Re: Trying to build a single DOS + Win98 1993-1999 gaming PC - advice is welcome

Posted on 2023-05-12, 09:01

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That guide doesn't list many optimal settings to enable on 693A to get decent memory performance. You can view 693A as a beta version of 694X and it may not be fully stable with all optimizations enabled. I'm only listing those that should be stable: The best known optimization is: 1-0 Bank …

---

Re: Integrated SoundMAX AD1980 (ICH5) VxD Drivers?

Posted on 2023-05-12, 09:00

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

UPDATE I couldn't find any VxD drivers for the card anywhere on the internet, but I noticed the first version of the driver off HP's website cures the stuttering. Unfortunately the AD1980 is taking quite a toll on the CPU, witch can be observed with any of the drivers. I noticed this while playing …

---

Re: Trying to build a single DOS + Win98 1993-1999 gaming PC - advice is welcome

Posted on 2023-05-07, 08:28

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

693A always had terrible memory performance and is a poor choice for a retro rig. It was possible to reconfigure chipset via wpcredit to fix it and get performance closer to 694X. 694X at 133FSB ~ 440BX at 100FSB. The wpcredit fix made it viable for Windows but not DOS. I'm surprised you have …

---

Athlon XP Mobile / Geode build - need advice with multiplier selection and older motherboards

Posted on 2023-05-05, 23:24

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've been working on putting together an Athlon XP mobile build for.... a long while now. But, I came across some of my socket A boards that allow multiplier selection in BIOS today, and instead of packing and organizing my retro hardware like I was supposed to do, I decided to do some experimenting …

---

Re: What are your thoughts about these specs

Posted on 2023-05-05, 20:00

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those cards are fine if all you want to do is max out the in-game graphical settings. But if you also want to bump the resolution to 1600x1200 as well as crank up AA and AF while maintaining a locked 60 FPS, you'll need something like a GeForce FX 5900 or a Radeon X800. You do lose a bit of …

---

Re: What are your thoughts about these specs

Posted on 2023-05-05, 17:50

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pair any of the above with either a high end 2001(ish) video card like a Radeon 8500 or Geforce 3 Titanium or a mid end 2003-2004 card like a FX 5700 / Radeon 9600 and you have your build. Those cards are fine if all you want to do is max out the in-game graphical settings. But if you also want to …

---

Re: What are your thoughts about these specs

Posted on 2023-05-05, 12:40

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

*playable - not sure if enjoyable, especially considering the game can be played on a Pentium 3 or early Socket A offering a much more enjoyable experience. That's a good point. My pc back then was not the best so the big hitters then were just playable not enjoyable though. It did not bother me …

---

Re: What are your thoughts about these specs

Posted on 2023-05-05, 08:12

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Socket 7 is good for reliving childhood trauma. This is late 1999 computer unable to play smoothly 1999 games. UT, Tony Hawk, Driver, NFS5, Half-Life pretty much all will drop fps deep into teens on this platform. Might be ok if you are into playing 1996-7 games. There's a way of getting around …

---

Re: GA 586 ATS Motherboard - scrambled video

Posted on 2023-05-05, 08:01

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-05-04, 14:46: If it were me, I would source another video card, (preferably a PCI one) to narrow down whether it is a motherboard or video card issue. I second this.

---

Re: Modern Retro PC cases, whats your favourites?

Posted on 2023-05-05, 07:49

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

wow looking at Chieftec website they have some mint retro compatible options https://www.chieftec.eu/products/Chassis you can even filter the search for external 5.25 and 3.5! a really interesting standout to me is the Pro Cube CI-02B-OP i can see that being really handy for folks swapping parts on …

---

Re: Trying to build a single DOS + Win98 1993-1999 gaming PC - advice is welcome

Posted on 2023-05-04, 23:01

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thread update. Still looking for that "one motherboard" that will play nice with my 1200MHz C3 nemiah - no luck so far. Looking up VIA 694X and 694T boards on theretroweb, there were quite a few made, but VIA CPU compatibility is not mentioned in the manuals half the time, let alone Nemiah core …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-30, 09:39

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I tried it on DOS 6.22 FDISK, and while displaying nothing, it does not throw any error. In fact it "thinks" for a couple of seconds and goes back to command prompt. It did not solve my no-boot off the HDD issue either. That's how it's supposed to act. There is no special output message after FDISK …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-29, 17:50

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, good luck. 🙂🤞 No luck.... I low-level formatted the HDD using debug.exe from DOS 6.22. A:\debug.exe - G=C800:6 I used interleave 3 and added the two defects printed on the drive's label. This time around instead of 19.8 MB of usable space I got 20.23, and I got no bad blocks while formatting …

---

Re: High-end Windows 95 gaming PC?

Posted on 2023-04-29, 09:24

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's an example - Dungeon Keeper 2 came out in 1999 - system requirements say 166mhz pentium 1 and 2mb video card with 300mhz pentium 2 and 8mb video card recommended. If you run the game on the recommended system, it will not be a pleasant experience, except for maybe the first 2-3 missions. …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-28, 20:20

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I assume you are using the fdisk from msdos 6.22 ? Did you recreate the partition & installed the system files on the hard drive after the low level format ? ie used FDISK to create the primary partition then restarted from floppy and then formatted the hard drive partition with the option to …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-28, 20:16

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, good luck. 🙂🤞 No luck.... I low-level formatted the HDD using debug.exe from DOS 6.22. A:\debug.exe - G=C800:6 I used interleave 3 and added the two defects printed on the drive's label. This time around instead of 19.8 MB of usable space I got 20.23, and I got no bad blocks while formatting …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-28, 18:39

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I assume you are using the fdisk from msdos 6.22 ? Did you recreate the partition & installed the system files on the hard drive after the low level format ? ie used FDISK to create the primary partition then restarted from floppy and then formatted the hard drive partition with the option to …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-28, 16:29

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

thanks for the advice, I'll low level format the drive and report back Ok, good luck. 🙂🤞 No luck.... I low-level formatted the HDD using debug.exe from DOS 6.22. A:\debug.exe - G=C800:6 I used interleave 3 and added the two defects printed on the drive's label. This time around instead of 19.8 MB …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-28, 13:03

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

thanks for the advice, I'll low level format the drive and report back

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-28, 09:58

by

by Socket3

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Deunan wrote on 2023-04-28, 09:56: Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-28, 08:25: Are there any additional settings I need to do to the controller so the PC will boot off the HDD? FDISK /MBR perhaps? where do I find MBR? fdisk just shows if the partition is active, and it is, shows up as primary dos partition …

---