nice video, Phil. I like the detail you put into explaining step-by-step! It's crazy how smooth System Shock runs on your MVP3 at 133Mhz. I need 200Mhz on my 430FX/edo platform. Not having L2 plays a role too.

I've started doing some testing of older games and whether they run best in a '386' mode or '486' mode. Here's what I've come up with so far. Perhaps it can help expand future tests you do on this topic.
-LucasArts and Sierra point-and-click adventures (Monkey Island, etc) run best in any 386 mode (doesn't matter much if fast or slow 386).
-Knights of the Sky needs a VERY slow 386. Runs a little too fast when my system is in '386sx/40' mode. I'd guess it would run great on a fast 286, even though it was released in the same year as Wing Commander I.
-Ultima 6, Martian Dreams and Savage Empire run perfect in any 386 mode (fast or slow).
-Aces of the Pacific and Aces Over Europe run best in 486 mode. The flight controls feel solid, not overly smooth like they do at Pentium speeds.
-Alone in the Dark runs best in 486 mode.
-Ultima VII: The Black Gate runs best in 486 mode. Our own Great Hierophant says the ideal system is a 486DX/33. 😀
-While the Underworlds run fine at Pentium speeds, the framerate is a bit too smooth and fast (like the Aces series) when moving with the keyboard. In 486 mode it feels more solid and authentic.
-Inca needs to be run in 486 mode or is too fast.

In general, I've found that games from 1990-1991 benefit from running in some sort of 386 mode, games from 1992-1993 do best in some sort of 486 mode, and games from 1994 and later are good on any Pentium. The only exception to this I've found so far is Sid Meier's Colonization. It was released in 1994 but will crash on fast Pentiums. Running in 486 mode fixes it.

Cheers!

That's a great overview of some of the problematic games.

A tip: If you go with a MMX CPU you will get extra performance with caches disabled. That chip, and Cyrix, are the fastest cacheless CPUs I've observed. The K6 is the slowest 😊 and the standard Pentium nicely in the middle.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

That's a great overview of some of the problematic games.

I suppose I should update the Vogons wiki with some of this info.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

A tip: If you go with a MMX CPU you will get extra performance with caches disabled. That chip, and Cyrix, are the fastest cacheless CPUs I've observed. The K6 is the slowest 😊 and the standard Pentium nicely in the middle.

If you want REALLY slow, run a Pentium II or Celeron Mendocino cacheless! At 300Mhz it's as fast as a 386/16, <300Mhz it performs like a 286. 😲

Yea I have worked with Slot 1 CPUs many, many years ago and tried out all the cache tricks. Performance goes down, but clock frequency goes up. In the end I stuck with the socket 7 platform for this kind of stuff 😀

Phil i did one simple improvement on the batch files that you shown us on the 3 in 1 DOS retro gaming

1@echo off
2if "%1" == "" GOTO hlp
3if "%1" == "/?" GOTO hlp
4if "%1" == "on" GOTO ena
5if "%1" == "off" GOTO dis 
6
7:ena
8C:\SB16\AWEUTIL /S /R:30 /C:30
9C:\SB16\CT3DSE on
10goto end
11
12:dis
13C:\SB16\AWEUTIL /S /R:0 /C:0
14C:\SB16\CT3DSE off
15GOTO end
16
17:hlp
18echo .legaCy's AWE Boost batch file
19echo parameters on: turn on the boost
20echo parameters off: turn off the boost
21echo Special thanks to PhilsComputerLab
22
23:end
24

to turn it on just type aweboost on
to turn it off type aweboost off