Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-05-11, 11:49

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Where was that? New Zealand? For reference my Eastern European post Soviet occupation country had no availability problems. Also Eastern European post Soviet occupation country, the only country that actually spilled blood during the Eastern European revolutions (let's see how good your history …

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Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-05-10, 19:02

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Awesome interview, indeed. I've seen it multiple times in the past years. It always makes me sad, though, when hearing Gordy Campbell's words at 1:54:01 . You can really tell that he's still very upset about 3dfx's untimely demise. Especially because he clearly states that he was against this …

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Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-05-09, 14:11

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

He got suckered by AMD :(. Celeron 300A was available from the middle/late 1998, and sold slightly cheaper than AMD K6-2 300MHz. At the end on 1998 it was already $90. Cheapest motherboards with 440BX chipsets started around $140 in 1998, came down to $120 in 1999. Comparable price to "good" SS7 …

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Re: Athlon XP 2500+ running hot.

Posted on 2021-05-07, 12:47

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Agreed with what Thandor said. Bartons usually run hot, so they need what - at that time - would've been very high quality cooling solutions in order to keep temperatures below what you're seeing. I have a 2600+ Barton and I am able to keep it at ~ 40C idle, however this is with a VERY big full …

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Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-05-07, 10:48

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

In my opinion, the most amazing thing about the Voodoo cards (and I'm referring to Voodoo 1/2/Banshee/3 in particular), was their ability to breathe new life into an otherwise very slow & aging platform (mostly thanks to the Glide API). For example, in 1999, me and most of my friends had very slow …

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Re: Totally Stumped with Sound Card Issue

Posted on 2021-05-06, 15:27

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

My point exactly. :D I'm not saying it's impossible to run DOS games with PCI sound cards, I'm just saying it requires a lot more luck and fiddling around than with an ISA card. You do have an additional compatibility layer in the system, it's never going to be as hassle-free as ISA. Yes, of course …

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Re: Totally Stumped with Sound Card Issue

Posted on 2021-05-06, 08:26

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

You don't 'need' an ISA sound card to have a near-perfect DOS experience... or, more specifically, it's complicated. In my experience, PCI sound cards work beautifully on certain platforms, while being unusable on others. The Yamaha YMF7xx cards are especially fussy. They seem to work best on 440BX …

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Re: My VIA C3 Nehemiah all-rounder build

Posted on 2021-05-04, 07:54

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Thanks! The bus speed control through software does sound very nice 😀 The only "problem" I see would be the need for a slotket (I usually try to avoid these for my builds).

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Re: My VIA C3 Nehemiah all-rounder build

Posted on 2021-05-04, 06:24

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Sounds very interesting! Any advantage in using the Gigabyte BX board (which seems to be very popular in conjunction with VIA C3) as opposed to other boards? I'm thinking of building a VIA C3 platform myself and I'm still doing research regarding potential motherboards. 😀

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Re: How can I tell between Geforce2 MX and MX400?

Posted on 2021-05-02, 19:52

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by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Also MX400 comes in 64bit DDR as well but bandwidth is also bit higher, 3.2GB/s vs 2.656GB/s. Takes proper utility to report this. Which resolution in situations when memory bandwidth becomes starved? Will a MX400 DDR still memory bandwidth starved? Cheers, Never had a 64bit DDR version of the …

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Re: How can I tell between Geforce2 MX and MX400?

Posted on 2021-05-02, 18:19

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

For what it's worth, a pure GeForce 2MX is pretty much the same as an MX400 (although, yes, it usually has a lower core clock - 175 MHz compared to 200 MHz on the MX400). However, this makes very little difference in most situations, since both cards are memory bandwidth starved (166 MHz memory …

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Re: Upgrading the VLB on my 486DX2-66: worth it?

Posted on 2021-04-29, 08:21

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Short answer, no. The Trident is capable of more than 25 FPS in Doom (when used with a faster CPU), so you would see no tangible benefit from such an upgrade. I think the Trident is a good match for a DX2-66, unless you want something fancier, just for thrills 😀

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Re: My first retro project

Posted on 2021-04-28, 09:56

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

In my experience, a Pentium 3 Coppermine / 440BX motherboard (with DDMA or even better - SBLink connector) works great with YMF7xx cards. Also, have had very good (almost perfect) experience with KT400/KT600 motherboards + Athlon XP, although the YMF does have some minor glitches in Win98 with these …

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Re: My first retro project

Posted on 2021-04-28, 05:01

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I do have a YMF724 and a Solo-1, I'll definitely want to try out both of them. Though, based on previous testings I made, all three sound cards gave me some kind of headache... I guess there is really no "perfect" PCI sound card for DOS :( The YMF724 is as close to perfect as it gets when it comes …

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Re: Need help with 486 board not POSTing

Posted on 2021-04-20, 12:01

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the POST always stop at the "0D" code? If yes, that's related to the video initialization, so it might be worth to investigate this part, maybe test other video cards in different slots. If you're using a VLB video card, it might be worth to also try an ISA card.

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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 no signal

Posted on 2021-04-20, 11:16

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think using it with missing caps might have been a fatal mistake... 🙁

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Re: Best way to renove battery green corrosion?

Posted on 2021-04-20, 05:02

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I find that, unless you are doing it for fun, it’s not worth doing it at all. If the corrosion is in an advanced state, the repair process will be very time consuming, and you’ll most likely have to fix some (if not many) damaged traces along the way. Furthermore, unless you are extremely …

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Re: Athlon 1400 opinions?

Posted on 2021-04-19, 10:27

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Thunderbird 1400 is a great CPU (albeit, very power hungry and hot). Having said that, don't think there's any reason to use it in a retro PC other than nostalgia and/or the desire of having an end-of-an-era PC (one of the best eras that AMD has had, if I might add). Under normal conditions, I …

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Re: Keep GeForce 4 to cards from dying

Posted on 2021-04-19, 06:34

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Strange... At the beginning of the thread, you mentioned that you had already tried swapping motherboards and PSUs without success.

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Re: Voodoo 3 Humour

Posted on 2021-04-18, 07:56

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by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Any recommendations on specific type and size Of screws I should use? I mean I could go through my "pail" lol but I could go to the store and buy some gucci screws too! ;) I would avoid modding the video card altogeher, and get one of these PCI slot dual fan brackets and mount it below the video …

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