Re: age of empires 2 bad performance on pentium iii

Posted on 2021-04-07, 04:29

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

The HD version I am talking about is the original release that the people of Voobly.com added higher resolution to while playing online (still 2d sprites just higher resolutions).

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Re: age of empires 2 bad performance on pentium iii

Posted on 2021-04-07, 02:38

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I play Age of Empires 2 Conquerors all the time online with 8 players at 1080P but I use a Q9550 and GTS250 . If the game stutters only late game I would think all those AI and full population (do you have 200 pop?) are just hogging the CPU too much.

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Re: Why is Amiga so popular with retro community ?

Posted on 2021-03-23, 23:55

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Amiga was great when PCs had Tandy sound or PC speaker and CGA. The best selling Amiga model was the A500 with a 68000 that came with 512K RAM and no HD. To get the most out of it you needed the extra trapdoor 512K RAM and a second floppy drive. External HDs were small and pricey back in the day …

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Re: VLB EIDE controller hard drive c0mpatiblity

Posted on 2021-03-17, 21:04

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think most people got used to setting IDE drives to cable select and old gear wants drives jumpered for either master or slave. Try using a different cable.

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Re: Recommendations on soldering services?

Posted on 2021-03-17, 20:57

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A desoldering gun with vacuum is worth it if you have a decent sized collection that needs worked on now or will need worked on later. Also non lead solder is a pain to work on. I think the people with the skill and equipment to repair boards are probably buying up all the vintage gear they can and …

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Re: Have anyone actually gotten hardware damaged due to using old PSUs?

Posted on 2021-03-17, 20:31

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Many years ago I ran a dual Opteron rig with a HD4870x2 card. The Power supply was some no name gamer model purchased from Compgeeks and was supposed to be 800W+. The GPU needed 1x6 pin and 1x8 pin power connectors but the PS only had 2x6 pin so I purchased a 6 to 8 pin adapter. System was running …

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Re: Understanding what usefulness of PII 400 or 450 vs PIII 800?

Posted on 2021-03-10, 23:20

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

To me the major difference is Slot-1 to socket 370 motherboards and what is available cheaper.

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Re: Retro Hardware Collecting rants

Posted on 2021-03-10, 23:17

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I seen some interesting cards and motherboards from Russia but I never bothered to order any since shipping would seem to take forever and I worry about international scammers.

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Re: the signs that a forum is dying

Posted on 2021-03-10, 23:16

by

by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

Facebook didn't kill off that many forums, but it did kill off quite a few email mailing list groups (and yahoo groups). The ability to post a zillion pictures and the fact that everybody is on Facebook changed quite a few groups. I find it harder to follow Facebook groups then a decent forum or …

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Re: Good value PC for Win98 - evading the RETRO TAX

Posted on 2021-03-05, 17:44

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I agree about P4 systems being the cheapest way to go.

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Re: Frys electronics is Closing.

Posted on 2021-02-24, 22:13

by

by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

None around here but I do recall people complaining returns were just chucked back on the shelf to sell again as new.

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Re: If you have multiple PCs set up, how do you handle your sound output?

Posted on 2021-02-11, 03:49

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Belkin SOHO line of KVM switches with audio and mic switching work for me (DVI based and VGA).

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Re: If we were to accept 15 years ago as retro....

Posted on 2021-02-11, 01:33

by

by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

Just look at how much progress was made between 2000 and 2005 (Quake III Arena / Quake 4) and how much in any 5 years interval since then. This is a really interesting concept. Most games from 2011 still look good and there's really nothing to complain about the controls. Think about games from …

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Re: If we were to accept 15 years ago as retro....

Posted on 2021-02-11, 01:23

by

by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

For me I think of retro as not used or supported anymore. You can lump anything that has [...] standalone sound cards. To this day I don't consider a PC complete without a dedicated sound card. My daily driver has an ASUS Xonar DGX and I built it out of brand new parts about 2 years ago. Built in …

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Re: Voodoo 1 vs Voodoo 2 in a Pentium 200 (non mmx), worth it?

Posted on 2021-02-11, 01:10

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would think a P2/P3 would be better for a Voodoo 2. I run my SLI V2 on a P3-500 system. I also have a V1 on a Pentium (233 I believe) system.

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Re: If we were to accept 15 years ago as retro....

Posted on 2021-02-09, 00:43

by

by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

Soon to be vintage: - optical disk drives. Given how many I've acquired for free because they were already in the case I bought, they're definitely in the obsolete phase (not to me with a large DVD collection) but not yet in the 'this is my ticket to riches, I'll list it on eBay for low three …

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Re: If we were to accept 15 years ago as retro....

Posted on 2021-02-09, 00:42

by

by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

For me I think of retro as not used or supported anymore. You can lump anything that has pre DDR ram, isa/eisa/vlb/PCI/MCA slots, only 1 core CPU, DOS/Win3/Win9x/Win2k, standalone sound cards. There were major shifts in software going from DOS to Windows 3 then Win9x and NT/2k/XP and from 32 to 64 …

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Re: Intel smashes Ryzen

Posted on 2021-01-16, 07:14

by

by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

It takes years to get new fabs in operation and TSMC is probably just getting more production down the road for their current major customers (AMD and Apple). I would bet that is AMD could get 3x the CPU's made they would sell them all, same with GPU's. So much silicon going into consoles.

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Re: When did you purchase your first 386 / 486 Computer? Availability vs the early 90's affordability norm.

Posted on 2021-01-01, 21:06

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I sold my 286-12 Packard Bell and put together a 386DX/40 sometime in 1992 and put a 387 coprocessor and upgraded the RAM to 16MB in 1993 I think.

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2020-12-25, 19:32

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Where I live those desktop power strips are unheard of and I am constantly amazed they are not actually kvms. Iv inherited one from my grandfather and my 2nd one was found at Goodwill for $5. I absolutely love these power strips. I have one in use since it was new. The lights do burn out over time …

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