Re: Ide to compactflash, faster than a hard drive?
Posted on 2017-06-12, 05:37
The lack of a cache has to show somewhere. At the top end of the market, 160+ MB/s rated cards, I do think flash cards finally beat PATA drives at everything.
Re: Windows 98 on CF?
Posted on 2017-06-12, 03:30
CF is fantastic for DOS machines that routinely peak at a couple megabyte throughput, but they have pretty weak performance in many PCI Win9x scenarios.
Re: What would an AWE32 CT3900 be worth?
Posted on 2017-06-12, 02:54
You get ripped off at anything under $50, but the occasionally seen $90-$100 range is a bit greedy even with eBay and business expenses included, in my opinion. An auction wouldn't go that high. It's the nicest non-PnP model. They have a couple different CT1745A versions - the one with -S is the …
Re: If you are forced to stick with just one sound card
Posted on 2017-06-11, 16:42
carlostex wrote: firage wrote: (...)so the output being out of tune(...) It is not out of tune, just tuned differently, in this case it is slightly flatter. A matter of perspective. The FM synth is potentially just one instrument among others.
Re: Voodoo Banshee + Tomb Raider DOS
Posted on 2017-06-09, 14:04
I couldn't get Tomb Raider (1) to work with my Voodoo2 card either, no matter what environment variables I put in, restart in DOS mode, nothing I put in CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, or DOSSTART.BAT helped. It only worked in software rendering mode. Have you tried it with the Voodoo Rush patch? Should …
Re: What determines if a piece of hardware shall be sought after some 20 years later
Posted on 2017-06-09, 12:23
Yeah, I believe Windows 7 is the major factor in recent times. The stuff that gets you the best compatibility, quality and performance on that platform is going to build value in the future without a doubt. In general it's proprietary gear: consoles, tablets, phones, VR headsets, if they don't get …
Re: Retro HWs got recently costing 100 USD...
Posted on 2017-06-09, 03:20
Yeah, forwarding that stuff from over there is going to double the price pretty quickly. They're really not worth a fortune, yet anyway. I can't quite read the mixer chip, but looks like one of the newer revisions that also went on early AWE64's. The DAC related chip there is more important to SNR, …
Re: Retro HWs got recently costing 100 USD...
Posted on 2017-06-09, 02:12
Oh, congrats on finding a CT2950 with an OPL. I've only ever seen one in a photo and never for sale.
Re: If you are forced to stick with just one sound card
Posted on 2017-06-08, 23:23
I doubt tuning the OPL to 439 Hz is an artistic choice. :D Anyway, so the output being out of tune is just the easily verifiable part, the other part is aliasing artifacts. As insignificant as it is, there does seem to be *something* there that people can hear, and some people even claim to be …
Re: Advice on an early 2000s gaming rig
Posted on 2017-06-07, 19:05
It all depends on how well you can define the titles you want to run to their best quality. Why invest into a Voodoo3 machine if you can do these games better with a Voodoo5 (smoother performance, better filtering quality, etc.). On the other hand, why pay a premium for a V5 when a similar …
Re: Advice on an early 2000s gaming rig
Posted on 2017-06-07, 05:57
It all depends on how well you can define the titles you want to run to their best quality. Why invest into a Voodoo3 machine if you can do these games better with a Voodoo5 (smoother performance, better filtering quality, etc.). The end of the Win9x era coincides with the end of A3D and Glide, so …
Re: How much ram did the average p166 have, and any point going from 32 to 40?
Posted on 2017-06-06, 21:22
32MB was nice for up to a P200 in 1997. The upgrade to 64MB got really necessary a couple years later with 98SE and the graphically lighter new games that still ran on the system. I wouldn't bother adding tiny modules, not worth the hit in stability.
Re: Advice on an early 2000s gaming rig
Posted on 2017-06-06, 04:50
I think you'll want to go a full step beyond the PII, which to me means a late PIII or an Athlon, maybe a Thunderbird. My Voodoo5 setup is a 1.4GHz Tualatin PIII. The top end of the 3dfx range certainly extends to 2000, beyond that is GeForce3/4/FX territory.
Re: If you are forced to stick with just one sound card
Posted on 2017-06-05, 18:58
Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out when I have the system running again. Getting into further minor details, YMF289 and Yamaha YMF7xx OPL cores have a different sample rate from the original YMF262 and CT1747 OPL3 implementation, which may be causing imperfections in their output. James-F looked …
Re: If you are forced to stick with just one sound card
Posted on 2017-06-05, 06:29
As I recall, SC2 looks for other sound cards at their default addresses despite the manual parameter, and would just hang with the GUS and Roland SCC-1 installed at the same time.
Re: If you are forced to stick with just one sound card
Posted on 2017-06-05, 00:18
There are no AWE32's with OPL's that are also free of clicks and pops in single-cycle DMA (and later stuff improves on their SNR, too), and even the best SB16 chipsets still get some faint ringing that only got fixed with the AWE64. The SB32 CT3930 might be a somewhat interesting cut down option, …
Re: 440BX vs 815EP chipset
Posted on 2017-06-02, 14:57
All chipsets have support for ISA, even modern ones like Z97/X99 do. They just don't have the slots on it because people would rather have PCI/PCI-E than ISA. ISA is still used for things like thermocouples and other system utilities as it's incredibly easy to implement, and is still fairly fast …
Re: Recapping a MT-32 and a LAPC-I card
Posted on 2017-06-02, 14:31
Really, an LAPC-I? I don't think people have had much reason to mess with those cards yet. There was this thread: Faulty LAPC-I
Re: 440BX vs 815EP chipset
Posted on 2017-06-02, 14:02
The difference for me is that ISA is very rare with 815 boards. They may exist, in theory, but not a lot of room for choice out there. I don't think it does have support natively.
Re: SB Pro compatible vs SB Pro/16 compatible
Posted on 2017-05-31, 19:18
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/dune/techinfo http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/dune-ii-the-building-of-a-dynasty/techinfo http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/eye-of-the-beholder/techinfo http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/eye-of-the-beholder-ii-the-legend-of-darkmoon/techinfo Besides lists of box …
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