Re: Audigy front panel bays - general questions

Posted on 2017-02-15, 23:05

by

by firage

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Good to know it works - for some reason, there are warnings and reports of mixed success with IDE cables. Shouldn't be a problem as the header pinouts match 1-for-1 at both ends, as long the IDE cable has all the pins available (nothing blocked). I guess the key thing is to get the orientation right …

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Re: Audigy front panel bays - general questions

Posted on 2017-02-14, 20:05

by

by firage

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The large channel counts are limited to digital I/O only, as far as I know, which means they require separate analog units. For example, RME only offers four analog input or output channels per PCIe card, so four cards (if they even support stacking that many) to match one half-rack interface. They …

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Re: Audigy front panel bays - general questions

Posted on 2017-02-14, 16:26

by

by firage

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Professional audio interfaces are external mostly because they need a lot of room for inputs and outputs, and/or compatibility with laptop computers is a big selling point. People's fear of EMI is a minor factor. USB is typically still feeding external boxes dirty power, which is probably the …

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Re: System to play the widest range of 90s games?

Posted on 2017-02-13, 22:12

by

by firage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AMD Super Socket 7 and VIA C3 based systems are hands down the champions when it comes to adapting to all the various speed grades throughout the 90's. Otherwise you have to pick narrower sections to specialize in; in particular, it becomes difficult with later Intel stuff to hit the 486 and Pentium …

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Re: Audigy front panel bays - general questions

Posted on 2017-02-13, 04:09

by

by firage

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I would bet there is very possibly a regular Audigy Drive inside that external casing, because I have one of these black faceplates and they're interchangeable. The screws appear to be in the right spots, too. Regardless, it'll definitely be easier to find an Audigy Drive bundled with its internal …

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Re: Audigy front panel bays - general questions

Posted on 2017-02-11, 20:30

by

by firage

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

You probably mean the external Audigy Drive that came with the Audigy Platinum eX ? http://ask.creative.com/wwimages/general/product_guides/Audigy_PLT_EX_drive.jpg I have wondered what they look like inside. Could just be an Audigy Drive with very little added on at the rear. It came with a fairly …

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Re: 98SE Kernel32 Woes.

Posted on 2017-02-06, 14:59

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by firage

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Kernel errors don't give a lot to go on. It could be hardware issues with memory, CPU or motherboard, it could be a faulty PSU causing instability in them, or just a driver error. Your 133 MHz bus configuration is higher than board defaults, and it runs AGP also above spec at 89 MHz, either of which …

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Re: Hard disk running hours, anyone beating this?

Posted on 2017-02-06, 09:04

by

by firage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

44071 power-on hours with a power-on cycle count of 209 on my current main disk, a Samsung HD103SJ. Pretty good, but I think my previous drive had more.

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Re: Do all old 4x speed CD-ROM drives sound like this?

Posted on 2017-02-03, 08:37

by

by firage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some of them will be noisier than others, but I don't think that kind of resonance should be there at 4X. If the drive is original to the machine, it's more likely to be a 16X-24X.

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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 - big bucks performance???

Posted on 2017-02-01, 20:11

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by firage

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

With 3dfx you get access to the Glide side of things; those 1997-1998 titles are still quite relevant for that class of CPU. Not worth it at all for later D3D and OpenGL stuff. The Kyro II/GeForce2 you have has much more performance potential, though fair bit unrealized paired with the 450MHz PIII. …

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Re: Command & Conquer Gold won't run on Win95

Posted on 2017-02-01, 17:02

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by firage

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

So, to start with, in general: test for flaky hardware/drivers/configuration with a handful of other games, maybe try different video drivers, update the game with period correct patches. Some more or less likely relevant points in the readme: 2.4.4. The game starts but I only see a black screen. …

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Re: Powerful passive AGP card. Which to choose? Also CPU tip.

Posted on 2017-01-29, 17:53

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by firage

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I remember Half-Life 2 was a pack-in with Radeon 9600 XT. That and Doom 3 are going to push a passive 98SE compatible card pretty hard. I would guess something like a Radeon X700 Pro or GeForce 6600 would be close to the top. Out of those listed, the 6200 is the way to go. I guess you could go newer …

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

Posted on 2017-01-29, 15:36

by

by firage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Put an aftermarket cooler on my new-in-box Gainward GeForce FX 5950 Ultra. http://i.imgur.com/3oo3bXxm.jpg Says 5950 Ultra on the back. http://i.imgur.com/hXIPmrCm.jpg 5900 Ultra components on the front. The operation went fine, but for some reason I now hear Jeremy Clarkson's voice whenever I look …

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Re: DaemonTools No CD Audio

Posted on 2017-01-29, 06:49

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by firage

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

98SE, I presume? If installing WDM drivers for your sound card is an option, that would allow you to enable digital audio extraction without analog cables or any kind of analog emulation by Daemon Tools. If it's a game specific problem, make sure you're using the lowest optical drive letter and that …

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Re: List of roland mt-32 compatible hardware?

Posted on 2017-01-28, 15:45

by

by firage

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Don't forget the ISA card, LAPC-I.

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Re: Compatibility issue Arctic Cooling NV Silencer

Posted on 2017-01-28, 15:21

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by firage

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The two coolers don't look like they fit the same cards, but the GeForce4 may be compatible with both with its extra mounting holes. The GFFX 5700 comes in a variety of different configurations it looks like, and the PCIe cards have extra holes similar to the above pic of a GF4.

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Re: What is retro collecting for you?

Posted on 2017-01-28, 11:04

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by firage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't think I'm a traditional collector. My main motivation in building a bit of a game collection is purely in proper digital archival and preservation; the physical crap is clutter that I put up with. On the hardware side the fun is in tinkering, I just really try to keep it somewhat focused. …

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Re: Question about 90s laptops

Posted on 2017-01-28, 05:30

by

by firage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, floppies were slow to phase out until XP, Me and 2K killed DOS. Burners didn't really break through in new desktop machines until 2000. CD-RW's were just a pain, because usable standards like Mt. Rainier didn't have hardware support early and only got native OS support with Vista.

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Re: Best Drivers for GeForce4 MX-440

Posted on 2017-01-25, 04:17

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by firage

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

It's a GeForce2 with a modernized memory architecture and post processing, running at higher clocks, cut down to limit the resulting leap in power. MX440/MX440-8X/MX460 have a few less backward compatibility issues than faster cards; they can do manual texel alignment adjustments, which are missing …

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Re: Good quality / Inexpensive Joystick?

Posted on 2017-01-24, 05:08

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by firage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have to say about CH, and it applies to other controllers too, just the fact that something comes highly recommended doesn't mean it's perfect. People have different needs/preferences. CH has some ergonomics challenges, and the way the base is split in two axes makes for variable resistance …

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