Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 00:39:

OK, I don't know my Thrustmasters that well, just made a random search, did not check the specs. You may be right that those are […]
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Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-02, 00:28:

And the native DOS, gameport $1 Thrustmasters?
What you've posted there above is, yes, just cheap digital Win9x-and-above (or console, in some instances) "crap".

OK, I don't know my Thrustmasters that well, just made a random search, did not check the specs. You may be right that those are not old enough to be of any value "again".
Then again, the Thrustmaster stick I got last week was certainly "native DOS" - but sadly, still looks and feels like pretty cheap crap.
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
But, on the other hand - I bought that after it had run out three times, so even the one Euro is a shaky assessment...
Are you in the US? Everything is more expensive there and mainly, for many things, the market seems to have been swept completely while in Europe there's still a bit of a oversupply.
Voodoo cards or SB64 are the same "+3000 %" mess over here.

Yeah that stick you got is rubbish. I mean, subjectively. I'm sure it could be put to some use. But it's a far cry from what people mean when they talk about the iconic Thrustmaster days of yore.

I totally agree with you that most old joysticks are $1 rubbish. Because most old everything is $1 rubbish. Fact remains that, as with everything, there's a slim core of vaguely agreed-upon "outstanding products" out there, which retain some value through specific purpose and merit.

Even deeper, there are sub-niches where people have to search far and wide before they're able to find an ideal controller. Quite far from the utopia of $1-crap freely raining down for all, it's more of a long term mission, where sometimes even (gasp) !dozens! of $ are spent 😉

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-30, 20:45:

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-04-30, 17:01:

Some LCDs have a pretty good built in scaler.

And there are also external scaler boxes. The good ones aren't cheap and most of the best ones are no longer manufactured. I've got a couple of the TVOne scalers that allow you to adjust every single parameter possible and they also have a ton of included settings.

Programming is done with a utility program.

I worry about the added latency of a scaler.

There is no noticeable latency from what I can tell.

Have you ever tried a good scaler?

I've never tried a good scaler. I've seen a lot of them around, but it's a complex problem and have largely ignored it.

Good scalers (your Retrotinks, your OSSCs, your GBS Controls, et al) are low enough lag to not matter.

However, if we're comparing flat panels to CRTs, then the age and type of flat panel we're comparing is potentially more relevant, re: lag.

It's not my specialist area personally, but I've heard from a credible source that it's only in about the past ~5 years that panel characteristics have allowed (quality) flat panel PC screens to get into the low-lag realms that CRTs had all along. In terms of true "input port - to - visible pixel" time response.

professional video scalers have about 1-1.5 frames of lag

imi wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:15:

professional video scalers have about 1-1.5 frames of lag

to quote myself, since my edit coincided with your reply: "(your Retrotinks, your OSSCs, your GBS Controls, et al)"

Lag varies by type and options selected. But, with the above mentioned scalers, is broadly considered by the gaming community to be negligible. In the scheme of things, where literally every step in the signal path can be considered to "take time".

e.g.

RetroTink 2X Classic added 53 MICROSECONDS of lag. Thats 0.053 milliseconds. It came out two years ago, and was famed for being […]
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RetroTink 2X Classic added 53 MICROSECONDS of lag.
Thats 0.053 milliseconds.
It came out two years ago, and was famed for being lightning fast scaler.

RetroTink 5X Pro adds at a minimum ~0.25 FRAMES of lag, which is ~4 MILLISECONDS.
thats with no options turned on.
Options can take it above 20 milliseconds.
While thats still much faster than TV scalers, it's SLOW compared to his RetroTink 2x classic.

Another contextual / real-world example:

Well yes, for most gaming situations 4ms is undetectable. But for hosting local Fighting game tournaments, or playing relatively high level FG, where we are already shaving off milliseconds where we can (Samsung terrace is as fast as CRT’s now), and I could scale MVC2 UP TO 1440p from a Dreamcast thru a RetroTink 2x classic & mcable gaming edition TOGETHER in 0.553ms, [0.053 for the 2x classic and 0.5ms for the mcable), then my display only added 8.9ms

That's a gamer seeing just over 0.5 milliseconds scaling lag, then having his (top-of-the-line, chosen specifically for speed) screen itself add about 8.9 milliseconds on top of that.

For reference 1 frame @ 60fps = 16.66 millisconds.

All this is to prove: with good PC/videogame scalers like those I've mentioned, lag is not an issue at all.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-02, 01:14:

Yeah that stick you got is rubbish. I mean, subjectively. I'm sure it could be put to some use. But it's a far cry from what peo […]
Show full quote

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 00:39:

OK, I don't know my Thrustmasters that well, just made a random search, did not check the specs. You may be right that those are […]
Show full quote

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-02, 00:28:

And the native DOS, gameport $1 Thrustmasters?
What you've posted there above is, yes, just cheap digital Win9x-and-above (or console, in some instances) "crap".

OK, I don't know my Thrustmasters that well, just made a random search, did not check the specs. You may be right that those are not old enough to be of any value "again".
Then again, the Thrustmaster stick I got last week was certainly "native DOS" - but sadly, still looks and feels like pretty cheap crap.
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
But, on the other hand - I bought that after it had run out three times, so even the one Euro is a shaky assessment...
Are you in the US? Everything is more expensive there and mainly, for many things, the market seems to have been swept completely while in Europe there's still a bit of a oversupply.
Voodoo cards or SB64 are the same "+3000 %" mess over here.

Yeah that stick you got is rubbish. I mean, subjectively. I'm sure it could be put to some use. But it's a far cry from what people mean when they talk about the iconic Thrustmaster days of yore.

I totally agree with you that most old joysticks are $1 rubbish. Because most old everything is $1 rubbish. Fact remains that, as with everything, there's a slim core of vaguely agreed-upon "outstanding products" out there, which retain some value through specific purpose and merit.

Even deeper, there are sub-niches where people have to search far and wide before they're able to find an ideal controller. Quite far from the utopia of $1-crap freely raining down for all, it's more of a long term mission, where sometimes even (gasp) !dozens! of $ are spent 😉

Yep, while I stand by the fact that Tie-Fighter is one of the greatest games of all time, I'm officially too clumsy for "real" flight simulators and anyway, somehow I've always refused to max out on any gaming paraphernalia - e.g., despite quite the habit during CS heydays, I never bought a dedicated gaming mouse.

So, I'm still looking forward to the time when I happen upon a joystick that feels serious to me. The logitech are really well designed and manufactured, but their inner value is nothing special. Didn't test the Wingman Extreme yet, but its haptic did not quite convince me anywhere near the "premium top of the line" price difference back then.
Both are far beyond the Thrustmaster one, for sure.

But I know what you mean - some products of any kind simply have the distinction of "If I'm going to bother with antique PC flight sticks, I may well use the very best."

Or, just learned on ebay, while vanilla or even "pro" TNT2 cards get thrown out a dime a dozen, a humble TNT2 ultra will cost you 40 €. For the distinction of being what, 10 % faster?

Sad example: Ancient 1st generation DECT Gigaset 2xxx handsets for land line kept much of their average resale value (~30 € refurbished) for well over to decades now, despite land line hardly being even a thing.
They break down eventually, as any handset will, but kept being repaired.
Because, anything that came after them, be it premium from Siemens or some Chinese knockoffs, was universally hideous, overcomplicated shite with abysmal ergonomics. Some of the later Siemens stuff was really like "your original design team would have committed group seppoku rather than allowing that crap leave a factory". Sometimes, capitalism just fails us.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:19:

imi wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:15:

professional video scalers have about 1-1.5 frames of lag

to quote myself, since my edit coincided with your reply: "(your Retrotinks, your OSSCs, your GBS Controls, et al)"

Lag varies by type and options selected. But, with the above mentioned scalers, is broadly considered by the gaming community to be negligible. In the scheme of things, where literally every step in the signal path can be considered to "take time".

yeah, hence why I said "professional" as in pro gear out of the broadcasting world ^^ what I meant to say with that is just because they used to be insanely expensive doesn't mean they're lagless, but still a lot better than most of the generic cheap stuff out there, the aforementioned are hobbyist projects specifically made to be lagless, unfortunately the retrotink doesn't really cater to the PC crowd 😒

and having low latency capture was more important to me, so I went the datapath route instead of getting an OSSC

imi wrote on 2022-05-02, 03:10:

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:19:

imi wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:15:

professional video scalers have about 1-1.5 frames of lag

to quote myself, since my edit coincided with your reply: "(your Retrotinks, your OSSCs, your GBS Controls, et al)"

Lag varies by type and options selected. But, with the above mentioned scalers, is broadly considered by the gaming community to be negligible. In the scheme of things, where literally every step in the signal path can be considered to "take time".

yeah, hence why I said "professional" as in pro gear out of the broadcasting world ^^ what I meant to say with that is just because they used to be insanely expensive doesn't mean they're lagless, but still a lot better than most of the generic cheap stuff out there, the aforementioned are hobbyist projects specifically made to be lagless, unfortunately the retrotink doesn't really cater to the PC crowd 😒

and having low latency capture was more important to me, so I went the datapath route instead of getting an OSSC

Quite understandable. Anyway, the options are out there.

I just wanted to highlight how the lag introduced by quality scalers tends to be dwarfed by the lag inherent to flat panels themselves.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:53:

despite quite the habit during CS heydays, I never bought a dedicated gaming mouse.

And I probably had a gaming mouse before anyone else here: Razer Boomslang
But they were shitty. The left mouse button (or right, if you're lefthander or StarCraft fanatic) breaks quite fast. Had three of them, which lasted around 2 1/2 year each.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:53:

Or, just learned on ebay, while vanilla or even "pro" TNT2 cards get thrown out a dime a dozen, a humble TNT2 ultra will cost you 40 €. For the distinction of being what, 10 % faster?

The title is funny. "Like 3dfx"... Probably to get more views. I've also seen people putting "no 3dfx Voodoo" into the title.
Top of the line always demands a premium because that's what people like us want. A GeForce FX5900 can sometimes be bought for under 50 bucks. FX5950? 200+! Or compare Tualatin 1300MHz vs 1400MHz.

3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 agp. Hope it's not flaky when it arrives, installed and ran

holdencars11 wrote on 2022-05-01, 07:31:

$2 SideWinder

Unsure if i should remove the sticker of leave it on for the reminder of the bargain hahh

That's a good bargain, especially if you bought it locally 🙂 so didn't need to pay for shipping as to Australia this would make it prohibitively more expensive.

Concerning the sticker, I think this is really just up to you.
The box looks to be in a fine condition. Personally I tend to just leave the stickers on as it's also a reminder of how good a deal something used to be back then like vanilla TNT2 or GF2 non-ultra cards for like €1 each as these cards typically have never been binned by the dozen.

There should be ample tutorial on sticker removal available. It's almost a whole science in itself 😜

I don't ever see joysticks for sale in thrift stores here in The Netherlands anymore btw. Or at least not where I live. Pickings are rather poor here these days.

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-05-02, 07:53:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:53:

despite quite the habit during CS heydays, I never bought a dedicated gaming mouse.

And I probably had a gaming mouse before anyone else here: Razer Boomslang
But they were shitty. The left mouse button (or right, if you're lefthander or StarCraft fanatic) breaks quite fast. Had three of them, which lasted around 2 1/2 year each.

I bought one at some point for €5 or so? It was still in the original tin.
Yes, the sticky keys were annoying, it's what ended up ending my Boomslang in the end. But they were far from shitty. You're forgetting what context these were in. This Boomslang replaced my cheap OEM PS/2 mouse and compared to this standard mouse the Boomslang was a god damn tiger!!

The keys breaking after a certain while was so common that entire websites seemed to be dedicated to bending the mouse buttons back.

So no, they were definitely not shitty. On the contrary actually, they were a huge leap forward compared to what we were playing with back in the day.
And you probably also didn't find them shitty or you wouldn't have bought 3 of them in consecutive order right? 😋

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:53:

Or, just learned on ebay, while vanilla or even "pro" TNT2 cards get thrown out a dime a dozen, a humble TNT2 ultra will cost you 40 €. For the distinction of being what, 10 % faster?

The title is funny. "Like 3dfx"... Probably to get more views. I've also seen people putting "no 3dfx Voodoo" into the title.
Top of the line always demands a premium because that's what people like us want. A GeForce FX5900 can sometimes be bought for under 50 bucks. FX5950? 200+! Or compare Tualatin 1300MHz vs 1400MHz.

Yes, this is annoying, but it's also a thing of all ages. Ebay (or should I say the people advertising on there) was like this 10 to 15 years ago, like for instance people advertising the TNT2 M64 as a 64 megabyte graphics card etc just go increase their chances of someone buying it. Anything with a popular name is more expensive (often completely disregarding any logic to how much faster or better the item really is) and the same goes for things like "ultra".
Or even some brands will be more expensive, like stuff made by ASUS.

And kinda on the same note anything low-end would be considered junk by many end users. Even here on Vogons there would be some poeple who'd consider cards like Geforce MX (any) to be junk, "Oh a geforce MX? I threw all mine in the garbage and you should too because it is worthless and will never be good" but this also means these cards could be gotten very cheaply 😜

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-05-02, 07:53:

The title is funny. "Like 3dfx"... Probably to get more views. I've also seen people putting "no 3dfx Voodoo" into the title.
Top of the line always demands a premium because that's what people like us want. A GeForce FX5900 can sometimes be bought for under 50 bucks. FX5950? 200+! Or compare Tualatin 1300MHz vs 1400MHz.

or my favorite: "perfect companion for a 3Dfx voodoo"

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-05-02, 07:53:

And I probably had a gaming mouse before anyone else here: Razer Boomslang But they were shitty. The left mouse button (or right […]
Show full quote

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:53:

despite quite the habit during CS heydays, I never bought a dedicated gaming mouse.

And I probably had a gaming mouse before anyone else here: Razer Boomslang
But they were shitty. The left mouse button (or right, if you're lefthander or StarCraft fanatic) breaks quite fast. Had three of them, which lasted around 2 1/2 year each.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 02:53:

Or, just learned on ebay, while vanilla or even "pro" TNT2 cards get thrown out a dime a dozen, a humble TNT2 ultra will cost you 40 €. For the distinction of being what, 10 % faster?

The title is funny. "Like 3dfx"... Probably to get more views. I've also seen people putting "no 3dfx Voodoo" into the title.
Top of the line always demands a premium because that's what people like us want. A GeForce FX5900 can sometimes be bought for under 50 bucks. FX5950? 200+! Or compare Tualatin 1300MHz vs 1400MHz.

The Boomslang: I was aware of that thing - the silly name alone put me off.
- I need this PC for, like, some kind of studying stuff. Not a gaming PC!
- TF would I get a ball mouse?!?
- Fugly.
- I broke the button on a "mouse" before it was cool!
(and then proceeded to solder the middle microswitch to the left so we could go on playing maniac mansion.)

"Like 3dfx" - well, sure, what else would you write there? That's how I got the ad, although I'm only mildly interested in either.
Usually I'd remind you of Hanlon's Razor, that many sellers are just too stupid to know the distinction and there are several muggley ways in which a TNT2 is tantamount to a V3.
But, not this bugger. Going by his past sales, he knows his shit and puts that buzzword on every second of them - under various pretexts.
(I know I shouldn't just assume they're a "he" but hell, who are we kidding?)

Well, Ebay? I could live with any amount of SEO here if they just would weed out the outright false ads.
I've done it myself in a milder way: Sold a "Roland compatible" 8 bit MPU-401 card once. Made sure to put Roland in the title. Boy, did that work. 😜

Elite stuff of bygone age: It's not just our stuipid fetish for the cutting edge.
It's also the simple fact that back then, there was the same fetish for contemporary gear, but few could afford that.
So, these things, whatever their distinction to the rank and file - you'll basically have to square that offset today.
IIRC, I fried my Athlon TB 1400 back in the "paperweight" phase, shame...

Boomslang Bitch! Was a meme before memes existed. I can't find any evidence of it at this point but there use to be animated gifs and everything.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-02, 10:24:

And kinda on the same note anything low-end would be considered junk by many end users. Even here on Vogons there would be some poeple who'd consider cards like Geforce MX (any) to be junk, "Oh a geforce MX? I threw all mine in the garbage and you should too because it is worthless and will never be good" but this also means these cards could be gotten very cheaply 😜

Only serious gamers would diss low-end video cards. They were originally aimed as drop-in replacement for integrated graphics and often had better multimedia features than their high-end counterparts. However, they (but isn't always the case) are very useful for playing games from previous generations with much less struggle.

imi wrote on 2022-05-02, 11:30:

or my favorite: "perfect companion for a 3Dfx voodoo"

Years ago on eBay I saw one seller putting "3Dfx rival" or something like that on several Matrox Mystique PCI cards.

BTW, some video cards are indeed ideal for pairing it with early 3Dfx Voodoo cards (such as S3, Matrox, Tseng and nVidia up to GeForce4, the latter largely for Glide support though).

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-02, 14:33:

Years ago on eBay I saw one seller putting "3Dfx rival" or something like that on several Matrox Mystique PCI cards.

You mean something like this?
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Coolermaster-GeForce- … r-/294899691098
("Gegner" being German for "rival")

Combining these two cards in the same sale is utterly idiotic, though.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 15:47:

You mean something like this? https://www.ebay.de/itm/Coolermaster-GeForce- … r-/294899691098 ("Gegner" being German for "rival […]
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You mean something like this?
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Coolermaster-GeForce- … r-/294899691098
("Gegner" being German for "rival")

Combining these two cards in the same sale is utterly idiotic, though.

Yes, like that and it is ridiculous. It is advertising indirectly the other brand.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-02, 15:57:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-02, 15:47:

You mean something like this? https://www.ebay.de/itm/Coolermaster-GeForce- … r-/294899691098 ("Gegner" being German for "rival […]
Show full quote

You mean something like this?
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Coolermaster-GeForce- … r-/294899691098
("Gegner" being German for "rival")

Combining these two cards in the same sale is utterly idiotic, though.

Yes, like that and it is ridiculous. It is advertising indirectly the other brand.

Oh, appealing to collector's instincts to set up some diorama of "epic battle of the year 2000 3D accelerators" in their basement is nothing.

I'm still waiting for offers like
- "Ati Mach 64 ISA - completely unrelated to 3dfx cards."
- "badly designed motherboard, will not take those long 3dfx cards due to socket position, but otherwise, it's really great"
or certain classifieds shouting
- "You could spend a lot of money on a 3dfx card, but instead, how about some number one poontang?"