Currently re-watching the Lord of the Rings Extended Version DVDs on my AthlonXP rig running Win98SE.

For this purpose, I've connected the SBLive 5.1 to my Logitech X-530 speakers. I was originally using VxD drivers, but for some reason, the center channel always remained silent, regardless of what settings I tried. After switching to WDM drivers, I'm getting proper 5.1 surround sound, and it's working perfectly.

For playback, I'm using PowerDVD, just like in the good old days.

This very morning, while driving to work, I was thinking about PCI DVD decoders... I thought those are only good for Voodoo 2 RAM upgrade donators, because we would not see the day someone watching DVD's on retro PC. Oh god how I was wrong 😁

fool wrote on 2022-02-03, 19:40:

This very morning, while driving to work, I was thinking about PCI DVD decoders...

Why I love forums like this. My kind of people. How many people out there actually think about these types of things while driving to work? 🤣

I finished cleaning & installing + configuring my new Pentium II 333. Very happy with the look of the case & the components inside:

Pentium II 333
ASUS P2L97
32MB RAM (I may increase this to 64MB)
Creative Soundblaster 32 (32MB RAM on order to turn this into a fully fledged AWE64)
Creative Riva TNT 16MB PCI graphics card
Creative Voodoo 2 12MB
Pioneer slot-loading CD player

null

Anders- wrote on 2022-02-03, 20:53:

red_avatar wrote on 2022-02-03, 20:51:

I finished cleaning & installing + configuring my new Pentium II 333. Very happy with the look of the case & the components insi […]
Show full quote

I finished cleaning & installing + configuring my new Pentium II 333. Very happy with the look of the case & the components inside:

Pentium II 333
ASUS P2L97
32MB RAM (I may increase this to 64MB)
Creative Soundblaster 32 (32MB RAM on order to turn this into a fully fledged AWE64)
Creative Riva TNT 16MB PCI graphics card
Creative Voodoo 2 12MB
Pioneer slot-loading CD player

The case has very clean look for sure, do you have any clue of the brand and model?

It was not one sold to consumers from what I was told. The guy who sold me the PC said he buys all his stuff from professional work places - CNC machines, graphic design bureaus, etc. There's zero branding on it so I can't tell you what brand it is but the inside was very interesting to me - the power supply is mounted in front of the CPU which makes the case pretty low but slightly wider - makes it very easy to access all the ports from the top but still gives you EIGHT, yes EIGHT slots in the back for AGP, PCI & ISA cards. I bought the PC purely for the case but the hardware inside was rock solid too - the only part I added was the Riva TNT (it originally had a Matrox Mystique) and an SSD. The cable management was also amazing - the only visible cable was the one going from the CD drive to the sound card.

fool wrote on 2022-02-03, 19:40:

This very morning, while driving to work, I was thinking about PCI DVD decoders... I thought those are only good for Voodoo 2 RAM upgrade donators, because we would not see the day someone watching DVD's on retro PC. Oh god how I was wrong 😁

Heh, it's just a fun little experiment to test out how Win98 handles 5.1 surround sound.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that it works as well as it does.

null

Today I used much patience trying to get the A7V KT133 board stable or understand how many variable can get it unstable.. I almost forgot about how much sensible these boards were to any changes, not to mention even the bios version differences..

About PC-DVD solutions it was talked about above and those hardware/software decoders of the 2000, even nowdays I think on a time correct monitor they are still great quality solutions. Even the GPU accelerated ones with the right software can result in very high quality decoding without all the unnecessary post processing filters/shaders/whatever nowdays I imagine are used. Of course monitor didn't have ultra high resolutions to upscale to, but I remember and trying that some hw/sw combinations resulted in great video quality. Lately I'm building different PC-DVD config to compare hw and sw quality. ATi video chip since the Rage 128 Pro but I'd prefer since the Radeon chip, with the right software did a great job on the video card choice while instead the hw PCI decoders were another story with good and bad sides depending on the point of view. To get the best results many combinations of hw, sw, drivers, monitors should be tested but once and if everything is set at the best, they resulted great and in the best scenario with almost no cpu impact.

Anders- wrote on 2022-02-03, 21:12:

I've seen a few early atx designs where the psu was mounted next to the cpu (in order to provide better cooling, I suppose). Back then I were a little annoyed the psu obscured the view of the PII 😁

Edit: seeing your new short and wide case reminds me a little of the "reversed" AT-towers where the mainboard attached to the left side of the case and everything is upside down - good times.

I think these cases were purely designed for the Pentium II & III motherboards which saw the CPU mounted on a cartridge - any fan would blow either to the front or back of the case anyway so a GPU right next to it wouldn't block any air flow. Interestingly, everything I need to reach is still reachable - the IDE ports, the memory banks, etc.

I have a Dxr2 card somewhere, but the Creative DVD-ROM drive is missing, maybe it'll work with any drive...

I finished my analysis of Warcraft 2 MIDI on Roland synthesizers.

An analysis of Warcraft 2 MIDI music on Roland synthesizers

Just repaired this Dell Dimension 8250. Installed a new motherboard, a 3.06GHz Pentium 4, 2GB PC1066 RAMBUS, and an Asus Ti4800. Still waiting for the CPU fan to arrive, but it does boot now. I'll probably put a Aureal Vortex2 in there for sound. It should make for an interesting XP machine. I believe this would be a maxed out RAMBUS build of the time, but maybe someone can correct me if I'missing something.

A friend of mine had a very similarly specced Dell back in the day and it crushed whatever he threw at it. I'm sure that there are some later games which may struggle such as Doom 3 but a lot of the best XP era software should work great.

An Aureal Vortex is not a good fit for XP. A Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy would work much better.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-02-04, 02:20:

A friend of mine had a very similarly specced Dell back in the day and it crushed whatever he threw at it. I'm sure that there are some later games which may struggle such as Doom 3 but a lot of the best XP era software should work great.

An Aureal Vortex is not a good fit for XP. A Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy would work much better.

Yup XP drivers for Aureal are ..spotty at best and downright painful at worst, I sort of managed to get mine working but it wasn't a great experience and some functions of the cards never worked.

I always liked that style of Dell case, might see how much one in that style will cost me to grab, they sell quite a few here in Australia with nothing but the PSU, should make a good case mod project.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-02-04, 02:20:

A friend of mine had a very similarly specced Dell back in the day and it crushed whatever he threw at it. I'm sure that there are some later games which may struggle such as Doom 3 but a lot of the best XP era software should work great.

An Aureal Vortex is not a good fit for XP. A Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy would work much better.

I have like 10 machines with SB Audigy and Live cards. I wanted to give A3D a try. Since A3D seems to be crap in XP, maybe I'll go a different route and put a Terratec or EMU card in there instead. Also, maybe a 9700 Pro would be a better video card to use.

For the computer, I paid $30 on Ebay.

Jed118 wrote on 2022-02-03, 03:10:

I have a mid 90s Sony 4 head - wonderful piece of tech. My wife won't let me set it up with the home entertainment system in the […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-02-03, 02:42:

The early 21st century crop of 4 head VCRs with instant auto tracking and comb filters etc make tape look a lot better than they did in the 80s or 90s. Only Betamax looked that good back in the day!

I have a mid 90s Sony 4 head - wonderful piece of tech. My wife won't let me set it up with the home entertainment system in the living room, but in all honesty I only have 5-6 tapes for it anyhow. I mainly use it to capture footage off of.

LHN91 wrote on 2022-02-03, 02:49:

Edit: actually Christmas '91, the commercials in the Bette Midler movie were for Canadian Tire Christmas sales and the '92 GM/Chevy/Geo lineup.

I'd be interested in seeing that CTC commercial - I think at that time, I ordered stuff from it to a letter for"santa" (H0H 0H0)

Went through and cut out the unique Canadian Tire commercials and put them up on YouTube - links below. Also included is a bonus Radio Shack Canada ad for the Tandy 1000/RL and one for some tech gifts from K-Mart. Hopefully the links work.

Canadian Tire:
https://youtu.be/avmXrZ1KWG4
https://youtu.be/EGsqCTGroMI
https://youtu.be/ZKmRHIm-GY4

Radio Shack Tandy 1000/RL
https://youtu.be/1boNtqGgpCE

K-Mart:
https://youtu.be/5SnbLI0yjHU

LHN91 wrote on 2022-02-04, 03:07:

Went through and cut out the unique Canadian Tire commercials and put them up on YouTube - links below. Also included is a bonus […]
Show full quote

Jed118 wrote on 2022-02-03, 03:10:

I have a mid 90s Sony 4 head - wonderful piece of tech. My wife won't let me set it up with the home entertainment system in the […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-02-03, 02:42:

The early 21st century crop of 4 head VCRs with instant auto tracking and comb filters etc make tape look a lot better than they did in the 80s or 90s. Only Betamax looked that good back in the day!

I have a mid 90s Sony 4 head - wonderful piece of tech. My wife won't let me set it up with the home entertainment system in the living room, but in all honesty I only have 5-6 tapes for it anyhow. I mainly use it to capture footage off of.

LHN91 wrote on 2022-02-03, 02:49:

Edit: actually Christmas '91, the commercials in the Bette Midler movie were for Canadian Tire Christmas sales and the '92 GM/Chevy/Geo lineup.

I'd be interested in seeing that CTC commercial - I think at that time, I ordered stuff from it to a letter for"santa" (H0H 0H0)

Went through and cut out the unique Canadian Tire commercials and put them up on YouTube - links below. Also included is a bonus Radio Shack Canada ad for the Tandy 1000/RL and one for some tech gifts from K-Mart. Hopefully the links work.

Canadian Tire:
https://youtu.be/avmXrZ1KWG4
https://youtu.be/EGsqCTGroMI
https://youtu.be/ZKmRHIm-GY4

Radio Shack Tandy 1000/RL
https://youtu.be/1boNtqGgpCE

K-Mart:
https://youtu.be/5SnbLI0yjHU

Was Canadian Tire a Tyre store or was it like Kmart .. im confused because there was not one car Tyre in them commercials.

It's a tire/auto shop and hardware/dry goods store.... I think they gave up on groceries and large appliances but they've tried those out over the years too.... you can buy chips, sheets, new tie rod ends, a 3/16 fine thread nut, a bike, lego, pet food, a canoe... I dunno how the hell to describe the place really.

edit: I mean you can check it out yourself if you want at http://CanadianTire.ca

I had a response written but BitWrangler beat me to it and did a better job 🤣.

Edit: about the only things I'll add is that they also usually have an electronics section year-round with mostly budget offerings, a pretty extensive tool section with a fairly well regarded in-house brand, and around Christmas they'll bring in an expanded toy selection too.