VOGONS


First post, by ibm5155

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This is a curious hardware, the state of the notebook was that it was never used (it came with the original box and everything).
Hardware Resume:
-6,7" TFT screen (800x600 but I belive it can do 1024x768)
-3,2GB of HDD (that sounds like a 80s HDD)
-CPU: Cyrix Megia GXm 200MHz with MMX (That can be set to run in 175 or 200MHz over bios or you can reduce the performance by half with casio tools)
-No L2 Cache 🙁
-GPU: ExpressGraphics (2D only, 1,5MB or 2MB onboard mode)
-RAM: SDRAM PC-100, came with 32mb soldered, but can be expanded up to 96mb
-Audio: ExpressAudio (Emulated FM OPL3, under review)
-Input Output:
-1 USB, 1 Irda, 1 PCMCIA, 1 Line out and build in mic.
Battery: 1500MAh (dead)

There're still "new" units being sold, just check the link: Here

All the screenshots can be viewed over this link: http://imgur.com/a/bs27w

=: PERFORMANCE
The Fiva is a quite fast machine under Windows, for daily tasks as using work and excel it Works just fine, but for real gaming, that's another history.
The clock may look big, but the real performance is btw a Pentium 100 and a Pentium 133.

=: SOUND QUALITY
Here we have some good and some bad parts, first, the speaker quality isn't great, so, sometimes you may feel the áudio is bad but in reality the speaker is the one that's causing the bad sound...
With earphones, everything was better, but not the best quality, the opl3 quality feels actually good, but not the best, it sounds like some 8bits áudio quality, some games has some tick like sound when there is no sound playing and a sound is starting to be played...
Here's just some áudio quality reviewed by some games:
Tyrian 2000: The sound effects are ok, and the opl sound actually near to the original, but the music sounded a bit sultry.
DXBALL: sound effects ok but midi sounds all wrong, it's like a virtual pc 2005 opl3 synth emulator D:
Warcraft II: Sounds actually good wave/opl3

=: MICROPHONE
This is a tool that I'll never use, but I noted one thing if you put your finger into the mic, it's going to make a really loud sound, and there're no ways to disable it >.<

=: GPU
The Achilles' heel from Fiva is the GPU, no 3D support, not so compatible with old games, and it even makes some old games slow (forcing you as example, to run Doom on low graphic quality).

=: GAMES
Here's a list of games that I played and tested:
-Alley Cat: Works fine
-SimCity 2000: Ok
-Commander Keen 6: Ok (there's some small flickering sometimes but that's outside the game screen)
-Starcraft : it looks like it's working just fine
-Quake 2: It's a no no, even under 320x240, I only get 9,7fps on the first demo 😳
-Quake 1: Actually, it's near to 30fps.
-Street Ball: Some graphical glitches (text mode tries to mix the graphics mode) but, just press enter + enter and it's fixed.
-Dune 2: Works Quite Well
-Heretic: Works much faster than Doom 1/2 for some reason
-CDMAN: Ok
-Corridor 7: Ok
-Death Rally: Ok
-Descent: A bit slow, but I'm running on "max" settings, maybe lowering some settings and it's going to be playable
-Duke Nuke 3D: Feels Playable
-DX-Ball: The music sucks (the Windows opl is much worse than ms-dos opl), but it's playable
-The Secret Monkey Island: Ok
-4D Stunts: Ok
-Network Q Rally: Couldn't enjoy this one, some parts were almost ok, and others were slow (like 15fps)
-Doom 1: This one impressed me, I got something btw 25 - 30 fps 😳, that's the first computer that I have that is required to use the low quality settings for make doom playable xD
-Wolfenste 3D: Black screen of death D:
-Test Drive 3: almost playable when setting the cpu speed at 50% (min) and disabling the L1 Cache
-Another World: Only adlib sound (and the quality was bad) and the performance was bad.

Last edited by ibm5155 on 2016-06-02, 00:36. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 1 of 10, by ibm5155

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The only draw situation is, there's no driver for storage usb 🤣 (I tried to plug everything since a 1Tb hdd to 256MB mp3 player).
I belive I'll need to tranfer the data by infrared... (at least the usb driver)
So, since I have a LG G3, is there a way to use the infrared with some app for transfering data? if not I'll need to take a cable for my socket 7 machine (it has onboard irda)

Reply 3 of 10, by ibm5155

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The thing is, there's no ethernet/dial up, the only way to transfer data is by:
-Swap the hdd and buy some usb adaptor and tranfer the data directly
-Get some pcmcia that doesn't require Windows 98 drivers for working.
-Find a infrared tranfer cable

Reply 5 of 10, by keenmaster486

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Or you could use a different hard drive in it, one which will fit in a more modern computer so you can transfer files by booting up with a linux CD or something. Some laptops have PATA drives and can boot from USB sticks, meaning that if you make a bootable DOS USB stick and put all your files on it you can transfer them to the hard drive. All you need besides a stock Win98 install is NUSB, then all your USB drives will work. Since you say your hard drive is very loud (at least, that's what I thought you said, correct me if I'm wrong) it's probably ready to bite the dust anyway. Your laptop is probably new enough so you won't run into any HDD capacity limitations in the BIOS.

I've actually done this before with two laptops of my own.

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 7 of 10, by ibm5155

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So, I decided to go to the infrared way, I did a "bit ugly" but function serial infrared, too bad it's not working at 107Kb/s (I belive something is wrong because only the desktop is suffering from a disconnect thing)...
Anyway, transfering the Windows 98a update and the generic usb drivers, just 177 minutes and I'm good to go 😁 (PS: I tested alleycat and it Works fine).
EDIT: Is there a way to make the wolfenstein 3D work? I only get a black screen D:

Reply 8 of 10, by lolo799

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What are your options for booting or restoring the system in case the hdd fails?
Any mentions of optional devices in the manual, like external floppy or cdrom drive?

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 9 of 10, by ibm5155

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on the actual state of the art, it's going to be easier to get an ide to usb adaptor and do the job over other computer.
because it supports floppy boot, but only the external one (using the dock).
There may be a way to boot from some kind of cd-rom pcmcia, but idk if the bios is going to support it