Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on Yesterday, 21:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Due to constant Russian bombing, our system administrator left for Odessa. I was promoted to IT-technicist (from the head of the network planning department, and I felt 20 years younger))). I got access to deposits of computer trash. Well, I never understood asus fans. But I'll try to join. TUSL2-C …

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Re: Help on reviving PCCHIPS M571 Socket 7 motherboard

Posted on Yesterday, 06:48

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Old pre-PCI 2.2 boards didn't supply 3.3V to the PCI bus, so nothing abnormal there. That's why later PCI cards that require 3.3V don't work on older boards without modification. So lack of 3.3V is not your issue stopping POST - that board would never have had 3 3V on PCI.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-05-31, 22:24

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What is so wrong about the VT82C693A and its AGP implementation? The AGP issue is just that people are used to not installing chipset drivers because BX drivers were supplied by default in Win98SE and later. If you don't install 4-in-1 drivers, it's slow and not stable. Otherwise it's a regular AGP …

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Re: Which sound card should I buy?

Posted on 2023-05-31, 08:47

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Note that you don't need to mess around with old driver packages, the OPTi 930 is a PnP chip and is supported by Unisound . Unless I'm mistaken, the first fully PnP card from OPTi was the 82C93 1 . The 930 is semi-PnP at best, if you can even call it that. It doesn't get detected by Win9x at all, …

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Re: Which sound card should I buy?

Posted on 2023-05-31, 07:03

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep, another vote for the 930. The 925 isn't terrible, but real OPL3 and onboard wavetable (even if crappy low-end) gives the card with the 930 the edge. Note that you don't need to mess around with old driver packages, the OPTi 930 is a PnP chip and is supported by Unisound . All you need to do is …

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Re: SIS735, use in DOS

Posted on 2023-05-30, 18:52

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, i see it very complicated and need a discrete amount of time (that i not have now), i’m store this for fiture use, or if anyone want this board for test (considering his rarity)… Is it the K7S5A? If so it's anything but rare, it was for over a year the cheapest Socket A motherboard you could …

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Re: Armada E500 w98 or 2k!

Posted on 2023-05-30, 15:13

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Most important consideration missing: what do you want to do with it? In any event, 128MB is too little RAM to run Win2k smoothly, so as-is I'd do Win98

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Re: SIS735, use in DOS

Posted on 2023-05-30, 15:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SiS 735 supports DDMA, so shouldn't that work with the Solo too? 1GHz Duron is pretty fast so you might need to employ some slowdown methods for many older games. "Unknown" board with that chipset sounds suspiciously like an ECS K7S5A / PC Chips M830. The former has a black/brown PCB, the latter a …

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Re: Need help deciding on sound card for Win98SE build

Posted on 2023-05-27, 16:16

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by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I did try the CT3670 for a bit but for some reason I was not getting midi or AWE32 to work in Dos games like I was with the AWE64. The jumper is on the midi switch so I don't know what is happening. The CT3670 doesn't have any RAM onboard so you need at least one SIMM to get it to do anything with …

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Re: Need help deciding on sound card for Win98SE build

Posted on 2023-05-26, 10:22

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by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

There's no such thing as "100% DOS compatibility", as there is no such thing as a DOS sound system: games directly addressed the hardware and different periods and indeed different games used different cards; the most compatible (eg old mono Soundblaster cards) will lack a lot of features for newer …

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Re: MediaForte SP256-PCS-02

Posted on 2023-05-26, 07:10

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by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Your first pic clearly shows "audio out" as well as "SPDIF" on the mini-DIN port. Apparently the relevant lines go there and would normally have some kind of breakout cable/box attached. Technically simplest solution would be to find that cable/box. Failing that, you need a matching mini-DIN-9 …

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Re: Need advice for graphics and soundcards build 1992, 1995, 1996 year machines

Posted on 2023-05-21, 15:30

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

1992 makes sense, 1996 seems too close to 1995 to me. For a good Win95 experience you want something faster. As for 1995, I'd suggest 3 things for sound: - bug-free UART MIDI - SB16 support in some form or other - GUS in whatever form you can get for a good price. Ideally I'd also want digital audio …

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Re: In your opinion, what are the 5 best pci graphics cards from the late 90's?

Posted on 2023-05-20, 18:48

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Matrix G450 has poor DOS VESA SVGA support. Prepare for choppy scrolling and worse. For DirectX its performance is poor, significantly worse than its G400 predecessor. I'd recommend it purely for DVI support. NVidia does actually have excellent VESA support so but confused about your statement that …

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Re: General advice for building first retro gaming pc

Posted on 2023-05-16, 19:07

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DOS / Win98 is a different beast, but agreed that the ISA sound card is the biggest requirement. That impacts which motherboard you can choose. i440BX is good for compatiblity, but doesn't offer great slowdown features. You could compromise by choosing a CPU that does (Via C3), but that is a lot …

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Re: General advice for building first retro gaming pc

Posted on 2023-05-16, 17:04

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DOS / Win98 is a different beast, but agreed that the ISA sound card is the biggest requirement. That impacts which motherboard you can choose. i440BX is good for compatiblity, but doesn't offer great slowdown features. You could compromise by choosing a CPU that does (Via C3), but that is a lot …

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Re: Sound Galaxy NX on a Commodore PC20-III

Posted on 2023-05-16, 10:41

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=788&menustate=0 Been on Vogonsdrivers for a long time fortunately, although not really needed in this case.

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Re: Sound Galaxy NX on a Commodore PC20-III

Posted on 2023-05-16, 09:46

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by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Resources on an XT are always fun. You only have a few IRQs and DMAs to play with. You can choose between IRQ 2, 3 5 or 7. Their normal allocation: 2: EGA/VGA (not always used) 3: COM2 5: HDD controller 7: Parallel port Depending on what you use, I'd suggest using IRQ 3 or 7. IRQ2 might work, …

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Re: General advice for building first retro gaming pc

Posted on 2023-05-15, 17:49

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it DVI-D or DVI-I? DVI-I supports the analog VGA signal natively. As for how good the quality will be... anyone's guess. For a Win98 system I'd recommend a card with DVI output if you intend to use a TFT screen. Things will look most authentic with a late good-quality CRT though (enough to allow …

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Re: General advice for building first retro gaming pc

Posted on 2023-05-15, 09:27

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I need to research the xp area as well though. I have always asumed that the games from the xp area should work well enough on my modern rig because I cannot remember having any problems in the past with them. But the "past" was already 10 years ago so maybe things are different with windows …

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Re: ASUS P/I-P55SP4 - GPU compatibility is atrocious

Posted on 2023-05-10, 07:45

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] If I had to guess I’d say something in vga bios does’t like these systems or vice versa. Also sometimes 3.3v issue 3.3V would be my first guess with the new Radeon, but not with the Rage. Anyway, OP has already ruled that out, and if they work on that other PC board they're not Mac cards …

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