Re: Rambus box
Posted on 2010-06-17, 17:24
How's it going with the Rambus box?
Re: Interesing but expensive 486 board
Posted on 2010-06-17, 17:09
In the end it turned out that the SIS 496/497 is easier to use, and quite a bit faster, if you use a late 486 CPU. Another consideration is whether PCI busmastering is even beneficial if you have a CPU as slow as a 486 and as little system/RAM bandwidth available as those 32-bit bus + direct mapped …
Re: Interesing but expensive 486 board
Posted on 2010-06-17, 02:14
There are a couple of ways these boards may work. 1) VLB runs off of PCI. This is ok. 2) PCI runs off of VLB. This is not good. PCI busmastering basically doesn't work so you lose out on a big PCI advantage. This board's chipset goes the lesser route. The SIS chipset (Silicon Integrated Systems: …
Re: Interesing but expensive 486 board
Posted on 2010-06-16, 17:46
Xtra nostalgia value, of course. Apparently nostalgia for nasty VLB+PCI mobos with lacking performance. I don't think I've ever heard anything good spoken of PCI+VLB boards. There is a lot of price gouging going on now with hardware of this vintage. A couple of years ago you could find quite a few …
Re: Socket-A AMD Athlon/Sempron system
Posted on 2010-06-16, 17:35
HLT slowing the HDD. That's a new weirdness. Maybe an ACPI quirk with that board? Another possible cause is problems with APIC (that's not ACPI). I had problems similar to yours with SBLive on a nForce2 mobo when APIC was enabled. APIC allows for many more IRQs than the standard PIC. Sometimes it …
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
Posted on 2010-06-13, 20:55
I have a 3850 too. It's really not that hot. I have a Accelero S1 on it with no fan. At idle it uses just a bit more than the 4670. I like to look at these cards like this. 2900XT 3870 4670 Speed 100% 95% 100% Power 100% 60% 40% Bandwidth 100% 50% 25% :D BTW the 5670 is kinda like a 4670 but with …
Re: A working 486 hits my desk!
Posted on 2010-06-13, 20:18
CF cards have IDE interfaces inside. They're nifty that way. You just need an adapter to plug a cable in. Notes - Most don't support DMA modes, only PIO. So you might want to look for DMA. - write performance can be horrible (think floppy-esque). Spend more on one with a good write rating.
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
Posted on 2010-06-13, 20:12
I have that HIS 4670. :) It's nice and quiet, until the bearings start to wear after about a year, and then it'll make some noise occasionally. 4670s are exceptionally low power when idle. I broke both of my GeForce FX cards (well one died of crappy construction) so I need to go shopping for those …
Re: Introduction.
Posted on 2010-06-12, 20:17
Your kind is not welcome here. 😠 😠 😠 😠 🤣. jk. Welcome to the nut house. He we primarily sit around trying to make '90s hardware work almost as well as it didn't when it was new! Padded room recommended.
Re: Socket-A AMD Athlon/Sempron system
Posted on 2010-06-11, 00:20
Yeah there's not much point in installing drivers for PATA controllers that work as generic IDE hardware. Regardless of manufacturer. I've never seen an improvement in performance. On the other hand, I have definitely found problems with 3rd party IDE drivers. Regarding VIA performance though see: …
Re: Dual 386 Motherboard??????
Posted on 2010-06-10, 17:40
FPU emulation is super slow. That's probably why the difference was so great. :) I had a little Linux-based PDA back around 2002 called a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500. That has a 206 MHz StrongARM CPU which doesn't have a FPU. Somebody ported Quake over to it but without a FPU it was not playable. Doom ( …
Re: Socket-A AMD Athlon/Sempron system
Posted on 2010-06-10, 17:37
I was looking over some old mobo reviews awhile ago and discovered that VIA disk controllers basically suck. It's something that I've suspected for years and looking up review numbers showed it to be very true. If that mobo has a separate IDE RAID controller, try it instead. The Highpoint chips are …
Re: ASUS Deluxe GeForce 256 DDR $9
Posted on 2010-06-09, 00:04
I had myself convinced this was one of the DDR models. Whatever shall I do. 😀 5ns SGRAM is the same stuff on a G400 MAX.
Re: A working 486 hits my desk!
Posted on 2010-06-08, 02:33
Oh yeah that's right. The AT PSU has that hot wire going through the case all the way to the front switch. The connection at the switch in my case is essentially non-insulated by design, with the metal screws the wire runs to being nice and available to fingers. I've felt 120v once or twice there. …
Re: Dual 386 Motherboard??????
Posted on 2010-06-08, 00:09
At the CPU Collection link, it basically said that the Weitek chips were only used for expensive CAD/CAM apps. They were much less popular than the Intel 387s. What games use a 387 though? I know of Falcon 3. Games from the 486 era that use a FPU probably shouldn't count because they'd be too slow …
Re: A working 486 hits my desk!
Posted on 2010-06-08, 00:06
Somebody on here told me that if you turn the PSU off, it's still grounded as long as it's plugged in. The switch doesn't cut the ground off, apparently. So it's probably best to leave it plugged in but PSU switched off?
Re: Xbox360 gamepad on PC
Posted on 2010-06-07, 17:31
Another caveat is that they don't support DirectInput force feedback. So all of your old games won't do their feedback. It uses XInput. It will still function as a gamepad for oldies however. It is a great pad though. I use it primarily for racing games and emulators.
ASUS Deluxe GeForce 256
Posted on 2010-06-06, 22:40
:D It's an ASUS AGP-V6600 Deluxe 32MB SDR AGP. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asus-agp,153.html http://img.tomshardware.com/us/1999/12/21/asus_agp/v6600.jpg I stumbled on this auction the other day. $9 shipping included to US folks. I'd been wanting to add a GF256 to the collection for awhile …
Re: Choosing a Voodoo
Posted on 2010-06-06, 19:54
It's interesting to hear of problems with Voodoo3 AGP. I've never had any trouble with those even on nasty Super7 boards.
Re: (im)Possibilities wit Slotket CPU adapters?
Posted on 2010-06-06, 15:27
The difference in TDP between the P3 900 and 1100 is ~4W. 😀 Tualatin is not much different. If you are looking to call something a furnace, just look at the contemporary Athlon CPUs. Makes their performance seem less impressive from an efficiency standpoint.
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