Re: Sokolniki Game Film Expo 2016.

Posted on 2016-11-23, 17:01

by

by elianda

in Milliways

in Milliways

Looks like a great event! These oldschool looking displays seems to catch always quite some attention especially with younger people that grew up with LCDs. Though, when I was at Gamescom I didn't had so much time to visit cosplay village since there were always crowds of people and a few didn't …

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Re: Orchid SoundWave 32 - What do you guys say?

Posted on 2016-11-23, 16:14

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The firmware is loaded by the init tool from hdd to the card. By default it comes with a firmware for General Midi and another for MT32. It is contained in the *.LD files here: ftp://retronn.de/driver/Orchid/soundwave32/wo … rchidROMs/SW32/

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Re: Irony regarding published esd precautions

Posted on 2016-11-23, 12:38

by

by elianda

in Milliways

in Milliways

I killed my first Commodore 64 back in the late 1980's because I touched a TV screen while having my hand on the keyboard (static took out the RAM chips). Some plastic can be staticy, others not so much. I keep cards in a plastic drawer shelf with no issues. I find it odd that it died so easily. …

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Re: ET4000/W32i + 386 + 1024x768 + Win3.11

Posted on 2016-11-21, 12:30

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have seen 8-bit and 16-bit RAMDACs. What is the difference if they both operate at the same speed? Also, I believe the MicroLabs card DOES support 1024x768 at 64k colours, but only in interlaced mode. The difference is the color depth: 8-Bit means the DAC is capable of 256 colours, 15-Bit 32768, …

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Re: A good use for an S3 Virge ?

Posted on 2016-11-20, 20:21

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From 1995, still kicking

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Re: Looking for HMC HM86304 drivers, and some other issues with 386 pc

Posted on 2016-11-18, 16:49

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My guess on the colored words issue is that it sometimes starts up in monochrome as monitor detection is flaky on old cards since the introduction of DDC capable monitors and reusing the old pins for a new standard. The ctmouse error indicates also some mode change of the graphics chip. In this case …

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Re: 3dfx Voodoo image quality

Posted on 2016-11-18, 14:16

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The diagonal sinusoidal brightness stripes is analog noise. This gets specifically pronounced on still images but is not as strong visible when the card runs due to a phase shift each frame. So it averages out. Wait, those are captures and not screenshots? Of course, with screenshots it wouldn't …

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Re: Looking for HMC HM86304 drivers, and some other issues with 386 pc

Posted on 2016-11-17, 15:45

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If the card has 256 kB and is VGA what drivers are you looking for? For VESA modes like 640x480 at 256 colors you need at least 512 kB. Same applies if you want to use this mode in Win 3.x So it is only necessary if you expand the memory on the card to 512 kB. As for the crashes, check the hdd …

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Re: SoftMPU crashes EMM386

Posted on 2016-11-17, 13:54

by

by elianda

in SoftMPU

in SoftMPU

It is really interesting that the IRQ logic works with PCI cards at all.

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Re: Yet another 386DX40 motherboard identification

Posted on 2016-11-14, 14:10

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The sticker just tells you about the core code. So it is based on the 386DX ISA BIOS core from AMI that is (c) 1987. All the tables and chipset options are as of 1992/11/11. Usually this date is taken as the BIOS date as the core BIOS is used on a lot of different boards (with different tables …

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Re: Best DOS video card?

Posted on 2016-11-13, 16:04

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

brostenen wrote: Anyone else here, been testing these cards stacked up to each other? Choose 'Graphics Card' in the type drop down menu and click 'Filter' at http://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hwgal_empty.html That are all cards I tested.

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Re: Diamond Stealth III S540 32Mb

Posted on 2016-11-11, 15:50

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I guess it was just a suggestion because the OP stated that he is looking for a card for his earlier system compared to his 98 Pentium II. So it could be assumed his earlier system is PCI only. Since the 2D core in Banshee and V3/V4/V5 is identical you can extend this recommendation to V3 AGP as …

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Re: Diamond Stealth III S540 32Mb

Posted on 2016-11-11, 13:03

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The S3 Savage4 can have different VESA BIOSes. Some support 8/16/32 bpp generic modes and some 8/15/16/32 incl. low res modes. I haven't seen a Savage4 BIOS supporting 24 bpp modes.

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Re: Win95. yea or nay?

Posted on 2016-11-10, 12:11

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Win95 is an option for this system. If you can upgrade the memory to 32 MB or more also Win98SE is an option. For WfW 3.11 it is a bit late, but if you cloak the Win95 installation you can easily install WfW 3.11 in parallel on the same disk. (or much more simple and faster copy a generic …

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Re: oakcdrom.sys vs cd1.sys

Posted on 2016-11-09, 12:30

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, old drivers usually default to PIO mode to be as compatible as possible. Especially for oakcdrom.sys that is used for by Windows 9x installation. We had this topic here somewhere else already. Also with early controllers DMA is not impossible. Often even old ISA IDE controllers support MW-DMA2 …

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Re: oakcdrom.sys vs cd1.sys

Posted on 2016-11-09, 03:20

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can there be "subtle" incompatibility problems on a mouse or CD driver, or is it always a case of "it either works or it doesn't"? Of course. However the 'small' drivers are for 99% of all applications suitable. There are edge cases where I have seen e.g. ctmouse fail. I identified this as some …

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Re: NexGen Nx586-P90

Posted on 2016-11-08, 01:39

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Indeed for common use a regular 486 or low end pentium would be preferred. Still the Nx586 is quite interesting. It's a bit OT, but how do you get the actual ISA WS? In the BIOSes I have there is generally no option. Sometimes an additional WS can be set and the ISACLK.

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Re: Recommendations for fullscreen video on a 486 DX-66?

Posted on 2016-11-06, 23:57

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

ratco wrote: Btw, why not use DOS? You can play mpeg videos just fine with that. Though to be fair windows is sometimes more stable with multimedia stuff. The MVP2000 card has drivers for Win3.x and Win9x only. So in DOS video playback would be software only resulting in quite reduced video quality …

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Re: Recommendations for fullscreen video on a 486 DX-66?

Posted on 2016-11-06, 15:07

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You could try using Calmira XP, to get a more modern interface (I find it easier to use than Win 3.1 standard interface). The machine has 8 MB RAM, I am not sure if Calmira would run so well. With more RAM however I could also run Win95. I also have the problem with Calmira that it crashes the …

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Re: Recommendations for fullscreen video on a 486 DX-66?

Posted on 2016-11-06, 13:21

by

by elianda

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is video playback on my 486DX2-66 VLB system: In 1024x768 TrueColor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jineMBgaHU In 1280x1024 64k: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhQ8Oq52O_k For the video conversion I used Virtualdub to crop to 4:3 aspect ratio and prescale to SIF. For the conversion to MPEG1 …

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