Re: Possibility to write OPL3 sound driver for protected mode games

Posted on Yesterday, 12:14

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by digger

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Cool, it's worth a try. But I remember reading some comments in VSB that it only works with QEMM, doesn't that means other emms is not capable, or VSB didn't bother to support other emms? My guess would be that Andrew Zabolotny noticed the >=100h limitation in EMM386, and decided to just focus on …

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Re: Possibility to write OPL3 sound driver for protected mode games

Posted on 2023-02-02, 23:12

by

by digger

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

the reason to use QEMM is that, (according to some online docs) EMM386 doesn't support trapping port below 100h, which makes it unable to virtualize DMA & IRQ. I don't know about other memory managers. it'll be much appreciated if docs about other emms are provided. There may be another option: …

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Re: HDMI To SVIDEO Adapter

Posted on 2023-01-25, 22:20

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by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It has always been one of the big "THOU SHALT NOT"s of HDMI that modern HD content can't go to an analog channel, hence HDCP fails when trying to use streaming boxes etc through analog converters. Therefore official HDCP compliant devices that do that, don't exist. Probably unofficial ones do, but …

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Re: Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

Posted on 2023-01-25, 15:37

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by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I find it difficult to adapt low profile cards with these card edge adapters. The primary issue is that low profile brackets face the opposite direction. So to get it to adapt properly, with the bracket screwed into the case and the lid shut, you need to have a different bracket altogether. So, the …

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Re: VIA AC'97 Sound Blaster drivers for MS-DOS?

Posted on 2023-01-24, 23:08

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by digger

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

On really fast machines it's much better to use a covox sound-device in plain Dos. You can play some games with it. There are some games that will still make problems with sweepinging noises on too fast machines (pinball-fantasies) but you can have fun with games and some scene-suff (demos/intros/ …

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Re: Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

Posted on 2023-01-24, 22:23

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by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

StarTech has USB 3.0 cards for PCI slots. Of note to others, there are no Windows 9x drivers for these cards. Indeed, thanks for pointing it out. They're expensive, though! Hopefully they can be had elsewhere for more reasonable prices, pre-owned for instance. Any other brands that released USB 3.0 …

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Re: Program that searches words inside multiple files

Posted on 2023-01-24, 21:39

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by digger

in Milliways

in Milliways

Although I've been exclusively on Linux for years now, there is one super-fast search tool that I relied upon back in my Windows-at-work days: Agent Ransack . I remember it being fast . Much faster than Windows' built-in file search functionality. That's why a co-worker recommended it to me back …

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Re: Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

Posted on 2023-01-22, 15:05

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by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Okay, so apparently USB 2.0 cards consist of an EHCI interface for USB 2.0 devices, coupled with either an UHCI or an OHCI interface for downwards compatibility with USB 1.x devices. And if I understand the differences between UHCI and OHCI correctly, I would have to try get a USB 2.0 card with a …

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Re: What are the most demanding games of their respective eras?

Posted on 2023-01-22, 14:39

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by digger

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi-Octane runs perfectly smooth on a Pentium 90 in 320x200. Now if you want 640x480 that's another story... but it's the same as all the other SVGA games from this era (USNF etc.) - at the time no system was able to run them smoothly. Yep. I remember playing High Octane , Fatal Racing (a.k.a. …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-01-21, 18:04

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by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In German it means something like 'super' or 'great' or am I mistaken. In German it is kinda similar to the English "Awesome!". As in you see someone do something great, you could say it's awesome. "Dass ist Geil" in German That's because the Germans have come (ha!) to use it as slang for "awesome" …

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Re: Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

Posted on 2023-01-21, 11:42

by

by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

By the way, I have this old Sun Blade 150 UltraSPARC IIe workstation at my Dad's house, which I've been wanting to pimp out to well beyond what it was designed for, just to see how much I can squeeze out of that thing. Among other things, I was thinking about upgrading it with a USB 2.0 card, or …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-01-21, 11:15

by

by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I got 4 sticks of GeIL Value DDR400 (PC3200) 512MB RAM (total 2 GB) with blue heatsinks. 2 sticks have CL2.5-8-4-4 timings and the other 2 have CL2.5-6-3-3 timings. 2 512MB RAM sticks belong to a Dual Channel Kit, and the other 2 sticks are independently. Any opinions? I am aware of the brand …

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Re: Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

Posted on 2023-01-21, 11:10

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by digger

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@group: all the usb2.0 cards I have tried have slowed down the system. But have worked. Are there any usb 2.0 that don’t slow the system down? I don’t have any usb 1.x cards to try. Do they slow the system down? @beachboy, I have heard of people having success with the slow down issue by disabling …

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Re: Space Quest 3, mouse problems, moves too fast?

Posted on 2023-01-17, 23:06

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by digger

in DOSBox Games/Apps

in DOSBox Games/Apps

...Or even better than DOSBox: run Space Quest 3 in ScummVM. 🙂

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Re: What are the most demanding games of their respective eras?

Posted on 2023-01-17, 22:59

by

by digger

in Milliways

in Milliways

I recall reading somewhere that the RTS game Supreme Commander consumed so much RAM, that it would sometimes crash on 32-bit Windows, and actually ran more stably on 64-bit Windows, even though it was a 32-bit game. The reason being that 32-bit Windows could only allocate up to 2GB RAM per …

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Re: Which Sierra games can use the PC1512.DRV so they have 16colors with an Amstrad 1512 system? (SOLVED!)

Posted on 2023-01-16, 21:40

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by digger

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

FYI: The 8-Bit Guy mentioned the Amstrad 16-color graphics mode in his recent video about "Super CGA" cards . Thanks! 😃 I also recommend watching this old video about the AT&T/Olivetti PCs with "CGA" graphics. 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUCh46_MzZU It shows how much better an 8086 PC @8 MHz …

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Re: Possibility to write OPL3 sound driver for protected mode games

Posted on 2023-01-15, 01:00

by

by digger

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I haven't started Discord in a while. Let me look it up... 😅 What time zone are you in, by the way? I'll be going to bed soon. But if have time for some tinkering tomorrow.

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Re: windows 9X: how fix memory error?

Posted on 2023-01-15, 00:54

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by digger

in Windows

in Windows

The patch that Repo Man11 referred to is called PATCHMEM, and was written by the late Rudolph R. Loew . I found two memorial sites on-line: * https://rloewelectronics.com (maintained by family members) * http://lonecrusader.x10host.com/rloew/rloew.html (maintained by his friend LoneCrusader ) The …

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Re: Current status of VirtualBox's legacy support

Posted on 2023-01-15, 00:06

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by digger

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

You might want to take a look at javispedro's work: he developed an extension pack for VirtualBox called "VMusic", which adds support for emulating "popular" music devices, including OPL3 (based on the accurate Nuked OPL3 emulation code), but also MPU-401. and even AWE. See this Vogons thread here: …

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Re: Backing up old Java games and applets

Posted on 2023-01-14, 23:57

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by digger

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

One notable Java game that I remember playing as an applet was Wiz3. It's a 2D platformer featuring a wizard that needs to collect potions and stuff, and avoid baddies. The graphics and sound are surprisingly good. The game has a cosy retro arcade vibe. More info about the game and a download link …

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