borgie83 wrote:

I like using the Titan copper heatsink/fan and copper ram heatsinks with my Voodoo cards. It keeps them nice and cool. Here's a […]
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Splinter wrote:

I have a USB floppy drive and I must say, it's never let me down. Some of the really old drives i take in px are so dirty that it's almost impossible to not get errors.
Fitted a small fan ( the 80mm looked ridiculous) to the V3 3000 and finally got round to making a back up iso of my original Tomb Raider cd, so that I can mount it and play with Dosbox SVN Daum and not fiddle about with cd's all the time.
Not sure of the legality, but it sure save a lot of mucking about.

I like using the Titan copper heatsink/fan and copper ram heatsinks with my Voodoo cards. It keeps them nice and cool. Here's a photo of one that I sold a few months ago on eBay. It's a little hard to see the card due to the plastic I sealed it in but you can make it out.

image.jpg

EDIT: Another photo of this card in action.

image.jpg

That's a really neat job, impressive.

I'm using Phil's DOS startup parameters. They look like this. The ones I put together before gave me even less memory.

1[COMMON]
2DOS=HIGH,UMB
3FILES=30
4BUFFERS=30
5LASTDRIVE=H
6
7[menu]
8menuitem=EMC, Expanded memory + Mouse + CD-ROM
9menuitem=XMC, Extended memory + Mouse + CD-ROM
10menuitem=CMC, Conventional Memory only + Mouse + CD-ROM
11menuitem=EM, Expanded memory + Mouse
12menuitem=XM, Extended memory + Mouse
13menuitem=CM, Conventional memory only + Mouse
14
15menudefault=EMC,10
16
17[EMC]
18DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
19DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM
20DEVICEHIGH=C:\DRIVERS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:OPTICAL
21
22[XMC]
23DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
24DEVICEHIGH=C:\DRIVERS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:OPTICAL
25
26[CMC]
27DEVICEHIGH=C:\DRIVERS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:OPTICAL
28
29[EM]
30DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
31DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM
32
33[XM]
34DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
35
36[CM]

And Autoexec:

1@ECHO OFF
2SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
3SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
4SET PROMPT=$p$g
5SET winbootdir=C:\WINDOWS
6SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND
7LH C:\DRIVERS\CTMOUSE.EXE /R2
8GoTo %config%
9:EMC
10:XMC
11:CMC
12LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:OPTICAL
13:EM
14:XM
15:CM

^^ Cool 😀

Produced another Doom music video, this time with the might Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 😀 But now stuck in Internet traffic. In the region of Australia that I live in, ADSL2+ is the fastest Internet option but especially the upload speed is very slow. I have a few big videos uploading that will take days 😵

This evening I played Colonization. I then decided to drop the Pentium Overdrive CPU from my PS/ValuePoint 433DX/S and put an Intel 80486DX33 back in it. With a Pentium 233MMX box there is no need for 2 Pentium PCs. I really like the 486DX for nostalgia as that was my second PC (not that we had an IBM: I had the cheapest clone listed in PC Magazine in 1993/4: just the mini tower: the keyboard/CRT/mouse/SB were all re-purposes from my Philips 80286 at the time). 😊

Yesterday, inspired by a discussion on a Russian forum about retrocomputers, I went on and checked if system/video/BIOS cacheable=ON improve Phil's VGA benchmark score on a 5x86. No, they don't.

Then I downloaded a program called TweakBIOS 1.5.3b and tried to max out Acer AP43 motherboard settings. I did improve memory bandwith, yet I could not get any better results.

So, 1)Acer AP43 has a great BIOS; no need to tweak it with external tools 2) I guess, I maxed out this rig and can not go any further without changing the motherboard.

Installed my Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 on my modern PC (4770K CPU, GTX 780 x2 )and downloaded/played a heap of midi's from various console games.

Installed a Roland MPU-IPC-T card in my 486SX-33/Sound Blaster Pro 2. Hit the Turbo button and connected my Thrustmaster Fighter X joystick and finally played Wing Commander 2 with Roland MT-32 music, sound blaster pro sounds and a joystick - absolute magic.

Played Tomb Raider and Unreal on my PII 300, Voodoo II SLI setup, when I should have been working, just to see how great they look 😀

rgart wrote:

Installed my Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 on my modern PC (4770K CPU, GTX 780 x2 )and downloaded/played a heap of midi's from various console games.

Installed a Roland MPU-IPC-T card in my 486SX-33/Sound Blaster Pro 2. Hit the Turbo button and connected my Thrustmaster Fighter X joystick and finally played Wing Commander 2 with Roland MT-32 music, sound blaster pro sounds and a joystick - absolute magic.

Nice!

You're all decked out now what Roland gear concerns 😀

Set up my 486SX-33mhz in my new full size (ish - 25 inches) case. The power supply came with it, and seeing as I had the option of AT or ATX, I went with the AT conversion. So I decided to put it all together and set up a system. Forgetting the fact I have no hard disks that are small enough that aren't being used, or at least backed up first.

Ultimately the board will be wasted within this case. But I needed to try out the componants that I will use with the 486, with the VL controller card allowing primary and secondary IDE lines (it's a must). I will swap this case with the midi one that houses my 3dfx gaming machine (i'll have to change the switches over), and then the full height of the case will get used, as I need 2 cd drives, a removable ide caddy, a 5.25 floppy drive and have one bay spare for whatever else I think I can cram in that isn't any of the three i've just mentioned. The black cd drive is just to remind myself how to set it up in such a system- works nicely. The mainboard BIOS makes me laugh, assuming that primary hard master is "C", slave "D" etc.

It doesn't look like I will have ide/floppy length cable issues, so that's a plus.

I am sorting video cards.

Among lots of Vantas and M64 cards I managed to find a Leadtek TNT2 Vanilla.
Stock frequences were 141 MHz core 150 MHz mem so its between a TNT2 and a TNT2 Pro.
The card is running great and artifact free at TNT2 Ultra frequences 150 MHz core 183 MHz mem.

It scores 35 FPS in GL-Quake at 1024*768 32bit
Its a bit strange but I get the same FPS at 1280*1024 32bit so for some reason it seems CPU limited.
The Geforce 2 MX 400 @ 190/190 had no issues pushing 60 FPS at 1024*768 32bit using the same k6-3+@600 system.

made some cga art at someplace, somewhere

leileilol wrote:

made some cga art at someplace, somewhere

Palette fits nicely, but needs more pixels to get a good representation of curvatures...

It seems V-sync locks to 30 FPS during the parts of the GL-Quake timedemo where it cant get close to 60 FPS.
This explains the strange numbers I was seeing, With v-sync inactivated with Powerstrip the cards scales with resulution as they should.

The next somewhat decent card I found in my Nvidia Vanta/M64 cardpile was a "No name" TNT2 M64 clocked at 130 MHz core 166 MHz mem (64bit)
I clocked the card to 150 MHz core 190 MHz mem and got 45 FPS in GL-Quake at 1024*768 32bit, not bad for a junk card.

In Quake III it scores 38 FPS at 1024*768 16bit and 24 FPS at 1024*768 32bit.

Yes that's what v-sync does! Always have it disabled for benchmarking. But video capturing turn it on as tearing is awful to watch.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Yes that's what v-sync does! Always have it disabled for benchmarking. But video capturing turn it on as tearing is awful to watch.

In some Programs it seems as long as your card dosnt reach 60 FPS the FPS dosnt get locked but in others it does.
In 3dmark 99 V-sync dosnt seem to lock to 30 FPS only 60 FPS.

Buy yea disabeling V-sync is always a good idea for benching, I was just beeing lazy.

The next somewhat useful card I found was an Aopen PA3000PLUS TNT2 M64
Stock speed was 130 Core 125 MHz mem (64 bit), the card struggled at 1024*768 32 bit in GL-Quake.
Clocking the card to 150 MHz core 177 MHz mem was all it took to make the gameplay smooth with 40 FPS.
Powerstrip wont let me clock the memory for this card higher without editing the cfg file.

Why did they use so low frequences for these cards? With higher clocks they perform decently.

I beat Blood Episode 3, my 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 came in, and I won a auction for a Diamond Stealth II S220.
Also got this out of an old Compaq Server if anyone wants it

RacoonRider wrote:

Yesterday, inspired by a discussion on a Russian forum about retrocomputers, I went on and checked if system/video/BIOS cacheable=ON improve Phil's VGA benchmark score on a 5x86. No, they don't.

Then I downloaded a program called TweakBIOS 1.5.3b and tried to max out Acer AP43 motherboard settings. I did improve memory bandwith, yet I could not get any better results.

So, 1)Acer AP43 has a great BIOS; no need to tweak it with external tools 2) I guess, I maxed out this rig and can not go any further without changing the motherboard.

I know its a pretty good board. And the BIOS pretty much already has all the settings you would want to tweak.

The graphical BIOS is weird though.

made some cga art at someplace, somewhere

I have always loved the CGA palettes. Its always fun to see what somebody can make of 4 colors

AidanExamineer wrote:

I'm using Phil's DOS startup parameters. They look like this. The ones I put together before gave me even less memory. […]
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I'm using Phil's DOS startup parameters. They look like this. The ones I put together before gave me even less memory.

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1[COMMON]
2DOS=HIGH,UMB
3FILES=30
4BUFFERS=30
5LASTDRIVE=H
6
7[menu]
8menuitem=EMC, Expanded memory + Mouse + CD-ROM
9menuitem=XMC, Extended memory + Mouse + CD-ROM
10menuitem=CMC, Conventional Memory only + Mouse + CD-ROM
11menuitem=EM, Expanded memory + Mouse
12menuitem=XM, Extended memory + Mouse
13menuitem=CM, Conventional memory only + Mouse
14
15menudefault=EMC,10
16
17[EMC]
18DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
19DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM
20DEVICEHIGH=C:\DRIVERS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:OPTICAL
21
22[XMC]
23DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
24DEVICEHIGH=C:\DRIVERS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:OPTICAL
25
26[CMC]
27DEVICEHIGH=C:\DRIVERS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:OPTICAL
28
29[EM]
30DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
31DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE RAM
32
33[XM]
34DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
35
36[CM]

And Autoexec:

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1@ECHO OFF
2SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
3SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
4SET PROMPT=$p$g
5SET winbootdir=C:\WINDOWS
6SET PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND
7LH C:\DRIVERS\CTMOUSE.EXE /R2
8GoTo %config%
9:EMC
10:XMC
11:CMC
12LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:OPTICAL
13:EM
14:XM
15:CM

I must be doing something wrong. This uses HiMem or EMM386, AND loads CD and small Cute Mouse drivers into DeviceHigh, I don't know why I can't top that 600Kb mark.

[EM]
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF

should read

[EM]
DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF

The XM option loads HIMEM, EM is for expanded memory only.

Even with XM (which is mouse in devicehigh, no CD, HIMEM) I only end up with 582ish Kb when all is said and loaded.

EDIT: On Windows 95 with a single 128MB stick o' RAM.