Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-03-16, 07:05

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My retail floppy of Sid Meier's Civilization for Windows 3.1 had a disk fail sometime around 1994 or 1995. My retail floppy set of Inherit the Earth also had a disk that was always faulty, either from the factory or sometime later (I don't recall if I bought it used or new). I have also encountered …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-16, 04:30

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pretty sure the pixel shader functions for non DX8 cards were used mostly by tech demos and not much else, with no rigid standard before DX8 there was no common frame work to use them so IIRC they were only used infrequently. Not sure any games used only pixel shaders and not vertex shaders too …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-03-16, 04:26

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ugh... I've been going through a huge box of 3.5" floppies some guy gave me 5-6 years ago. I had it in storage and recently pulled it out to finally just go through it and throw away anything that wasn't worth saving. Are you sure that you haven't accumulated destructive dust and detritus on the …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-03-16, 02:37

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unless you're moving VERY large files, there should be no noticable performance gain upgrading from a SATA SSD to an NVMe. The primary cause of spinning hard disks being slow was now the throughput but the latency. I also use SATA with almost everything. I use a single NVMe drive for a dedicated …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-03-15, 23:25

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's impressive when run natively. Keep in mind that any modern web browser can run on Unix, Windows 9x, and NT, if you cheat by forwarding a remote client with an X Windows Server. Something to look into, especially if you're running a Unix system. It also makes downloading files MUCH easier, as …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-15, 23:23

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a couple of GeForce 2 MXs. Despite then being the bottom of the barrel performance-wise for the generation, these are actually excellent cards. They have fantastic OpenGL and DirectX support, performance is greatly improved over the former TNT2 models, and they will generally "just work". …

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Re: Have you opened your SC-55 to check the battery inside?

Posted on 2023-03-15, 23:11

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Are the bigger caps glued to the mainboard? my SC55 battery has leaked, I will not put another one in and use some alcohol to clean it. hopefully this will not cause any damage. You need to use vinegar to neutralize the acid. Then follow it up with alcohol to remove the vinegar. The alcohol is …

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-15, 14:54

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

How does external MIDI connect to the Orpheus II?

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-15, 14:41

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I can confirm that Windows 98 with multiple sound cards is a struggle. Thanks for your help, keropi.

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-15, 14:16

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm not certain yet. I'm in the process of moving to a new apartment, so I won't be able to spend much time on it for a while.

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-15, 14:05

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Thanks for the update. It's great to get this kind of feedback, even if things don't work quite right, and especially when everything is solved later. I'm looking forward to getting my Orpheus II in the mail very soon.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-15, 13:48

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember reading reviews about this card. It was big, hot, and didn't really provide that much of an uplift for the trouble. SLI/CrossFire also have the side effect of producing poor 99th percentile frames and micro stuttering. I remember this being highlighted about this card. I don't think that …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-15, 10:38

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I agree. Very solid cards for Windows 98. There is the caveat that some DirectX 5 titles start to have problems after the TNT2 series, Incoming, for example, but there are very few of these kinds of exceptions.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-15, 09:20

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a couple of GeForce 2 MXs. Despite then being the bottom of the barrel performance-wise for the generation, these are actually excellent cards. They have fantastic OpenGL and DirectX support, performance is greatly improved over the former TNT2 models, and they will generally "just work". …

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-15, 02:38

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Will the Ultrasound MIDI not work at all in a DOS window due to protected mode, or will it work with some games?

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-14, 23:55

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I understand now. That is odd.

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-14, 23:47

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Then it may be correct. Perhaps a GUS is on its own separate resources and emulates Sound Blaster compatibility; or in the case or Orpheus, gets that from the Crystal chip instead.

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-14, 23:36

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Thar doesn't seem right. It should be IRQ 5, 7 and DMA 1 and 5. It's very common for Windows to assign sound devices resources that are out of range or not compatible with DOS games. When in doubt, lookup the default resource layout for a Sound Blaster 16: https://retronn.de/imports/soundblaster_ …

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-03-14, 23:06

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That's usually a sign that the IRQ and DMA isn't setup right for the card in Device Manager.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-03-14, 17:48

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are usually additional supporting capacitors and resistors that are missing in addition to these onboard sound chips. And there's no telling what the values are for any of these other components.

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