Re: USB 1.1 Front Panel for 440BX Based System - Options?

Posted on 2021-03-31, 09:08

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I also wanted my Slot 1 P3 and Slot A Athlon PCs to have a front panel USB connector, but since this is not even close to period correct anyway, I just went with a suitable case: https://www.inter-tech.de/en/products/case/midi-tower/it-5905 It has mixed USB3.0/USB2.0 connector cables, and the USB 2 …

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Re: socket 775 and agp 3.3v compatibility?

Posted on 2021-03-31, 06:50

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The reason is that CPU affects more than just gaming. Doing all the little things on the desktop, managing files, unzipping, etc... all feel just a bit snappier on a p4 than a p3. Plus, it's generally easier to find a cheap quality cooler for socket 775. OK, I can agree with that. Windows 98 simply …

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Re: socket 775 and agp 3.3v compatibility?

Posted on 2021-03-30, 17:16

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Generally speaking, I'm all for strange overkill builds, but for the life of me... I just don't understand the trend of weird PC (CPU) choices when it comes to the Voodoo 5 5500 :-) The Voodoo 5 5500 is about as fast as a GeForce 256 DDR. So I'm curious: would anyone ever use a GeForce 256 on a …

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Re: Voodoo3 underperforming?

Posted on 2021-03-28, 14:14

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

This is a pretty common issue, and I've had it on all the Ali Aladdin V boards that I tried, including the Asus P5A rev 1.04. The solution is to use the Ali AGP Tool: Manual settings --> Frame Buffer Size: set to "All" & Write Allocation: "Enable without Hole". Save and restart. I've used this ALI …

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Re: P3 1.4GHz "performs like a P4 2GHz..."

Posted on 2021-03-28, 09:26

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by bloodem

in Milliways

in Milliways

I don't think there ever was a specific way to program for an early P4 in order to make it faster than a late P3. The only real advantage the P4 had (in its early form) was SSE2 and more memory bandwidth. Regarding SSE2, yeah, one could specifically take advantage of it when programming, but by the …

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Re: Voodoo 2 - Heatsinks Needed?

Posted on 2021-03-26, 15:55

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

This video by Phil addresses this issue very well. I can confirm that a dual fan bracket below the card is more than enough to properly cool any Voodoo card, including Voodoo 3 PCI cards with those pesky voltage regulators that run even hotter than the chip (they can easily hit 90+ C in a closed …

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Re: Slow AMD K6-2+ 550 MHz performance?

Posted on 2021-03-26, 07:17

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does a usb 1.1 card work better? (Without any slow down)? Or only the onboard 1.1? Well, I only tested built-in USB 1.1 controllers and those seem to work OK even on very old Socket 7 motherboards. Should I come across any performance issues if I install a USB 2 card into my Intel 820 rig? Thinking …

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Re: Is it worth it to build a 486 66 or 133 machine using VLB vs SOcket 7 with level 1 and 2 disabled?

Posted on 2021-03-25, 12:12

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by bloodem

in DOS

in DOS

chinny22 wrote on 2021-03-25, 10:53: The question changes from is it worth building xyz, to how do I justify to myself I need yet another build 😉 Which eventually becomes: "You know what? I don't need to justify myself... to myself for anything! MOOAAR!" 😀

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Re: Is it worth it to build a 486 66 or 133 machine using VLB vs SOcket 7 with level 1 and 2 disabled?

Posted on 2021-03-25, 08:12

by

by bloodem

in DOS

in DOS

To answer the question in the title, based on my experience, no, there's no point in having a separate 486 machine, if you already own a (Super) Socket 7 PC. Now, there is a lot of nuance to this: not all (Super) Socket 7 PCs are equal: some are much better than others, some have all sorts of small …

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Re: Slow AMD K6-2+ 550 MHz performance?

Posted on 2021-03-24, 06:58

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not entirely sure what you mean and what your particular problem is 😀 If you have a USB 2.0 PCI adapter, the solution is to remove it, pure and simple 😀

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Re: BENCHMARKS: Slot A (GA-7IXE & 750 MHz Pluto/700 MHz Thunderbird) vs Slot 1 (Gigabyte GA-BX2000+ & 750/1000 MHz P3 Co

Posted on 2021-03-23, 12:15

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-03-23, 12:04: Kinda strange that they didn't label it properly as someone might think that it's a speaker/line out jumper instead. Ha, that's exactly what I thought! 😁

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Re: BENCHMARKS: Slot A (GA-7IXE & 750 MHz Pluto/700 MHz Thunderbird) vs Slot 1 (Gigabyte GA-BX2000+ & 750/1000 MHz P3 Co

Posted on 2021-03-23, 11:35

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Heh, I remember being similarly surprised back in the day when I got my first Socket A system with a Thunderbird 750. Ended up being slightly slower than some Slot A based Athlons. It was a weird time. But then again, I wasn't as proficient at tweaking memory timings and such back then, and I think …

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Re: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and DirectX 9

Posted on 2021-03-23, 11:18

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by bloodem

in Windows

in Windows

But edge cases like Splinter Cell (which doesn't display correctly on anything newer than a GeForce4 Ti without third-party patches) keep me from using that approach more broadly, despite the performance benefits. I tested Splinter Cell on Windows 10 using dgVoodoo (which has an option to emulate …

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Re: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and DirectX 9

Posted on 2021-03-23, 08:30

by

by bloodem

in Windows

in Windows

Heh yeah, I should have worded that better. I guess what I meant was: can a Ti4200 correctly display all the graphical effects that the game supports. Yes, I think the game was designed around Pixel Shader 1.1 (which is a minimum requirement, but having a newer version doesn't add anything else to …

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Re: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and DirectX 9

Posted on 2021-03-23, 07:13

by

by bloodem

in Windows

in Windows

Cheers, that was an interesting read. It seems that some earlier games were made using the the DX9 API without actually utilizing Pixel Shader 2.0 and other DX9 exclusive graphical features. Given its release date, it is possible that PoP:SoT falls into that category, in which case a Ti4200 should …

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Re: BENCHMARKS: Slot A (GA-7IXE & 750 MHz Pluto/700 MHz Thunderbird) vs Slot 1 (Gigabyte GA-BX2000+ & 750/1000 MHz P3 Co

Posted on 2021-03-23, 06:48

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know about Super Bypass, however the Gigabyte GA-7IXE does not have a BIOS option to toggle it on/off. Anyway, based on the benchmark results that I got, I assumed that it's probably enabled by default, but I will look further into this when I play with one of the boards again. I remember from …

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Re: (Onboard) Voodoo 3 troubleshooting

Posted on 2021-03-22, 14:05

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by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I had MS-6168 system years ago and the onboard GPU worked perfectly even in glide. There are no special drivers, it is regular Voodoo3 (or in fact Velocity 100 - it has only one TMU active) soldered on the PCB, nothing special about it. I remember running Windows 98 and XP, both were ok. It's not a …

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Re: (Onboard) Voodoo 3 troubleshooting

Posted on 2021-03-19, 08:03

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Another thing worth trying is to think about other peripherals that you are using, one of those could be causing a conflict. So, as others before me have said, I would try a clean Win98SE installation with the bare minimum (no sound card & no other devices) and simply install: - the 440BX chipset …

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Re: Have anyone actually gotten hardware damaged due to using old PSUs?

Posted on 2021-03-16, 19:17

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by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On the same note, I've once debugged a client's computer which apparently had a failing HDD (MHDD would show countless bad and slow sectors during the surface scan). So, naturally, I replaced the HDD with a new one, expecting a quick Windows XP reinstall. You could imagine my surprise when I started …

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Re: AT motherboard ATX PSU with AT attachment?

Posted on 2021-03-16, 17:58

by

by bloodem

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can buy an ATX to AT adapter like this one , and basically use any modern PSU. ISA sound cards don't have issues with AT adapters, some (not many) ISA sound cards (such as the Sound Blaster 2.0), do have issues with modern PSUs, since these don't supply -5V (but there are workarounds for this as …

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