Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-31, 05:30:

The last use case I can think of, which is somewhat reasonable, is to copy games onto it simply for the fastest load times. This is somewhat more realistic, but I think it would be difficult to measure compared to a DRAM cached SSD. Even though there is raw performance available, a lot of that will be lost due to filesystem and API overhead. Actual raw memory speeds won't necessarily translate into comparable filesystem performance.

Yes, sadly, without Direct Storage or some other as-yet-unavailable technology to leverage the throughput and random access speeds of solid state drives, games are just not built to make use of high speed storage, so things just don't change that much.

I do wonder though... once Direct Storage is widely used, will we start to see some really insane stuff involving RAM drives, or even dedicated RAM based solid state storage like the i-RAM? Of course, the big issue with that will be RAM capacity. High speed loading will allow developers to make games use even larger assets and they will get even bigger than they are now. It's really going to get absurd if you combine that with AI-generated assets, so they can basically be made infinitely huge\detailed without requiring a whole team to make each asset. Get ready for 500GB game installs becoming the norm. No RAM drives for those. 🙁

... though for competitive and e-sports titles where fast loading may give someone an edge and games tend to be a lot smaller in size, it wouldn't surprise me to see RAM drives being used for millisecond-level load times in Direct Storage equipped games. It sounds kind of absurd because level load times have stayed relatively consistent with game complexity for the past 20 years or so, despite the massive leaps in bandwidth in every single aspect of a modern computer... but once software can finally make use of it properly we're going to see some crazy stuff. I mean, even now (or soon) it's possible to have interfaces to our GPUs and storage devices with up to 64GB\sec bandwidth, SSDs coming out soon that are advertised at 13GB\sec reads, memory bandwidth on the RTX 4090 has broken 1Terabyte per second, and we've got CPUs with as much high speed L3 cache as a lot of computers had RAM 20 years ago. That's 128MB of cache with up to 2.5TB\sec of bandwidth according to AMD's info on the 7950X3D.

It's really bonkers if you think about it in comparison with the hardware we tinker with here on VOGONS.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-31, 06:14:

Yes, sadly, without Direct Storage or some other as-yet-unavailable technology to leverage the throughput and random access spee […]
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Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-31, 05:30:

The last use case I can think of, which is somewhat reasonable, is to copy games onto it simply for the fastest load times. This is somewhat more realistic, but I think it would be difficult to measure compared to a DRAM cached SSD. Even though there is raw performance available, a lot of that will be lost due to filesystem and API overhead. Actual raw memory speeds won't necessarily translate into comparable filesystem performance.

Yes, sadly, without Direct Storage or some other as-yet-unavailable technology to leverage the throughput and random access speeds of solid state drives, games are just not built to make use of high speed storage, so things just don't change that much.

I do wonder though... once Direct Storage is widely used, will we start to see some really insane stuff involving RAM drives, or even dedicated RAM based solid state storage like the i-RAM? Of course, the big issue with that will be RAM capacity. High speed loading will allow developers to make games use even larger assets and they will get even bigger than they are now. It's really going to get absurd if you combine that with AI-generated assets, so they can basically be made infinitely huge\detailed without requiring a whole team to make each asset. Get ready for 500GB game installs becoming the norm. No RAM drives for those. 🙁

... though for competitive and e-sports titles where fast loading may give someone an edge and games tend to be a lot smaller in size, it wouldn't surprise me to see RAM drives being used for millisecond-level load times in Direct Storage equipped games. It sounds kind of absurd because level load times have stayed relatively consistent with game complexity for the past 20 years or so, despite the massive leaps in bandwidth in every single aspect of a modern computer... but once software can finally make use of it properly we're going to see some crazy stuff. I mean, even now (or soon) it's possible to have interfaces to our GPUs and storage devices with up to 64GB\sec bandwidth, SSDs coming out soon that are advertised at 13GB\sec reads, memory bandwidth on the RTX 4090 has broken 1Terabyte per second, and we've got CPUs with as much high speed L3 cache as a lot of computers had RAM 20 years ago. That's 128MB of cache with up to 2.5TB\sec of bandwidth according to AMD's info on the 7950X3D.

It's really bonkers if you think about it in comparison with the hardware we tinker with here on VOGONS.

At some point you'll see nVidia and AMD just release Video cards that have both Vram and large NVME based storage built into the card, when you install the game parts of it will be installed to the GPU storage so the GPU doesn't need to go through the system to access it and can stream it directly.

We are not quite there yet but I can see it happening in the next few generations as game streaming data gets too large to be streamed over the PCIe bus fast enough, we are already there with fucking shader compilation taking forever, imagine all of that being done directly on the GPU with zero need to involve the CPU or system bus.

Same with anything requiring AI hardware, why not just remove the bottleneck and have the GPU store and process it directly, nVidia cards already have the capability of handling NVME drives directly ..so do AMD IIRC, we really do need to move away from having the CPU/chipset deal with this shit when the GPU can do it and not require any extra input other than a handshake from the CPU telling it to go ahead.

I'm also skipping the 7000 series ..the 8000 series is actually looking like something really special and truly about moving forwards with their chiplet/fabric/cache tech, DDR5 also still needs a bit more cooking, its not yet at its theoretical 12,600 MTs speed yet but they are getting close so hopefully the next year or so will let them push it there. Also waiting on AMD to really push RDNA MCM further, they really didnt leverage what their tech guys are capable of and the 7000 GPUs seemed held back on purpose and a bit rushed to market.

It could be they held it back on purpose as what they have cooking in the labs needed more time and they want to really surprise us down the road but who knows, AMD works is mysterious ways with its hardware and fine wine policy.

That would kind of suck, actually. Where games might start demanding x size onboard storage for video cards that would obsolete older models. You might argue that disk storage would be a fallback, but it would certainly be a requirement at some point in the future.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-31, 07:09:

That would kind of suck, actually. Where games might start demanding x size onboard storage for video cards that would obsolete older models. You might argue that disk storage would be a fallback, but it would certainly be a requirement at some point in the future.

I can see it behaving similar to a fast data cache on the GPU only used for data that cant be streamed from local NVME fast enough or data that needs to be processed on the GPU, I cant see it needing to be as large as you envision nor can I see it being a hard requirement if your local storage is fast PCIe 4/5 NVME.

It ll be nice to have for the people who can afford such cards, I doubt they will ever be cheap.

But that said .. nVidia has already moved in that direction with DLSS3 being hardware locked to their 4000 RTX GPUs, if they are willing to do it now then I feel you might just be right.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-03-31, 06:34:

At some point you'll see nVidia and AMD just release Video cards that have both Vram and large NVME based storage built into the card, when you install the game parts of it will be installed to the GPU storage so the GPU doesn't need to go through the system to access it and can stream it directly.

There is no need for that because of PCIE. GPUs can busmaster and take data directly from NVME without bothering CPU

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-03-31, 06:34:

We are not quite there yet but I can see it happening in the next few generations as game streaming data gets too large to be streamed over the PCIe bus fast enough

how? we are at 5GB/s SSDs now
theory "Did Sony Lie about SSD? PS3 could run PS5 Ratchet & Clank Gameplay" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XOV3pZj8rI
in practice "Can the Slowest PS5 SSD Upgrade Run Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWQs4UpiKlg

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-03-31, 06:34:

we really do need to move away from having the CPU/chipset deal with this shit when the GPU can do it and not require any extra input other than a handshake from the CPU telling it to go ahead.

thats how bus mastering works

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-31, 05:11:

I thought the max size of iRAM was 4GB. Can anyone confirm?

That's what the specs state, but DDR1 sticks are limited to 1GB each unless you go to server type sticks. If it, for some reason, works with registered sticks, you might be able to go up to 16GB total.

As for other RAM drives, I would really like to get one of the ACARD ones, but they usually go for $250+. They are SATA 2 -300 and can take up to 64GB DDR-2.

Another MIDI interface. This time it's blue!

Spotted this board this week on eBay. I've been trying to find this board for a good while now but it never shows up. Well one turned up but it was listed as non working / spares. I took a punt on it as it was only £20.

All the main caps were leaking/bulging.

Chaintech 7AIA0/100

I recapped it and it works 😀

Bancho wrote on 2023-03-31, 16:10:

Spotted this board this week on eBay. I've been trying to find this board for a good while now but it never shows up. Well one t […]
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Spotted this board this week on eBay. I've been trying to find this board for a good while now but it never shows up. Well one turned up but it was listed as non working / spares. I took a punt on it as it was only £20.

All the main caps were leaking/bulging.

Chaintech 7AIA0/100

I recapped it and it works 😀

Interesting board! Nice job getting it working.

I can't find anything about that specific model (with the 0/100), but I found this page...
http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/chaintech/ct-7aia.htm

Is yours the KT133 version?

There can't be many MicroATX Socket A boards with ISA slots out there. Very nice find. 😀

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-31, 16:39:

Interesting board! Nice job getting it working. […]
Show full quote

Bancho wrote on 2023-03-31, 16:10:

Spotted this board this week on eBay. I've been trying to find this board for a good while now but it never shows up. Well one t […]
Show full quote

Spotted this board this week on eBay. I've been trying to find this board for a good while now but it never shows up. Well one turned up but it was listed as non working / spares. I took a punt on it as it was only £20.

All the main caps were leaking/bulging.

Chaintech 7AIA0/100

I recapped it and it works 😀

Interesting board! Nice job getting it working.

I can't find anything about that specific model (with the 0/100), but I found this page...
http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/chaintech/ct-7aia.htm

Is yours the KT133 version?

There can't be many MicroATX Socket A boards with ISA slots out there. Very nice find. 😀

Yeah its the KT133/686B model. The Bios sticker States V2.0 what ever that means. As you say MicroATX Socket A boards with ISA are not very common so I'm glad to have one in the collection.

Cool board. I might have one similar, it's in "Flying Dutchman" mode though, I only see it when I'm not looking for it and busy with 486 stuff or PII stuff etc. I tried to start a thing of building out all my mATX boards because the systems are smaller, easier to lug around etc, less of a pain in the ass in quantity if I can make keepers out of them... but as soon as I started thinking like that, the seemingly huge availability of "less desirable" mATX used cases seemed to evaporate (Locally and cheapy ones on Amazon etc.) So I've only managed one mATX build so far.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-31, 13:33:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-31, 05:11:

I thought the max size of iRAM was 4GB. Can anyone confirm?

That's what the specs state, but DDR1 sticks are limited to 1GB each unless you go to server type sticks. If it, for some reason, works with registered sticks, you might be able to go up to 16GB total.

As for other RAM drives, I would really like to get one of the ACARD ones, but they usually go for $250+. They are SATA 2 -300 and can take up to 64GB DDR-2.

Yep, quoting myself.
I just ordered 4x 4GB DDR1 ECC Registered sticks.
Also found an i-RAM drive for a good price yesterday and ordered it.

I highly doubt the i-RAM will work with the 4GB sticks, but I needed them for a dual S462 board anyway and it was a whopping $20 shipped for all 4 sticks.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-31, 17:12:

Yep, quoting myself. I just ordered 4x 4GB DDR1 ECC Registered sticks. Also found an i-RAM drive for a good price yesterday and […]
Show full quote

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-31, 13:33:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-31, 05:11:

I thought the max size of iRAM was 4GB. Can anyone confirm?

That's what the specs state, but DDR1 sticks are limited to 1GB each unless you go to server type sticks. If it, for some reason, works with registered sticks, you might be able to go up to 16GB total.

As for other RAM drives, I would really like to get one of the ACARD ones, but they usually go for $250+. They are SATA 2 -300 and can take up to 64GB DDR-2.

Yep, quoting myself.
I just ordered 4x 4GB DDR1 ECC Registered sticks.
Also found an i-RAM drive for a good price yesterday and ordered it.

I highly doubt the i-RAM will work with the 4GB sticks, but I needed them for a dual S462 board anyway and it was a whopping $20 shipped for all 4 sticks.

Any chance the Dual S462 board has SATA? Could make for a really ridiculous system if you used the i-RAM in that. It would technically have 32GB of "RAM". 😁

has been added to the page as well.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asrock-775i945gz

Finally!

Bought an untested P5A Rev 1.04, removed the heatsink and found my first K6-III! Holy cow... I can't believe how long it took for one of these to show up. I never had a reason to really look for them, but I have had so many processors and so many scrap lots over the past 7 years and never seen a single K6-2+ or K6-III.

It's a K6-III 400AHX.

What a nice surprise. 😀

Congrats, what arrived in my P5A was a Pentium 100 I think... enough to think "Seriously? You get a Super7 board and stick a first gen Pent in it, not even MMX?"

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-31, 20:50:

Congrats, what arrived in my P5A was a Pentium 100 I think... enough to think "Seriously? You get a Super7 board and stick a first gen Pent in it, not even MMX?"

Same reason why I gave up an (untested and "showered") Epox EP-51MVP3E-M when I saw the Pentium 166 under the heatsink. Should have bought it from e-waste even if I didn't need its CPU......

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-31, 20:19:

Finally! […]
Show full quote

Finally!

Bought an untested P5A Rev 1.04, removed the heatsink and found my first K6-III! Holy cow... I can't believe how long it took for one of these to show up. I never had a reason to really look for them, but I have had so many processors and so many scrap lots over the past 7 years and never seen a single K6-2+ or K6-III.

It's a K6-III 400AHX.

What a nice surprise. 😀

Nice. One of my SS7 boards came with a K6-2 CPU which wasn't advertised as being included, so yeah its a nice bonus. I have two P5A boards, both version 1.04, one is actually brand new in the box with all the accessories and I'm so hesitant to use it because of that. The other one had a loose cap and wouldn't post, and I've since re-soldered the cap but haven't tested it again yet. Hopefully it works. A dead P5A is a terrible sight.

Was chasing a pentium SBC by Teknor TEK936-2 for awhile as it has really coolest bits on board. Really neat to have completely covered both sides of board and finally had money and chance to get one. Checked off my wishlist.

Cheers,

Yesterday I grabbed a CRT monitor locally.
I previously used an old 4:3 LCD and i was looking to replace it some day. The CRT was 10 minutes from my work for 10€. It's a modern one (2002) with on-screen display menu. Works well.

I also received my voltage blaster. Works well with the Pro Sonic 16 (Jazz16) that requires -5V.

Also found this super weird joystick a few weeks ago. 6€ inc. Shipping.
It's some kind of infrared controlled wireless joystick. Apparently works in a similar way to the Wii controller, but reversed (the joystick emits the IR and the base, connected to the joystick port, receive) Very nice box !

And a serial mouse. 5 or 6€ shipped.
(3 buttons, Not too yellow)