Re: Low peformance in Vietcong: Fist Alpha, on old PC

Posted on 2022-10-09, 16:59

by

by asdf53

in Windows

in Windows

I'd say you need an Athlon 64 system to fully enjoy this game. Can confirm this helps. I'm now playing it on my WinXP box with an Athlon 64 X2 5200+ and GTX275, at 1600x1200. Vsync on, and it's like butter. GPU use is pretty low, occasionally spiking to 50%. CPU use generally much higher, and I've …

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Re: Low peformance in Vietcong: Fist Alpha, on old PC

Posted on 2022-09-24, 14:41

by

by asdf53

in Windows

in Windows

I just tried the game on a "period correct" powerful system (Athlon XP 2100 MHz, Geforce 4) on maximum settings. I get 30-40 FPS in most situations, but in open areas with a long line of sight such as the military base, there are some nasty dips down to 15-20 FPS. Lowering the resolution had no …

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Re: Low peformance in Vietcong: Fist Alpha, on old PC

Posted on 2022-09-24, 08:06

by

by asdf53

in Windows

in Windows

Here's the performance matrix from the magazine I was talking about (PC Games), I thought it's pretty interesting. Their definition of "optimal gameplay" (green) is around 30 FPS, I believe. https://archive.org/details/pcgames200305/PC-Games%202003-05/page/n115/mode/2up They also mention that …

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Re: Athlon 64 underclocking below 1000 MHz

Posted on 2022-09-24, 07:31

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you for the explanation. I shouldn't have said "porting" the library, I meant just taking the functions from it that the FSB tools use to write into the CPU and clock generator registers. It would have been useful as a starting point because I have never done that before. I remember looking at …

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Re: Athlon 64 underclocking below 1000 MHz

Posted on 2022-09-23, 20:33

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, I've had the same lockup when I tried to underclock the bus in Windows. Interesting that it persists with a reboot, I think I haven't tried that. I was wondering if there's a DOS tool that can underclock the CPU, maybe this way it wouldn't lock up. There's an open source library called WinRing0 …

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Re: Low peformance in Vietcong: Fist Alpha, on old PC

Posted on 2022-09-23, 20:23

by

by asdf53

in Windows

in Windows

I think you're just CPU limited. There was a big FPS drop when you lowered the CPU speed from 1800 to 900 MHz, and the photo of the two laptops shows 1600 MHz (33 FPS) vs. 1800 MHz (37 FPS). This is not far off from an Athlon XP system with 2000 MHz that reaches 35 FPS. And the newer graphics …

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Re: Athlon 64 underclocking below 1000 MHz

Posted on 2022-09-22, 13:33

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In the bios there should be an option to set hypertransport speed. On S939 Athlon64 it's 1000mhz by default, and is usually set by a combination of base clock 200 and multiplier 5. The cpu speed can not be lower than the hypertransport speed. So to run the cpu at 800mhz you need to find the bios …

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Re: Low peformance in Vietcong: Fist Alpha, on old PC

Posted on 2022-09-21, 20:18

by

by asdf53

in Windows

in Windows

I had the same issue, I only get 15 FPS on my Duron 700 machine no matter what video card. Turns out that this game is quite CPU heavy, the box definitely lies by saying 500 MHz or better. I dug out two magazine reviews from the time and their "performance report" boxes show that a 1400 MHz CPU is …

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Re: 512MB Geforce 6200 AGP in Windows 98SE?

Posted on 2022-08-11, 14:46

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

There is a patch for 512mb Nvidia Cards under Windows 9x being sold at http://rloew.x10host.com/catalog2.htm . There is also a demo for the patch to try for free to see if it helps with your problem. This patch was made available for free, here's a link to it on Phil's site: https://www. …

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Re: SIS 502 and PCI video as a primary source

Posted on 2022-08-06, 21:49

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also make sure that your video card is not too new. Your board might not have support for PCI 2.2 cards yet (most cards from the late 90s onwards, including the Geforce).

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Re: CPU upgrade options for a PCPartner MB520N socket 7 motherboard

Posted on 2022-08-06, 13:53

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's a very big heatsink, I wouldn't worry too much. You also have that big CPU cooler near it. Just let it run with the K6-2 and keep your finger on the heatsink, it's only a problem if it gets so hot that you can barely touch it. Also remember that most boards have two or more of these. I have a …

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Re: CPU upgrade options for a PCPartner MB520N socket 7 motherboard

Posted on 2022-08-06, 11:29

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The voltage regulators are easy to spot, they are close to the CPU socket and look like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TO-220 or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TO-263 You can touch their metal tab to see how hot they're getting. Depending on the type, you can also screw a metal heatsink on …

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Re: Cleaning rust off I/O Shield Dell Optiplex XM 575

Posted on 2022-08-06, 07:33

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My favorite tool for this is a brass wire brush. It's very effective against rust, but soft enough so that it won't scratch the steel. But if the shield is made of aluminum, you might have to be more careful. Submerge it in any type of acid (vinegar, citric acid or bathroom cleaner) and after some …

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Athlon 64 underclocking below 1000 MHz

Posted on 2022-08-06, 07:05

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm trying to get a more authentic Windows 98 experience on my Athlon 64 machine. I was hoping to underclock it to 500 MHz, but the lowest I could go was 1000 MHz (200 MHz system clock, 5x multiplier). The board's lowest multiplier is 4x, but that gives me a black screen at boot. I tried to lower …

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Re: 486 pci and pci nic's

Posted on 2022-07-28, 11:06

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have tested the following cards on a FIC 486-VIP-IO board under Windows 3.1 and 95: Realtek RTL8139C (drivers for DOS/Win 3.1/95/98 from here ) Worked fine. This card is dirt cheap and has great compatibility across the board. Realtek RTL8169SC Card wasn't detected and the status LEDs did not come …

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Re: Games you can play with a Riva 128?

Posted on 2022-07-27, 12:46

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It seems that there are some conflicting opinions out there about the VGA signal quality of this card. Chip != card. Just as with S3, and unlike say 3dfx (at least from V3 onward) and ATi who made their own cards, the early nVidia-based cards were made by a multitude of different card vendors. Some …

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Re: Games you can play with a Riva 128?

Posted on 2022-07-27, 07:48

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It seems that there are some conflicting opinions out there about the VGA signal quality of this card. People in forums and also some reviews from the time complained about poor signal quality which really put me off at first. But then I saw Phil's video review of the card where he mentioned that …

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Re: VIA 4-in-1 driver experiences

Posted on 2022-07-26, 18:57

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PCChips M577, Socket 7, VIA MVP3, Win98: Using a PCI graphics card leads to a black screen at Windows boot. Restarting in safe mode and installing VIA 4in1 4.35 fixed this issue. Version 4.26 still has this problem. Asus A8V, Socket 939, VIA K8T800, Win98: The 4-in-1 version 4.51 that comes bundled …

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Re: Socket 4 board (SI5PI-AIO) does not work with Nvidia PCI cards

Posted on 2022-07-10, 16:58

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's good to know, thanks! It's hard to find any information on this except for that PCI 2.2 specification sheet. Edit: I've just tried the cards in another old board (FIC 486-VIP-IO, Socket 3). This one specifically mentions in the manual that it is PCI 2.0, and the cards also didn't work there. …

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Re: Socket 4 board (SI5PI-AIO) does not work with Nvidia PCI cards

Posted on 2022-07-09, 20:19

by

by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you, this could be it. Is this a general problem with AT motherboards? As far as I understand, AT power supplies do not have a 3.3V rail at all. So the only solution would be to build a device that generates 3.3V from 5 or 12V and then solder that to the board or card? Since I have no …

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