Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-16, 16:14:

I didn't think it was safe to replace a NiCd battery with a Lithium one. I've heard that a NiMH battery can sometimes be used, but the charge voltage is not the same even for that formula.

Changing a rechargeable Ni-Cd with a non-rechargeable Lithium is bad news unless the circuit is also changed to prevent recharging.

I have been using a 3.6V rechargeable Li-ion battery installed in a 486 system and seems to be working fine and holding a charge properly. Though I will admit I'm not completely sure if this is a good idea or not.

OMORES wrote on 2023-03-16, 14:19:

This Soyo SY-025P2 Socket 3 motherboard - looks brand new. I replaced the leaky Ni-Cd battery with a 2032 socket.

Was the original battery a 3.6V rechargeable Ni-Cd? Because otherwise, you should avoid using a non-rechargeable Lithium battery. Could cause problems if the underlying circuit is trying to recharge it.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-16, 16:05:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-16, 07:49:

Oh, that's Giants: Citizen Kobuto. […]
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Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-16, 07:42:

You're right. I can confirm this quote. I didn't recall that the Creature demo used the per-pixel lighting feature. It's great a […]
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You're right. I can confirm this quote. I didn't recall that the Creature demo used the per-pixel lighting feature. It's great at we do have at least one demo.

Here is a link to the article I was thinking of previously. Does anyone know if the example image is from a demo or a game?

https://web.archive.org/web/20011022022924/ht … ?IO=feature_nsr

image.gif

The technology is specifically called the "NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR)", and was introduced with the GeForce 2 GTS, and I assume is present in all of the GeForce 2 silicon. It seems to have been available as an API feature as of DirectX 6, and an OpenGL extension:

The "Lightning" demo also showcases the per-pixel lighting feature as well. I guess it was used more often than I thought.

This also finally explains for me why the little water demo with the lamp post doesn't render properly on TNT cards. It's definitely the per-pixel lighting feature.

There is definitely lots of mention of per-pixel lighting, but nothing about programmable shaders.

Oh, that's Giants: Citizen Kobuto.

That game was heavily advertised at the time for utilizing all the latest graphical features of nvidia's Geforce cards. I think they actually recommended a Geforce, which was a tall order back in December of 2000.

The game used some pretty advanced bump mapping and had some interesting effects, but I think overall the game didn't really look that great because it had been in development so long. The ground textures and pointy geometry just looked terrible combined with the much more realistic character textures. I'm sure others think it looks great... this is just my impression of it. Outcast made use of a lot of similar effects purely with software rendering the year prior, and the low res graphics and odd voxel based scenery had it's quirks but it looked like it all went together. Giants looked like someone knew how to make high quality models and textures with the latest GPU tech available, but then they plopped them into the scenery out of a game from 1996.

Outcast also required what was considered a monsterous PC to run at a reasonable frame rate. IIRC a 1GHZ Pentium (then the fastest on the market) barely produced smooth framerates.

Outcast came out in September 1999. The fastest CPU on the market when it was released was a 600Mhz Pentium III Katmai. The game had setting presets based on system specs and I believe the absolute top spec listed was a 500Mhz Pentium III (or was it a 450Mhz Pentium III and a 500Mhz K6-III?). I believe I played it on a 400Mhz Pentium II and later a 750Mhz Athlon. Running it on a system that was too fast would actually change some of the procedurally generated animations and physics (particularly when walking through mud, the player would walk super slowly on a faster system). So, yeah, it did make full use of the fastest CPUs at the time, but it was certainly playable with less if you turned the resolution and settings down a bit, and it definitely didn't require a 1Ghz CPU.

The main issue with the game was that people in 1999 wanted to game at 800x600 or 1024x768 like they did in 3D accelerated games, but the max resolution you could even set in the game was 512x384 due to performance and interface limitations, and this was just unacceptable to most gamers with a Voodoo 2\3 or TNT2\Geforce in their PC. I don't imagine it was a particularly smooth experience on a system that barely met the minimum requirements, but if someone could accept the Playstation-like resolution it was likely still playable by 1999 standards. I'll have to test this out on some of my retro systems. I actually still have my boxed copy of this that I bought for $10 at Electronics Boutique a few months after it was released. What a bargain that was. 😁

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-03-16, 16:48:

OMORES wrote on 2023-03-16, 14:19:

This Soyo SY-025P2 Socket 3 motherboard - looks brand new. I replaced the leaky Ni-Cd battery with a 2032 socket.

Was the original battery a 3.6V rechargeable Ni-Cd? Because otherwise, you should avoid using a non-rechargeable Lithium battery. Could cause problems if the underlying circuit is trying to recharge it.

You can get rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries to use instead.

It's really not safe to put a CR2032 on a board that had a nicad/nimh originally in its place. That'll usually be putting about 4.8 volts into the battery while the system is powered up, through a combo of a diode then a resistor. Here's how I fixed that on an Abit AN4 board - the D4 diode feeds into a resistor which feeds into the positive side of the CMOS battery. Now when it's on there's 0 volts on the battery terminals while the system is on.

edit: just doing the same mod on a different board and it seems that they use a 220 ohm resistor to feed into the rechargeable battery which I expect is to limit current. So you can see if there's just the one 220 ohm resistor and snip the leg on one side to disable the charging circuit.

edit2: to OMORES - looking at your picture I think R1 and D1 feed power into the battery, you could cut that thin trace going between R1 and D1 to make it safe with a CR2032

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-03-16, 18:15:

It's really not safe to put a CR2032 on a board that had a nicad/nimh originally in its place. That'll usually be putting about 4.8 volts into the battery while the system is powered up, through a combo of a diode then a resistor. Here's how I fixed that on an Abit AN4 board - the D4 diode feeds into a resistor which feeds into the positive side of the CMOS battery. Now when it's on there's 0 volts on the battery terminals while the system is on.

Would that still be an issue with something like a 3.6V Li-ion rechargeable battery?

That what I've got running on a 486 board and haven't had any issues yet (still holds charge fine).

Going with an LIR2032 as an example, I don't think that's safe unless the charging circuit is modified to fit the specified charging voltage (4.2v instead of 4.8v) and constant 8ma current. The fact it's okay with constant current and no smart charging circuit is new to me, I thought I read that trickle charging is really not okay with VL/ML/LIR cells.
But the spec here kind of says it's okay: https://docs.rs-online.com/04df/0900766b8170b069.pdf I'm not sure if that means that charging current is supposed to cut off when it reaches 4.2v though.

I don't want to re-engineer the charging circuit so I just use CR2032 instead 😀
There are some exceptions I've made with laptops where they use a lower charging voltage that's witin the VL1220/VL2020 charging range, but those aren't putting 4.8v into the battery, more like 3.2v.

Or you could use the external battery pins that most older motherboards had that allowed you to use a special external battery or a 3x 1.5v battery holder.

Those were usually used for Alkaline batteries though I have seen a couple that used a rechargeable battery pack.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-03-16, 16:03:

GeForce256 was supposed to have a number of GF2 features, but they are broken in silicon and disabled in vBIOs. Most likely NVIDIA ran out of time to do revisions and fix bugs before they had to start producing shipping silicon.

One of my favorite facts is about Nvidia release cycle speed. At the peak of nvidia 3dfx war new chips were coming out every 6-9 months:

Riva 128 (April 1997) to TNT (June 15, 1998) took 14 months
TNT2 (March 15, 1999) 8 month
GF256 (October 11, 1999) 7 months
GF2 (April 26, 2000) 6 months
| 3dfx dies here |
GF3 (February 27, 2001) 9 months
GF4 (February 6, 2002) 12 months
FX (March 2003) 13 months

Nvidia had an army of hardware engineers always working on 2 future products in parallel, 3dfx had few people in a dingy room trying to speed up same Voodoo1 architecture.

Aaaargh, temptation not resisted, wife was no help, she said I may as well 🤣 ordered a bunch from cablesalescanada.com .. they had some IBM keyboards I know I like, they call them multimedia, but it's the kb-9930 rapid access II type, which while being rubber dome, I know type really nice because I've got a black one. Also they're an inch or two narrower than most full 104s, despite being deeper, they feel like a good way to get most keyboard on least desk to me. Beside that they had some removable PATA HDD racks for cheap, got a few of those, some vga coolers that look like they'll "do" for DX7-DX9 era cards. They also have a bunch of cheapish CPU coolers too but I didn't think I needed any this time around. Got a drive bay fan, which is probably gonna be for either the BX AT board or the fast Super7 AT board, since AT cases don't ventilate great. All sorts of little bits, case switches! 25c a piece... You really gotta dig round the site a bit to find stuff though... old bits seem super cheap, middle aged bits reasonable, but more up to the minute stuff is "market priced" ... Anyhoo, stocked up on lots of "glue" bits to stick bits together, treated myself to a new BNC to VGA cable, because I dunno if the ancient one I've got is a first experiment with corn based insulation or something because it grows mold/mildew all the damn time, bleached it, dettoxed it, pinesolled it, comes back, IDK.

Edit: it' the fault of that stupid cooler Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today actually, it's cost me more than $3 now, looked it up and that site popped up in search results where they still had them for sale. I was humming and harring about getting a second, but decided I've probably got enough CPU cooler coverage for the present, so as long as you guys don't go nuts and clear them out I'll know where to get others if I tap out the stash.

EditII: Dammit, realised I forgot to add the serial port and USB brackets... oh well .. still have a couple spare, will have to do another order when I use those I guess.

I received today a small lot found last week (45€ + 0.99€ shipping)

Bought it mainly for the Sound Blaster 16 (CT2290) and the Media Vision Jazz16.
Sound Blaster works well. The Jazz16 is affected by a weird issue.
Sounds are played at an incorrect speed and pitch... (see here : MediaVision jazz16 - Sound playback at incorrect speed (high speed, high pitch))

A Guillemot Maxi Studio ISIS (which i already have)
Two matrox PCI cards (Millennium 2 and G450 dual head. Unfortunately already have them too)
S3 Trio PCI and Trio3D (Goes straight to my "early bad 3D cards" collection, inspired by vintage3D and vlask youtube videos)
Radeon VE, Radeon RV250 (Radeon 9000 probably), A MX440 (Full size card. 128 bit ?) and a 3DRage pro
Also a 3com PCI NIC

And a server network card with 4 (!!) 10/100 ports.
Could find some use to this one
Four links LACP bonding for an impressive 400Mbps high availability connection... Just to serve files to retro stations

Had a few video cards delivered today: Asus V6800 Deluxe (GeForce), V8200 Deluxe (GeForce 3), Diamond Monster 3D II (Voodoo 2) and Hercules Terminator 3D (S3 Virge/DX).

Also got a Belkin OmniView KVM switch with AT & PS2 support.

Have you ever seen something like this?

It was in the slot 1 of an hybrid slot 1/socket 370 motherboard, while a Pentium III CPU was in the socket 370.

Why would something like this be needed?

That's terminator, a block of resistors preventing signal reflections in the unused socket.

Grzyb wrote on 2023-03-16, 23:09:

That's terminator, a block of resistors preventing signal reflections in the unused socket.

I never saw one. Is there any practical difference to use the computer with it or without it?

tauro wrote on 2023-03-16, 23:29:

I never saw one. Is there any practical difference to use the computer with it or without it?

I've seen them many times, but always in multiprocessor boards.

Those Slot 1 + Socket 370 boards aren't really multiprocessor.
I doubt if the terminator is actually useful in this setup.

I have never seen this either. I have a Slot 1/Socket 370 combo board, and it works fine with either one without a terminator.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-16, 20:35:

Aaaargh, temptation not resisted, wife was no help, she said I may as well 🤣 ordered a bunch from cablesalescanada.com .. they had some IBM keyboards I know I like, they call them multimedia, but it's the kb-9930 rapid access II type, which while being rubber dome, I know type really nice because I've got a black one. Also they're an inch or two narrower than most full 104s, despite being deeper, they feel like a good way to get most keyboard on least desk to me. Beside that they had some removable PATA HDD racks for cheap, got a few of those, some vga coolers that look like they'll "do" for DX7-DX9 era cards. They also have a bunch of cheapish CPU coolers too but I didn't think I needed any this time around. Got a drive bay fan, which is probably gonna be for either the BX AT board or the fast Super7 AT board, since AT cases don't ventilate great. All sorts of little bits, case switches! 25c a piece... You really gotta dig round the site a bit to find stuff though... old bits seem super cheap, middle aged bits reasonable, but more up to the minute stuff is "market priced" ... Anyhoo, stocked up on lots of "glue" bits to stick bits together, treated myself to a new BNC to VGA cable, because I dunno if the ancient one I've got is a first experiment with corn based insulation or something because it grows mold/mildew all the damn time, bleached it, dettoxed it, pinesolled it, comes back, IDK.

Edit: it' the fault of that stupid cooler Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today actually, it's cost me more than $3 now, looked it up and that site popped up in search results where they still had them for sale. I was humming and harring about getting a second, but decided I've probably got enough CPU cooler coverage for the present, so as long as you guys don't go nuts and clear them out I'll know where to get others if I tap out the stash.

EditII: Dammit, realised I forgot to add the serial port and USB brackets... oh well .. still have a couple spare, will have to do another order when I use those I guess.

I'm checking out their site now. Was tempted by the keyboard until I saw that ISO enter key. Nope. 😁 😁 😁

Looks like they have an interesting selection. The pictures of the older items look like they're from the 90s, so it's a bit hard to make out any features of them.

Shipping prices seem pretty okay if you're ordering a multiple items. Bookmarked. 😀

Grzyb wrote on 2023-03-16, 23:39:

I've seen them many times, but always in multiprocessor boards. […]
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tauro wrote on 2023-03-16, 23:29:

I never saw one. Is there any practical difference to use the computer with it or without it?

I've seen them many times, but always in multiprocessor boards.

Those Slot 1 + Socket 370 boards aren't really multiprocessor.
I doubt if the terminator is actually useful in this setup.

So the point of these things is to enable 1 CPU operation on multiprocessor boards?
It came with a PCChips M756LMRT. Nice little board. It lacks AGP and ISA, but it has the CMI8738 and everything else on-board.
I tried it without the terminator and it worked.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-03-16, 22:26:

Also got a Belkin OmniView KVM switch with AT & PS2 support.

That is a nice looking switch. What is the model name?

Some might see these as not retro enough but they are old enough, Grabbed a few nice AMD CPUs for the collection.

Pretty sure this is the top single core Athlon for 939, grabbed it for 98se Use. (Ignoring the FX 55/57 chips which are unobtanium or are stupidly priced)

Who doesn't love the triple core Phenoms.

Got this in a random parts lot, dont need it but its nice to have for some overclocking shits and giggles.

6 Core beasts to mirror my X58 setup.