DonutKing wrote:

Can you post a picture please? I have pics and discussion of my Acer Magic S20 here Opti 82C929A - DOS driver anyone please?

I had trouble getting drivers to work with it, the ones I ended up using are in that thread. Also I never got sound in Doom engined games working, for some odd reason.

I have bought the one with the cd~rom interface. It would always be handy if having the cd~rom interface..

I dont have the card yet, but have to wait till it arrives here..

I found the orignal drivers here=
http://download.driverguide.com/driver/Acer+M … er/d890383.html

The only con is that you need to pay about 2 a 3 dollars for downloading it. So i think that are the orginal ones, otherwise they wouldnt protect it that hard from dowloading it.. If the card arrives i will test it. (AZTECH CARDS SUCKS, CANT FIND WORKING DRIVER FOR IT)

about the Acer Magic S20 drivers:

The Readme.txt says:

AcerMagic S20 LATEST INFORMATION
2.1A Release
(Non CD-ROM)
7/20/94


1. SOFTWARE PACKAGE CONTENTS

The AcerMagic S20 software package contains 2 pieces of 3.5"
1.44M diskette. These are the DOS plus Windows installation
diskette.

2. INSTALLATION/UNINSTALLATION PROCESS

The hard disk installation program, SETUP.EXE, will copy the
necessary files from AcerMagic S20 Setup disk into your hard
disk. Or, you can choose to uninstall them if you have the
AcerMagic S20 software installed but want to remove them.

Follow the following procedure to install or uninstall the
software:

(Assuming you are using floppy drive A:, and you wish to install
the software to C:\MAGICS20)

1. Place the disk labeled "AcerMagic S20 Setup Disk 1" in Drive A.
2. Type "a:" and press ENTER to change to Drive A.
3. Type "setup" and press ENTER.
4. Choose either "Installation" or "Uninstallation" item to
start corresponding process.

The installation process of SETUP.EXE will do the followings for
you:

a.) Create the directory \MAGICS20 in your hard disk drive.
b.) Prompt you for sound card options so that after you have
finished the installation and have rebooted your machine, you
will be ready to use the sound card.
c.) Copy the files in your floppy disk to the \MAGICS20 directory
and Windows directory respectively.
d.) Update your CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT and SYSTEM.INI files.

In CONFIG.SYS, the following will be added:

DEVICE=C:\MAGICS20\CDIFINIT.SYS /T:X

In AUTOEXEC.BAT:

SET SOUND16=C:\MSGICS20
C:\MAGICS20\SNDINIT /B
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4
PATH=%PATH%;C:\MAGICS20

In SYSTEM.INI:

[boot]
DRIVERS=... MSMIXMGR.DLL (appended)

[drivers]
WAVE=CS31BA11.DRV
AUX=CS31BA11.DRV
MIXER=CS31BA11.DRV
MIDI=OPL3.DRV
MIDI1=MPU401P.DRV

[386Enh]
DEVICE=VS20INIT.386
DEVICE=VSNDSYS.386

[SNDSYS.DRV] (newly created)

The uninstallation process of SETUP.EXE will remove the above
configurations.


3. VOLUME CONTROL TSR PROGRAM

The volume control memory resident program, VOLTSR.EXE, allows
you to change volume using hot keys while you are in a DOS
application. The hot keys are:

Ctrl-Alt-U Raises the volume
Ctrl-Alt-D Lowers the volume
Ctrl-Alt-M Mute/Unmute

For example, pressing the CTRL, ALT, and U keys will raise the
volume.

You need to load the TSR before you can use it. To load the TSR,
type VOLTSR at the DOS prompt.


4. KARAOKE PROGRAM

The KARAOKE.EXE program allows user to control the input volume
of the microphone on the fly with "HOT KEYS." Before using Karaoke,
the VOLTSR.EXE program must be successfully loaded and running.

To enable Karaoke Mode, type: "KARAOKE ON" at the DOS prompt.

To increase MIC input, use: Ctrl-Alt-PageUp
To decrease MIC input, use: Ctrl-Alt-PageDown

To disable Karaoke Mode, type: "KARAOKE OFF" at the DOS prompt.


5. AUDIO CD PLAYER: PLAYCD.EXE

The audio CD player program allows user to play audio CD in the DOS
environment. You can use mouse or keyboard to operate this program
just as your CD player at home. You can play audio CD, stop, skip
track, forward or rewind within track, and can select the specified
track directly.

You can also play the audio CD in random sequence(shuffle) or
arrange your favoriate play sequence by programming.

To run this program, type "PLAYCD" under the DOS prompt


6. CD-ROM INTERFACE INITIALIZATION DEVICE DRIVER

The CD-ROM Interface Initialzation Device Driver is called
CDIFINIT.SYS. This driver initiates the CD-ROM interface of the
sound card. To use the driver, insert the following line to your
CONFIG.SYS file BEFORE the CD-ROM device driver line that you are
using:

DEVICE=[drive:]\[directory]\CDIFINIT.SYS /T:[M/S/P/I/X]
/P:[address]
/I:[IRQ]
/D:[DMA]

[drive] = drive where you have the driver installed
[directory] = directory where the driver is located
[M/S/P/I/X] = M stands for Mitsumi
S stands for Sony
P stands for Panasonic
I stands for Mitsumi IDE
X stands for disabled

[address] = Port address for CD-ROM (320, 330, 340, 360)

[IRQ] = Interrupt number (5,7,9,10,11)

[DMA] = DMA channel (0, 1, 3)

For example, the following line sets up the interface for a
Mitsumi CD-ROM:

DEVICE=C:\MAGICS20\CDIFINIT.SYS /T:M /P:340 /I:10

If you did not specify the /I or /D options, CDIFINIT will
automatically choose the default setting for the CD-ROM type
you have specified.

- For Mitsumi, the IRQ is 10 and DMA is disabled.
- For Sony, they are both disabled.
- For Panasonic, they are both disabled.

For IDE drive, you need to just specify the /T:I option.
Specifying any other option in addition to this will be ignored.
The I/O Port and Interrupt for IDE is located at 170H and Int 15.

The driver site says:

Versions
2.1a
Supported Operating Systems
Windows 3.1, DOS
Uploader Notes
This is the driver for the old Acer Magic S20 Sound Card. This is an old ISA sound card with the Crystal CS4231 chip.
This driver is for Windows 3.x and DOS only.

This will NOT work in Win95 or above.

This is only for systems running DOS and Windows 3.1/3.11

This driver is impossible to find for old systems. A newer driver for Win95 is available on this site.

This driver came off the original Acer System CD, works great.

This will not work for new versions of Windows, or and Windows 9x... Only Windows 3.1/3.11 and DOS.

The file includes 2 disks. Unzip each of the zip files inside onto a seperate 1.44 MB floppy disk.

Good Luck. (So its only dos and windows 3.11 drivers, windows 95 can found separately)

Recently bought a TUV4X even though I already had 2, but it came with 3 sticks of PC-133 512MB SDRAM!! 😁 😁 😁
The TUV4X has a major drawback I noticed. Very close to the socket theres a tiny resistor on the PCB which will block any HSF's that have the wide clip that latches onto 3 of the socket tabs, preventing a lot of the really good HSF's from mounting! 🙁
Also got 2 more Voodoo 3 AGP, so I finally have enough V3 AGP's to complete 3 LAN rigs (+ a spare).

Got the complete guts out of a Slot A system for $5! Everything to make a working system except a power supply and case. 😳

sliderider wrote:

Got the complete guts out of a Slot A system for $5! Everything to make a working system except a power supply and case. 😳

You should keep the Slot A! 😉

They are as hard to find as Socket 4 boards 🤣, I never came across one in the wild 😉

Tetrium wrote:

sliderider wrote:

Got the complete guts out of a Slot A system for $5! Everything to make a working system except a power supply and case. 😳

You should keep the Slot A! 😉

They are as hard to find as Socket 4 boards 🤣, I never came across one in the wild 😉

I had a friend who had a Slot A board. He was convinced they were faster than the PIII clock for clock. I tried to explain that was only true for the Katmai and that the Coppermine was a different animal, but he didn't listen 😜.

If I had the opportunity to jump on a Slot A board these days, I'd take it. I know for a fact I tossed one with bad caps some years ago. At the time, it wasn't worth fixing, but today, I'd be replacing the caps.

SavantStrike wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

sliderider wrote:

Got the complete guts out of a Slot A system for $5! Everything to make a working system except a power supply and case. 😳

You should keep the Slot A! 😉

They are as hard to find as Socket 4 boards 🤣, I never came across one in the wild 😉

I had a friend who had a Slot A board. He was convinced they were faster than the PIII clock for clock. I tried to explain that was only true for the Katmai and that the Coppermine was a different animal, but he didn't listen 😜.

If I had the opportunity to jump on a Slot A board these days, I'd take it. I know for a fact I tossed one with bad caps some years ago. At the time, it wasn't worth fixing, but today, I'd be replacing the caps.

Even with a 10% overclock the P-III can't keep even.

Even with a 10% overclock the P-III can't keep even.

Those charts show the Athlon against a Katmai PIII. As SavantStrike said, the situation changes when you compare against a Coppermine.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Even with a 10% overclock the P-III can't keep even.

Those charts show the Athlon against a Katmai PIII. As SavantStrike said, the situation changes when you compare against a Coppermine.

you need to realize that comparing a generation 1 athalon verses a generateon TWO p3 is a little unfair. (orion vs coppermine) But when you compare the thunderbird vs the coppermine. you get results that are practically the same. With the p3 only *just* beating the thunderbird in some tests.

luckybob wrote:

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Even with a 10% overclock the P-III can't keep even.

Those charts show the Athlon against a Katmai PIII. As SavantStrike said, the situation changes when you compare against a Coppermine.

you need to realize that comparing a generation 1 athalon verses a generateon TWO p3 is a little unfair. (orion vs coppermine) But when you compare the thunderbird vs the coppermine. you get results that are practically the same. With the p3 only *just* beating the thunderbird in some tests.

And there *WERE* Slot A Thunderbirds. 😁

you need to realize that comparing a generation 1 athalon verses a generateon TWO p3 is a little unfair.

How so? They were on the market at the same time and were in direct competition with each other. If you look at the entire Slot A generation, from Argon vs. Katmai to Thunderbird vs. Coppermine, then yeah, on the whole, AMD and Intel were on pretty equal footing and trading blows. But the fact is, for a pretty significant portion of Slot A's (rather short) life, it was Pluto/Orion against Coppermine, and Coppermine was ahead.

luckybob wrote:

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Even with a 10% overclock the P-III can't keep even.

Those charts show the Athlon against a Katmai PIII. As SavantStrike said, the situation changes when you compare against a Coppermine.

you need to realize that comparing a generation 1 athalon verses a generateon TWO p3 is a little unfair. (orion vs coppermine) But when you compare the thunderbird vs the coppermine. you get results that are practically the same. With the p3 only *just* beating the thunderbird in some tests.

It wasn't unfair when he was buying his computer. He had the option of a Gateway with an unspecified Athlon (probably Orion) or a Gateway with a specified PIII Coppermine. He wasn't paying either, his dad was, so why the heck he didn't go with the coppermine I don't know. The funny thing is though, now I'd rather trade a coppermine for whatever he had (I never checked what core it had).

When looking up some SuperPi results, Thunderbird 1000C edges out Coppermine 1000EB and Thunderbird 1200C also edges out Tualatin 1200.

But from a retro perspective it's really splitting hairs here, they are so evenly matched. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but right now I think Pentium 3 is the better choice in most regards.
It supports SSE, runs MUCH cooler then Thunderbird and can be run on the venerable i815 chipset.

However, Thunderbird has some advantages of it's own.
AMD never did that pinmod stupidity Intel shoved down our throats making Tualatin incompatible with Coppermine boards and i815 boards are artificially castrated to support a max of 512MB memory.
And it's easier to find a good board for running a Thunderbird as Thunderbirds (at least the C variant) would even work in boards with 400Mhz FSB, AGP 8x, DDR (good luck finding a Tualatin DDR board!) and SATA ports.
And last but not least, while P3 was locked, the Thunderbirds could be completely unlocked with a simple pencil!

(good luck finding a Tualatin DDR board!)

Were any Tualatin DDR boards ever actually made?
If there was, did they have any performance benefit?

I was under the impression that P3 wasn't restricted by SDRAM's memory bandwidth so DDR didn't really do much for it. Since Athlon used a DDR FSB and the P3 didn't, the Athlon could take advantage of the extra memory bandwidth that the P3 couldn't.

yes but I think there was only one board and it was a via chipset and it sucked something aweful. The tualatins were bottlenecked by memory. HOWEVER, if you find a tualatin based on the HE-SL chipset (its a server chipset) you lose agp but gain dual channel sd-ram. Boards such as teh Intel SDS2 the Asus TRL-DLS are some examples. I used to own a sds2 and was going to put 3 voodoo 5's in it and go triple screen but that died once I saw the price of said video cards.

DonutKing wrote:

Were any Tualatin DDR boards ever actually made? If there was, did they have any performance benefit? […]
Show full quote

(good luck finding a Tualatin DDR board!)

Were any Tualatin DDR boards ever actually made?
If there was, did they have any performance benefit?

I was under the impression that P3 wasn't restricted by SDRAM's memory bandwidth so DDR didn't really do much for it. Since Athlon used a DDR FSB and the P3 didn't, the Athlon could take advantage of the extra memory bandwidth that the P3 couldn't.

Is this a P-III board with DDR?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem … 26549&hlp=false

sliderider wrote:

DonutKing wrote:

Were any Tualatin DDR boards ever actually made? If there was, did they have any performance benefit? […]
Show full quote

(good luck finding a Tualatin DDR board!)

Were any Tualatin DDR boards ever actually made?
If there was, did they have any performance benefit?

I was under the impression that P3 wasn't restricted by SDRAM's memory bandwidth so DDR didn't really do much for it. Since Athlon used a DDR FSB and the P3 didn't, the Athlon could take advantage of the extra memory bandwidth that the P3 couldn't.

Is this a P-III board with DDR?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem … 26549&hlp=false

no its not. its pc-133

Were any Tualatin DDR boards ever actually made?
If there was, did they have any performance benefit?

There were a few... I know Iwill, Shuttle, Chaintech and PCChips made some, I think MSI and Aopen as well, and there may be others. But they were matched and sometimes even outperformed by good PC133 boards, and I vaguely recall that Via chipset having some issues too (more so than usual, I mean).

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Were any Tualatin DDR boards ever actually made?
If there was, did they have any performance benefit?

There were a few... I know Iwill, Shuttle, Chaintech and PCChips made some, I think MSI and Aopen as well, and there may be others. But they were matched and sometimes even outperformed by good PC133 boards, and I vaguely recall that Via chipset having some issues too (more so than usual, I mean).

Do you remember what those problems pertained too?
I ask because I'm going to try to put together a tualatin system using an aopen dx34r-u motherboard (not sure if it'll even work out but I got it dirt cheap) and 2x sl6by 1.4GHz tualatins (PIII).
So far I've been blessed with good luck from VIA chipsets so I just wanted to know what to look out for.
(Sorry to highjack the thread)

Afaik Tualatin DDR boards were made, but I know only of dual s370 ones. There are single Socket s370 DDR boards, but those tend to be Coppermine boards.
Iirc the s370 VIA boards had worse memory performance then i815, though the DDR ones did have an ever so slight improvement. In the end the best thing about P3 DDR boards is that it's easier to find some low-end 512MB DDR memory bars instead of hunting down 512MB SDRAM bars.

Should we going further with posting buys with pictures?