Re: Vortex2 Phoenix Project

Posted on 2015-06-21, 01:18

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

There are a *lot* of OPL3 implementations / clones, but I am curious as to how well the Vortex2 emulates OPL3 (like all OPL3 clones, it will have inaccuracies with interpreting custom parameters such as vibrato and ADSR), but that's what makes clones interesting to me. I may hunt down a variant of …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-06-21, 00:58

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Made an offer for a CT1330 and it was accepted: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Tested-CT1330A-Rev-3-Sound-Blaster-Pro-ISA-Sound-Card-16-bit-/201369237723?euid=29eb6fc6973f4370a44ac195c6e2ebcf&cp=1&nma=true&si=CFkAemjnwa3RG2nOkxQaxvfnLNM%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 (for some …

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Re: Quiet 60mm Heatsink Fans?

Posted on 2015-06-21, 00:43

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That e-machines mobo has some TEAPO capacitors and what looks to be like G-Luxon or something. Amazingly the VRM caps are sanyo. Because the low quality capacitors are in lesser critical areas, it'll probably work for awhile (assuming the sanyos are not fakes).

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Re: Toshiba has dropped online support for old Libretto laptops :(

Posted on 2015-06-19, 13:33

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Always archive vintage files from machines that you commonly use / are interested in. Vintage files like that won't stay on the internet forever, especially if you want to jump forward 20 years from now-- how even more scarce a lot of this will become. I've already performed a mass archive of many …

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Re: Packard bell legend 620 problems

Posted on 2015-06-19, 13:25

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are the VRM electronics okay? When a board doesn't POST or provide beep codes, something isn't getting power (i.e. failed VRM) or there's a dead IC-- and of course the third option of a bad BIOS. Assuming that the CPU is functional. Also you could see if there's a way to dump information from the …

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Re: Sound Blaster Re-Capping

Posted on 2015-06-18, 13:28

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The only exception to this is bi-polar caps. I always see them on modems, but never on sound cards. I read over at Badcaps that all bi-polar caps eventually polarize, but I'm not sure how that works exactly. That being said, if you have a BP cap on yuor sound card, you should replace it with a BP …

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Re: Intel PR440FX Dual Pentium Pro 200

Posted on 2015-06-18, 13:21

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Its time for a update and upgrade! I have decided to upgrade this system with my "new" 512KB cache Pentium Pro CPUs. I will also add 384 MB more memory, change the video card from a S3 Virge to a Matrox Mystique with the Rainbow Runner addon and upgrade the PSU to this Tagan 380W unit. Here is a …

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Re: [build log]Time for a socket 7 bui... Wait is that a Industrial Motherboard?

Posted on 2015-06-09, 13:24

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Another nice 'feature' about that motherboard is that it doesn't have the PC 99 colour-coding-for-babies. Early PS/2s on the PS/2 ports didn't even have pictures of the keyboard and mouse, they just had '1' and '2'-- keyboard obviously being 1.

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Re: Is Voodoo 3 3000 bad with 2D windows games?

Posted on 2015-05-19, 23:28

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah I've ran a V3 in my Pentium 233, it operated at the same speed as a garden S3 Virge or savage (or even the older Matrox Mystique). If anything the V3 improved 2D games (especially DOS). Starcraft 1 and Heroes 3 do not lag on my 233, so something else is up with the system. I do know that …

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Re: IBM PS/1000 486DLC2-66

Posted on 2015-05-19, 22:35

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I haven't checked how my "386" performs yet :p - if it's seriously below a DX2-66, I might consider an upgrade. Problem is, I have several faster chips, but all of them 3.3V... Don't want a Pentium Overdrive. I have other machines for that. It even has markings that the computer mustn't be operated …

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Re: IBM PS/1000 486DLC2-66

Posted on 2015-05-19, 03:37

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Everything onboard, and PS/2 connectors - nice for a 486! Unfortunately the VGA connector has Pin 9 missing, had to use a fitting VGA extension for my 15" LCD. All early VGA implementations will have that pin filled in (presumably to prevent people from plugging in other D-SUB devices that weren't …

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Re: XP Rig ahead!

Posted on 2015-05-11, 00:26

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Do you use this as a primary box, or just for legacy / gaming purposes? I have an old bench tower with XP for legacy reasons and also for my gameboy USB flashable cartridge which has LSDJ on it. The ones like here (the software wasn't designed for Windows 7 and it's much easier just running it on XP …

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Re: New P4 system.

Posted on 2015-05-04, 02:59

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Heat alone can kill a p4, try running it without a heatsink :lol: Any way the x800 is very hot for being water cooled. Unfortunately the die shattered when I took the spacer off, so I nabbed a fx5900xt off ebay. I have a x5600 I can use for now. :angry: Yeah P4s are actually some of the few CPUs …

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Re: retro PC help

Posted on 2015-04-27, 13:26

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I would make sure if you're using a voodoo 2 (and especially voodoo3) on a faster CPU that they have adequate cooling or the cards can immolate themselves: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=28993 The voodoo3 on a pentium 4 gets way too hot to the point you cannot touch it at all-- and I added …

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Re: Setting up multiple sound cards in DOS: any heads up?

Posted on 2015-04-21, 06:45

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm a big fan of ESS cards but I still can't think of a reason! I've dabbled with dual sound card setups in the past but found them to be more trouble than they're worth, not to mention they leave me feeling luxuriously self-indulgent :blush: The majority of ESS cards (except super early ones) have …

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Re: Does the VGA cable matter?

Posted on 2015-04-21, 06:41

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The shielding of the VGA cable and the way the LCD interprets it seems to have some sort of correlation. For example, one LCD I owned I had to set the refresh rate to 60Hz on cables that were heavily shielded in order for the picture to become clear, or 75 Hz for cables that had hardly any shielding …

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Re: a humble 386

Posted on 2015-04-21, 06:34

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Oh wow, a prodesigner II. Solid ISA video card, and not the easiest to find.

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

Posted on 2015-04-14, 00:25

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's really just a specialty ISA card plugged into a 486 board but that was exactly the reason why it was free. It had one of those blasted drum batteries and it had leaked out. Heya J. you might want to neutralize some of the corrosion (I can't remember if vartas are nicad or alkaline. Probably …

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Re: What's a good tdp vs performance CPU?

Posted on 2015-04-13, 23:52

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

TDP vs Performance wise, P4 shouldn't even be mentioned :lol: :roll: The point was not to suggest the Pentium 4, only to use it as an illustrative example. Lower power hardware will follow the same trends, although older PSUs tend to be horribly inefficient, to the point that newer systems (like P4 …

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Re: Matrox DualHead and 3dfx Voodoo

Posted on 2015-04-13, 23:33

by

by raymangold

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Typically what happens when you launch a full screen progam, it blacks out your second monitor (since it has to run in 'fullscreen' mode). But if that's not the case, then when you try to manipulate the second monitor it takes presedence and minimizes your fullscreen application on the main monitor. …

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