badmojo wrote:Very nice! Your systems are quite similar to what I have with a couple of differences: […]
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Very nice! Your systems are quite similar to what I have with a couple of differences:
- I use a Matrox Mystique in My P166 because of its fast SVGA and beautiful image quality compared to several others I've tried in that machine. (Ark Logic PCI, an interesting VGA card.)
- Why not use Windows 95 in Dopefish? It's fun to use different OS's where possible I think.
- IMHO a HDD is the way to go for the authentic experience (same goes for a real FDD).
- Do you have an ISA slot available in the Croft machine? I've found that even the mighty P166 struggles with maxed out SVGA games and it's a much nicer experience running them on my PIII 1Ghz, but these being DOS games it's better to use an ISA card with them. Nice choice on the Live! for Windows games though!
- I read from the compatibility lists that the Matrox Mystique is absolutely crap for DOS games, especially ones that use scrolling such as good old Commander Keen! It has similar faults to what the ATI cards have.
- Hmm, maybe I could use Win 95 OSR2 as the main OS on Dopefish, and it would run faster without the IE crap that 98 has. But would it really be much different than using Win98 with 98Lite installed, to clean out the unneeded crap that 98 has?
- I know that using a proper HDD and FDD is better for authenticity, but the problem is that HDDs and FDDs are quite unreliable and it would be a PITA to get replacement IDE HDDs, floppy drives and disks.
- Sadly Croft doesn't have a single ISA slot, which is a PITA. It only has PCI slots (plenty of them) plus an AGP slot and one of those rare AMR slots.
rgart wrote:Nice classic builds!
Interested to know about your choice of CPU cooler on the Thunderbird rig.
I am using the el-stocko cooler on the T-Bird at the moment, but I am considering replacing it because it sounds like a Airbus A380 taking off. Is there a better cooler that you or anyone else would recommend?
bjt wrote:Nice spec on these machines, the MIDI side will be well catered for! From what I understand, there's no particular advantage to a SC-55 MkII in DOS games. Any SC-55 will fit the bill. Same with the MU module, anything from a MU-10 up will do.
If you are concerned about HDD noise there's always the option of a laptop hard drive. Have you considered a Vortex 2 in the Croft machine?
I'm actually more concerned with reliability than noise for the HDDs. I guess you are talking about an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD right? If so, I might have to whack in a SATA controller card. I think that Mau1wurf1977 had little or no dramas setting one up in his rig according to his YouTube vids.