Re: UniVBE 6.53 and 6.7 support for S3 Trio3D/2X cards

Posted on 2021-08-20, 14:58

by

by Gmlb256

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

- Being able to use different refresh rates especially on 1280x1024 as S3REFRSH is a mixed bag on this card. If your S3 Trio3D is made by one of the more reputable manufacturers (e.g. Diamond, Hercules, STB... etc.) it might also be worth searching for their original drivers. I recently found out …

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Re: S3 AGP Cards (and possibly others) Too Bright

Posted on 2021-08-20, 14:42

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have the S3 Trio3D/2X both in PCI and AGP versions and they're great for DOS. I'm currently using it on my Socket 7 machine. Using S3BLACK.COM in AUTOEXEC.BAT as zyga64 said works as intended, however there is another way using a utility called CONFIX which allows to use the in and out …

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Re: What should I upgrade in my new Windows 98 gaming build?

Posted on 2021-08-20, 13:52

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Snookeroo wrote on 2021-08-19, 22:05: Whoa, I wouldn't sniff at an extra 900 points! What sort of BIOS and registry optimizing can I do? I have no idea. If the motherboard BIOS has the AGP Aperture Size option try increasing it to 128MB since you have a large amount of RAM equipped.

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UniVBE 6.53 and 6.7 support for S3 Trio3D/2X cards

Posted on 2021-08-20, 05:04

by

by Gmlb256

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

This was something that I was planning to release here. This is a patch that will allow UniVBE to work with S3 Trio3D/2X cards, both AGP and PCI versions. I've noticed that the clock chip is exactly the same as the one used on the S3 ViRGE/GX2 and said clock chip is supported on both 6.53 and 6.7 ( …

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Re: SB Live and Orpheus not playing nice together!

Posted on 2021-08-19, 21:49

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Here's an abridged version of the AUTOEXEC.BAT for the sound initialization on my Slot 1 computer: REM Initialize the SB16 SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 H5 P330 T6 SET SOUND=C:\SB16 SET MIDI=MAP:G MODE:1 C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE.EXE /S C:\SB16\MIXERSET.EXE /P /Q REM Start the EK1M mixer for the Sound Blaster Live! …

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Re: Need advice on a retro rig

Posted on 2021-08-19, 20:52

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Beware, higher speed slot 1 cpus are more expensive and rarer. It's quite easy and cheap to get PIII 450-600Mhz though. Many come with a passive heatsink only and benefit from installation of a little fan. The black cartridge can be opened and thermal paste replaced. I ended up using bolts and nuts …

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Re: Worst video card ever, again

Posted on 2021-08-19, 20:43

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember every review underlined the 16bit "problem" even if far from be a real problem it was on the marketing side and nothing could solve that. The thing with the 16-bit color mode on 3Dfx cards was that they were using dithering techniques so it won't look ugly as an actual 16-bit color mode …

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Re: SB Live and Orpheus not playing nice together!

Posted on 2021-08-19, 20:34

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Not sure I understand the trick on EK1M mixer, please let me know how to use it. The trick here was to use the MPXPLAY program with a sound file that plays nothing and using command line switches to avoid displaying the MPXPLAY screen. This is prior to initializing the sound drivers and the EK1M …

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Re: SB Live and Orpheus not playing nice together!

Posted on 2021-08-19, 20:13

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Conclusion: 440bx chipset and Live mixer are not compatible. This statement is quite broken as the Sound Blaster Live! is not problematic on a 440BX chipset. The only issue I had in DOS was related to the EK1M mixer in AUTOEXEC.BAT due to the PMODE/W extender and had to do a "trick" with MPXPLAY …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

Posted on 2021-08-19, 19:21

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I took some pictures of the CT2290 since this is one of the best SB16 models. Or maybe if would be better to say that this individual card has one of the best chip configuration since not all the CT2290 models are the same. Maybe it helps someone to identify models with less clicking. The same goes …

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Re: Worst video card ever, again

Posted on 2021-08-19, 18:54

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The S3 Savage video chips weren't a bad solution when times are seen from a modern point of view. They had most feature even 3dfx chips still didn't have beside at the speed of a Voodoo II but they were also cheaper cards. They had low power requirements, some well built brands were using good PCB …

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Re: Worst video card ever, again

Posted on 2021-08-19, 17:34

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would not say the Savage2000 cards (I think the Diamond Viper II wasn't the only one, my memory seems to remember a 64MB on-chip variant of the card maybe built later I don't know if someone remembers it) might be listed here. It probably couldn't give what promised and something went seriously …

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Re: Enlarge EDO/FPM RAM

Posted on 2021-08-19, 16:22

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know for the DELL, but it also has pads on the back (and i have a spare cache card :) Most COAST modules are commonly 256KB or 512KB and PC motherboards with COAST slot only supports up to 512KB of cache. If your motherboard has already 256KB onboard without the COAST installed, enlarging the …

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Re: Enlarge EDO/FPM RAM

Posted on 2021-08-19, 16:11

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The last one which is a Dell is not a SIMM memory, it's a COAST module for the L2 cache on the motherboard.

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

Posted on 2021-08-19, 15:19

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Of my two SB16-based cards, only the CT2230 (DSP v4.11) that I use on one of my old machines has the single-cycle DMA clicking problem and one of the worst since it occasionally drops out some samples. Wolfenstein 3-D (especially when opening and closing doors), Llamatron: 2112 and Jill of the …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 issues

Posted on 2021-08-19, 14:22

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Is this a software problem in configuring games or a hardware limitation. So if you can get a game configured with high=low dma =1) it plays back 16 bit mixing etc, exactly the same as a card supports high dma(ie your not missing anything or lower quality sound) . I noticed the physical high dma …

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Re: Is it worth it for me to get a Voodoo card?

Posted on 2021-08-19, 12:12

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's a trade off though. With those cards, you need to use a pass through cable which results in image quality degradation whenever the non-Voodoo card is used (e.g. while showing the Windows desktop). This becomes very noticeable at 800x600 and higher resolutions. However, it can be worked …

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Re: Is it worth it for me to get a Voodoo card?

Posted on 2021-08-19, 04:12

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I never had a voodoo card back in the day, my first 3D card was a TNT2 and then went with nVidia cards for many years. Now, I have a voodoo 3 3000 PCI card (ironically, it was given to me like 15 or so years ago, but I never cared about it and since it is not branded, I always thought it as a …

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Re: First PC build in 15 years (build log)

Posted on 2021-08-19, 03:10

by

by Gmlb256

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The PC Chips motherboard is one of the strange ones with both SIMM and DIMM slots, which can be used simultaneously (but only 2 of the 4 SIMM slots) and since I already had the SIMMs I'm going to use them anyway. Mixing SIMM and DIMM is not a great idea for safety and stability reasons. If the …

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Re: Hardware Issues

Posted on 2021-08-19, 02:50

by

by Gmlb256

in Milliways

in Milliways

For the graphics cards you should use older drivers that are compatible since the latest ones has more CPU overhead. Also the Radeon 9600 Pro is bottlenecked by the CPU. Since your motherboard supports Tualatin-based CPUs you should go for these as they are much faster than the Coppermine-based …

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