Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2016-02-21, 14:38

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I figure I may as well post some pictures here. First a link to the full gallery: https://photos.google.com/u/0/album/AF1QipOmC3Phk40lMeQo_JEcc0Z4L0zmev-c__dEySC8 Now for some individual pictures. First, the main desk area. Main PC is under the desk to the right, retro PC is under to the left. Retro …

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Re: Help connecting a SC-88VL to gameport

Posted on 2016-02-20, 20:47

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by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm surprised you have an adaptor that gives you a channel B. I expect that's for very large midi compositions that would require more channels than normally available on one connector. Yeah, games don't use it. As for the Doom 2 thing, I noticed the same thing, but didn't realize that might have …

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Re: Phil's "Playing GOG.com games on your MS-DOS Gaming PC" Thread

Posted on 2016-02-20, 19:19

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by zerker

in DOS

in DOS

The GOG release doesn't HAVE a batch file. It relies on the launcher (SYND.EXE in the root folder) launching either the main game or expansion, and it probably feeds over the command line options that would traditionally be in a batch file. It looks like it stores its settings in SYND\SYND.INF. …

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Re: Phil's "Playing GOG.com games on your MS-DOS Gaming PC" Thread

Posted on 2016-02-20, 16:58

by

by zerker

in DOS

in DOS

Incidentally, I figured out the Syndicate issue: the launcher was sensitive to where the files are located on the drive. I had to place everything on the root for the launcher to find the game properly. I suspect this was originally one of the EA CD compilations that attempted to run from CD with …

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Re: SoftMPU project needs your help! (game & sound card testing)

Posted on 2016-02-20, 16:16

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by zerker

in SoftMPU

in SoftMPU

So I'm having a weird problem with SoftMPU: the application freezes on load. E.g. softmpu itself doesn't start and doesn't return control to the DOS prompt. I'm running it per the wiki: > SOFTMPU.EXE /SB:220 /IRQ:5 /MPU:330 I have a Sound Blaster AWE64 Value (CT4500), running on a Celeron 500 …

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Re: Help connecting a SC-88VL to gameport

Posted on 2016-02-20, 13:00

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hey, guess what! I have a Roland SC-88VL and a gameport too :) What you want to do is connect the OUT connector on the Gameport cable to the MIDI IN A connector on the SC88VL. You may as well also connect the IN connector to MIDI A OUT/THRU , but this step isn't really needed. You'll also need to …

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Re: Best LCD with crt quality

Posted on 2016-02-20, 12:50

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a Dell 2001FP that I've owned for about 10 years which I'm using for my Retro PC. It runs at 1600 x 1200, is IPS and I couldn't be happier. It has a 16 ms response time, which isn't as fast as some models, but it's doesn't exceed one frame at 60 Hz (16.667 ms) and I never notice an issue with …

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Re: Do you use an external sound mixer?

Posted on 2016-02-20, 01:23

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, that's true. Many Midi sound modules can also act as mixers. My SC88VL also has audio in and a front headphone jack, I just don't have it configured this way.

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Re: Zerker's eMachine 500ix hack-up

Posted on 2016-02-20, 00:18

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice machine, though I personally would've tried to use the older (beige) case. Beige cases just give me a fuzzy warm feeling when building a retro-machine xD I would agree, but I actually had more reasons to replace the case than just the stickers: It needed a new power supply and the case only …

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Re: Do you use an external sound mixer?

Posted on 2016-02-20, 00:05

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, intentional or not, I'd consider it a design flaw. It doesn't look like they owe you anything; my recommendation is still to replace them with something that gives you stereo sound out of the headphone jack. Certainly the simplest solution in my mind.

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Re: Do you use an external sound mixer?

Posted on 2016-02-19, 21:51

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It sounds to me like your speakers have a defect; my recommendation would be to replace them with something that operates as intended. I have a headphone output on my speakers and get proper stereo sound when I connect to them. Though if you can get a mixer for less than replacement speakers, more …

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Re: Zerker's eMachine 500ix hack-up

Posted on 2016-02-19, 21:44

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Thanks. Surprisingly, the Voodoo 2 prices weren't that much cheaper than the Voodoo 3 prices when I looked, so I figured I may as well go with the card that gives me better baseline performance. Even if it means my ATI Rage Pro gets disabled via the motherboard jumper :). I'll check Amazon, but …

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Zerker's eMachine 500ix hack-up

Posted on 2016-02-19, 00:14

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

So I had the idea a while ago of setting up a retro machine and mentioned this in passing to a friend at work. Turns out he had an eMachine 500ix sitting around doing nothing to give to me. Though it's not exactly a looker: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rK- …

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Re: Upper Memory and Sound Card woes

Posted on 2016-02-18, 23:26

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Done 😀

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Re: Upper Memory and Sound Card woes

Posted on 2016-02-18, 01:14

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, I had a boot menu set up back in the 90s when I was running DOS full time. I have the /E parameter set for MSCDEX, but I'm not (yet) using VIDE-CDD.SYS; still OAKCDROM.SYS for now. I'll swap when I get a chance.

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Re: Upper Memory and Sound Card woes

Posted on 2016-02-18, 00:01

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for your help, but that config wasn't completely stable. I got a warning from EMM386 "Warning Option ROM detected within the page frame." and some games would refuse to start. I also tried both reducing and removing EMS memory. Reducing had no effect; the page frame area is always the same …

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Re: Upper Memory and Sound Card woes

Posted on 2016-02-17, 01:33

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by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The AWEUTIL thing isn't a big deal. It's probably not worth the effort making up the .BAT files. I'll just add it to the PATH so I can run it easily and I should be fine. As for the memory thing, HIGHSCAN didn't make any difference, so I tracked down MSD on my Windows CD and created a report. Here's …

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Re: Upper Memory and Sound Card woes

Posted on 2016-02-16, 22:39

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Alright, I've got it all sorted out. I turned off the reserve option and am just using the basic "RAM" command-line option. This gets me some (~26 KB) upper memory, which is enough for now. If I find something I'm pressed for, I will also use the monochromatic video region. I also noticed some games …

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Re: Upper Memory and Sound Card woes

Posted on 2016-02-16, 01:50

by

by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks. I will try that. I also edited while you replied, so let me move this here instead : The msdosdrv.txt file mentions this locates both the upper memory blocks AND the paging information. Am I using up too much room for all the memory pages that I just don't have room for upper memory in the …

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Re: Upper Memory and Sound Card woes

Posted on 2016-02-16, 01:12

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by zerker

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks guys. I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that himem.sys was supposed to create the upper memory, which is why I commented out emm386.exe when testing. Since my bios allows me to reserve memory, but only at the C0000 memory space, I changed the emm386 call accordingly. But now …

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