Re: Need to identify these two old motherboards

Posted on 2020-01-13, 00:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mine wouldn't boot from anything (HDD, FDD) with the old BIOS. Just hung there after POST. Tried multiple IDE, SCSI and floppy-only controllers. None made a bit of difference. Almost certainly a bad image. I feel your ROM was corrupted. Did you test with different memory modules? Yes, nothing …

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-13, 00:38

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I decided to go with the ESS ES1868F for my DOS ISA sound card right now. With having to buy a new power supply some other things I just don't want to drop the money on the other + dreamblaster (yet at least). Perfectly good choice. You've seen the rabbit hole, if you ever feel like it, you can …

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Re: stange behavior on a motherboard

Posted on 2020-01-12, 20:18

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Generally Japanese caps are highly regarded. I try to use Nichicon or Panasonic whenever I can.

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Re: AGP Hantom 3D (Riva TNT2 64)

Posted on 2020-01-12, 18:17

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by dionb

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Good for period-correct mid-range system from 1999. If you had money to burn you would have bought a TNT2-Ultra or maybe a G400Max or Voodoo3-3000. If - like me at the time - you were a poor student, you'd probably buy one of these, as they offered a big upgrade from previous bargain-basement stuff …

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Re: What should I be looking for?

Posted on 2020-01-12, 15:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Thanks for the reply. I do know about eeprom flashing with usb flashers and such but I think there is other problems with the board. It would not for any reason whatsoever boot from the cdrom. I replaced some caps that were bad and it was still having trouble booting from cdrom. I could boot …

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Re: Need to identify these two old motherboards

Posted on 2020-01-12, 15:20

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here you are: https://i.imgur.com/tClKs4k.jpg That is very similar, should work with same MR-BIOS. Do you mean booting from hard disk? Mine boot fine from floppy disk but haven't tried hard disk. Mine wouldn't boot from anything (HDD, FDD) with the old BIOS. Just hung there after POST. Tried …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 & AWE32: From best to worst

Posted on 2020-01-12, 14:19

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by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I’m curious, how annoying would you say using the buggiest cards here are? I don’t recall which version of the SB16 I had in 1993, but I do think it had the hanging note bug. I recall exiting games and the last note playing would get stuck requiring a reboot. That didn’t bother me much rebooting …

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Re: Need to identify these two old motherboards

Posted on 2020-01-12, 13:08

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, the board works fine now. Do you have its updated BIOS? Ah, sorry, missed this one. Yes, it's linked here on Vogons: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=658582#p658582 That leads to: http://www.mediafire.com/file/icf36l68bw8kh7m/OPTi_82C495SX_MR-BIOS_v160.zip I found another board ( 486VLWB …

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Re: What should I be looking for?

Posted on 2020-01-12, 11:53

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Also, a bad BIOS flash most definitely does not mean you killed a board. That KT7A for example has a nice socketed DIP-32 EEPROM that you can flash in pretty much any EEPROM flasher or failing that hot-flash on another motherboard. If you can't do it yourself, others can do it for you and if you …

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-12, 11:24

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I'm on week 6 (and ongoing still) of getting some Kramer broadcast equipment to me from Germany...so I would hate to see how long it would take for budget shipping from those other countries. It's simply a matter of time and hassle. I know I've gotten stuff from even China and Japan in a week …

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-11, 23:40

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was up late last night with the help of a knowledgeable friend who was nice enough to help me pickout some things out on eBay (which all of your feedback REALLY helped me decide - thanks). I already ordered but I hope we did OK. Still open to any advice, and I still have questions of course, but …

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Re: New PC Build

Posted on 2020-01-11, 22:41

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dual CPU is fun, but not in DOS (or Win <2000) as it isn't SMP aware/capable, so at best it runs as fast as a single CPU. This machine deserves a multiprocessing OS. Windows 2000 would run on it, WinNT4.0, OS/2 Warp 4 SMP or BeOS would fly. Leave DOS and Win9x for the single-CPU boxes.

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Re: What specs to look for to play DOS Quake, Diablo II, Warcraft III, etc. at HIGH native resolutions?

Posted on 2020-01-10, 17:40

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

you need to go to the sewer in E1L2, this is where at least SB Live! cards crash. and yes, onboard audio will be fine for win9x, but some games like half-life sound better with hardware EAX support from a Live! card. diablo ii from your list also supports EAX. GM synth = roland SC-55 for example, …

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Re: Gravis Gamepad

Posted on 2020-01-09, 22:27

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try both on same pic: The d-pad on the pro is 25.0mm, on the regular it is 30.0mm. Measured with caliper accurate to 0.1mm

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Re: Gravis Gamepad

Posted on 2020-01-09, 21:39

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would recommend the Gravis Gamepad Pro over the original Gravis Gamepad. The Pro is a copy of the first PlayStation controller and much better. Also, it has some nice features like an integrated 2-player adapter. I most definitely would not. I have both and the Pro has a smaller d-pad which makes …

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Re: Unidentified System (Graduate)

Posted on 2020-01-09, 18:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Failing that, you can use a Teensy Arduino+USB adapter to convert USB keyboard input into XT codes: https://github.com/toelke/xt-keyboard-adapter

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Re: Am I crippling my preformance

Posted on 2020-01-09, 15:21

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] I have recently switched from using a K6-2 400 at 66x6 to 100x4 after getting an MVP4 motherboard, and the boost I got in memory bandwidth constrained games was substantial even though the change to 3DMark scores did not reflect my perceived performance uplift. Sounds like you are using the …

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Re: Am I crippling my preformance

Posted on 2020-01-09, 08:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does 430TX come with ATX? I had a look on feeBay they were all AT. More than enough ATX out there - this was a 1997 chipset, around the time the transition to ATX got going. Are they much better than the Ali and Via chipsets on most other SS7 boards? I have about 10 S7/SS7 and they are all Ali/VIA. …

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Re: Am I crippling my preformance

Posted on 2020-01-08, 20:28

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

kolderman wrote on 2020-01-08, 20:21: [...] Some P5As are cheaper than average SS7 boards due to K63+ incompatibility. I doubt it, Asus fanboys tend to push up the price of any board with that logo on it. Furthermore it's a 1.04 with E-rev chipset that works fine with my K6-3+ 😀

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-08, 17:24

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

MKT_Gundam wrote on 2020-01-08, 14:25: Great info guys! The G450 is only 1VGA and has some tv tuner/image capture thing. Then you don't have the Millennium G450 but the Marvel G450 eTV. In this age of digital television that tuner is pretty useless, but it can do some nice MPEG2 capture from analog …

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