Understanding cache on a 386

Posted on 2018-06-04, 02:29

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My 386 board has 64k of cache that I was hoping to upgrade to 128 but I haven't yet been able to find that sort of configuration, the next step up seemingly being 256kb. OK. I assume as long as I update the tag chip, that will work alright. The next thing I noticed is that my current cache (Cxk5465p …

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Re: Best total diagnostic tool for dos/windows

Posted on 2018-06-04, 01:39

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Dr. Hardware was available for both DOS and Windows and was very user-friendly. DerSammler has collectied several trial/shareware releases of the DOS version, I recall. It seems like a nice piece of hardware. Unfortunately I couldn't get much out of it, partly because it's in German and partly …

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Best total diagnostic tool for dos/windows

Posted on 2018-06-03, 19:30

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I have a machine that I have been building which has a nice array of performance hardware from the late 90s era but runs slow as hell and I'm trying to figure out why. It's a fresh install so software is not the problem. I have a theory it's the hard drive but this led me to wanting a convenient …

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Re: Voodoo 5 killed itself. Fixable?

Posted on 2018-05-31, 17:10

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Bake the entire graphics card in the oven at 390 degrees F for 9 minutes. That'll fix it. Including the fans? :dead: On newer cards with big plastic heatsink assemblies, those should come off. On old vintage cards, most of the materials can take the heat. If the fans are made of PE or PP they …

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Re: CMI8738 CS3000 Card any good?

Posted on 2018-05-31, 15:13

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't believe you're going to get any hardware audio of any kind from Windows 7 unless it is through OpenAL, Windows audio changed completely after XP (Vista removed DS3D) and I'm sure it'd be quite difficult or impossible to run A3D on anything newer than XP... maybe even 98SE\ME. You make a …

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Re: Voodoo 5 killed itself. Fixable?

Posted on 2018-05-31, 01:26

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Bake the entire graphics card in the oven at 390 degrees F for 9 minutes. That'll fix it.

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Re: CMI8738 CS3000 Card any good?

Posted on 2018-05-30, 14:53

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I ended up installing this into a Win7 machine. Certainly not the best platform to evaluate it but at the moment it was the best I could do and better than nothing. However I can't get utilities like Minerva working on 7 (is there perhaps a newer version that works?) and I am unaware of any modern …

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CMI8738 CS3000 Card any good?

Posted on 2018-05-29, 17:50

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Today I came across a random sound card that looked like nothing special but when I read the chip and saw HRTF on it, I figured it was worth the gamble so I bought it for $3. Turns out it's a C-Media card (I never heard of it) with EAX/A3D support and 4-channel HRTF. To this extent, it sounds a lot …

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Re: Old arcade game I cannot remember

Posted on 2018-05-27, 16:00

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Console & Arcade Emulation

in Console & Arcade Emulation

With a name like that, I'm surprised you guys remember it so keenly. I can't even pronounce it.

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Re: Suspected inefficiency in several component specs

Posted on 2018-05-24, 16:37

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I have one of those! The funny thing is that it’s faster than many motherboards with real cache. You really wouldn’t know from performance tests that the cache is missing. All the more reason to add more I figure. Whether the first half of the cache is there or not, I can only see a benefit in …

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Re: Suspected inefficiency in several component specs

Posted on 2018-05-24, 15:37

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Dear God! Why would anyone do that?

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Re: What is that game?

Posted on 2018-05-23, 02:49

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Milliways

in Milliways

🤣 I guess that makes this my 10 yr anniversary asking the same question. I'd totally forgotten about that. Looking back at that thread, it seems certain other members have migrated here as well. Clearly the infamous wizard/knight/maze game has been keeping me up at night.

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Re: Old arcade game I cannot remember

Posted on 2018-05-23, 01:53

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Console & Arcade Emulation

in Console & Arcade Emulation

Maybe: Xain'd Sleena/ Solar warrior (ARCADE) There are different versions of this game - on what planet you start. Take a look at this youtube video and insect planet. https://youtu.be/CGL127qYF_0?t=220 Wow... just wow... First attempt and he nails it! Instant flashback - priceless. EDIT: This game …

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Old arcade game I cannot remember

Posted on 2018-05-22, 18:23

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Console & Arcade Emulation

in Console & Arcade Emulation

probably 25 years ago or thereabouts, I was on vacation in Cuba and they had an arcade cabinet there with a game I have not seen since. I recall very little about the game but here's what I know. It was very much akin to metroid it its art style and gameplay. You started on the surface of a planet …

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What is that game?

Posted on 2018-05-22, 18:15

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Milliways

in Milliways

Honestly not trying to be vague, cryptic or to test anyone. I honestly cannot find this game for the life of me, partly because I don't know the name of it. When I was a kind in the early 90s in elementary school, I THINK the main OS at the time was Win 3.1 although they could have had Mac and I …

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Re: Upgrade paths for the 386 - Yield?

Posted on 2018-05-18, 14:24

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can you put 128 in with the existing module capacity or is there some rule that you always need exactly a certain number of modules installed, so the individual capacity needs to change? I could simply install fewer of them if that would work. Seeing as motherboards were certainly designed to be …

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Re: Upgrade paths for the 386 - Yield?

Posted on 2018-05-17, 22:55

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What symptoms did you have when you tried it?

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Re: Best Sensaura Implementation

Posted on 2018-05-17, 17:05

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I found a very cool article that talks in detail about 3D sound technology that I thought worth sharing for anyone who's interested. One thing it does not seem to cover however is chaotic wavetracing and A3D 2.0 compatibility. It seems to call out Aureal as being the leader in this area despite its …

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Re: Very frustrated with Win95 - Boot failure - Help!

Posted on 2018-05-17, 17:02

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks that's great info. Is there any specific lines of code I need to add to make the computer believe it is booting natively from C? So far the problem I've had (not that big a deal) is that once booted from diskette, if I switch to C:\DOS and call a function, it thinks I'm running a different …

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Re: Upgrade paths for the 386 - Yield?

Posted on 2018-05-17, 01:07

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I wouldn't mind doing that if I could actually find some for sale. Do you have to increase cache for 16 MB?

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