Y2K builds

Posted on 2024-02-19, 06:17

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I managed to build the wet dreams computer of 2000. For more important stuff, I stuck with parts from 2000. Here it goes: Second generation slot A Athlon@700, ASUS K7M motherboard, 256 MB SDRAM, ATI Radeon 7500, SB Live! 5.1, 40 GB WD HDD. Parts I cheated: A VIA USB 2.0 card, newer (2003) DVD drive …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones

Posted on 2024-02-19, 04:57

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Opti MAD16 82C928 that is kinda on the horrible category when it comes to compatibility. It is just another SBPRO and WSS compatible chip, like the majority of 3rd party chips. My Yamaha SW20-PC has an Opti 82C928 and I never had any trouble with compatibility. It just worked with every game I …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones

Posted on 2024-01-12, 08:31

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

To me sound of early DOS is sound of ESS ESFM and sound of later DOS is sound of SB 128 PCI MIDI. Anything else sounds off to me including genuine OPL2/3 which has this Yamaha characteristic thing to it I especially hate in YM2612 (Megadrive/Genesis sound chip). ESS cards have almost the same sound …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones

Posted on 2024-01-12, 08:27

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

it is true, ALS100 chips if found nowdays they will be stupid expensive when the MegaCard was created couple years ago I might have bought the last tray of ALS100 in existence... ALS100 *is* a budget chip so no need to go overkill designs for it , the gains will be super minimal and it could …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones

Posted on 2024-01-12, 08:18

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Finally found a CMI8330 for a decent price and I created the perfect "Sound Blaster AWE" :-) Everything I tried worked perfectly, noise from this AV310 card is acceptable and definitely better than any SB16 I own. I can initialize both cards with Unisound easily with no drivers required. To my ears …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Clones

Posted on 2024-01-12, 08:15

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

After so many years I stuck with tested@tried combos like Yamaha SW20-PC+GUS ACE, or Yamaha OPL3-SaX or ESS1868/9 with Nec XR385 wavetable. For PCI, ESS are best for SB Pro compatibility. While cards from Creative, like SB128, Live! and Audigy have decent MIDI, they sound like s**t at FM …

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Re: PCI Dos sound card which is working with modern motherboard, exists?

Posted on 2018-09-25, 12:42

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Can anybody confirm that Aztech PCI 168 has better compatibility with newer chipsets than ESS Solo? In my experience Aureal are not that good, Yamaha chips need Sb-Link, FM801 are decently compatible but ESS Solo are the best. CMI 8338/8738 are hit and miss.

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Re: XT clone with 16-Bit slots ?

Posted on 2018-09-17, 22:33

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry to ressurect an old thread, but I have some additional info. Junior XT was a Romanian, NOT Soviet clone of PC XT; indeed, back then in the late 1980s Romania was a communist country.

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Re: Yamaha SW20-PC OPL4 ISA sound card - some questions

Posted on 2018-09-17, 15:48

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have one of these for quite some time. Long time ago I used it together with a GUS ACE in my main build, Pentium 200 MMX, 64/96 MB SDRAM. It worked quite well and I do not remember any sound problems in games other than the normal issues of speed sensitive games, which manifested with all …

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Re: Do I NEED to use on-card RAM with a SB32

Posted on 2018-09-17, 14:53

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Good luck finding 4 MB 30 pin RAM SIMMs. Nowadays they are rare as hen's teeth. Been searching for years for 6 pieces (4 for one of my 486 mobos which now has 8x1 MB, 2 for my SB32 which is the same model as yours, CT3600).

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Re: Which ISA sound card is best for DOS/98SE games?

Posted on 2018-07-13, 11:51

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I like a lot the ESS cards, not only from nostalgic POV (my first PC soundcard back in 1996 was a Miss Melody with ESS 688 chipset). They are easy to configure, have excellent SB Pro compatibility and they really flex their muscles in games with native support for ESFM, which IMHO sounds better than …

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Re: Intel TC430HX large hard disk

Posted on 2016-01-18, 01:49

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have one of those motherboards. I like the onboard sound, Yamaha 70x, no need for drivers in DOS mode. I dislike the BIOS, did not detect any HDD over 8 Gb, very fussy with 2-8 Gb ones. Will try to flash the latest BIOS.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2016-01-18, 01:32

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does educating my step-daughter about the fine differences of METALS? (I am talking about music, ya'know ;)) We get along very well, she turned 13 on 14th :)). As an old metalhead, I am always glad to give advice and opinions to the younger generations. Poor girl, this weekend I was in a caffeine …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2016-01-13, 03:41

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmm... Playing Dune on WinUAE, formatting a 4 Gb SD card with Amiga FFS and installing OS 3.1 and several games on it (leaving for another day the opening of my A1200 and swapping the SD card+SD-ATA adapter with the old, original and tired 170 Mb HDD), having thoughts about a CD-ROM for ZX Spectrum …

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Re: What modern hardware will be collectible in the future?

Posted on 2015-08-28, 09:07

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hehe... Thinking to sell my 2xAcorn BBC, one Acorn BBC Master and an Amstrad CPC 464. Maybe I will be holding on to them until the prices go higher.

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Re: Humour Thread: Outrageously priced retro gear for sale online

Posted on 2015-08-28, 09:03

by

by fillosaurus

in Milliways

in Milliways

I have a pair of Cyrix 486DLC and 87DLC, how much should I ask for them?

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Re: what's the best comp Windows XP will run on?

Posted on 2014-12-27, 21:39

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I use multi-boot config, Win 7, Win XP, Linux Mint, AROS and FreeDOS. In my nr. 1 and 2 computers, not very new. Nr. 1: Athlon 2 X3, 3.3 GHz, 8 Gb DDR3, Radeon 6790, 500 Gb+1 Tb HDD's, SoundBlaster XFi. Nr. 2: Core 2 Duo 8200, 2.66 GHz, 4 Gb DDR2, Radeon 4670, 500 Gb, SoundBlaster Audigy2 Platinum …

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Re: the ideal Creative sound card for a windows 95 K6-3+ 450/500 system

Posted on 2013-07-25, 20:12

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My 2 (euro)cents... I would ditch the ISA Creatives. There are clones which sound much better. I have always been an ESS fan, upto PCI Maestro. The ISA ones and PCI Solo are unbeatable when it comes to compatibility and OPL-like sound. They even have ESFM, which, IMHO, sounds better than OPL3 FM. …

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Re: Boss key in Ész-kerék crashes DOSBox

Posted on 2013-06-21, 19:01

by

by fillosaurus

in DOSBox Games/Apps

in DOSBox Games/Apps

Hungarian is indeed foreign language to me. Tried and tried again, many times, to learn. So far I did not got beyond the basics, even if I have many hungarian friends and co-workers.

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Re: Where to find old retro/vintage PC parts ?!

Posted on 2013-06-21, 18:10

by

by fillosaurus

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Aaah, Matrox... Have 2 of them; a 2 Mb Millenium and a 8 Mb G200. From recycling/recovering and handover.

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