TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-15, 08:50:

Anyone here have any experience in backing up these DMF disks ?
Would love to put them onto my Gotek but no idea if I can even back up this format of disk.

WinImage should be able to create DMF img files.
Gotek should be able to handle DMF img files, too.

It's been a long time since I've done any work on my Frankenstein's Monster of a DOS gaming PC. I ended up finishing work quite early today, so decided to do some maintenance in preparation of some late night DOS gaming I have planned later this week 😁.

First, I removed the parallel/serial port expansion "card" (actually just plate with the ports connected to the motherboard)
I don't have any use for these ports, so I figured I might as well remove this. I went into the BIOS and disabled both ports to free up their resources, just in case.

Second, I replaced the SiS video card that came with the motherboard with a nice S3 card I won a while back on auction. Works fine, and although I might just be imagining things, the picture quality seems quite a bit better (sharper, better colors).

I did some benchmarking on two platforms, with a Celeron 1.3 GHz and two Pentium 4's. Lets see what happens.

Intel Celeron 1.3 - stock and overclocked to 1.58GHz only by setting the FSB to 122 MHz.
AOpen MX3S-T (i815E)
1x 256MB PC133 CL3
Geforce 6800LE 128MB

Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz (Willamette) and 2.8GHz (Northwood)
Asus P4T-E (i850)
4x 128MB PC800-45 Rambus DRAM
Geforce 6800LE 128MB

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-08-15, 09:27:

It's been a long time since I've done any work on my Frankenstein's Monster of a DOS gaming PC. I ended up finishing work quite […]
Show full quote

It's been a long time since I've done any work on my Frankenstein's Monster of a DOS gaming PC. I ended up finishing work quite early today, so decided to do some maintenance in preparation of some late night DOS gaming I have planned later this week 😁.

(1) I removed the parallel/serial port expansion "card" (actually just plate with the ports connected to the motherboard)
I don't have any use for these ports, so I figured I might as well remove this. I went into the BIOS and disabled both ports to free up their resources, just in case.

(1) I replaced the SiS video card that came with the motherboard with a nice S3 card I won a while back on auction. Works fine, and although I might just be imagining things, the picture quality seems quite a bit better (sharper, better colors).

If your new card has a better ramdac and output filtering there will be an increase in picture quality over a lesser built card.

PD2JK wrote on 2022-08-15, 10:18:

I did some benchmarking on two platforms, with a Celeron 1.3 GHz and two Pentium 4's. Lets see what happens. […]
Show full quote

I did some benchmarking on two platforms, with a Celeron 1.3 GHz and two Pentium 4's. Lets see what happens.

Intel Celeron 1.3 - stock and overclocked to 1.58GHz only by setting the FSB to 122 MHz.
AOpen MX3S-T (i815E)
1x 256MB PC133 CL3
Geforce 6800LE 128MB

Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz (Willamette) and 2.8GHz (Northwood)
Asus P4T-E (i850)
4x 128MB PC800-45 Rambus DRAM
Geforce 6800LE 128MB

Need some Tualatin 1.4s with DDR results 😁

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-15, 10:44:

Need some Tualatin 1.4s with DDR results 😁

Yes that would be interesting. But I don't have both. Prices of those are mad. 😁

PD2JK wrote on 2022-08-15, 11:15:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-15, 10:44:

Need some Tualatin 1.4s with DDR results 😁

Yes that would be interesting. But I don't have both. Prices of those are mad. 😁

heh yup I know, I only have one board that can do both and I'm afraid to use it too much lest it decides to die on me.

Apparently the X1600 AGP is incompatible with the nForce2 platform. Mine just arrived and I was getting some super weird artifacting in the bios and what looked like memory leaks in windows (missing icons and similar), but 3D worked fine which was odd. I need to pull out another AGP system to confirm tomorrow, but I found an old forum post with the same issue: https://www.overclock.net/threads/x1600-agp-a … tifacts.529746/

I suspect nForce2 causes some sort of memory handling conflict, I've seen similar issues with late LGA775 boards and video cards with more than 3GB of memory.

Well, nForce2 is certified utter shit so no surprises there..

Yesterday I received my first retail copy of Quake II. Before this, I either had digital re-releases or back in the day no-CD rips. This brought me a lot of firsts. First time actually installing the game, first time with it's original background music (off-youtube, during actual gameplay), etc. It's an interesting feeling, experiencing something I've experienced several times, but now in the way it's meant to be experienced. It's like a whole different game or a remaster.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-16, 05:08:

Well, nForce2 is certified utter shit so no surprises there..

I'll bite. 😜
But some of them boards had SoundStorm! And was quite easy on the CPU.

*PD2JK pets his EPoX EP-8RDA+, paired with an AthlonXP 1700+ running at 2200MHz instead of 1466MHz.

*Shreddoc looks across at his 8RDA+ sitting on the shelf not working for 10 years, and wonders if he'll ever finally get off his butt and recap it*

EPoX EP-8RDA+ I have the one up from this the EPoX EP-8RDA+Pro with a unlocked 3200+ Barton on it, it was recapped before I bought it and I honestly have nothing bad to say about the board, I have been looking for a nice KT-880 board as a spare and to see just how different the nforce ultra chipset is.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-16, 05:08:

Well, nForce2 is certified utter shit so no surprises there..

What kind of shit statement is that ?!?!? Are there better boards then nForce i wonder ? Oyy yeah the SiS ones, and the VIA ones, and i think there was even Uli boards as well.... Nothing comes even close to how stbale and good working nFroce II specially was, if u want to tell me SiS and VIA are better, then the joke in on you...

PD2JK wrote on 2022-08-16, 06:21:

I'll bite. :P But some of them boards had SoundStorm! And was quite easy on the CPU. […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-16, 05:08:

Well, nForce2 is certified utter shit so no surprises there..

I'll bite. 😜
But some of them boards had SoundStorm! And was quite easy on the CPU.

*PD2JK pets his EPoX EP-8RDA+, paired with an AthlonXP 1700+ running at 2200MHz instead of 1466MHz.

Yeah the good old EPoX 8RDA+/ Pro. Best of them all was the 8RDA3+/ Pro, there was even 8RDA6+ Pro with 6 sata ports, the only 462 board with so many... Yet i prefer ABIT NF7 V2 series or AN7, they are just rock solid, with their full covered Rubycon caps, never need to replace any caps on them, they just work very nice. DFI LanParty on other hand is a good fancy looking board, but aside from that is UNstable AF, the BIOS likes to die/ corrupt alot so it sucks overall, also NF7 V2 with modded bios is even better on OC then the LanParty is... there are ofc the shitty ASUS boards that are total garbage, nothing special on them. Meanwhile boards like Gigabyte 7NNXP did have alot of features, 4 memory slots, IDE RAID, Dual BIOS, and even that dumb and useless DPS module, but interesting looking one. Or the insane AOpen AK79 Tube mobo, that seems to be rare AF. or the great looking Soltek golden flame board, and the Soyo KT600 Dragon Platinum, or the ASSrock K7 upgrade series...

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-08-16, 09:06:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-16, 05:08:

Well, nForce2 is certified utter shit so no surprises there..

What kind of shit statement is that ?!?!? Are there better boards then nForce i wonder ? Oyy yeah the SiS ones, and the VIA ones, and i think there was even Uli boards as well.... Nothing comes even close to how stbale and good working nFroce II specially was, if u want to tell me SiS and VIA are better, then the joke in on you...

Every single iteration of VIA Socket A chipsets that I used from KT266 onwards was way more stable than nF2. Fuck nF2. It's an utter garbage chipset that has so many compatibility issues with so much hardware that the only people on the internet who advocate it are the about a dozen people who happen to own a miraculously stable nF2 system that probably also requires voodoo magic and baby sacrifices to work reliably. Unsurprisingly these are the same people who advocate ABIT/Epox boards, which were also invariably unstable pieces of shit made using the cheapest components wherever possible and only sold due to ticking more checkboxes for fanboy enthusiast overclockers who never knew whether their last system reset or data corruption was due to an overambitious overclock or just a piece of shit motherboard.

I never had stability problems or some compatibility issues on NF2, did use EPoX 8RDA3+, ABIT NF7-S V2, ASUS A7N8X-E.Used these boards for my main system, first the asus, then the EpoX, and since i found the ABIT i use that mobo, it works great, never had any problems, and the system is heavy OC as well on the CPU side. For VIA boards i have the AOpen DX34R-U that i did heavy use compared to others VIA boards, never had problems with that board too. But reading back in a local forums, back in 2003-2004 when socket 462 was new, imagine everyone did state how shitty the VIA based boards are, how unstable, they are, no AGP/ PCI lock under the KT880, and more and more.. KT880 is the last VIA chipset, and is newer then the NF2, yet it also does not support 2GB above DDR400 speeds, so i dont find it to be of any use then, and to prefer it over the NF2. So in that forum they did state that, in 2003/4 everyone was with NF2 imagine, since anyone that did dare to sacrifice money and time on a VIA board, was disgusted, how shitty that chipsets was, no matter KT400 or KT600 we talk...

Maybe u got a bunch of garbage ASUS NF2 boards, and this is why u think the chipset is bad, as ASUS boards are the worst garbage out there, they like to die without any reason too, happened to me couple of times...

Wrong about the ABIT, when they did become oranage in PCB color, they are high quality AF VERY high... The whole damen board is covered by expensive high end Japan caps Rubycon, it is stable AF...

I am using this board since many years found it in 2012, it is rock solid, with modded bios holding 2600+ Mobile Barton up to 2.6GHz real speed, never had any problems, i did even use it for daily driver back in 2017 for 2 months the system is very stable believe me... I power it up from time to time to play GTA VC, Devil may Cry 3, GTA SA, NFS MW, or brouse the web a little, since it is weak for that kind of crap, and i dont spare time to optimise with better browser..
https://imgur.com/a/mubGE

DFI was alot worse in build quality, but yes older ABIT boards the yellow ones, before the great orange ABIT NF7 V2, was unstable mostly, cuz of shitty capacitors... EpoX similar thing, but once they are recapped, they was also rock solid... I hade one or 2 EpoX 8RDA boards, that did came with 9 of the most important caps, near the VRM and they was high quality SaNyo caps, and the build quality was alot better seems then on most EpoX boards, not sure wtf was that...

Ok tell me then if you consider the state of art ABIT NF7 V2 (the orange one) to be bad, then what socket 462 do u see as high build quality then >? I can think of couple brands, BUT depends on what caps they did use. AOpen have some times whole boards covered in Rubycon caps, GIGAbyte boards have also mostly Japan caps, and MSI as well, but there depend, some of them have good caps like Panasonic, others have shitty KZG caps, that like to blow up as usual...

These 2 MSI boards are interesting, the red one is lower class mobo, yet it have mostly Rubycon caps, while the black Platinum high end have garbage KZG caps, that did blow up...

Meanwhile look at the ABIT, it is state of art, the build quality is very good... The whole board is covered with Rubycon caps, and they are expensive you know, even the smaller one...

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-16, 09:14:

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-08-16, 09:06:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-08-16, 05:08:

Well, nForce2 is certified utter shit so no surprises there..

What kind of shit statement is that ?!?!? Are there better boards then nForce i wonder ? Oyy yeah the SiS ones, and the VIA ones, and i think there was even Uli boards as well.... Nothing comes even close to how stbale and good working nFroce II specially was, if u want to tell me SiS and VIA are better, then the joke in on you...

Every single iteration of VIA Socket A chipsets that I used from KT266 onwards was way more stable than nF2. Fuck nF2. It's an utter garbage chipset that has so many compatibility issues with so much hardware that the only people on the internet who advocate it are the about a dozen people who happen to own a miraculously stable nF2 system that probably also requires voodoo magic and baby sacrifices to work reliably. Unsurprisingly these are the same people who advocate ABIT/Epox boards, which were also invariably unstable pieces of shit made using the cheapest components wherever possible and only sold due to ticking more checkboxes for fanboy enthusiast overclockers who never knew whether their last system reset or data corruption was due to an overambitious overclock or just a piece of shit motherboard.

Not saying your experience wasn’t a bad one, but these two boards served me well for many years in the early 00s.

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813180028?Item … N82E16813180028

https://www.newegg.com/albatron-kx18d-proii/p … N82E16813170112

The Epox was a cool budget option at the time, but there's no doubt some big compromises were part of that. Durability 1 star.

Still, did the job for many of us at the time. Soundstorm was fun, mostly a gimmick it could be argued (in the sense that I've never used or cared about Dolby Digital Live since), but fun to play with back then.

+ there's a certain Tick of Approval due for anything which, over the course of computer history, publicises the notion of sound being important.

I built close to 15 nforce 2 based systems back in the day for friends and family and they never had any issues at all. Even our family system was nforce 2 and that thing was a beast and just rock solid for the 5 years we used it. They were a mix of DFI lanparty boards or EPoX boards they were all just stable even when pushing the overclocks. The amount of hate for the Nforce 1 through the 700 series is just weird.

Guess he is just nvidia or nForce hater, or had bad luck... I am nVIDIA hater myself, that company is just the biggest scumbag, even Intel looks good compared to them, and that says something... But i never hated the nFroce chipset, "it just works". Sadly after nFroce II, the newer chisets was all hot stoves, and that is not very good, but is not a point to hate them.