Re: Good IDE controller/RAID cards for Retro Rigs?

Posted on 2012-08-27, 03:25

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

In my experience there is a bit of a boost with UDMA 100/133 over the UDMA 33 on the PIIX4E. You need to have a semi-modern hard drive (2003?) and a faster CPU like a PIII ~1000 or Tualatin. It's not that big of a boost though (and how often do you max out the storage subsystem anyway?). There is …

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Re: Quake 3 vs Unreal Tournament

Posted on 2012-08-27, 02:22

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh. The 5800 Ultra was low volume AFAIK. I've seen them on ebay occasionally though.

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Re: Quake 3 vs Unreal Tournament

Posted on 2012-08-27, 01:58

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

sliderider wrote: Any idea why they're so hard to find? Have they become collectible and people are hoarding them or did most of them end up in the trash? No idea. Maybe it's a bad time of year for Parhelia liquidation? 🤣

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Re: Quake 3 vs Unreal Tournament

Posted on 2012-08-27, 01:49

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is it louder than a FX5800 Ultra? :lol: And speaking of which, was there a recall on those? It's really HARD to find one for sale anymore. Parhelia has one of those 40mm ultra-turbo fans on it. It's not alone in that of course. I will probably replace it with something from my special junk drawer …

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Re: My Windows 98 Dream Machine: El Cheapo Comeback.

Posted on 2012-08-26, 23:10

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

From what I've read, the VIA chipsets actually do get a small boost from async RAM operation. example http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/d … s745.html#sect8

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Re: Which Sound Card consumes least CPU power?

Posted on 2012-08-26, 18:59

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yup some VIA-based motherboards have poorly written BIOSs that configure the PCI bus incorrectly and cripple its performance. It affects any PCI device, but sound cards make it obvious. I had a VIA Apollo Pro board once that was so bad that Live! didn't work at all until I installed the PCI Latency …

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Re: Which Sound Card consumes least CPU power?

Posted on 2012-08-26, 01:47

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PCI? Probably SBLive/Audigy on the VXD drivers. ISA? It's hard to say. Few ISA cards have any brainpower beyond being a DAC. Ultrasound as said above has hardware mixing but it's rarely utilized. Wavetable boards with hardware MPU-401 probably use less CPU than a AWE32 running AWEUTIL.

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Re: GeForce4 MX 4000

Posted on 2012-08-24, 23:33

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A friend of mine played EQ with a Voodoo2 at first. They sure cranked the requirements up a lot.

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Re: Best Fanless AGP/PCI Graphics Card

Posted on 2012-08-24, 23:13

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a 6600GT that ran for an unknown period of time with no fan because the bearing seized. It may have been like that for over a year. The card still works. I doubt it did any 3D gaming during that time though. I have it set up with a 7v 60mm fan and that seems ok during gaming. I am still not …

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Re: Everything looks smoother on a CRT.

Posted on 2012-08-24, 23:06

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Make sure you don't run a 60 Hz LCD at any other refresh rate because it will likely throw away the extra frames and this causes obvious stutter. To make this easy to set up for all resolutions, for Win9x you can get HZTool and for XP get ReForce. I'm not sure of the best way to set this up in DOS. …

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Re: Best Fanless AGP/PCI Graphics Card

Posted on 2012-08-24, 17:47

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

GeForce 6 cards are hit and miss with AGP 3.3v even if they are keyed for it. Sometimes they are just keyed incorrectly for their actual compatibility. I don't think it would be possible to adequately cool a 6600GT in a single slot. The passive versions usually have 2 heatsinks (front+back) linked …

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Re: Advice on Tualatin board

Posted on 2012-08-24, 02:09

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BTW it looks like 840 boards need adapters to run Tualatin. Forgot about that aspect.

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Re: GeForce4 MX 4000

Posted on 2012-08-24, 02:00

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What would the equivalent (or close to) be for Nvidia, the 5950? 5800/5900/5950 (Ultra is best obviously). They are great for D3D8 and older (and OpenGL). D3D9 isn't critical for a retro machine so their weak performance for that is not a deal breaker to me. But it is nice to have the superior …

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Re: Advice on Tualatin board

Posted on 2012-08-24, 00:58

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Buy an Intel 840 motherboard. 😀

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Re: Best Fanless Graphic Card

Posted on 2012-08-24, 00:51

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For such video acceleration, you need at least Radeon 4350 or GeForce 8400. Interesting, there is a PCI GeForce 8400 from Sparkle which is fanless. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/310393090984 SSE2 is required for hardware acceleration of H.264 and VC1. That means a PIII is not an option if you want it. I …

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Re: GeForce4 MX 4000

Posted on 2012-08-24, 00:47

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are a couple of reasonably priced 9700 pros on ebay. So, assuming I grab one of those, coupled with my 933mhz coppermine EB, what are some specific examples of turn of the century released games I may be able to play fully maxed out at 1024x768? Issues 1)Bioware OpenGL games run badly on …

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Re: GeForce4 MX 4000

Posted on 2012-08-23, 17:41

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would just go for a FX 5600 Ultra or higher. There's little reason to pick an older GeForce for games, certainly not any MX card. You just cut out features and performance. Radeon 9700 Pro (?) I think? Or GeForce FX? Yeah with AGP 3.3v and W9x, those are the limits. GeForce 6 and Radeon 9550/9600 …

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Re: Best Fanless Graphic Card

Posted on 2012-08-23, 17:13

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Feipoa, for a more modern machine you might want to ponder moving up to something with SSE2 support so you can get Flash and VC-1/H.264 acceleration. Video cards with support for such acceleration also require SSE2 to use it. You'll also get more video card for your money by moving to PCIe since AGP …

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Re: Best Fanless Graphic Card

Posted on 2012-08-23, 00:24

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Feipoa are you dissatisfied with the 6200 64bit from practical GUI usage? The benchmark results don't seen that bad to me. There are some things to note about GUI acceleration. First, it is partially CPU dependent, and W9x is more CPU dependent than XP. Secondly, high resolutions like 1600x1200 are …

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Re: Best Fanless Graphic Card

Posted on 2012-08-22, 17:21

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Limiting the design to single slot width is a major constraint. You will have to look at the low end cards of each generation. I see good suggestions from everybody.

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