First post, by Kiwi
- Rank
- Newbie
I want to ask whether anyone here has any recollection of any hardware foibles for this game. I have on hand a rather wide range of possible PC components for whatever system(s) I run the game on.
Last spring, or maybe it was last winter, I bought the game and started to set up a vintage (Windows32) PC, in a very cool-looking, very tall, rather skinny, putty-colored case on a pedestal base. I already had two Asus P5A MBs and some K6-2 CPUs on hand, so those were where I started.
My luck was poor, or the P5As are just not nearly as good as the reviews in their time period all proclaimed. I also have a Soyo MVP3 motherboard that runs socket 7 processors. That one seems much more amenable to going to work, although it is impossibly slow at booting up or rebooting.
Based on various threads here, I started some testing with Intel's own 440BX, although my 1998 experience with another one had been uniformnly bad. I think that I will prefer a non-Intel version of the 440BX, and will give the Abit BX-6 a try. At this point, due to the numerous Slot1 CPU variations, I don't have any working fans for the lower speed P-2s I want to use, and the passive heat sinks seem to dissipate the heat poorly, particularly on any 300 MHz to 400 MHz processors (for which I do have one working HSF fan).
Tomorrow, for $20, I (thought that I would) collect seven old P1/P2 PCs that are all supposed to be operable, not defective in any important aspect, and see what they are all about. (EDIT: What he had were really primitive, really basic, old business-only desktop boxes. All I came away with were several PC-100 DIMMs for a good low price, especially if all are as absent of defects as claimed.)
I anticipated being able to match a 233 or 266 MHz P2 to a working HSF fan, and perhaps a case I might be able to use; mostly, I think they'll go to be recycled. The Intel 440BX, now only breadboarded, has a Creative AWE64 card, and an Intel Pro NIC. It has an AGP slot, but I have a Riva TNT 16 card in a PCI slot in it now.
I didn't recall what video cards are in the P5A and in the Soyo, but the P5A was a major pain about sound cards. There is a TB Santa Cruz in it right now. The Soyo has a Creative SB-128 PCI card in it. {From an edit later: the P5A system currently has a Radeon 7500 card in it, and with the USB Joystick unplugged, did recognize the USB keyboard in Win98.}
So: does Freespace seem to "prefer" ATI video, or 3dFX, nVidia, or S3? Does it favor any particular audio hardware? {EDITED IN: if your comments are specific to playing with the SCP upgrades from Hard Light, I'll try those after initially trying it the way it was written -- with the official patch.}
(Etc. Etc. -- I have the first 3dFX cards I've ever owned, two VooDoo2, and two VooDoo3, PCI and AGP respectively, a lot of Creative SB cards, only few others, like an Aureal Vortex 2 I just got from eBay, and a second TB Santa Cruz.) I don't have a proper VooDoo passthrough cable, nor have I collected the needed drivers yet.
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Kiwi
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