Re: Athlon XP really retro?

Posted on 2013-12-03, 20:13

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Honestly, I have no first hand experience with KT880 - I doubt many people do have, cause it was released too late, but ... KT600 and KT880 did seem late and pointless. I used a Abit KW7 for awhile (KT880) and it was stable and reliable. But VIA setups feel somewhat lethargic to me with WinXP and I …

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Re: Other PCI sound cards with EAX 2

Posted on 2013-12-03, 08:18

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

bristlehog wrote: There are some new-old-stock for sale in Moscow, $6 each. Only 242 of these left! I think it might be better for me to find one on this side of the planet. 😎 Though from the reading I've been doing it sounds like an Audigy 1/2 is the ideal option anyway.

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Re: Other PCI sound cards with EAX 2

Posted on 2013-12-02, 19:34

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Crystal Soundfusion cards (CS4614/24/30) and those Philips cards with a Thunderbird chip also support EAX2. The Canyon3D was used on the Terratec Soundsystem DMX as well which is a bit more common than the MX400 (at least here in europe...). I have used the Philips Seismic Edge. I wish I still had …

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Re: Other PCI sound cards with EAX 2

Posted on 2013-12-02, 19:27

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

NJRoadfan wrote: No pile of spare SB Lives laying around? I seem to have collected a few over the years just from stripping machines. Always wanted an Audigy, but no one ever seemed to put them in their machines! I have several Audigy variants. I'm just pondering the alternatives.....

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Re: SoundBlaster Live! SB0200 issues.

Posted on 2013-12-02, 19:22

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DOS info http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/80816-for-tho … cards/?p=548494

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Re: Other PCI sound cards with EAX 2

Posted on 2013-12-02, 07:17

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

bristlehog wrote: Diamond Monster Sound MX400 based on ESS Canyon3D. Hmmm that is a good idea. I should have bought one when they were more common though!

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Other PCI sound cards with EAX 2

Posted on 2013-12-02, 05:27

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My SBLive recently burned up for some mysterious reason. A short on it somewhere I guess. Oh well! Don't really care! :cool: So I was thinking what other card I could try that does EAX 2 and isn't named Audigy. There are lots of alternatives. The cards with QSound and Sensaura audio implementations …

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Re: Athlon XP really retro?

Posted on 2013-12-01, 20:47

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DonutKing wrote: and most kids these days that tinker with computers will be able to at least recognize most of the parts and repair such a machine. Give them a VLB 486 though and they'd have no idea. 🤣

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Re: SoundBlaster Live! SB0200 issues.

Posted on 2013-12-01, 02:08

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can also find drivers for that card on Dell's site.

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Re: Athlon XP really retro?

Posted on 2013-11-30, 21:53

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A friend's aunt was using a Barton + Abit NF7-S 2.0 setup up until early this year. Finally went out and bought a new laptop. I hope to get my hands on the old box at some point. I feel an attachment to it since I built it. 😉

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Re: Athlon XP really retro?

Posted on 2013-11-30, 20:44

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Did the board have any bad caps? It shouldn't be torching hardware... People used to love that ASUS board. I definitely think you were a victim of bad caps, either due to age or the defective caps often used back then.

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Re: ATA DMA modes

Posted on 2013-11-30, 20:27

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Promise Ultra33, Ultra66 and Ultra100 were anything but bulletproof and troublefree. :) They especially disliked ATAPI devices but people had trouble with HDDs too. And then there were the Highpoint nightmares....... I bought Abit BF6 specifically because it is BE6-II without the Highpoint chip. I …

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Re: Athlon XP really retro?

Posted on 2013-11-30, 20:13

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That hardware is best used with XP anyway. It is a shame that AMD didn't get SSE2 into Athlon XP. It is a major issue. For example you can't put a modernish video card in and gain HD video and Flash acceleration because it requires SSE2. I usually try to talk owners of old hardware like this into …

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Re: ATA DMA modes

Posted on 2013-11-30, 02:58

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are IDE DMA modes below UDMA. 16.7 MB/s is called Multiword DMA Mode 2 (aka WDMA). Some CDROM drives continued to use this mode because there was little need for more bandwidth for a CDROM. This is also the top mode supported on PIIX and PIIX3 of 430FX/HX/VX and 440FX.

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Re: ATA DMA modes

Posted on 2013-11-29, 20:40

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OSR2 and later do have DMA IDE. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258757 Ya with early versions of 95 you would get 3rd party drivers for DMA IDE.

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Re: ATA DMA modes

Posted on 2013-11-29, 20:32

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Original retail 95 does not have DMA IDE support without 3rd party drivers btw. The other options on that page related to ATAPI / SCSI and there is also an option for auto-insert notification (autorun).

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Re: 16 bit sound in DOS games, was that 'a thing'?

Posted on 2013-11-28, 02:22

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

bristlehog wrote: Ensoniq SoundScape AudioDrive This is actually ESS Audiodrive.

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Re: 16 bit sound in DOS games, was that 'a thing'?

Posted on 2013-11-28, 02:20

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Another benefit with 16bit / 44.1khz sound cards is with games that use tracker-based music. There is an obvious improvement in quality if the game will mix and output at the higher rate, regardless of the quality of the music's samples.

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Re: ATA DMA modes

Posted on 2013-11-27, 20:28

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OSR 2 rightly didn't enable DMA IDE by default because the results were unpredictable at the time. Instability or even data corruption could occur. ATAPI drives were particularly iffy. I think Win2k has it enabled by default though I may be wrong.... BTW the EIDE2300 card does not do DMA to the …

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Re: When did DOS start dying out as a gaming platform?

Posted on 2013-11-27, 03:19

by

by swaaye

in Milliways

in Milliways

Yeah, Windows 95 and DirectX were what made Windows viable for gaming. Combined the result is close to DOS's "to the metal" aspect while also making PC gaming a lot easier for developers and users alike. Games started to arrive quickly once Win95 was available in 1996.

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