Re: Best PCI sound cards for Win9x ?

Posted on 2016-03-18, 14:32

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Another one to consider is the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. It supports A3D 1.0, EAX 2.0, Sensaura, and has its own built-in MIDI DLS which IMO sounds better than the SBLive! or even the DreamBlaster S1. Only important if you expect to play any games that support MIDI (such as late DOS games from the …

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Re: How to reliably (and cheaply) store data?

Posted on 2016-03-18, 12:08

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by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

Another option that I don't think has been mentioned yet is Macrium Reflect . Personal version is free. On my XP time machine I have a 2nd drive that is larger than the 1st and just create images of C: to D: so the backup images are stored on a different physical disk. It's very similar in function …

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Re: How to reliably (and cheaply) store data?

Posted on 2016-03-18, 02:26

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by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

TELVM, clueless1: I've read the documentation that came with DiskFresh. It recommends doing the read/write refresh 3 or 4 times per year. This seems excessive to me. clueless1 says that he does the refresh once or twice per year which seems like a much better plan to me. Refreshing a slow USB 2.0 …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-18, 01:41

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by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

kanecvr wrote: Now if I find a working 7950GX2 and 8800GTX my retro-modern collection will be complete. There's a few 880GTX on ebay at the moment in the $40-$50 range that appear to be listed as functional.

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Re: Teach me some electronics repair skills.

Posted on 2016-03-17, 20:00

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks. I have the same iron. 😀 I typically keep it at 380-400C but with some of these lead free joints I mentioned (it was an HP LGA775 board), I cranked it up to 450 just to see if it would helped and it didn't. I'll check out the video you linked. Much appreciated.

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Re: Teach me some electronics repair skills.

Posted on 2016-03-17, 16:15

by

by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Any tips for hard-to-melt lead-free solder? In my practicing on dead boards, most of the newer boards use lead-free solder that is nearly impossible to melt. I've tried going up to 450 Celsius and it doesn't want to melt. I've tried adding flux first, I've tried adding solder to the joint beforehand …

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-17, 15:26

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by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use an 8800GTX on my XP machine. I have had no compatibility issues, though I admit the only "old" game I have on this machine is System Shock 2. The rest of the games are either modern open source games (Battle for Wesnoth, Xonotic) or from GOG.com. There are some on ebay for about $40. edit: …

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-17, 14:40

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by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use an 8800GTX on my XP machine. I have had no compatibility issues, though I admit the only "old" game I have on this machine is System Shock 2. The rest of the games are either modern open source games (Battle for Wesnoth, Xonotic) or from GOG.com. There are some on ebay for about $40. edit: …

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Re: Wing Commander 3 MIDI slows down with more CPU Cycles

Posted on 2016-03-17, 00:18

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by clueless1

in DOSBox Games/Apps

in DOSBox Games/Apps

Dynamic helped a lot. Music did not slow at all. It took a cycles setting of 175000 to get a solid 24 fps in the hanger, but I still noticed occasional stuttering. I then set cycles=max and that smoothed it out fully. So in the end, core=dynamic and cycles=max gave me the best results. Thanks to …

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Re: Wing Commander 3 MIDI slows down with more CPU Cycles

Posted on 2016-03-16, 22:26

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by clueless1

in DOSBox Games/Apps

in DOSBox Games/Apps

The machine uses a Xeon 3010 (Core 2 Duo 2.67Ghz) with 2GB, Geforce 8800GTX and Santa Cruz PCI.

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Re: Anybody own a house?

Posted on 2016-03-16, 21:14

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by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

replace your furnace/air-conditioner filters routinely, even if they don't look dirty On a related note, for the first few months, check said filters monthly! We live in a dusty area, and when I changed the filter for the first time after the scheduled 3 month interval, I was shocked to see it so …

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Re: Wing Commander 3 MIDI slows down with more CPU Cycles

Posted on 2016-03-16, 20:24

by

by clueless1

in DOSBox Games/Apps

in DOSBox Games/Apps

Yes, that's nornal behaviour. If you set cycles too high, Soundblaster/Adlib sound will start to skip, while Midi will produce sort of a rubberband effect. Why don't you just set cycles=max? I thought max would just make the problem worse? Going from 5000->100000 slows MIDI music to a crawl, so it …

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Re: Anybody own a house?

Posted on 2016-03-16, 18:42

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by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

Don't buy more house than you need. Having lots of extra room is nice but it makes it that much more house you have to keep clean and maintained. Same with yard size. In other words, bigger isn't always better. :) edit: having lots of extra room is nice *at first*, but as the years go by, the space …

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Wing Commander 3 MIDI slows down with more CPU Cycles

Posted on 2016-03-16, 18:20

by

by clueless1

in DOSBox Games/Apps

in DOSBox Games/Apps

I use a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI with General MIDI DLS Synth. I notice on most DOSBox games that support General MIDI (WC3 is just one example) that there is a "sweet spot" for CPU cycles that if I go past, the MIDI music will start slowing down progressively more. For example, on WC3, with CPU …

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Re: Suggestions for lightweight and free antivirus?

Posted on 2016-03-16, 16:51

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by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

If you want to try to get away from A/V on a Windows PC, here are some layers that will help: -use a limited/standard user account and get used to typing an admin password when needed. Over 90% of infections could be prevented by just doing this. -install CryptoPrevent . At its most basic level it …

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Re: Best way to identify a floppy's capacity

Posted on 2016-03-16, 13:34

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by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I generally do the opposite - cover up the hole and convert HD floppies to DD. They're more reliable that way, so I only format as HD if I'm using the disk for something that actually needs that much space. If you run into any HD floppies that crap out on you, try reformatting as DD before you toss …

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Re: Bought these games today

Posted on 2016-03-16, 13:30

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by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

http://i.imgur.com/BNhvnTe.jpg http://i.imgur.com/JBmDlTC.jpg I spent many hours playing Links LS 99 back in the day. I was even world-ranked on LS Online for a period of time. Played many rounds with the recognized #1 player and even beat him a couple of times. ;) We were pretty much all the same …

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Re: Phil's YouTube and Website updates (philscomputerlab)

Posted on 2016-03-16, 13:18

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by clueless1

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Haha. I just did exactly this over the weekend, with a little help from yourself. Thanks for all your work!

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-15, 21:56

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by clueless1

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow! That thing looks brand new. Look at the ribbon cables! Beautiful...

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Re: System Shock Remastered gameplay trailer

Posted on 2016-03-15, 21:54

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by clueless1

in Milliways

in Milliways

That looks amazing. Definitely looks and feels like Citadel Station. As MusciallyInspired says, though, I sure do hope they have at least some semblance of the original soundtrack. Back in the DOS days, music would often make the game. In my mind, the music helped make System Shock what it was.

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