Re: Post your 386 Speedsys results here

Posted on 2013-01-19, 23:55

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

This should use the FPU! unfortunately it's not too fast to shine... :happy: p.s. a beefed-up 486 +Voodoo2 does it much better. The Quake on 386 video is more or less a Tech-Demo since Quake was targeted for a Pentium CPU. It was never intended to run on a 386. The video was primarily related to …

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Re: ISA VGA Card?

Posted on 2013-01-19, 19:36

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, back to reality. Silentwulf wants to play DOS games with a 486-33. So most games would run in low resolution, maybe 640x480x8bit for strategy games or adventures. So either 256kB or at most 512kB of RAM should be sufficient. I doubt that HiColor or TrueColor would be necessary, equally an …

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Re: ISA VGA Card?

Posted on 2013-01-19, 13:07

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The W32 is rarer as ISA version and Win32 GDI acceleration gives no benefit in DOS. And ET4000 is fast but not the fastest. There are chipsets that are faster like the late Cirrus Logic chipsets. Like the Spea V7 Vega: http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/v7_vega.jpg Oh and Acumos2 chipset is also …

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Re: ISA VGA Card?

Posted on 2013-01-19, 02:28

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Get a card with at least 512 kB and VESA 1.0x BIOS (or available driver) and min. 50 MHz DAC, min. 256 color DAC. As idspispopd noted a PVGA1D is already quite good. Other options would be a ET4000, a CL-GD5422 (like the AVGA3) or 5420, Trident TVGA9000i is probably also ok. A bonus would be if the …

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Re: Multiplayer Gaming on 20th Century Hardware

Posted on 2013-01-19, 02:17

by

by elianda

in Milliways

in Milliways

It's also good to note that DOSBox has the components to connect old games together over typical internet connections, or even two DOSBox instances together on a single machine, through a game's internal network connectivity. I do this for testing the multiplayer aspects of certain games I review …

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Re: Multiplayer Gaming on 20th Century Hardware

Posted on 2013-01-17, 22:48

by

by elianda

in Milliways

in Milliways

Year 1999 and Mutliplayer? Well there were tons of games at this time already supporting multiplayer. For DOS worthwhile games can be Duke3D, Doom2, OMF, Death Rally and Warlords 2 Deluxe. Windows9x probably Micro Machines V3, Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft 2, CivNet, Earth 2140, 2150 as well as the …

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Re: Graphics card advice for a low power Pentium 2

Posted on 2013-01-17, 21:09

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You probably mix ET4000 with ET6000, while ET4000 is really a fast and compatible ISA card the ET6000 has got already some VGA hardware features like hardware scrolling removed. The Matrox 2D core also doesn't support hardware scrolling. Try Commander Keen 4 on these cards and you'll see. Also Jazz …

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Re: Graphics card advice for a low power Pentium 2

Posted on 2013-01-17, 17:06

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If it is for gaming then I'd plug the trident card if it has 2 MB. It is a local bus card, sufficiently fast for DOS games and even more compatible than the Virge. All other cards are also just 2D cards compared to the V2 SLI backend. High frequency DAC probably doesn't matter, as it is plugged to a …

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Re: Two Soundcards (SB16/GUS), One 486?

Posted on 2013-01-17, 02:19

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From my experience, the installer is just good to depack the files ones and to give a template for a config. Everything else is always ini file editing and writing some batch with the appropriate calls. Never expect that an installer finishes with the correct configuration and everything is set. …

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Re: Choosing a video card for a 950mhz Slot A Athlon w/AMD 750 chipset

Posted on 2013-01-16, 10:52

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Voodoo5 is of course another story compared to the other retro GPUs. It has some serious value for that game era. It does indeed, but 950Mhz is not enough to power it up properly. It would be a shame to limit such a card with that CPU :disapproving: I'm wondering how you're figuring the V5 5500 …

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Re: Capturing below 640x480 resolutions and CGA/EGA on the Avermedia Gamebroadcaster HD

Posted on 2013-01-15, 10:23

by

by elianda

in Milliways

in Milliways

I use this already in this way in my workflow. I encode with Staxrip x264 2pass and usually scale up every low resolution material to 2x for youtube uploading. It is a bit annoying though to do separate encodings just for YT.

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Re: Choosing a video card for a 950mhz Slot A Athlon w/AMD 750 chipset

Posted on 2013-01-14, 19:37

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I never had problems with V2 SLI on a fast system overheating. Some air flow should be there anyway. Also I think a Obsidian2 200SBI gets hot quickly also in a slower computer. As for the graphics card, you may also choose a Voodoo5 5500 instead of a GF2.

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Re: What is world first aluminum computer case?

Posted on 2013-01-14, 16:47

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had to think of this http://berkeley.intel-research.net/arahimi/helmet/ But the case of the Zuse Z3 already looks like aluminium:

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Re: Choosing a video card for a 950mhz Slot A Athlon w/AMD 750 chipset

Posted on 2013-01-14, 16:37

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Something like a Geforce 2 GTS or Pro/Ultra/Ti if it should be a bit faster.

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Re: HP Vectra XU 90C

Posted on 2013-01-14, 10:08

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If it is really a Dual CPU system DOS isn't an option anyway to utilize both CPUs. I would recommend NT4. For a dual P133 games would be Starcraft, Diablo and maybe Baldurs Gate (2) or Silver. If you go for 3D, then Glide is a good option since it has low CPU overhead. So a Voodoo1 or Voodoo2 with …

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Re: Capturing below 640x480 resolutions and CGA/EGA on the Avermedia Gamebroadcaster HD

Posted on 2013-01-14, 02:46

by

by elianda

in Milliways

in Milliways

I recently noticed some quirk with the card: I have a main screen that usually runs at 1920x1200 60 Hz DVI on a NVidia GTX570. For recording I clone this to the Avermedia Card to HDMI. So the main screen reduces to 1920x1080p as the avermedia supports. Avermedia gets the main output for resolution …

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Re: HP Vectra XU 90C

Posted on 2013-01-13, 19:24

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would rate Dual Pentium on Neptune chipset is a bit rare, on HX there were already several boards available for acceptable prices. (like GA-586DX, Tyan boards etc.) Really rare are Dual 486 systems or earlier. Before changing anything on this machine, I would run it like it is currently setup and …

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Re: HP Vectra XU 90C

Posted on 2013-01-13, 15:20

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes it is an Impression Plus. It has some basic 3D acceleration for software that supports it. Here is a screen of the mga info tool from my Impression Lite: ftp://78.46.141.148/pictures/matrox/mga_impression.png This card seems not useful for plain DOS action, it is utterly slow there, much slower …

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Re: Progress Thread - Building a Retro Gaming Time Machine - YouTube Video

Posted on 2013-01-10, 11:33

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am just curious, is there a reason why you operate the hdd top side down?

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Re: AWE64 Gold Prices on eBay - Insanity

Posted on 2013-01-09, 23:27

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I guess the problem is that most are missing a broader overview about available soundcards. So AWE has more features as SB Pro or SB16, but other cards have MPU-401+GM+Soundfonts already in DOS. Ok third party cards are usually not SB16 compatible, but the few DOS games that really utilize 16 bit …

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