Re: another xp build, some help please

Posted on 2022-01-20, 10:31

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For such a system, I would at least dual-boot it with Win7 64-bit. A C2Q is wasted on "just" 32-bit XP. With a dual-boot you can get a system that is both retro and modern-capable. P35/P45/X38/X48 is fine. 8GB RAM would be great. And I always suggest the Pro edition of Windows, although with XP/7 it …

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Re: Windows 10 & 11 like it’s 199x

Posted on 2022-01-20, 10:22

by

by dr_st

in Milliways

in Milliways

Classic File Manager is an awesome tool. I never used it on Win 3.x, never used it on Win9x... I think I will install it on all my Win10 PCs, so I can not use it in 2022 as well.

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2022-01-19, 13:33

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I suppose the IDE interface may be bottlenecking, even if the storage is fast. Is there any way for you to add more RAM to this laptop?

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Re: New to DOS builds, need a sound card but not sure where to start

Posted on 2022-01-19, 11:18

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Also, there's a simple way to nullify them: this board has three ISA slots. Instead of chasing the unicorn of the perfect card, or even the 'best' card, it's far easier to just use two cards that cover each others weaknesses. This option is nice, and has been done by quite a few folks here. One …

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Re: New to DOS builds, need a sound card but not sure where to start

Posted on 2022-01-19, 08:28

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

When did the awe64 replace the audiodrive as the default best cheap soundcard? The awe64 does not do MIDI under pure DOS, is hard to configure, has no waveblaster header and CQM...its great if you are strictly under win98 and can afford one of the expensive ram expansion adapters. The ESS …

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Re: Wikipedia deleted its "List of games with EAX support" page

Posted on 2022-01-19, 08:02

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-19, 02:48: I don't have editing access to the Vogons wiki so someone else would need to handle the updates. You can ask for access, and eventually you will get it. I don't mind doing the work, but please tell me how you want it. 😉

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Re: New to DOS builds, need a sound card but not sure where to start

Posted on 2022-01-18, 21:16

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Like Joseph_Joestar mentioned- when people say MIDI they generally mean playing sequenced music through one of 2 ways: FM synthesized music (Adlib/OPL). The AWE64 does not have an actual OPL chip, but it has an alternative implementation, which sounds a bit different, and not as good (although …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2022-01-17, 09:58

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

vorob wrote on 2022-01-17, 09:12: Moved SmartDRV to High Memory, now i've got 621kb free (can I do more? do I need more?) 1. Rarely and 2. No.

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Re: Windows 95/98 games you never get tired of?

Posted on 2022-01-16, 21:28

by

by dr_st

in Windows

in Windows

I'm so lame that I only started playing it on Vista. Now 10 years later and on Windows 7 I'm still stuck half-way through the Brood War campaign... Just wait until you hit Omega (very last level in Broodwar) then the struggle really begins. Took me an age to get through that one. Finally finished …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2022-01-16, 18:29

by

by dr_st

in Milliways

in Milliways

I may be the only Witcher fan in the world who's read all the books but never got around to playing the games. Nope, there is also me. As well as all the friends and family who had read the books on my recommendation. :) I have mixed feelings on the Netflix show. It's fine in its own right, and the …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2022-01-16, 11:39

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If it's audio-related, I imagine you won't be seeing those stutters if you disable sound. Also, if it only happens when you fire the first rocket, this indeed points to disk access being the likely cause. How much RAM does the system have? I think Build games can utilize up to 32MB. If there is more …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2022-01-15, 07:47

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What’s the point of it? I should see immediate improvement or I have to play with lags and smartdrv will keep this data caches and I won’t see lags again? SmartDrive does help mostly on successive accesses to the same place. I seem to recall I had a very simple check on my retro system - just …

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Re: Are we opening sealed copies of old games?

Posted on 2022-01-14, 21:47

by

by dr_st

in Milliways

in Milliways

Every new game eventually becomes old... :) Anyways, I do feel the same as you about the presence of a physical disk, even though it is a fallacy. I did something similar once or twice. I didn't keep the game sealed - but I left the code unused. For instance, I bought Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition …

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Re: Are we opening sealed copies of old games?

Posted on 2022-01-14, 11:27

by

by dr_st

in Milliways

in Milliways

Stats! Stats all over the place! <3 Oh yeah, this is why I love the Heroes 1&2 creature stats cards that came with the original boxed versions (and the Compendium): https://i.postimg.cc/wyPBg4Kw/PCCE-HOMM-4152.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/5QC205bb/PCCE-HOMM-4224.jpg (the same stats were also included …

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Re: What would be a good high accuracy old PC emulator?

Posted on 2022-01-11, 11:50

by

by dr_st

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

Are you trying to find a "one size fits all" program? Not sure it exists. What is wrong for using an accurate emulator when you need accuracy, and DOSBox to play games? Never mind that you are confusing emulation with virtualization (VirtualBox, VMware). The latter uses hardware features of the host …

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Re: windows 98 4.10.2222 A - called: Win ME???

Posted on 2022-01-11, 07:37

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

This happens when you install nusb36. I'm still trying to figure out where I can change it. What if you restore the original SYSTRAY.EXE, USER.EXE and USER32.DLL after installing NUSB36? I used this approach to allow NUSB to run on different languages which did not have an 'official' NUSB release. …

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Re: Are we opening sealed copies of old games?

Posted on 2022-01-10, 13:46

by

by dr_st

in Milliways

in Milliways

Only a relatively small part of my physical copy collection I had bought in new and sealed condition, and I unwrapped each and every one. Don't have any intent of reselling, and I'd like to at least see what's there. Now, some of them, that have online activations keys - I never used, because I …

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Re: Rayman 3 on Windows 10 Pro?

Posted on 2022-01-10, 13:43

by

by dr_st

in Windows

in Windows

I tested on my 8700K/1070Ti desktop running Win10 2004. Where did you find the Hardware Vertex Processing setting? I don't remember it being there. Oh, you must mean the "Better Rayman 3"? I never tried that. The stock Rayman 3 works well for me. In fact I recall almost no issues with it on any PC …

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Re: Wikipedia deleted its "List of games with EAX support" page

Posted on 2022-01-10, 13:39

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_games_with_EAX_support I copied and pasted the content, removed some irrelevant templates, fixed the references (internal links had to be converted to external Wikipedia links) and removed the links from all game names (since it would take too long to …

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Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga

Posted on 2022-01-10, 12:12

by

by dr_st

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I keep reading this thread and now suddenly I am the owner of 10 laptops between the years 1995 and 2010. We have approximately a 50% time period overlap. :D I'm the owner of 10 (I think) laptops between 2002 and 2017... But none of them classify as 'retro' yet. My A21m which was borderline retro …

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