Re: ibm aptiva 2176-f31 cpu upgrade

Posted on 2017-04-14, 03:54

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm about to upgrade my first PC which happens to be an IBM Aptiva 2136-E34, it is currently a Cyrix PR166L (133mhz) with 16mb EDO Ram. I have 128mb EDO to go in and have either a P233MMX or a K6-2 400, not entirely sure which processor will work but will try both. I have a nice big modern cooler …

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Re: Windows 98SE not installing on Dell Dimension 8300, Intel 875P,P4-3.0GHz

Posted on 2017-03-13, 23:42

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IMHO the best graphics card for a retro Win98 SE system is the Geforce FX5950. It is great for older Direct X games all the way to Direct X 8. It even plays old games in DOS without any problems, at least the ones I have tried. I just finished Ultima 4 with this card. Tommaso

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Re: Nvidia 5800 Ultra vs Radeon 9800 Pro

Posted on 2017-03-04, 04:11

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I just tested my 6800 Leadtek 400A / P4 3.06 HT 533 FSB with 512 megs DDR 333 RAM on Unreal 3 bench mark and I got 260 FPS with everything set to full and 1024 X 768. Just curious does this seem a little low? I was happy with my Doom 3 score of 72.9 with everything set to high, but I am a little …

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Re: Doom 3 timedemo shootout with period correct hardware.

Posted on 2017-02-24, 21:35

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I just wanted to log a new score for my 2003 P4 system with an upgraded graphics card and ask a quick question. First my system specifications are: Windows XP SP2,512 megs DDR 400 RAM,ASUS P4P800 LE Motherboard, Pentium4 3.06 Ghz. Northwood, 533 FSB, 128 Meg GeForce 6800 Model 400 from LeadTech, …

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

Posted on 2017-02-23, 01:38

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Managed to find an MS-DOS MP3 player optimized specifically for 486 processors and listened to some music on my 486DX4-100 system...mostly 80s music. :lol: I'd say a DX4-100 is right on the very edge of "just powerful enough" to be able to decode and play MP3s with no issues, as quick Google …

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Re: Need a good old and noisy hdd.

Posted on 2017-01-17, 16:36

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've got a Quantum Fireball CR 6.4GB that still works perfectly and makes the most *lovely* sounds. LOL. It's the loudest hdd I have, even louder than my 1GB Seagate Medalist. I agree. I have one in my IBM Aptiva, and it is the original drive and is running great. I too think it is the loudest …

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Re: Geforce 5950 Ultra

Posted on 2016-12-21, 21:28

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I am lucky enough to have kept my card from when I first purchased it. It is a 5800 Ultra and it seems these cards are extremely rare. When I first bought it for Doom 3 it worked okay but the noise drove me nuts. I was not too happy, but now that they are rare and even rare to find on E-Bay I am now …

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Re: Needing help with win98se on asus p4p800-e

Posted on 2016-12-21, 21:15

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know if this will help as I didn't browse through the CD but I have the original disk that came with my ASUS p2p800-se board. I am not sure if there are Win98 drivers on it, but if so I could image it for you. I'll look on the disk and let me know if this will help. Unfortunately I didn't …

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Re: old video formats for pentium 1

Posted on 2016-11-02, 07:26

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know I use to own an MPEG encoder card before, but I never used it. I guess this would give you hardware playback of MPEG1 video only though - but that would be cheating I guess if you are wanting to see how the video will run on older processors. This is an interesting thread, I always wanted to …

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Re: Making a Pacman game on Windows 95

Posted on 2016-11-02, 04:48

by

by Tommaso

in Windows

in Windows

What I would suggest doing, as I learned this way about ten years ago and succeeded in making a nice RPG game, is to first learn C. The best and easiest was to learn is getting the C for Dummies books part one and part 2. After you read that and do some programming, get Windows Game Programming for …

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Re: Software equalizer

Posted on 2016-10-07, 05:34

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 much better? I have a SB Live 5.1 in my XP rig and just found an Audigy EAX card and was thinking it would be better to use that in place of the Live card, but now I don't know. Anymore ifo would be greatly appreciated, thanks! Tommaso

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Re: 5.25" Floppy Drives

Posted on 2016-10-06, 01:47

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I guess there is a reason ans use for 360 k drives. I always though if you had a 1.2 meg drive you would never need a 360 k. Good to know, thanks! Tommaso

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Re: Good XP OEM Box?

Posted on 2016-09-12, 06:09

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think you selected a great case for a build. I am very happy with mine and I love the look. I was wondering, where did you purchase the XP sticker to replace the Vista sticker? I need to get one for mine to finish it off. One more question, are you using the stock MB with this build? I did and it …

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Re: Best Video Card Choice for 386DX 33

Posted on 2016-09-10, 05:30

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is the link to the MB I purchased on EBay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/232056207413?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT I will run numerous tests when I get it up and running and post the results. I now just need an ATX adapter or AT power supply and video card. Tommaso

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Re: Video card recommendation for 1998 Win98 PC

Posted on 2016-09-06, 23:29

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No. PCX2 = Pentium territory. K5, and 6x86 are off limits and will perform badly with the card, and it's more due to FPU-heavy drivers than the hardware itself. A Voodoo will be fine. just a quick question, what is the reason a voodoo will be fine and not a pcx2? just curious, and what would be the …

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Re: Good XP OEM Box?

Posted on 2016-09-03, 04:12

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i have the exact machine in the posted picture and have used that case with a few different power supplies. I have never had a problem with this case, so in my opinion it is a great case. It is very solid and I love the retro look - it looks like a much older design than its age would suggest. This …

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Re: Whats a good way to repair a CD-DVD drive thats not reading disc?

Posted on 2016-08-24, 00:15

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some older drives cannot read burned media, only pressed, but on the other hand I have had some 4x cd roms have no problems with any disks. Does anyone know if there are specific brands of CD ROMs and DVD ROMs that are better quality than others, and are older drives built better than newer ones. I …

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Turbo XT Hard Drive Help

Posted on 2016-08-24, 00:01

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by Tommaso

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have an 8088 Turbo XT that I found wrapped in plastic, with a monitor, and both look to be brand new. By looking at them they look to never have been used. Is has two 5.25 inch 320k floppies but no hard drive and is an IBM clone. I have an old 40 meg drive that I can put in it with a controller …

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy cards

Posted on 2016-08-07, 04:34

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Jesolo, thanks for the response. I was wrong about the chipset, it is an Alladin IV and the model of the IBM Aptiva is 2137-EO3. I will check out that site also. So, even if the onboard is better than my card, could thecard be possibly better with older DOS games as I have had a few games sound not …

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Re: Aztech Sound Galaxy cards

Posted on 2016-08-06, 05:39

by

by Tommaso

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have a quick question pertaining to this thread. I have an IBM Aptiva with a Cyrix 166MX cpu and onboard sound. It's an ATX socket 7 motherboard with Alladin II chipset, I am not sure of the sound chip used. I recently found an old 8 bit Aztec sound card which is the BXII that is SB 2.0 and Adlib …

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