Re: Any 1280 x 1024 LCD that doesn't stretch 4:3 from VGA?

Posted on 2011-07-11, 19:33

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

LCDs often have a few scaling options, such as "aspect ratio stretch", "fill", and "no stretch". Assuming you found a 1280x1024 LCD with aspect ratio stretch it should do 4:3 fine. But the scaling quality is the next most important aspect and that varies a lot. I'd stick to 1920x1200 / 1600x1200 …

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Re: X-Wing 95 and 3d Hardware acceleration

Posted on 2011-07-11, 18:12

by

by swaaye

in Windows

in Windows

Laptopvideo2go mods NV's drivers for support on more hardware. They may just work for you because they add desktop chips too. http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers Their INFs make it more obvious how to add your device ID too if you need to.

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Re: the perfect unreal/half-life box

Posted on 2011-07-11, 17:46

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The SB16 PCI is a rebranded Ensoniq AudioPCI and those are very basic sound chips. But they still have the advantage of lower CPU use on bus transfers than an ISA card. You can absolutely run an ISA and a PCI sound card at the same time. Run that AWE64 alongside a Live or Vortex 2 and you have a …

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Re: the perfect unreal/half-life box

Posted on 2011-07-11, 02:14

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Well you asked how to build the perfect Unreal and Half Life box. That tends to remove ISA sound cards from the picture. The only problem you'll notice is a loss in frame rate. Which you won't notice unless you compare.

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Re: the perfect unreal/half-life box

Posted on 2011-07-11, 02:06

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I've always used headphones with my computer so I've never missed multichannel audio :) That's not what I'm referring to. Games will play various sound samples at once. Music, effects, etc. Live and Vortex have DSPs that mix these sounds in hardware instead of having Windows do it. This is faster …

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Re: the perfect unreal/half-life box

Posted on 2011-07-11, 01:59

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I would have to disagree with you there - I have used PCI soundcards and I do not like them. If you want throw away running any DOS games, maybe. But a PCI sound card has to do an emulation for DOS mode. Nothing but trouble in my opinion. ISA sound cards suck up CPU time because of the lack of good …

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Re: Geforce FX Super Thread

Posted on 2011-07-10, 17:44

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well what I do know about Doom3 and ATI: -NV35 and later have a double z fillrate mode that is perfect for Doom3. PR called it "Ultrashadow". -ATI's occlusion culling mechanisms didn't entirely work = big loss of efficiency. -NV's OpenGL driver was simply better quality back then. -Doom3 is light on …

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Re: Geforce FX Super Thread

Posted on 2011-07-10, 01:03

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those aren't 3D games. The Bioware games that I'm referring to are KOTOR and NWN. I should have been specific. For that matter you could look up Doom3 because 9700/9800 didn't do very well there, and people used to swear by NV for Counterstrike. All OpenGL games. OpenGL is to ATI of 1997-2004 what …

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Re: Geforce FX Super Thread

Posted on 2011-07-09, 23:37

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yup I went from an 8500 to a 9700. I knew some guys who upgraded from a Ti 4400 to the lousy 5600 Ultra only to find their speed the same or worse. Blind NVIDIA faith. I think the whole FX range was successful though. A lot of people wouldn't even consider ATI back then. People got burned by their …

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Re: Geforce FX Super Thread

Posted on 2011-07-09, 21:40

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a 6600GT around and I had a 6800GT as well until I blew it up by having it slide halfway out of a running AGP slot. But really I'm not interested in cards after the FX series because you're getting too close to modern cards then and I'm all set there. As I've said, the FX series interests me …

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Re: Geforce FX Super Thread

Posted on 2011-07-09, 18:09

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I made up some videos of my wondrous GeForce FX 5900 Ultra playing some games, a few of which it can barely handle. I'm calling it a 5950U because I have it clocked at 500/450. These are all Youtube links. I wish they'd pump up the bitrate but hey it's free. I uploaded very high quality source vids …

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Re: help me finding NVIDIA Vanta drivers for windows me..:(

Posted on 2011-07-09, 17:55

by

by swaaye

in Windows

in Windows

For the Vanta you might need to get manufacturer specific drivers. I ran into this when I tried one out once. NV's reference drivers wouldn't detect it. The chip is a NV5 (TNT2) as far as I know but NVIDIA didn't directly support it. I think it was an OEM only product and NV wanted to shift …

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Re: Ideal graphics card for Socket 7 setup

Posted on 2011-07-09, 03:12

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Personally for me with Socket 7 AGP the only cards I suggest are Voodoo Banshee/3/4/5. The reason is that they don't use any AGP features. They only use AGP as a 66 MHz PCI essentially. This bypasses all the problems with those Socket 7 chipsets. Some other cards may or may not work. Some seem like …

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Re: 3d prophet 9000 pci on 486 ,no boot

Posted on 2011-07-08, 18:22

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think it likely requires PCI 2.2 or better. Most 486 boards have buggy, poorly performing PCI on top of it being an old version of the spec.

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Re: Radeon 9200 PCI and old computers

Posted on 2011-07-08, 18:15

by

by swaaye

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

PCI 2.2 requirement?

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Re: Go pro or 16?

Posted on 2011-07-07, 20:42

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It depends on the age of the games. Some games with only SB or SB Pro support may not work with SB16. Some later games will sound much better with 44.1 kHz 16-bit audio of a SB16. A nice, cheap alternative to a real SB/SBPro is a card with one of the ESS chips from ES1688 to ES1879 ( info ). They …

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Re: Intel vs AMD? Or should I say Intel and AMD?

Posted on 2011-07-06, 22:34

by

by swaaye

in Milliways

in Milliways

NV is trying awfully hard to outmaneuver the x86 companies with their ARM CPUs. And of course the GPGPU thing that they lead in right now, even if it's not exactly an amazing success story.

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Re: AWE64 Platinum deluxe

Posted on 2011-07-05, 21:43

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's why they invented SBLink, the little plug on the mobo with a wire coming from the sound card. It literally interfaces with the ISA bus. is there really an AWE64 PCI? I never found any info or pics on them I do own an AWE64D though which is PCI... but the unreliable wikipedia page says AWE64D …

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Re: AWE64 Platinum deluxe

Posted on 2011-07-05, 16:33

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AWE64 PCI is fascinating too. Another AWE64 offshoot that didn't get much use.

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Re: 133 MHz Challenge - 5th/6th gen CPU per clock performance

Posted on 2011-07-05, 16:23

by

by swaaye

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember 112x4.5 = 504 MHz being popular with some Deschutes chips. SL2W8 for example which I had. But going farther was too much for either cache or core or both, ya. 450 MHz was the most likely speed to work because that's what the cache chips were rated for. It looks like Tualatin's full speed …

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