Re: SC-55 revisions

Posted on 2017-10-18, 07:56

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For DOS gaming the most compatible without any tweaking are the GS (non-Standard) modules with serial #s starting with BD, CD or DD. These units are 1.20 or 1.21 firmware which have capital tone fallback as well as Breathe Noise.

---

Re: PC Speaker too QUIET :-O

Posted on 2017-10-12, 18:37

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Jade Falcon wrote: This, I made a few amps myself. its not that hard if you know what your doing or have a kit/plans. okenido wrote: check the motherboard output level I don't know what sort of tool(s) I'd need to to even start by checking that. I'm not even sure what to google for the amp route!

---

Re: LCD Monitors with Aspect Ratio

Posted on 2017-10-11, 08:40

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Yeah I wish it wasn't so expensive. I personally run my main system on it at 1920x1080 as 2K is too much for my 760 GTX. The reason for going 2K was to have access to 1600x1200.

---

Re: PC Speaker too QUIET :-O

Posted on 2017-10-10, 19:34

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You could use a small $10 amplifier card (more Watts), or get a more efficient speaker (which means more SPL for the same power delivered by the motehrboard) Haven't found either of these -- then again I may not know what I am looking for. All of the speaker cones wired for motherboard input that I …

---

Re: LCD Monitors with Aspect Ratio

Posted on 2017-10-10, 19:32

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

BenQ LCDs offer the best in terms of scalers and aspect ratios. This 2K monitor can do 5:4, 4:3 and 1:1, has VGA and goes up to 144hz. The different aspect ratios or settings can be bound to a single button for quick changing too. BenQ XL2730 (1440p) -- The perfect retro gaming LCD

---

Re: Fix a Scratched Tandy CM-11?

Posted on 2017-10-03, 21:06

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

When I googled CRT scratches all the results said the same thing -- anything you do will make it worse. They all made reference to polishing removing the anti-glare coating though which I was hoping was something that these 1980s monitors didn't have. I'm surprised these coatings can't be acquired …

---

Re: Any ideas how to troubleshoot Tandy 1000SL, no sound?

Posted on 2017-10-03, 06:19

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the SL have a little dial on the motherboard for volume like the SX?

---

Re: Tips for buying a CRT monitor for a mid-90s Pentium machine

Posted on 2017-10-03, 05:03

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try to buy local -- check craigslist and LetGo - it seems rare that CRT monitors are shipped well.

---

Fix a Scratched Tandy CM-11?

Posted on 2017-10-02, 21:33

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just bought a 1000 that included a CM-11 monitor but unfortunately it arrived with what looks to be a pretty nasty scratch on the screen. The only thing I can think of is that it was scratched by the RGB connector because the cables were not tied down or covered separately -- everything was bubble …

---

Re: PC Speaker too QUIET :-O

Posted on 2017-10-01, 23:01

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was able to route the PC Speaker to the AWE64 and have it come through my studio monitors. It's just not as good though 🙁 I guess I shouldn't be surprised a Slot 1 era motherboard doesn't properly support one of these classic IBM speaker cones.

---

Re: Measuring Performance in Ultima VII : The Black Gate

Posted on 2017-09-30, 23:23

by

by infiniteclouds

in Milliways

in Milliways

I don't know if anyone ever actually ran your Ultima 7 benchmark on a real 486DX-33 but to get 25 FPS in Ultima 7 on the Ezra I had to use... 66x3, ICD. In contrast, System Information gives it a rating of 45.5 (compared to a 486DX-33 which is 71.2) , SpeedSys gives 21.50 at this speed and Doom has …

---

Re: Let's benchmark our systems with caches disabled

Posted on 2017-09-30, 23:23

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've added my results for my Ezra - 714 combinations. I put them in a separate tab but you might want to change the formatting or whatever. I believe there is some sort of pattern between all Socket 7 through 370 PCPBench results and actual speed in games that seems pretty consistent. I think in …

---

Re: PC Speaker too QUIET :-O

Posted on 2017-09-30, 02:40

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Might be that your speaker header output on the mobo likes 32 ohm or larger speaker impedences rather than 8 ohms. That seems unusual, no? Does your sound card have a PC speaker header on it? I've noticed a few of mine do, though I've never tried them. May be worth trying if you aren't getting the …

---

PC Speaker too QUIET :-O

Posted on 2017-09-29, 22:47

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

s-l1600.jpg I had bought this guy off E-bay since the Dell XPS case I'm using has no PC Speaker cone and the one from my LianLi case has different connectors -- plus I wanted to keep it with that case. To my surprise, the volume was really quiet! I thought it must be because it is 0.25w so I went …

---

Re: Questions for Tandy owners..

Posted on 2017-09-29, 20:43

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

When the games supported the Tandy mode, it was great. When they didn't, you got that crap 4 color CGA (yes I know some people like it, I'm not one of them lol). 3 voice sound, while not as good as Soundblaster or Adlib, was much better than beeps and boops of PC speaker. So yeah I would say for …

---

Re: Asrock 939Dual-VSTA Late DOS/9x/XP Machine

Posted on 2017-09-26, 08:50

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The issues with Build Engine are apparently related to the GPU -- not the Athlon 64. After going from a FX5900 Ultra to a G4Ti4200 and having the same issues, I dropped to a Geforce 3. The results were quite interesting... and there is still quite a bit of lies/deception when it comes to the ingame …

---

Visiontek Geforce 3 AGP Compatibility

Posted on 2017-09-25, 22:07

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

So the card itself has a 3.3/1.5 v universal edge but does this mean it is safe to use in any AGP slot? I'm wondering because the the motherboard in question has a warning written right on the PCB not to use 3.3V cards. Thanks!

---

Re: Asrock 939Dual-VSTA Late DOS/9x/XP Machine

Posted on 2017-09-22, 23:01

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That was the issue. WC was enabled by default when dropping from Windows 98... but disabled when completely rebooting into DOS. I still haven't figured out the two COMMAND.COM issue that has plagued me on every machine I've installed Win98SE onto it. Not sure why Windows adds that no matter what I …

---

Re: Help with Plans to cover ~1983-2007 games with 3 retro builds

Posted on 2017-09-22, 22:47

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Games like Lode Runner, early Ultimas (I-V), and early Might & Magics (I-II) are still too fast at the slowest K6 speeds. I'm sure there are more, but those are ones I have experienced. If I play these on my 486, disable caches and turbo (getting down to 286 speeds), then they run okay. edit: just …

---

Re: Help with Plans to cover ~1983-2007 games with 3 retro builds

Posted on 2017-09-22, 21:50

by

by infiniteclouds

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Phil has demonstrated that TDIII actually runs quite well on a K6 that is downclocked and has all 3 caches disabled. What are some real world examples of 8088 games not running correctly when using slowdown utilities? Sound problems seem to be the #1 issue with slowdown utilities in my experience …

---