The speed looks perfect to me but that's subjective I suppose; I base it on the speed the soldiers walk, water ripples, etc. The RAM drive looks to help a bit, but its not dramatically less jerky than mine.

What VGA card are you using? All VLB cards I've tried display a thin line of "shimmering pixels" - some more than others, and mostly barely noticeable but enough to annoy me. It's speed related too I think, because if I use an ISA card in the same system it disappears.

badmofo wrote:

What VGA card are you using?.

Just the built-in Cirrus Logic GL-5424 chipset.

Cloudschatze wrote:

badmofo wrote:

What VGA card are you using?.

Just the built-in Cirrus Logic GL-5424 chipset.

Yeah that's what I settled on; I think it's a 5426 though.

I'm going to be making a 486 for games like Ultima 7 but I can't decide on a CPU.

Im tempted to make my first PC which was a 486SX20 with 2 or 4 MB ram (cant recall)

Should I go with a 486 20/25/33/40 or 66?

Did you think 66mhz was too fast for Ultima 7 badmofo?

Monkey Island, Ultima 6 and 7.
Ultima Underworld and Ultima Worlds: Savage Empire.

I'm thinking of using a S3 or Cirrus logic video card. Something extremely standard and compatible

I have a Creative Sound Blaster with a Wave Blaster 2 on it.

Yeah I thought the 66 was too fast, but I'd say 8MB of RAM would be the way to go.

There's a motherboard hanging in my outdoor toilet with an SX20 on it - the board's dead but I'm sure the chip works, and it's yours if you want it. I also have a spare DX66 so you could try both. Also I have a VLB board and Cirrus Logic card, and a case... do you want a whole freaking computer?? I need to reduce my stockpile.

absolutely! whats the case like?

Ugly 😵 But it's solid! I'll send a pic when I get a sec.

I'm curious as to why a motherboard is hanging in your toilet though 😀

rgart wrote:

I'm curious as to why a motherboard is hanging in your toilet though 😀

So is my wife! Sigh, no-one understands me.

My response is too long for a forum post, so here is a blog post and companion YouTube video I made on this subject :

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/06/u … l-hardware.html

Great Hierophant wrote:

My response is too long for a forum post, so here is a blog post and companion YouTube video I made on this subject :

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/06/u … l-hardware.html

very comprehensive.

So the general consensus is 33mhz is great for Ultima 7?

Do you guys use any particular patches official or unofficial for the game?

I always thought The Black Gate was a little buggy and Serpent Isle more refined.

Funny how the game turns the CPU Cache back on when disabled...

That's a first for me 😀

rgart wrote:

very comprehensive. […]
Show full quote

Great Hierophant wrote:

My response is too long for a forum post, so here is a blog post and companion YouTube video I made on this subject :

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/06/u … l-hardware.html

very comprehensive.

So the general consensus is 33mhz is great for Ultima 7?

Do you guys use any particular patches official or unofficial for the game?

I always thought The Black Gate was a little buggy and Serpent Isle more refined.

There is only one official patch, 3.4, for The Black Gate, and the patch comes with The Forge of Virtue Expansion and every CD including the game. Anything else uses Exult.

What sound cards are you guys using to play Ultima 6, 7 and Ultima Underworlds?

^ I use a LAPC-I and SB16 combo... especially for UW1 a LAPC-I/CM-32L is a must, need to hear those footsteps 🤣

I built myself a 486 DX 33 for Ultima and a few other favourites!

I have not tried serpent isle or Ultima Under world yet but Ill get around to it 😀

Im very happy with it so far...

keropi wrote:

^ I use a LAPC-I and SB16 combo... especially for UW1 a LAPC-I/CM-32L is a must, need to hear those footsteps 🤣

what do you guys think of using a Yamaha card for the ultima series?

It sounds pretty good to my ears.

in paticular a Yamaha YMF718-S

How are you guys setting up your memory? or all you all using memory managers? I cant find Hiram or last byte anywhere through searches. I can get U7 running on my machine but I don't have enough mem to run smartdv and its a bit choppy scrolling, also the guardians speech during the into the lip syncing is pretty off.

What OS? With DOS 6.22 and ctmouse I found enough memory for smartdrive. My sound setup doesn't need any tsr though and no CD rom driver loaded.

badmojo wrote:

What OS? With DOS 6.22 and ctmouse I found enough memory for smartdrive. My sound setup doesn't need any tsr though and no CD rom driver loaded.

ah, so your disableing your CD-ROM. If I do that I have more then enough mem I just kinda wanted my cake and eat it to.

i'm using 6.22 and cutemouse as well, i'm using a SB16 clone to avoid any midi hanging note bugs with my mt-32. It does use a TSR with its mixer but its only 2kb of mem.

* replaced MSCDX with SHSUCDX and now I have mem for both. I know SHSUCDX has some compatibility issues but since the scope of what I'm going to play on this PC is pretty small i'm not to worried about that.