Think I've seen that before years ago, but it was only a cabling glitch or something like that. Not anything super weird that sticks loud in the memory anyway.

Trying out a Hercules graphics adapter with this Pentium 4 setup. While I couldn't get it to work in Hercules mode, the BIOS does detect it as a CGA adapter and works in that mode.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-03, 16:51:

Trying out a Hercules graphics adapter with this Pentium 4 setup. While I couldn't get it to work in Hercules mode, the BIOS does detect it as a CGA adapter and works in that mode.

That is a first! Never seen anyone try that combo before. Interesting that it works.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-03, 16:51:

Trying out a Hercules graphics adapter with this Pentium 4 setup. While I couldn't get it to work in Hercules mode, the BIOS does detect it as a CGA adapter and works in that mode.

What adapter and monitor are you using? I like to have diverse experiences with retro gaming and would like to play around with different graphics modes. However, it's hard to find affordable solutions for anything pre-svga. I'm curious if I could do something similar with a Pentium and svga monitor. Also, I assume that your adapter can't do CGA composite?

vetz wrote on 2024-02-03, 18:17:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-03, 16:51:

Trying out a Hercules graphics adapter with this Pentium 4 setup. While I couldn't get it to work in Hercules mode, the BIOS does detect it as a CGA adapter and works in that mode.

That is a first! Never seen anyone try that combo before. Interesting that it works.

I'm very impressed with this motherboard. The BIOS even includes basic graphics settings like EGA/VGA, CGA80, CGA40 and monochrome. I'm used to setting those on 286 systems, not so much on a P4. 😆

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-03, 18:40:

What adapter and monitor are you using? I like to have diverse experiences with retro gaming and would like to play around with different graphics modes. However, it's hard to find affordable solutions for anything pre-svga. I'm curious if I could do something similar with a Pentium and svga monitor. Also, I assume that your adapter can't do CGA composite?

The video card is some non-branded Hercules-compatible adapter. I've tried looking it to find out who makes it but haven't found a picture of the exact card I have. And no, being a Hercules adapter it doesn't have composite. But it does have a parallel port.

I do have a couple other CGA cards (including one with a composite output). They also work, although the composite output looked awful. Text was a wash of psychedelics colors and basically unreadable.

The monitor is a Packard Bell PB1431EG. It's an EGA monitor. I should note it doesn't support Hercules graphics modes as I discovered. I think I'll need to get a proper monochrome monitor if I want to ever use this Hercules card.

Hercules/CGA/EGA adapters and monitors use 9-pin cable connectors compared to VGA's 15-pin. I presume you'd need some sort of convertor/adapter if you wanted to try to mix 'n match an older video card with a 15-pin VGA monitor. I've never personally tried, so I have no idea how that would work.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-03, 22:06:

The video card is some non-branded Hercules-compatible adapter. I've tried looking it to find out who makes it but haven't found […]
Show full quote

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-03, 18:40:

What adapter and monitor are you using? I like to have diverse experiences with retro gaming and would like to play around with different graphics modes. However, it's hard to find affordable solutions for anything pre-svga. I'm curious if I could do something similar with a Pentium and svga monitor. Also, I assume that your adapter can't do CGA composite?

The video card is some non-branded Hercules-compatible adapter. I've tried looking it to find out who makes it but haven't found a picture of the exact card I have. And no, being a Hercules adapter it doesn't have composite. But it does have a parallel port.

I do have a couple other CGA cards (including one with a composite output). They also work, although the composite output looked awful. Text was a wash of psychedelics colors and basically unreadable.

The monitor is a Packard Bell PB1431EG. It's an EGA monitor. I should note it doesn't support Hercules graphics modes as I discovered. I think I'll need to get a proper monochrome monitor if I want to ever use this Hercules card.

Hercules/CGA/EGA adapters and monitors use 9-pin cable connectors compared to VGA's 15-pin. I presume you'd need some sort of convertor/adapter if you wanted to try to mix 'n match an older video card with a 15-pin VGA monitor. I've never personally tried, so I have no idea how that would work.

I'm jealous! I'd love to have an EGA monitor, but those are pretty hard to find, especially in my price range. Take care of it!

Going through my DOS "collection" in ScummVM, getting everything configured correctly.

Found myself stuck in Crusader No Remorse, one of my favorite games (and No Regret) from the 90's.

I forgot how much fun it is to play. 😀

StriderTR wrote on 2024-02-04, 01:53:

Going through my DOS "collection" in ScummVM, getting everything configured correctly.

Found myself stuck in Crusader No Remorse, one of my favorite games (and No Regret) from the 90's.

I forgot how much fun it is to play. 😀

Such a fun game. Controls were janky as hell, but the soundtrack more than made up for it.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-03, 23:23:

I'm jealous! I'd love to have an EGA monitor, but those are pretty hard to find, especially in my price range. Take care of it!

Oh I will! 😁

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-03, 23:23:

I'm jealous! I'd love to have an EGA monitor, but those are pretty hard to find, especially in my price range. Take care of it!

It might be that a lot of the survivors around that can do EGA aren't "EGA" monitors per se, there's several multisync types and even early VGA that also have a TTL input. One such is my Mitsubishi Diamondscan. Anyway, could be that EGA capable monitors are passed over because they're not advertised as EGA, but maybe also aren't taken up by ppl looking for a "good" VGA because they may only do 800x600 max. There's a bit of a memory hole on monitors of the right age though, hard to find comprehensive specs.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-02-03, 16:51:

Trying out a Hercules graphics adapter with this Pentium 4 setup. While I couldn't get it to work in Hercules mode, the BIOS does detect it as a CGA adapter and works in that mode.

Maybe doesn't reserve the BIOS range for mono cards, uses it for something else. IF there's a BIOS shadow off option, you could try that, see if it picks it up then.

After watching this video, I had the curiosity to try browservice.

Works fine with my Pentium II Win98 machine.

Finally finished getting Windows ME on the Gericom and I'm surprised at how stable it is.

3D performance is pretty bad tho 🤣

Demetrio wrote on 2024-02-04, 06:26:

After watching this video, I had the curiosity to try browservice.

Works fine with my Pentium II Win98 machine.

This is amazing! Thanks for sharing.

Tried using a passive DVI to VGA adapter on my GTX 970, and was pleasantly surprised that it actually worked.

One port on the card is DVI-D only, but the other seems to be DVI-I, and that one can be used with the passive adapter. The signal is very clean too. Didn't expect this from a card manufactured in 2014.

I started modifying an old case that will host a P4 and 6600GT system, it was devoid of any hole for ventilation and this time I went for a second intake fan that will go from down up instead of the usual side panel fan.

Vintage market 02/24
The weather was warm, the market was bigger than in the past couple of months. Barely any computer parts or PC games. I found 2 floppy drives, 3.5" and a hard drive. There was an XP era Pentium M laptop, the 386SX PC I've seen for months, and that's about it. There were a couple of retro consoles and games though.

At the end I spent only about 2.5€, getting a brand new Ikea CD stand and the english Xbox version of Split/Second: Velocity with an absolutely massacred disc, but the cover and booklet was in good condition and I already own the game, but that one has Russian cover and no manual.

At least I had a nice walk.

I never understood the ill will that ME got. As I recall, the people that had an issue at the time were people that were trying to run it on sub-par systems. I never personally used it during the time, as 98 worked just fine, and i saw no reason to upgrade. I stayed with 98 until games started to "require" XP.

Played around with my ASUS PVI-486SP3. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3

My main 486 is based on QDI V4S471/G. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-v4s471-g

The ASUS board is newer and has PCI slots. I thought i could easily get better doom and quake benchmarks with the ASUS board, but... nope. Seems like that the QDI with its 1MB of L2 cache just obliterates anything else. (Asus has 256kB) (In quake, ASUS=16.0FPS, QDI=17.2FPS)
I did a quick choice amongst my PCI graphics cards. 2 cards topped out identical max number on speedsys' vidmem speed - around 13900 kB/s. (Matrox Millennium and ATI 3d Rage Pro)
Asus allowed me to use 50MHz FSB and tune every memory and cache setting to the tightest, except for CL, that had to be 3 instead of 2. On QDI i had to loosen some L2 cache timings, too...

So that's it. No point to replace QDI board with ASUS board. I really don't care about PCI (I feel it belongs to pentiums and i have an amazing Trio32 VLB) and the QDI is just so much better with 1MB of L2 cache.