Re: 486DX2-66 Write-Back and Turbo mode

Posted on 2023-02-08, 16:22

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How do you change deturbo from 1/3 to 2/3? Is it a setting in the BIOS? It could and should have been an option in the BIOS but I don't know why no manufacturer provided that setting. So I made my own utils to change the deturbo mode (L2 enable/disable is broken. Do not use those). These are only …

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Re: 486DX2-66 Write-Back and Turbo mode

Posted on 2023-02-08, 16:04

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did some deturbo benchmarks with Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 last summer. Here are the results . De-turbo with that SiS chipset works by holding the CPU 4µs or 8µs after every 12µs. So deturbo slows CPU to 2/3 or 1/3 speed (default). So of course it will affect everything done by the CPU, not just memory …

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-02-06, 06:53

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I think a large card is nice because most of the best sound cards were big. But I do have one computer where GUS classic just barely fits so there is a good reason for smaller size if possible. I think Orpheus II should have had 16 MB RAM on board and no SIMM socket at all. And it should have been …

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Re: Adlib Gold and VLB FDC conflict

Posted on 2023-02-01, 08:45

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm still in line waiting to be contacted about GoldLib so I can't do any testing (I have QDI QD6580 so I could have tried to reproduce the problem and it just happens to be in the same computer I was going to install GoldLib to). I don't know what ports are used by GoldLib but this could be …

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Re: The Retro Web submissions thread: suggest edits and/or add new boards here

Posted on 2023-02-01, 07:42

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I couldn't find this on Retro Web. MG-1886 386sx 25/33 MHz Headland HT18/F chipset AMI BIOS 30-0200-428021-00101111-121291-HT18C-Pa-F Pictures and BIOS can be found here.

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Re: Which is better, S3 ViRGE/DX or S3 Trio 64V2/DX?

Posted on 2022-07-29, 04:28

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My experience is that you just need to test S3 based cards yourself. There are difference in image quality even though Trios and Virges have intergrated RAMDAC (and RAMDAC speed depends on the Trio/Virge model). Then some have BIOS with incorrect black and some cards are clocked higher that others …

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Re: No sound in LucasArts Adventure games ESS1868 AudioDrive

Posted on 2022-07-23, 11:49

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

At least with Indy last crusade the AdLib autodetection fails for ESS. You need to use "a" command line parameter. Most likely Loom and Monkey Island also works that way.

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-07-22, 16:22

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Here are some new pictures now that the system is complete (for now). Cards from top to bottom: Roland MPU-401AT + McCake Lo-tech ISA CompactFlash Adapter (for XTIDE Universal BIOS that can be reflashed. 3COM NIC could also hold the ROM but not flash it) * VLB multi-I/O card with Vision QD6580 IDE …

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-07-18, 17:59

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

MK8330 arrived couple of days ago and as promised, I tested how speed sensitive OPL it has. And it turns out to be identical to real Yamaha OPL3.

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-07-18, 17:57

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Norton Commander wrote on 2022-07-18, 15:56: Were there any other video cards of that era that had VESA BIOS? VESA up to 1.2 is common with later ISA and VLB video cards. I don't know if any has 2.0 support. Likely not as there are so many PCI cards without 2.0 support.

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2022-07-18, 17:29

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't have words anymore but that does not matter. Money is what I need, not words.

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Re: GUS Extreme MPU401 port conflict

Posted on 2022-07-17, 15:29

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

ESSCFG fixed it. There was an option under MPU IRQ settings to disable MPU completely but changing port alone helped as well.

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-07-17, 11:30

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Here are more pictures of the new McCake drive and new HDD-CF-drive . The 1.8" HDD to IDE adapter I now used is better than the old one (I think those are in the Copam thread). The previous adapters have issue with HDD led. It only works when CF card is connected (slave drive). These new adapters …

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GUS Extreme MPU401 port conflict

Posted on 2022-07-17, 08:00

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm trying to get GUS Extreme and Roland MPU-401AT to work at the same time. I want the Roland at port 330h and IRQ2 and I'm not going to change that. Now the problem is that McCake does not work with the Roland when GUS Extreme is installed. I've never had that problem with any other GUS card so it …

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-07-16, 14:52

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Filename IMG_20220716_174852_(2250_x_3000_pixel).jpg File size 526.67 KiB Views 832 views Finally the combined 1.8" HDD + CF + McCake drive is ready! More details later.

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Re: ARGUS Project thread - now accepting pre-orders (for north/south American and Europe)

Posted on 2022-06-29, 09:33

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm almost done soldering mine but I have a question about x1 and x2. Is x2 mic in and x1 line in? So same order as real GUS PnP? I have color connectors so I want to be sure before testing it.

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-06-26, 18:11

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I recapped the motherboard with Kemet polymer capacitors, well the 10µF caps are polymers but there were two 1µF capacitors (on some earlier post I wrote one 1µF but there were two) and there was also one 4.7µF capacitor between ISA slots. For the 1µF and 4.7µF I just used electrolytics that I …

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-06-26, 17:30

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Now what? I was also planning to use OPL3 on a PIII 800, means I cannot do it? Most games have the necessary waits between data port writes so it will work correctly. But with P3 you are going to need slowdown anyways because of other speed related issues. The OPL speed issue seems to matter most …

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Re: Wonders of 486 DX4, Treasures inside

Posted on 2022-06-26, 17:25

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

So I got the same result on both cards. This leads me to believe that what you're experiencing might not be just an OPL3 issue, though that could be a part of it. It's also possible that Creative's OPL3 cards are more speed sensitive than OPTi's solution. Or maybe P166 MMX is too fast even for CQM. …

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Re: GUS Classic and AWE32 daisy chain order

Posted on 2022-06-24, 06:49

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I highly recommend to connect SB to GUS (any model) Line-In and not the other way. Much less likely to have issues. Games mess with SB mixer volumes, some SB models have very low quality Line-In etc. BTW, GUS classic rev 3.4 does not have a mixer (later has) and that makes rev 3.4 the best classic. …

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