Re: List of Win9x games with surround sound support

Posted on 2022-09-19, 06:35

by

by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Thanks for doing that. I'm glad it's not just my system. It's certainly an... interesting design choice. I imagine there could be more games from that time period which use an odd surround implementation. It probably took developers some time to conform to the newly emerging sound standards in PC …

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Re: List of Win9x games with surround sound support

Posted on 2022-09-17, 13:46

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Cool. I’d be interested to know if you experience the same behavior. I tested Half-Life + patch 1.1.1.0 today and I can confirm your findings. The game uses 4 speakers normally, but the center speaker does become active when reverb/echo effects are present. I guess that technically counts as 5.1 …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2022-09-17, 06:20

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Milliways

in Milliways

Speaking of which... GOG has an amazing sale on the Gothic series right now that I could not resist. I picked up 1, 2, & 3 for less than $10 total (I read 4, now just called Arcania, is not very good). Great deal. I remember really enjoying the Gothic 2 demo many moons ago. Hopefully I have time …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 16:49

by

by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What I'm trying to say here is that if certain motherboards with certain chipsets support more than 64 MB of cacheable memory why not to use all of the cacheable memory available and not only up to 64 MB of it? And if memory nowadays is relatively cheap, why not to buy the maximum possible memory …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 15:54

by

by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So why do you argue with me? Maybe it's better us to try and find a suitable period correct motherboard with 430NX chipset (which supports up to 512MB of cacheable memory) instead? Or as a Christmas late present you would prefer a computer with the worst possible chipset? Is that your point?🙂 Again …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 15:36

by

by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your example was a non-period-correct 430TX chipset supporting up to 64 MB of cacheable memory. My example is a period-correct 430NX chipset supporting up to 512 MB of cacheable memory. So what's your point? 🙂 The point was that certain chipsets made during that time had a limited amount of …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 15:15

by

by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Intel 430NX Chipset- Release date: 1994-03 (period correct), Supports Pentium 90 to 133 MHz CPUs, Cacheable memory - up to 512 Mb. 🙂 Of course certain chipsets could cache more than 64 MB. No one was claiming otherwise. The 430HX is another such example. My point was that the 430TX (as well as the …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 14:14

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

With all due respect, I'd rather read the manual or a book published by some well known publisher than a review of some 14 year-old-kid. That is certainly your prerogative. I suppose you have nothing against Intel as an official source though? This is page 1-5 from the document I linked to above ( …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 13:58

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-16, 13:56: IT competence of 14 year-old-kid? Ok ... 😂 He is not wrong in this particular case.

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 13:53

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

14 year old!!! Are you kidding me? "a very prominent hardware review website"🤣 By the way, this article is also written by this 14-year-old kid. 🙂 The fact that Anand was 14 at the time doesn't reduce the prominence of his website, nor his IT competence. What he wrote there about 64 MB being the …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 13:40

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Article about one specific chipset from some unknown website (anandtech.com? what's that?) dated August 1, 1997 is period correct for the year 1995 and a book from a well known publisher dated 2003 is not period correct? Come on! 😄 The 1997 article is period correct for the Intel 430TX chipset …

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Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

Posted on 2022-09-16, 13:12

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Chipsets from that era could only cache a certain amount of RAM, even though you could install more than that. Uncached memory slows down system performance. Here's a period correct article which laments the fact that Intel's 430TX chipset could only cache 64 MB RAM.

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Re: Direct 3d vs 3dfx texture quality in older games

Posted on 2022-09-13, 08:27

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IIRC, one of the games where Glide looked noticeably better than D3D was Carmageddon 2. Same deal with anything based on the Unreal engine as well. I think D3D kind of caught up with Glide by 1999, but even some later Win9x titles like Diablo 2 look and run better in Glide mode.

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Re: List of Win9x games with surround sound support

Posted on 2022-09-13, 07:15

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Do you have a copy of Half-Life and / or Gunman to check for yourself? I'm really curious to know if you hear the same thing since you've got a similar setup. I do have the retail CD version of Half-Life, and I might be able to do some testing over the weekend. For reference, I'm using a set of …

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Re: Video card for Win98 gaming

Posted on 2022-09-12, 07:41

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does these issues with Gothic and Thief 2 affect the GoG version the same way? The GOG version of Thief 2 already has some fan-made patches integrated (T2Fix) so it's not suitable for true retro compatibility testing. You want the retail CD version + latest official patch 1.18. As for Gothic, I …

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Re: List of Win9x games with surround sound support

Posted on 2022-09-12, 06:29

by

by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I remember the analogue Dolby Surround! 1990s shows like Star Trek Voyager proudly had an "in Dolby Surround" label in the intro.. Back then, external decoder boxes (set-up boxes in today's terminology) converted the alaongue stereo signal to quadro phonie, for four speakers. Interesting. I'm …

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Re: List of Win9x games with surround sound support

Posted on 2022-09-12, 06:26

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Tested a few more over the weekend: Thanks! I've added all of those as well. As usual, I used the results from the PC Gaming Wiki whenever they had a higher speaker count, except in one case. They list Gunman Chronicles as supporting 7.0 while you could only get it to output 4.0. Since this game is …

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Re: Video card for Win98 gaming

Posted on 2022-09-12, 06:04

by

by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I didn't try Gothic and Thief 2 though. I might investigate the issue. I don't think the Gothic issue is fixable, sadly. I scoured the web for a solution, and outside of using fan-made patches (which change more than just that) the problem seems to always occur on Nvidia cards newer than the …

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Re: Video card for Win98 gaming

Posted on 2022-09-12, 00:13

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thinking about getting an FX5700 for nglide support. 3dfx are super pricey. An FX 5700 needs 5x.xx Nvidia drivers, which might not work with certain games from the Need for Speed series, while also causing Thief 2 to freeze with a black screen. For best compatibility under Win9x, you need 45.23 …

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Re: My top-build, a parts-surplus proof-of-concept

Posted on 2022-09-10, 10:48

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by Joseph_Joestar

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I actually started my tests with an MX400, but it just runs out of steam at 1024x768 in Unreal Tournament, for example. Yeah, that sounds about right. Performance wise, the MX400 should be roughly equal to the original GeForce from 1999. A GeForce 2 GTS would open up some of those higher …

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