YouTube is one of those things that is surprisingly demanding on hardware, but is fairly cross-OS compatible and, at least in theory, should give the same basic experience on anything strong enough to run it. It's also free and easy to find; nothing needs installing specifically to use it. I guess that's why it gets used as a benchmark of sorts.

Got an unhappy couple today.
M3D-II and CT6670
First the SLI socket are not aligned on the two cards.
Second SLI won't work in Q3A. Original 3dfx driver says SLI detected but blacks out when Q3A is launched. Tried FastVoodoo2 4.0XP but no luck. Individual card works flawlessly.
These two cards were quite popular back then. Were they meant not to be together? Or should I try some other drivers? The OS is XP SP3. Thanks.

lazibayer wrote:

Were they meant not to be together?

Has your marriage gone stale? Has the spark gone out of your love life? Looking to add a little adventure the monody of monogamy? I am Fernando Martinez, founder of Fernando's New Beginnings. A revolutionary new way of saving your marriage. We understand how two kids and a mortgage can take the passion out of your love life. With our three-step program, you will rediscover romance, guaranteed.

I mean, one of them has to cheat 🤣

lazibayer wrote:

Got an unhappy couple today. M3D-II and CT6670 First the SLI socket are not aligned on the two cards. Second SLI won't work in Q […]
Show full quote

Got an unhappy couple today.
M3D-II and CT6670
First the SLI socket are not aligned on the two cards.
Second SLI won't work in Q3A. Original 3dfx driver says SLI detected but blacks out when Q3A is launched. Tried FastVoodoo2 4.0XP but no luck. Individual card works flawlessly.
These two cards were quite popular back then. Were they meant not to be together? Or should I try some other drivers? The OS is XP SP3. Thanks.

v2sli.jpg

The Voodoo 2 cards you are using are from different manufacturers.
The top one is a Creative 3D Blaster and the bottom one is a Diamond Monster 3D 2.
You will need a "mis-matched SLI voodoo 2 driver"
http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/news/3dfx/voodoo2_ … ched_beta_0.22/

I have never tried mismatched Voodoo 2 cards on XP, only on 9x.
Also because there are more choices in drivers.

Arctic wrote:

The Voodoo 2 cards you are using are from different manufacturers. The top one is a Creative 3D Blaster and the bottom one is a […]
Show full quote

The Voodoo 2 cards you are using are from different manufacturers.
The top one is a Creative 3D Blaster and the bottom one is a Diamond Monster 3D 2.
You will need a "mis-matched SLI voodoo 2 driver"
http://www.3dfxzone.it/dir/news/3dfx/voodoo2_ … ched_beta_0.22/

I have never tried mismatched Voodoo 2 cards on XP, only on 9x.
Also because there are more choices in drivers.

+1, however I've heard that the Diamond + Creative combo is apparently problematic even with modified drivers. "Back in the day" you would not be doing a pairing like this - you would have either two Creative cards or two Diamond cards, and that was the requirement. The mis-match drivers are a hack.

Finally, the final sound card for my MS-DOS-only build has arrived (€ 12 from eBay): a Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold, one of the many cards that at the time I could not afford to buy. This will replace my current SoundBlaster 16 Vibra PnP:

I have been given also two old PC: a Pentium III on slot (interesting the Plextor IDE burner) and another one that I have not dismantled yet, probably AMD K6-something on ASUS motherboard - and two PS2 keyboards, one Compaq. When I'll have a little more time and I'll have given a clean, I'll certainly take some pictures.

Picked up a couple EGA? monitors yesterday...Packard Bell and a Princeton Graphic Systems HX-12 RGB

(the Princeton CRT is missing a knob).

Nice! Where did you find these beauties?
Also extra points on the PB monitor, that's just too cool.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Nice! Where did you find these beauties?
Also extra points on the PB monitor, that's just too cool.

Thanks..It would be nice to have an XT or 386 PB to go with it!

I've been looking for monitors like this for a while to go with my Tandy 1000's. I rescued them from a local recycler. I originally bought the PB one and saw the Princeton one lying in a heap to be scrapped. I then asked to buy that one too and got it for $5! I'm glad I saved it from being scrapped.

some more items from this weeks haul...
Intellivision Games...

CH Racing Wheel

OPCode Studio4

MOTU MIDI Timepiece

...and of course yet another KVM...

Picked up a couple EGA? monitors yesterday...Packard Bell and a Princeton Graphic Systems HX-12 RGB

(the Princeton CRT is missing a knob).

Is it me or is the green channel out?

smeezekitty wrote:

Picked up a couple EGA? monitors yesterday...Packard Bell and a Princeton Graphic Systems HX-12 RGB

(the Princeton CRT is missing a knob).

Is it me or is the green channel out?

No, the green channel is more than fine..the Packard Bell CRT displays everything as though it was new...it's just my crappy photo from my mobile phone, in a dim room with the brightness turned down a lot. I actually have a Canon 5D digital SLR camera and can therefore take MUCH better photos, but it's too much work over just using my mobile phone camera.

Those monitors are awesome! Nice find!

And... do really you have to pull that knob to switch it on? No wonder it's missing.. 🤣

alexanrs wrote:

pewpewpew wrote:

And Youtube, yeah... yesterday I finally gave up trying to get it on the OLPC. Reading old posts I gather it was possible on the XO-1 in 2008, but it sure isn't now.

If you download the vídeos and play them on a vídeo player, odds are it will work. It was funny/sad seeing youtube choke my Athlon 64, but if I downloaded the vídeo and used Media Player Classic not only it played perfectly, but also with low CPU usage. I recall also using an app that, if you copy a YouTube URL to the clipboard it would automatically stream it on VLC or MPC... my younger broher had to use the Athlon 64 for a while as his main PC and this is how I managed to get it working for him.

That's what I was aiming at. YT used to be lightweight and ran smoothly on anything, but somehow they managed to make it choke even new machines now. If it weren't for youtube, all this web-2.0 stuff, and browsers that need "updates" twice a week, I think even a Pentium 2 would still make a decent general-purpose machine nowadays.

jwt27 wrote:

Those monitors are awesome! Nice find!

Thanks...I was lucky to find them. I have been searching locally for a long time now and finally got something close to the original IBM (51xx) monitors I was looking for. I really would love to find a matching Packard bell system with matching keyboard to go with it. I think I have seen a couple systems like that, here on Vogons.

jwt27 wrote:

And... do really you have to pull that knob to switch it on? No wonder it's missing.. 🤣

🤣 Yes...you have to pull on it, but it is very solid and switch and seems like it will last another 32 years (I hope 🤣).

I hope to find a replacement knob that is close to the original...obviously it will be nearly impossible to get the original.

jwt27 wrote:

That's what I was aiming at. YT used to be lightweight and ran smoothly on anything, but somehow they managed to make it choke even new machines now. If it weren't for youtube, all this web-2.0 stuff, and browsers that need "updates" twice a week, I think even a Pentium 2 would still make a decent general-purpose machine nowadays.

Totally agreed.

It's not just the web though - Office 2013 chokes on my computers at work (we were required to upgrade), whereas older office versions work just fine on my retro machines, and I hardly use any of the functions that were added since Office '97.

oerk wrote:

jwt27 wrote:

That's what I was aiming at. YT used to be lightweight and ran smoothly on anything, but somehow they managed to make it choke even new machines now. If it weren't for youtube, all this web-2.0 stuff, and browsers that need "updates" twice a week, I think even a Pentium 2 would still make a decent general-purpose machine nowadays.

Totally agreed.

It's not just the web though - Office 2013 chokes on my computers at work (we were required to upgrade), whereas older office versions work just fine on my retro machines, and I hardly use any of the functions that were added since Office '97.

Its everything. The web and software.
Now developers are more concerned about looks than functionality. A lot of time useful features are removed while hardware requirements keep rising.

My Latitude CP M233ST, with its P233 MMX, is more than quick enough for office usage. The only issue is that having only 64MB of RAM in Windows 98 can cause it to chug a little bit at times. I usually use Office 2010, which does have a few useful improvements over the old versions, such as Office 2002 (on my Vaio) and Word 97 (on the Latitude) - yes, I genuinely prefer the ribbon interface; I am "that guy".

Lukeno94 wrote:

My Latitude CP M233ST, with its P233 MMX, is more than quick enough for office usage. The only issue is that having only 64MB of RAM in Windows 98 can cause it to chug a little bit at times. I usually use Office 2010, which does have a few useful improvements over the old versions, such as Office 2002 (on my Vaio) and Word 97 (on the Latitude) - yes, I genuinely prefer the ribbon interface; I am "that guy".

Office 2010 in 64MB of RAM?

HOW?

lazibayer wrote:

Got an unhappy couple today. M3D-II and CT6670 First the SLI socket are not aligned on the two cards. Second SLI won't work in Q […]
Show full quote

Got an unhappy couple today.
M3D-II and CT6670
First the SLI socket are not aligned on the two cards.
Second SLI won't work in Q3A. Original 3dfx driver says SLI detected but blacks out when Q3A is launched. Tried FastVoodoo2 4.0XP but no luck. Individual card works flawlessly.
These two cards were quite popular back then. Were they meant not to be together? Or should I try some other drivers? The OS is XP SP3. Thanks.

v2sli.jpg

I just stumbled over these driver files.

[...]- Set SSTV2_MISMATCHED_SLI = 1 for mismatched SLI support. This may
not work due to differences in V2 board design. If you have problems
try swapping the PCI slot order of the V2 boards. [...]

Maybe you could give them a try : http://www.falconfly.de/downloads/200553224214_Voodoo2.zip
Full Readme: http://www.falconfly.de/info/readme-200553224214_Voodoo2.txt

Yes, you can't use mismatched Voodoo2's in SLI without hacked drivers that support that (as far as I know). Otherwise, stock 3dfx Voodoo2 drivers and OEM drivers will not let you use mismatched Voodoo2's.

Picked up a Roland MT-120.

More about it here:
What retro activity did you get up to today?