Re: Which is better? Vibra 16S or ESS AudioDrive ES1868F?

Posted on 2013-01-19, 23:02

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I agree with Maulwurf on his point that there are better alternatives.. but.. if you have just the two mentioned above available, I would say: It depends on what you wanna do with the card. Let's compare the specs: 1. SB 16 Vibra16S (as of CT2890): - Adlib, SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster 16 and …

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Re: Help needed: identify an ISA sound card

Posted on 2013-01-06, 22:37

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

vetz wrote: Please reduce image size when embedding images in the post. Even on 1920x1200 I have to scroll sideways. Edit: Nvm, fixed now 😀 Hehe, yes, my bad. I fixed it within 20 secs after the original post. You came just at the right time 😜

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Re: Help needed: identify an ISA sound card

Posted on 2013-01-06, 22:30

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting card, seems to be a very odd one. May I post my best possible guess regarding the chips? Here we go: http://www.amoretro.de/8bitISAsoundcard.JPG I think it is a strange mixed SB Clone with SB-Pro (1.0) FM-compatibility. Therefore the 2 Big IC's are OPL2 Clones and the 2 small 8-pin IC's …

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Re: VLB vs PCI

Posted on 2012-10-30, 22:25

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

did you clean the VLB-contacts? I know from first hand experience that this area is very prone to collect dirt that, although it might not be visible, makes the surface less conducting. give it a try 😀

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Re: VLB vs PCI

Posted on 2012-10-28, 21:45

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

VLB was intended for the 486 architecture as a local bus. The later adoptions to 386 CPUs on 386/486 combo boards* (OPTi 495slc/slx based) and Socket 4 and Socket 5 boards (OPTi Premium and OPTi Python based) were slow (really slow), no match for the VLB on a 486. *there are some rare boards that …

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Re: Help identifying old video card

Posted on 2012-10-28, 07:55

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That was nothing unusual back in these days. ATi did this with their Rage cards on a PCB module as well and before that, other manufacturers used DIP/DIL modules to upgrade the RAM. But even some soundcards or controller cards could be upgraded with (common) Simm, PS/2 or Dimm RAM.

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Re: VLB vs PCI

Posted on 2012-10-27, 20:50

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That may be true. Although the S3 928 is a single chip it can use either DRAM or VRAM configurations. When using 3dbench for example it made no difference at all if there is DRAM available or not. Maybe it will adress the DRAM in DOS when available and switch to VRAM in windows. Maybe not, just an …

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Re: Turtle beach Rio midi daughterboard

Posted on 2012-10-27, 20:26

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you very much, gerwin! I still don't know how to exactly setup the values for either chorus or reverb but I think I will find out.

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Re: VLB vs PCI

Posted on 2012-10-27, 20:06

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmm it don't know why the offer was hard to track. I ship worldwide so my items should be listed around the globe. Regarding your question: IIRC speedsys and univbe both see 3 megs of RAM but maybe only the 1MB DRAM is used in DOS. But I really can't tell you. But you can try out resolution tests …

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Re: Help identifying old video card

Posted on 2012-10-27, 16:09

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, it is the first generation Millenium card. Compare it with the 2nd Generation here: http://www.amoretro.de/2011/12/matrox-millenium-ii.html You will notice that the 2nd generation chip has a ball grid array.

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Re: VLB vs PCI

Posted on 2012-10-27, 14:34

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your diamond card is very ok for a VL card. 2MB, Trio64 with 135MHz RAMDAC installed gives you decent speed and compatibility in both DOS and Windows. And when connected to a TFT a 135MHz RAMDAC is sufficiant for most scenarios. Otherwise I would recommend fast S3 cards like: S3 928, S3 Vision 86x …

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Re: VLB vs PCI

Posted on 2012-10-27, 08:28

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

depends. i'm a commercial seller myself (ebay: amoretro) and shipping worldwide is from 12,60 euros up to 2 kilos with tracking and insurance or 17,00 euros for up to 5 kilos. small things up to 0,5 kilos are just 7,60 euros with tracking and insurace. aah, 1 kilogram = 2,2 lbs (british pound)

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Re: VLB vs PCI

Posted on 2012-10-26, 22:07

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

benchmarks like 3dbench and pcpbench are very common to compare cpu + graphics performance. when you compare high end 486 vlb systems with pci systems there are only very minor differences when both buses are running @ 33mhz using common graphics cards from the 1993-1995 era (s3 porsche, s3 vision, …

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Re: Turtle beach Rio midi daughterboard

Posted on 2012-10-26, 18:15

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Would you mind sharing these sysex values? It will be a simple task to make a batch calling gsplay sending the sysex to the corresponding MPU-401 interface. Thanks in advance, Fabian

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Re: Turtle beach Rio midi daughterboard

Posted on 2012-10-25, 23:30

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Gerwin, Today I got a RIO DB (Rev. 2.0 manually upped to Rev. 3.0) on a Turtle Beach TAHITI host card, the bundle is called and was sold as MONTEREY. What I found out is that the DB requires a host card with MIDI-IN connected on the waveblaster header. The TAHITI has this feature and therefore …

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Re: Problem with ProLitePatches116 for GUS

Posted on 2012-09-12, 10:46

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Would you please provide some information about the system the card is put in? E.g. CPU & Speed And which card do you use? A Classic, MAX, PnP, Extreme or a GUS clone?

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Re: 286 - The trials and tribulations!

Posted on 2012-07-28, 12:51

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Maybe I overread something but I have a 286 Motherboard (HT12 based) and need an UMB driver to enable UMBs to save conventionel memory. Does anyone has a this driver or a link to download? Thanks in advance, Fabian P.S: Btw this is the mobo I am talking about: http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/ …

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Re: SB16 vs DBs (hanging / stuck / wrong notes in MIDI)

Posted on 2012-07-28, 09:19

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have a very silent SB16, the CT2890. It has the CT1705-DCQ and CT2504-TCQ along with an original OPL3. The DSP Version is 4.13: http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/creative_sound_blaster_16_vibra_16s_pnp_ct2890-600x371.jpg Bigger pic: http://www.amoretro.de/2012/05/creative-sound-blaster- …

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Re: PC-Chips M918 / Amptron dx-9300

Posted on 2012-07-28, 07:54

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BTW it seems happy with 160Mhz so far...I tried the 50Mhz bus setting - didn't seem to like it.... Didn't even try to boot off HDD froze up. From all of my tests with FinALi based mobos, 40MHz is very much the maximum to get out of this chipset. When you try 50MHz, make sure you set the PCI Divider …

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Re: Yamaha db50xg...

Posted on 2012-07-27, 18:37

by

by FGB

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It works well with SoundBlasters as long as you don't use it simultanous together with digital sound effects or you use a noisy card like CT1740 or CT1750 with a non buggy DSP ;) I would recommend a quiet card for the DB50XG. The Yamaha YMF-719 based cards come to my mind as well as Crystal based …

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