PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:13:

Tetrium wrote on 2022-05-04, 18:32:

I forgot to mention that even 486 PCI is still jumper hell :P But I get where you're coming from. In the end you got to draw the […]
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PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-04, 18:28:

I wouldn't mind a ISA 486 as long as I'm given the WHOLE PC with the cards. Building one myself would be way too expensive. The cards (especially over-the-top stuff) are pretty expensive and even more scarce than most retro stuff already is.

A PCI based Socket 3 would be the lowest I'd go. While not as easy to find, once you own a PCI skt3 mainoard, you're pretty much hassle free, mainly because PCI is much more available than ISA stuff is (except sound cards though, ISA sound cards seem to be easier to find than anything else ISA in that regard.) and you're at least not required to own some almost-nobody-has-ever-heard-of controller card to have IDE and floppy functionality - maybe a separate floppy controller at best, since as far as I know CD-ROM booting wasn't a thing until Pentium came to exist, so you had to have a boot floppy w/ CD-ROM drivers.

I forgot to mention that even 486 PCI is still jumper hell 😜
But I get where you're coming from. In the end you got to draw the line somewhere.
I think if I had started retro computing these days I'd probably not go pre-ATX. Perhaps not even go s370 or sA (and no ISA either) as to save myself HSF and 5v troubles so I could use reasonably modern CPU HSFs and PSUs.

I'm not sure if you're gonna ever hear it again - I'm one of the few people who don't mind fiddling with a buttload of jumpers, as long as I'd have the manual handy. Anything undocumented is this forum's speciality so... there's that. Even if do highly prefer my ABIT BE6-II's DIP switches over my Luckytech P5MVP3's jumper-fest, I ain't backing off from fiddling with them!

I don't mind jumpers either 😀
For me it's always been just part of the experience 🙂

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:27:

AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially.

speaking of, this arrived recently, I finally found one... can't complain really for $10 ...sometimes I'm allowed to have luck.

That's very nice. It's always very rewarding to get a good deal like that.

imi wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:53:

speaking of, this arrived recently, I finally found one... can't complain really for $10 ...sometimes I'm allowed to have luck.

hardware40_81.jpg

Only ten bucks? That's an incredibly good deal for one of those. 😀

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:27:

AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially. […]
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AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially.

I do want to have a couple of these in my collection, so I snapped up this SQ 2500. It's not gold plated like the MX300, but it should have all of the same features. The AUREAL SQ and DELL Turtle Beach variants are a little cheaper and easier to find than the MX300.

I wouldn't mind buying the Vortex 1, except that the DOS mixer is broken. ZanQuance made a new one, but it only works with the Vortex 2. I've largely ignored the Vortex 1 for this reason, specifically.

This is a photo from the listing.

s-l1600.jpg

I've got the version with the spdif

I've just ordered a piii 500mhz slot 1 for a chaintech 440bx board I have laying around for years, it was a bnib. Haven't used it for years. Want to pair it with period correct vortex 2 and Voodoo 3 2000. Hopefully won't get the annoying PCI error message for the vortex I always get on newer builds. The motherboard has some exposed traces which is word. I'm hoping it works 😒

Phil has modified drivers on his website that work around that particular PCI error.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/aureal-vortex-2.html

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-04, 16:51:

I have a similar opinion. I think that they are "cool" and I respect anyone who owns or maintains one of these beasts. But I als […]
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PcBytes wrote on 2022-05-04, 16:38:

If it were me, the only period I hate the most is anything 486 and older that's strictly ISA only. Add PCI, an onboard HDD controller, and I'd greatly take it.
The reason I hate anything lower than PCI based 486 - you need offboard cards for almost everything, not just VGA and sound.

I have a similar opinion. I think that they are "cool" and I respect anyone who owns or maintains one of these beasts. But I also know what kind of real estate it takes to store and setup one of these. And this is beyond my ability or desire to collect.

If I could, I would own at least one IBM 5150 or 5151 with a green or amber screen. They are pretty sexy. But I can't imagine ever actually using it for anything. I'm allergic to video modes prior to EGA text and VGA graphics.

medium_1993_1031_0001__0001_.jpg

Yeah that's about my pinnacle of retro kit. I even have a poster on the wall of one! 😀 So expensive though.

imi wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:53:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:27:

AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially.

speaking of, this arrived recently, I finally found one... can't complain really for $10 ...sometimes I'm allowed to have luck.

hardware40_81.jpg

Oh man I'm jealous thats a crazy good deal, I paid like $100 aud for mine but I wanted to see what all the 3D audio fuss was about so I caved in.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:27:

AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially. […]
Show full quote

AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially.

I do want to have a couple of these in my collection, so I snapped up this SQ 2500. It's not gold plated like the MX300, but it should have all of the same features. The AUREAL SQ and DELL Turtle Beach variants are a little cheaper and easier to find than the MX300.

I wouldn't mind buying the Vortex 1, except that the DOS mixer is broken. ZanQuance made a new one, but it only works with the Vortex 2. I've largely ignored the Vortex 1 for this reason, specifically.

This is a photo from the listing.

s-l1600.jpg

unlike my DELL Turtle Beach doesn't have digital jack built in I have to get a SPDIF addon to take up another addon or perhaps I should make a custom front jack panel.. Thats probably a reason mine Is cheaper than some but wavetable expansion with PCI is what I want for MIDI mainly.

AppleSauce wrote on 2022-05-05, 04:06:

imi wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:53:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:27:

AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially.

speaking of, this arrived recently, I finally found one... can't complain really for $10 ...sometimes I'm allowed to have luck.

hardware40_81.jpg

Oh man I'm jealous thats a crazy good deal, I paid like $100 aud for mine but I wanted to see what all the 3D audio fuss was about so I caved in.

That Diamond card has become a bloody unicorn, yes.
Does it have to be a Vortex 2? What about the original Vortex, will that do? Any good threads about the issue?

Well the NEC 5800/110 Pro system arrived to day, its the Pentium Pro box and upon opening it and checking it out I come to find it needs Reg ECC modules, its got a 32mb PC66 module in it right now but im unsure if it can take any kind of reg ECC PC66 modules, being a NEC I suspect they might be weird ones.

I do have a bunch of PC100 and PC133 Reg ECC modules, does anyone know if they will downclock like normal ram does without issue ? if so then I wont have to go hunting for more NEC modules.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-05, 09:08:

AppleSauce wrote on 2022-05-05, 04:06:

imi wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:53:

speaking of, this arrived recently, I finally found one... can't complain really for $10 ...sometimes I'm allowed to have luck.

hardware40_81.jpg

Oh man I'm jealous thats a crazy good deal, I paid like $100 aud for mine but I wanted to see what all the 3D audio fuss was about so I caved in.

That Diamond card has become a bloody unicorn, yes.
Does it have to be a Vortex 2? What about the original Vortex, will that do? Any good threads about the issue?

Wow last time I checked ebay for them a year or two ago there were still some mx300s floating around for okayish prices and some even cheaper turtle beach ones.
It seems like there were a few auctions not long ago and one went for 50 aud so there still are deals to be had.

I'm no expert but after doing some reading it seems like the vortex 2 did more stuff in hardware rather then offloading it to the cpu , plus the vortex 2 got some new features as well.

Heres some quotes from ZanQuance in some posts , he seems to know a bit

A3D Vortex 1 any good?

"Compare charts in the AU8820 and AU8830 product briefs.

AU8820 has 48 total voice channels, AU8830 has 96.
AU8820 lacks hardware HRTF, AU8830 has hardware HRTF support.
AU8820 provides hardware mixing for 32 channels to 16 and sample rate converters for 16 channels. AU8830 uses the same hardware.
AU8820 has hardware wavetable for 32 channels, AU8830 tacks on an extra bank for 64 total wavetable hardware channels, can be repurposed for directsound streams."

A3D 1.0 vs 2.0 vs EAX 1.0 vs 2.0

"In general A3D 1.0 only offers HRTF on 8 audio sources and these are rendered in software. No reverb support at all.
A3D 2.0 gives a whole slew of new features like Occlusions, Hardware HRTF, WaveTraced reflections and some other neat 3D audio features"

imi wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:53:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-04, 19:27:

AUREAL Vortex 2 cards are starting to reach stupid prices. Diamond Monster MX300s, especially.

speaking of, this arrived recently, I finally found one... can't complain really for $10 ...sometimes I'm allowed to have luck.

hardware40_81.jpg

Around last Christmas I got three of these thanks to a fellow vogoner 😀 I sold 2, I will keep one for some nice Pentium 2 or K6-2 build...

Anyway, A3D was and still is a gimmick to me. Back in the day these cards were popular I had Yamaha YMF7x4 based card which in my opinion was a bit better - it had excellent OPL3 compatibility, excellent XG-Midi support with very nice wavetable and it performed well in both DOS and Windows.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-05, 09:44:

Well the NEC 5800/110 Pro system arrived to day, its the Pentium Pro box and upon opening it and checking it out I come to find […]
Show full quote

Well the NEC 5800/110 Pro system arrived to day, its the Pentium Pro box and upon opening it and checking it out I come to find it needs Reg ECC modules, its got a 32mb PC66 module in it right now but im unsure if it can take any kind of reg ECC PC66 modules, being a NEC I suspect they might be weird ones.

I do have a bunch of PC100 and PC133 Reg ECC modules, does anyone know if they will downclock like normal ram does without issue ? if so then I wont have to go hunting for more NEC modules.

s-l1600 (1).jpg

s-l1600.jpg

Your PC 100 and 133 dimms should operate at 66mhz without a problem I don't think ecc will have any effect on what fsb it'll run at.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-05-05, 09:44:

Well the NEC 5800/110 Pro system arrived to day, its the Pentium Pro box and upon opening it and checking it out I come to find it needs Reg ECC modules, its got a 32mb PC66 module in it right now but im unsure if it can take any kind of reg ECC PC66 modules, being a NEC I suspect they might be weird ones.

What an adorable case. I love it!

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-05-05, 09:08:

That Diamond card has become a bloody unicorn, yes.
Does it have to be a Vortex 2? What about the original Vortex, will that do? Any good threads about the issue?

Another difference is that the Vortex 2 supports up to for speakers for surround sound. Positional audio is only available on the front two speakers, but this is expected because sound coming from behind is already behind you.

HanJammer wrote on 2022-05-05, 12:02:

Anyway, A3D was and still is a gimmick to me.

I remember using it for Half-Life deathmatch back in the day. Being able to precisely pinpoint other player movements just by sound was more than a gimmick. It was a decisive tactical advantage.

Maybe I'm just bad at video games, but I've tried to do this for years and could never pinpoint someone's location by listening to sounds.

It would be clearly better with headphones when it comes to locating where the sound comes from.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-05, 15:37:

Maybe I'm just bad at video games, but I've tried to do this for years and could never pinpoint someone's location by listening to sounds.

I've found positional audio works best with headphones. I've also used it with 2 and 4 speaker setups, and while it kind of provides a surround sound effect, headphones are best for precise 3D positioning.