Re: Tiny Vortex86-based DOS gaming PC - weeCee

Posted on 2022-05-09, 20:37

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by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Based on the evidence gathered so far, it looks like decent performance should be possible , but something is missing along the way to enable that level of performance under Windows 9x. It's something that could be interesting to look into, at least to get a better idea of what's going on. Having …

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Re: Tiny Vortex86-based DOS gaming PC - weeCee

Posted on 2022-05-05, 21:27

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

If anyone wants to put some effort into performance testing, some decent ideas can be found here . As on that page, it would be useful to mention the SD card brand/size/type. Builds of the same tools can be had for Windows, so adding a comparison between Linux, Windows XP and Windows 9x (with the …

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Re: Tiny Vortex86-based DOS gaming PC - weeCee

Posted on 2022-05-05, 04:58

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by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

There is one thing that I haven't really seen discussed in this thread: what brand, type and class of SD cards are you using? I will admit that it was years ago, but I did some testing, and noticed that there were significant differences between brands. Of the brands tried, Kingston were the …

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Re: ARGUS Project thread - now accepting pre-orders (for north/south American and Europe)

Posted on 2022-04-27, 03:04

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by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I read in this thread that SOJ ram is for Classic GUS compatibility, does this mean that having SIMM ram enabled the compatibility breaks? Also for SIMM I see only 16 MB is used; do smaller SIMMs work too? If somebody actually said that, it's not correct. On InterWave, you need some RAM for GUS …

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Re: ARGUS Project thread - now accepting pre-orders (for north/south American and Europe)

Posted on 2022-04-26, 18:28

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by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

You ar ebetter off using the .PAT files and most of the cool games come with their own set of .PAT. You can then use any amount of RAM (up to 16MB) to store exceptionally good sound samples of the only intruments you need. That isn't quite correct. The use of .PAT files generally means that you are …

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Re: ARGUS Project thread - now accepting pre-orders (for north/south American and Europe)

Posted on 2022-04-26, 18:21

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by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

One of key issues this project did not gain much traction was the copyrighted ROM. I wonder why __shock or other main contributors didn't consider making the ROM optional. Say it with me again for the last time: the instrument ROM is optional. The ROM is optional. THE ROM IS OPTIONAL !!! In every …

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Re: Newly made Gravis Ultrasound compatible cards ... what's the degree of interest?

Posted on 2022-04-26, 06:31

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Synoptic wrote on 2022-04-25, 21:58: Maybe someone could make a ROM out of the .PAT files from the GUS installation files ? Can it be done? Yes, but it still doesn't solve the problem. None of those are in the public domain, and in absolutely no way can you fit a complete bank within 1 MiB.

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Re: ARGUS Project thread - now accepting pre-orders (for north/south American and Europe)

Posted on 2022-04-25, 17:31

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

If the rights holders are aware, has there been any thought about licensing the ROM content for this project? If you read through a little more of the thread, you'll have the answers to those questions. Firstly, there were no less than three companies holding copyrights on the data in the ROM; one …

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Re: ARGUS Project thread - now accepting pre-orders (for north/south American and Europe)

Posted on 2022-04-25, 03:54

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Well, it looks like I'll have a very pretty $80 PCB that I can never complete now, so that's great... As has been discussed at length in this thread, the instrument ROM is not essential. It is possible to have a working card that does not include the ROM, and this is even discussed in the …

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Re: Cs4235 to cs4237b transplant possible?

Posted on 2022-04-16, 03:43

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

My suspicion, then, is that no EEPROM was included. This is presented as an acceptable design in the documentation for the CS4235, even if it isn't something that I would want to do. I guess it shaved a few dollars total off of the BOM, so they shipped it that way in spite of the drawbacks. Given …

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Re: Need help with a strange soundcard (SB16+ICS wavetable)

Posted on 2022-04-16, 03:29

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

And one can still buy an SF2 format version of that bank on Eye & I Productions' website . They are not the same bank at all; the sound is dramatically different. Starting with the version 3.0 release used on InterWave cards, they really went after the Roland-like volume balance and instrument …

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Re: Dreamblaster X2GS on a Crystal audio ISA sound card (4239-KQ)

Posted on 2022-04-15, 06:09

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Some designs of the time used to share the line-in port for the wavetable header, and you were only supposed to use the line in jack if you didn't use the header. This implies that the card and X2GS are working as they should, but that the signal is muted or routed incorrectly. For DOS, as part of …

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Re: Cs4235 to cs4237b transplant possible?

Posted on 2022-04-15, 05:57

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This is a little strange, but it is nothing disastrous yet. First, let's address the basic questions: Are you able to get sound in Windows? Can you do your testing from basic DOS (no Windows loaded)? What does UNISOUND /CL report from straight DOS? Before running anything else, what do you see if …

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Re: Cs4235 to cs4237b transplant possible?

Posted on 2022-04-14, 18:38

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't think you'd destroy anything by attempting a replacement, but you may not get the best possible audio quality. In particular, I think the use of the filter capacitors is different between the parts. If you're set on trying this, it may be worth looking into one of the other parts, like the …

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Re: Fortex: Vortex2+YMF744

Posted on 2022-04-14, 18:23

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm glad you're documenting your progress in such detail. It's not only interesting to read, but maybe it will give the "too expensive" crowd some idea of the amount of effort and financial investment that are involved in these undertakings.

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Re: Adding an external YMF289 to the CS4237B.

Posted on 2022-04-13, 01:51

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Crystal FM still ends up being somewhat quieter than the external synth, but not so much that it's worth worrying about. It's good that you solved that to your satisfaction. Since you're planning to eliminate the added clock-generation circuitry in the next revision, there is probably no point in …

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Re: Need help with a strange soundcard (SB16+ICS wavetable)

Posted on 2022-04-12, 17:38

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That midi sounded like a diet Gravis Ultrasound to my ears. Your ears are definitely not wrong. The original GF1-based UltraSound cards shipped with the version 1.0 Voice Crystal GM bank (5.6 MiB), while many WaveFront-based designs shipped with version 2.0 (usually 4 MiB) of the same instrument …

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Re: Need help with a strange soundcard (SB16+ICS wavetable)

Posted on 2022-04-12, 05:23

by

by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'd almost argue that the ICS sounds better than Emu8k in many cases. As far as I remember, the WaveFront used its own bank format, and it is not interchangeable with Creative's SoundFont format. Most of the WaveFront cards I remember reading about used the Voice Crystal 2.0 GM bank (usually 4MiB), …

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Re: ARGUS Project thread - now accepting pre-orders (for north/south American and Europe)

Posted on 2022-04-10, 02:39

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by 640K!enough

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Once factoring in parts and assembly, it might end up being close to the current cost of a GUS PnP (per recent sale prices on Ebay). The idea isn't that you'll end up with a card that is so much cheaper than the Gravis originals that are still available (with the exception of the truly ridiculous …

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Re: BeOS

Posted on 2022-04-08, 06:54

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by 640K!enough

in Milliways

in Milliways

mwdmeyer wrote on 2022-04-08, 06:33: I think Objective C from NeXT was/is good as it is still used today. Objective-C was not created at, by, or for NeXT. They selected it as their language of choice, and ultimately added to it, but they didn't own or create it.

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