Wow, another update... It has been a while, I was (and am) quite busy with other stuff. I'm still in middle of installing and testing games whenever I have time for that.
Outlaws is quite "interesting"... I really had a hard time getting CD audio to work. No music would be playing when using the *.bin/*.cue files of the discs. But it wouldn't even play using the original discs... Then I tried renaming Olwin.exe, that didn't work. I switched drive letters around, no success. I tried an analogue CD audio cable, that didn't work too. Then I added a digital CD audio cable, and now it worked. I'll have to see whether I can find out why all the other stuff didn't work, especially the analogue cable. In the SB Live! mixer, all inputs are unmuted (CD Audio, CD Audio digital, Line in, Mic In etc.). Well, at least it did work finally.
While struggling with Outlaws, the left speaker suddenly no longer had a signal. I traced this to a faulty cable connection. Of course, this connection is the only connection I cannot reach without disassembling the entire cable harness... One cinch connector had become so loose it would just slide off its socket. Don't ask me how, I don't know. Luckily, I had a spare cable of the right length and so that's all back in working order. It took me three evenings to trace down the issue to this connection, replace the cable and reassemble the cable harness 😒
During the Jedi Knight + expansion installation, I encountered another interesting thing I already had forgotten. Jedi Knight worked alright, CD music playing. But with Mysteries Of The Sith there was no music. Digging around, I found an older thread that implied there actually were two versions of this CD-ROM, one with audio tracks and one without. Now I suddenly knew why I had a second CD-ROM of Mysteries Of The Sith lying around. This second one actually had the audio tracks. The most significant difference is that one has the "PC CD-ROM" logo (no audio tracks) and the other one has the "CD Digital Audio" logo (audio tracks) on it.
Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine is as buggy as I remembered it. It won't even start right. After loading I end up with the camera locked at the sky and I have to enter the graphics settings and then return to the game to actually have it looking normal... Well, I'll have to see whether a patch corrects this or if it remains this way. And I think I'll have to invest a lot of time into the control scheme. Mouse + keyboard feels almost unplayable. Maybe I'll have to switch to a game pad to make this work better. Slightly annoying. This could very well be the reason why I never completed this game 😉
slivercr wrote:No love for Rogue Squadron? I was so hooked when I first played it!
I must admit that I haven't played this game back then extensively. Maybe I should give it another chance.
slivercr wrote:I also love those MS Intellimice. Its the only mouse that I've actually worn down from so much usage: the left mouse click would be difficult to press and the scroll wheel would rotate almost freely. I retired it and ever since I've been looking for another one, NIB, to take its place.
Back then, my first optical mouse was the original IntelliMouse Explorer. I loved it. When it finally died, it was replaced with the IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0, which I'm still using on my "office" PC today. It survived many years of gaming abuse and is still working like a charm! I had an IntelliMouse Optical sometime in between and this one was very good too (although I prefer the side buttons in the Explorer style, both on one side). Now, I feel safe enough to use it again, thanks to my newly aquired backups 😀
I was very lucky when I recently found several of those NIB via a store liquidation. They weren't cheap, but what are the odds of ever finding this stuff again? So I bought all that were left. And one Natural Keyboard Pro. My original from 1999 or so is still working, after being my gaming keyboard until the SideWinder X6 (which unfortunately didn't last long until the first keys didn't work anymore). Now I'm using a Filco Majestouch-2 on my main PC. My Natural Keyboard Pro has been driving my retro machines ever since. Finally, I have backup for it too!
slivercr wrote:So, as usual, I'm hardware jealous 😜
That's exactly the same feeling I have whenever I read your Outrigger thread 🤣