Re: Advice on Win98 build

Posted on 2019-09-02, 16:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Given that almost none of those games do GLide, I'd say go for a good D3D card - and if you want GLide, add a V2 (or two). I've come to the same conclusion, with my P3-1400S completely bottlenecking on my V3-3000AGP, and Win9x not letting me run V3-3000 PCI next to whatever D3D card I want (probably …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-09-01, 22:36

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm not sure exactly if it is a voice modem but the FM synth is pretty good. It is. I have multiple Packard Bells and these are the stock combo cards for models that supported data/fax/voice options in Windows and Navigator. The headers for TV and FM tuner options are dead giveaways. Yep. With …

---

Re: Anything worth keeping from this lot?

Posted on 2019-09-01, 22:18

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] and these two horrors: They both have bulging caps, one has a Duron 1000 and the other an Athlon XP1700+. One posts and the other doesn't - at present these are likely candidates for recycling. I've been unable to figure out how to remove the motherboard from the HP Vecra (doesn't post anyway …

---

Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2019-08-31, 10:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Definitely need a better video card. The current Trident GUI9660XGi is kinda' awful, in that Win95 is stuck in 8 bit color. Not sure if adding RAM would help in any way. https://i.imgur.com/tb7DHf4.png What resolution are you running and how much RAM is on that 9660 now? That looks like 1024x768 to …

---

Re: My Motherboard list

Posted on 2019-08-30, 23:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

At the very least you have a typo: Jetway - 663AS Pro [Socket 562] x1 Pretty sure that's an So462 board ;) Apart from that board revision would be a nice addition - and a relevant one in the case of the P5A at least, as different revisions work best with different CPUs (<=1.04 can't cache >64MB RAM, …

---

Re: Weames PA-9050-B (AD Echo) ROM (?) sockets

Posted on 2019-08-30, 22:57

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

[...] I've put this one on hold until my chips arrive, but the EPROMs are here already and I expect the supporting logic soon. When they arrive I'll test - and do so in another system: turns out it's the 5x86 and/or the motherboard it's on that was causing the compatibility issues. Great... my …

---

Re: Zoltrix AP1600 (Audio Plus 1600) v.2/v.3 - C/MS support?

Posted on 2019-08-30, 08:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

cyclone3d wrote: [...] Also, the Zoltrix site and the manual both state that it is stereo. That's as may be, but that KS8001 is an OPL2 clone, not OPL3, and there's only one on the board, so that's just one channel of FM synth.

---

Re: Zoltrix AP1600 (Audio Plus 1600) v.2/v.3 - C/MS support?

Posted on 2019-08-29, 21:21

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Looks like Zoltrix was being rather messy. If your card corresponds to the pic, I'd say regardless of claims on site or manual, it's a mono SB clone without C/MS. How sure are you about the pic? Was the seller's pic clear enough to see the layout is the same as here, or could it possibly be …

---

Re: Zoltrix AP1600 (Audio Plus 1600) v.2/v.3 - C/MS support?

Posted on 2019-08-29, 14:39

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Looks like a totally different card... the AV207 in the manual looks like a pretty complete SBPro 2.0 clone with added wavetable header.

---

Re: Zoltrix AP1600 (Audio Plus 1600) v.2/v.3 - C/MS support?

Posted on 2019-08-29, 13:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Looks like a pretty close clone of the SB1.0 with a CDROM controller tacked on. Don't see the Philips SAA1099 chips you'd need for CM/S though, just OPL2+DAC clones, a bunch of 74-series TTL stuff, op-amp and the 8051...

---

Re: what is so special in this machine

Posted on 2019-08-28, 18:47

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Would a K6-2 450 work? I think I have this one in my spares. But first I need to socket the Dallas RTC chips. I might try to sell them again too.Enough socket 7 stuff... K6-2 450: sure. Set it to 6x75MHz (jumper for 2x multiplier) for correct clock and good performance. With an L2-less K6-2, you …

---

Re: what is so special in this machine

Posted on 2019-08-28, 18:36

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

3.10 definitely can. Looking at your Amibay pics, the one in this machine is the 3.10, so as good as they come. Just checked and with an unofficial modded BIOS it can handle K6-2+ and 3+, and support HDD >32GB http://home.hccnet.nl/j.steunebrink/0207_j2.zip

---

Re: Pentium II Dixon... what speed it has?

Posted on 2019-08-28, 12:51

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can compare Dixon to Mendocino at similar clock, but with a few percent higher performance due to larger cache. Probably a Dixon 366MHz will beat a P2-350 in most tasks and depending on workload (whether things fit in L2 or not) might approach P2-400, although if workload doesn't fit in 256kB, …

---

Re: Athlon XP 2800+, Geforce 6800, nForce, Win98?

Posted on 2019-08-28, 12:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

so you get significantly better performance with 2x256MB than with 1x512MB. No. Yes. http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/nforce2-1vs2channels/index.html Dual-channel mode vs. single-channel mode, % difference With the external video card (GF4Ti4600) With the integrated graphics core (IGP) memory reading …

---

Re: Athlon XP 2800+, Geforce 6800, nForce, Win98?

Posted on 2019-08-28, 11:16

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My housemate ran Win98 on that mother board (well, the A7N8X-E Deluxe to be precise) with 512MB RAM back when that hw was new. Don't remember the GPU, but it was nVidia AGP too. Biggest problem was hardware: that Asus board was impossibly choosy with RAM, only ram stable with some Infineon DIMMs I …

---

Re: Only IDE ports work but the other ports don't?

Posted on 2019-08-28, 08:26

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Could you be a bit clearer about which "ports" you are referring to? Normally a CUV4X-C has two IDE ports, primary and secondary. So if you say "working on IDE port" but "primary doesn't see anything", you are contradicting yourself because primary is an IDE port :o Also, are you connecting both HDD …

---

Re: Should I build a "one rig to rule them all"?

Posted on 2019-08-28, 06:08

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tbh I'd ditch the 'can run modern Linux/Windows acceptably' requirement. The demands a modern browser places on your system are so massive you really can't get that to work satisfactorily within the possibilities of hardware that will run retro stuff. Even 4GB of RAM isn't enough to run Chromium or …

---

Re: what is so special in this machine

Posted on 2019-08-27, 23:16

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Asus motherboard with PLB and a TagRAM socket - probably a late revision P55T2P4, which is pretty much the ultimate Intel chipset So7 board. Add the tag and it can cache 512MB RAM, if it's as late revision as it looks, it can run K6-2 or 3 without modification. Probably can do 83MHz FSB too, so you …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-08-27, 13:35

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

imi wrote: found a scrap box locally for once... […] Show full quote found a scrap box locally for once... warning: graphic content. whyyyy 😢 hardware27.jpg 😵 I think I spotted that one for sale. Despite really wanting a V4, I decided against it... looks like a good call. Make sure the seller knows …

---

Re: Asus P2B vs P3B-F etc. - what hardware to keep

Posted on 2019-08-27, 13:10

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I got P2B rev. 1.04 and P3B-F rev 1.04 and 1.03 - so P2B does not support Coppermines oppposite to P3B which handles them all (both revisions). Currently I see no possibility to assemble old hardware for other reason than gaming - even for games I can hardly find time so probably will never try to …

---