Re: Neomagic MagicMedia 256AV, NM2200 Sound blaster emulation

Posted on 2021-01-24, 18:33

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Wow just did a quick Google on NeoMagic and they're still going - their website has news from mid 2020 (but a Flash component to their home page haha!) I remember when every laptop at one point around the year 2000 had a Neomagic 128 video chip in it. Yeah, I have Neomagic on my Thinkpad 240s. They …

---

Re: Neomagic MagicMedia 256AV, NM2200 Sound blaster emulation

Posted on 2021-01-23, 07:45

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

It doesn’t exist (at least not on the CPiA). AFAIK the Neomagic NM2200 is AC97 and only offers audio in a DOS box. If it’s in a clean DOS environment it would either not work, or only have very limited sound. Some vendors (like IBM) does some strange things to ensure pure DOS compatibility (like use …

---

Re: Best video cards with DOS / Win 3.x / Win 9x support

Posted on 2021-01-18, 08:19

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

If you buy those cards from reputable manufacturer (MSI, Asus etc.) the picture quality is often quite good. Considering DOS compatibility I have yet to find a game that doesn't work with TNT2/Geforce 2. Their DOS compatibility is great. Do you have bad experience with them? Eh, the TNT2 m64 that I …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-18, 07:55

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Can these claims be sourced? And what kind of "sources" are you looking for? Something more trustworthy than opinions from reviews. They were given a big chance by Via afterwards and put together the Columbia chip, AKA the first DeltaChrome in '04. And even though it was not that bad, not too many …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-18, 07:53

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The issue with the SavageMX/IX family was that there are several versions - some are 64 bit bus, and some are 128bit bus, some are SDR (64 or 128 bit) and some are DDR (64 bit only) - it really depend on which one you have. The difference between the SavageMX and the IX is that the MX has no …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-18, 04:36

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Well, the Riva 128 I was testing had serious issues trying to run 3DMark 2000, and I couldn't find an 8MB Riva 128ZX... I could have sworn I had one. So, I just went for a Velocity 4400 (Riva TNT) 16MB AGP. The difference between a basic TNT and a Savage MX is kind of amazing. Sure, the Savage …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-17, 23:11

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Well, the Riva 128 I was testing had serious issues trying to run 3DMark 2000, and I couldn't find an 8MB Riva 128ZX... I could have sworn I had one. So, I just went for a Velocity 4400 (Riva TNT) 16MB AGP. The difference between a basic TNT and a Savage MX is kind of amazing. Sure, the Savage …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-17, 22:26

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

So what are actually the PCI Vendor / Device IDs of your card? Does it also use the 86C290 chipset? I just remembered to check this. Interestingly, Everest says this is an 86C2 70 . I can't seem to find much about that chip. appian_gemini_everest1 (Custom).jpg Plasma-online does list it as part of …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-17, 22:00

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

As for whether S3 would’ve survived? They did to a certain extent, but they didn’t have a large R&D effort and a disciplined QA scheme, and fell short time and again. Via milked them dry making “good enough” integrated graphics for their SoCs and starved them of R&D funds. Can these claims be …

---

Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2021-01-14, 04:17

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Might be getting a a Thinkpad 240X - thinking of messing with spdtool to reprogram a SODIMM module to report less memory than usual. F9D2D0A5-507C-4265-8E1A-90DFBB777B69.jpeg Also, some stuff arrived in Japan for me. Looks like something to drive a train from 2003, and an old Japanese Thinkpad. Fun …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-13, 05:39

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Wow, you know I never looked real closely at the specs of the S3 Savage series in comparison to the competition. It never occurred to me that they were only single pipeline, single TMU chips until the Savage 2000 came out. On top of that, they all had a 64bit memory BUS. I had always assumed it was …

---

Re: Appian Graphics Gemini PCI - S3 Savage MX 16MB

Posted on 2021-01-13, 04:18

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Oh yeah, I have the same exact card for my Igel Winterminal J+/Winnet IV thin client - except mine was purchased new-old-stock complete with original packaging and driver floppies. C8B3D580-0738-433F-94E7-CFCE8918E4DB.jpeg If you want to see if different drivers might help, I have a few in WinImage …

---

Re: Why wasn't this 486 sold in the US?

Posted on 2021-01-12, 00:40

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks. But what was the point of building a CPU that knowingly infringed on a huge corporation's copyrights? Did they think that Intel won't notice and they can get away with it? Can't really see the logic behind it. Did UMC sell this CPU in the US before the lawsuit? No, it was never sold in the …

---

Re: Why wasn't this 486 sold in the US?

Posted on 2021-01-11, 14:18

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It couldn't be imported either, why? Because UMC knowingly violated Intel patents. They were sued by Intel, and UMC countersued challenging the validity of the patents. UMC lost and settled with the CPU being forbidden from being sold in the US, them paying damages and dropping the challenge to the …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-01-09, 07:16

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Anyway, I just wanted to add that anecdote. Nearly the entire Nforce line of products were released during the capacitor plague era, which is very unfortunate. And once the plague was nearing it's end, bad solder was an issue on later chipsets (like the 600 series with the IGP). Definitely not a …

---

Re: Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

Posted on 2021-01-08, 03:09

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That diagram puts an asterisk next to ISA, LCD, and KB / MS, with the asterisk clearly labeled, "dedicated to the Master Core." Yeah, but the asterisk looks like it is meant for the 6 PCI pins - otherwise the slave core documentation would not include ISA access. Normal PCI is not on the top level …

---

Re: Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

Posted on 2021-01-07, 15:43

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've also seen that video, and I agree with everything you wrote here, except for the bit about mapping ISA to the slave core. The block diagram on the product page clearly only shows ISA on the Master core, and the fact sheet for the Slave core doesn't list ISA as an option either, while the fact …

---

Re: Need advice on Hard Drive for Pentium 3 Build

Posted on 2021-01-07, 14:43

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeh you can run Win9x on SD cards but its not ideal. Why is it not ideal? I'm looking to set up several retro systems over the coming months, and have been looking at a 3.5 bay CF/IDE adapter with different OS on different CF cards on the earlier systems (up to Win 2K), so would be interested to …

---

Re: Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

Posted on 2021-01-07, 04:46

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You're thinking of the EX2, not the DX3. The DX3 comes in single core and dual core variants, but the dual-core variant is a Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) CPU, like a typical dual-core chip. As for the EX2, it only offers the ISA bus to the Master core. It does not have a VGA core integrated, but …

---

Re: Real hardware DOS gaming console for HDMI displays

Posted on 2021-01-06, 22:41

by

by ragefury32

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For anyone still following this insanity of mine, here's a project update. Speaking of the Vortex86, I just purchased a cheap PC/104 Vortex86 DX3 board, a PC/104 ISA backplane, and a CMI8330 sound card. At least one of those is on the slow boat from China, so I have a couple of weeks to wait. But, …

---