Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-20, 21:01:

Got a new sound card today, complete in box.

I absolutely love the late 80's artwork on the box and how epic they make this card seem. 😁

Is it live or is it Memorex?

Even the card itself has goofy 80's colors... long live the 80's!

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-20, 20:52:

The Matrox MSI version makes the Software version look like a masterpiece of art.

Heh, I bought a Matrox Mystique in 1997, my first "3D accelerator" (notice the quotation symbols). Imagine my disappointment when I loaded the MSI version of TR and saw that pixelated mess... it was especially apalling compared with a friend who had bought a 3D Blaster PCI (Rendition V1000) around the same time. Fortunately this same friend managed to get a Diamond Monster 3D shortly after, so I traded my Mystique for his V1000 for a while, which was a win-win scenario for both of us, as he now had a nice 2D companion for his new Voodoo and I was able to experience TR, vQuake and other 3D wonders of that time.

When I got a Voodoo2 in late '98 I got back the Mystique, but nowadays I wish I had kept the 3D Blaster.

eesz34 wrote on 2022-04-20, 20:15:

Got this from a thrift store recently. It appears unused and has nice tactile mechanical switches. I just couldn't pass it up. If it wasn't new in box I would have left it there.

A good use for a serial port. I never have anything to plug into those. Except maybe a mouse.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-20, 21:01:

Got a new sound card today, complete in box.

I absolutely love the late 80's artwork on the box and how epic they make this card seem. 😁

What abandoned warehouse did you search to find one of those? Box and card both look pretty clean too! Nice find 😁

FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-20, 22:29:

What abandoned warehouse did you search to find one of those? Box and card both look pretty clean too! Nice find 😁

As much as I'd love to have a cool story for this one, it was a straight-up ebay acquisition. 😉

Been eyeballing that for some time, but usually seemed to modern and boring to bother a tenner.
It's 20 years old now and the difference made the slot bracket for a ~40 year old interface that no one should have used in 2002.
Depending on taste and definition, this might just be the last addon sound card to make any actual sense on its own, compared to pure software solutions and passive DSP backends.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-20, 21:01:

Got a new sound card today, complete in box.

I absolutely love the late 80's artwork on the box and how epic they make this card seem. 😁

Great find! Would you be able to scan the box artwork (ideally both sides of the box) in reasonably high resolution (like 600dpi or more) on a flatbed scanner?

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-20, 23:20:

FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-20, 22:29:

What abandoned warehouse did you search to find one of those? Box and card both look pretty clean too! Nice find 😁

As much as I'd love to have a cool story for this one, it was a straight-up ebay acquisition. 😉

I saw that listing. Glad it went to someone from VOGONS.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-20, 23:42:

Been eyeballing that for some time, but usually seemed to modern and boring to bother a tenner.
It's 20 years old now and the difference made the slot bracket for a ~40 year old interface that no one should have used in 2002.
Depending on taste and definition, this might just be the last addon sound card to make any actual sense on its own, compared to pure software solutions and passive DSP backends.

I thought this belongs into every Win98-PC? 😀 (Means: it doesn't sound too modern to me)
What were your reasons to not getting one? For me it ticks many boxes: useful, looks good, inexpensive

Got some Matrox G450 PCIs... arrived from everyone's favourite online Chinese site. I got these for my Socket 7 PCs... most running Pentium MMX.
Performance is great, matching my TNT2 M64 PCI at around 1200 3DMarks in 99MAX.

FRU number, so must have come out of an IBM server or something....

I can even play Need for Speed III at 640x480 with medium details at a semi reasonable framerate.
I will keep a couple of other early 3D accelerators in systems for laughs and interest.. a Creative card with a Cirrus Logic Laguna3D (the RAMBUS design interests me), and ViRGE DX.

But these G450s seem great and much better display quality than all my ViRGE cards........and at a great price too, since TNT2 PCI is extremely expensive in Australia.

Just a note that I did have problems when I tried with a VIA chipset...I believe it has to do with Bus Mastering that these cards use. So maybe only a good idea to use these on Intel chipsets...

holdencars11 wrote on 2022-04-21, 09:53:

Got some Matrox G450 PCIs...

I saw those yesterday, but didn't know if I should get one. Performance-wise they should be around a TNT2 M64 right?

Got some stuff these past few weeks myself, here are some of the highlights:

This little guy is a late 8088 PC. Siemens CPU, probably running at 4/8Mhz, on board I/O and FDD controller, on board EGA video card with 9 pin d-sub. Haven't tried it out yet, but I'm taking it to my computing area when I leave for home today. Don't know how much ram it has, I'm hoping at least 512k, but it wouldn't surprise me if it had 256. I'm also hoping it can post with a dedicated ISA card because I don't have any monitors with a 9 pin d-sub connector - or any adaptors. If it will take an ISA VGA card, I'll keep it and add in a sound blaster 1.5 and possibly a XT-IDE card with an 128MB compact flash in it. If not I'll try to test it, clean it and put it up for trade.

Leadtek Geforce 4 Titanium 4400. At first sight I thought it was the 4600 model, but I'm happier with the 4400 since I didn't have one in my collection. The card works, I cleaned and tested it, but it has some bulging 470uf caps that sould be replaced. Thing is I don't plan on using it. i've allready got a 4600 in my tualatin build and another 4600 as a spare, and this particular Leadtek card is nostalgic for me. It used to pop up in tech publications I read as a teen all the time. I even have a magazine with some ads for it.

So I think I'll mark off the bad caps for now and keep it as a display item alongside said magazine.

I also got a gigabyte GA-486AM/S. I jump on all socket 3 PCI boards in principle, but this one is not very exciting. No PS/2 and it uses a Dallas RTC witch are a bit of a pain to deal with. I'm curious about it's performance since it's based on the UMC chipset.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-04-21, 08:33:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-20, 23:42:

Been eyeballing that for some time, but usually seemed to modern and boring to bother a tenner.
It's 20 years old now and the difference made the slot bracket for a ~40 year old interface that no one should have used in 2002.
Depending on taste and definition, this might just be the last addon sound card to make any actual sense on its own, compared to pure software solutions and passive DSP backends.

I thought this belongs into every Win98-PC? 😀 (Means: it doesn't sound too modern to me)
What were your reasons to not getting one? For me it ticks many boxes: useful, looks good, inexpensive

They sure had those black & gold optics figured out by then, yes.
Mainly, too many Live!, one even from back when it was still borderline recent and part of my normal PC. Would rather regard that one as the typical Win98 card.
Do have the original Audigy on the heap for some time, though.

Socket3 wrote on 2022-04-21, 10:18:

I saw those yesterday, but didn't know if I should get one. Performance-wise they should be around a TNT2 M64 right?

Yeah I'd definitely say about TNT2 M64 level. I'm very happy with the G450 in the Pentium 233MMX... Once I forced the Matrox driver to install it was no problem. Probably requires an *.inf mod to install automatically, but forcing the driver worked out well. Really recommended it for that cheap price!

I have no interest in PII but this was 3 units of money.

A001 wrote on 2022-04-21, 12:37:

I have no interest in PII but this was 3 units of money.

620.jpg

Unless it was some enormously overvalued crypto units, I'd say that was a bargain.

That mobo looks very funky, itching to play with it =)

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2022-04-21, 12:41:

A001 wrote on 2022-04-21, 12:37:

I have no interest in PII but this was 3 units of money.

620.jpg

Unless it was some enormously overvalued crypto units, I'd say that was a bargain.

Same here. Is "one grand" a unit?

Also, is that graphics card a 2D card with a voodoo1 as a daughterboard or what?
All the Voodoo experts around here, don't laugh, I'm a confessing agnostic towards the church of 3dfx.

HanJammer wrote on 2022-04-20, 23:46:

Great find! Would you be able to scan the box artwork (ideally both sides of the box) in reasonably high resolution (like 600dpi or more) on a flatbed scanner?

I probably could. I'd have to do that at the office (I don't have a scanner at home), but that should not be a problem.

Is the intent to archive the box art somewhere?

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-21, 12:45:

Same here. Is "one grand" a unit? […]
Show full quote

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2022-04-21, 12:41:

Unless it was some enormously overvalued crypto units, I'd say that was a bargain.

Same here. Is "one grand" a unit?

Also, is that graphics card a 2D card with a voodoo1 as a daughterboard or what?
All the Voodoo experts around here, don't laugh, I'm a confessing agnostic towards the church of 3dfx.

Looks like an early Hercules Stingray 128. I'll probably put in in a 233Mhz Deskpro with the Awe64 IF IT WORKS.

Board I find interesting because it has absolutely no jumpers.

holdencars11 wrote on 2022-04-21, 11:36:

Socket3 wrote on 2022-04-21, 10:18:

I saw those yesterday, but didn't know if I should get one. Performance-wise they should be around a TNT2 M64 right?

Yeah I'd definitely say about TNT2 M64 level. I'm very happy with the G450 in the Pentium 233MMX... Once I forced the Matrox driver to install it was no problem. Probably requires an *.inf mod to install automatically, but forcing the driver worked out well. Really recommended it for that cheap price!

The ones I saw were ~30$ shipped. Not exactly cheap but not outrageous either. Might as well grab a couple tough, as well as another FX5500 PCI since the seller had some too. They had something that really caught my eye - new Radeon 7500 PCI - from the pics they looked like high quality cards, large PCB, 8 memory chips, SMD caps and so on - but he was asking 150$ / piece and thats WAAAY to ritch for my blood.

Socket3 wrote on 2022-04-21, 14:00:

The ones I saw were ~30$ shipped. Not exactly cheap but not outrageous either. Might as well grab a couple tough, as well as another FX5500 PCI since the seller had some too. They had something that really caught my eye - new Radeon 7500 PCI - from the pics they looked like high quality cards, large PCB, 8 memory chips, SMD caps and so on - but he was asking 150$ / piece and thats WAAAY to ritch for my blood.

The ones I got were $24.99 USD shipped... compared to what has been offered locally on ebay over the last couple of years with TNT2M64 PCI, its a bargain for me.... even ViRGE DX is selling for over 20-50AU....