TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:01:

Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 21:25:

A nice in box Sound Blaster Live! with boatloads of paperwork 2x Tualatin matching Pentium III-S 1.26GHz (I don't know why I bou […]
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A nice in box Sound Blaster Live! with boatloads of paperwork
2x Tualatin matching Pentium III-S 1.26GHz (I don't know why I bought these other than the price was right.)
1x Tualatin Celeron 1.40GHz (bought w/the P3's)
Pentium 4 Fan (already installed)
7950GT 256MB (for an upcoming Windows ME/Windows 2000 dual boot machine)

Huh. Didn't know 7950GT had a 256MB version, I thought they were all 512s.

TIL. Seems like that would basically shoot the card in the foot for titles like Quake 4 and BF2

I have a few 7950's with 512MB of RAM, but I wanted one with only 256 for 9X since 512MB gives it fits. The R.Loewe patch wasn't compatible with any of them. I have a 7800 GTX w/256MB and it worked well, but there's better - thus the 7950GT 256MB. I bet Quake 4 will run fine at 1024x768 on a CRT, but I had only planned to install games from 1999 - 2004.

Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:29:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:01:

Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 21:25:

A nice in box Sound Blaster Live! with boatloads of paperwork 2x Tualatin matching Pentium III-S 1.26GHz (I don't know why I bou […]
Show full quote

A nice in box Sound Blaster Live! with boatloads of paperwork
2x Tualatin matching Pentium III-S 1.26GHz (I don't know why I bought these other than the price was right.)
1x Tualatin Celeron 1.40GHz (bought w/the P3's)
Pentium 4 Fan (already installed)
7950GT 256MB (for an upcoming Windows ME/Windows 2000 dual boot machine)

Huh. Didn't know 7950GT had a 256MB version, I thought they were all 512s.

TIL. Seems like that would basically shoot the card in the foot for titles like Quake 4 and BF2

I have a few 7950's with 512MB of RAM, but I wanted one with only 256 for 9X since 512MB gives it fits.

Hmm... what kind of fits? There are lots of people running GPUs with way more VRAM than that on XP.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:35:

Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:29:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:01:

Huh. Didn't know 7950GT had a 256MB version, I thought they were all 512s.

TIL. Seems like that would basically shoot the card in the foot for titles like Quake 4 and BF2

I have a few 7950's with 512MB of RAM, but I wanted one with only 256 for 9X since 512MB gives it fits.

Hmm... what kind of fits? There are lots of people running GPUs with way more VRAM than that on XP.

9X not XP, heh.

Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:52:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:35:

Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:29:

I have a few 7950's with 512MB of RAM, but I wanted one with only 256 for 9X since 512MB gives it fits.

Hmm... what kind of fits? There are lots of people running GPUs with way more VRAM than that on XP.

9X not XP, heh.

OH... duh. 🤣

Sorry. I must have replaced 9X with XP while reading that.

Though, I guess this is the first time I have heard of large VRAM specifically causing issues in 9x as well. I just recently realized that the 7000 series was usable in 9x, though I have yet to try it myself.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-04-13, 01:34:

OH... duh. :rofl: […]
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Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:52:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-04-12, 23:35:

Hmm... what kind of fits? There are lots of people running GPUs with way more VRAM than that on XP.

9X not XP, heh.

OH... duh. 🤣

Sorry. I must have replaced 9X with XP while reading that.

Though, I guess this is the first time I have heard of large VRAM specifically causing issues in 9x as well. I just recently realized that the 7000 series was usable in 9x, though I have yet to try it myself.

I figured; it happens to us all!

Here's the issue in a nutshell and the patch from R. Loew:

The nVidia Graphics Card Size Patch Package provides two solutions to the
problem of NVidia Graphics Cards that use memory banking to access Video RAM.
This causes a problem in most Windows 95, 98, 98SE or ME Systems when a 512MB
Graphics Card reports only 256MB of Memory Mapped I/O Space when configured.

https://archive.org/details/PTCHNVSZ

I picked up a matched pair of brand new in box XFX GeForce 7950 GTs to finish what I thought was going to be my "over the top" 2006 midrange XP build, only to discover after trying them that the motherboard (Intel 975X) does not support SLI! Doh! Guess I should have checked that first.

So I put another single 7950 GT back in it and now I'll have to decide to keep the matched pair to build yet another XP system, which I really don't need as I have 3 already, or sell them.

Brawndo wrote on 2023-04-13, 04:25:

I picked up a matched pair of brand new in box XFX GeForce 7950 GTs to finish what I thought was going to be my "over the top" 2 […]
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I picked up a matched pair of brand new in box XFX GeForce 7950 GTs to finish what I thought was going to be my "over the top" 2006 midrange XP build, only to discover after trying them that the motherboard (Intel 975X) does not support SLI! Doh! Guess I should have checked that first.

So I put another single 7950 GT back in it and now I'll have to decide to keep the matched pair to build yet another XP system, which I really don't need as I have 3 already, or sell them.

just grab HyperSLI and use that to bypass the Intel SLI issue.

Recently bought an EIZO S2133 1600x1200 LCD.
Though not really needing it for some reason I had it on my watchlist for some time now. Never thought about actually buying one because of the ridiculously high prices for used ones (mostly starting at 150 EUROs here in the old world). But then some popped up for about half of that and ... I pressed the buy now button.

Well, I have to say it takes quite a while to get used to that narrow viewfield again after decades of widescreens.
And I can't tell if it can anything better than my 16:9 EIZO for retro'ing other than switching the black stripes from the left and right sides to top and bottom. Really can't remember those black borders there on my 15" CRT back then when in DOS/Norton Commander.
At least it fits better on my desk than a second 16:9 for space reasons 😉.

An Orchid Righteous 3D Voodoo1. Installed in my P233MMX system.

Now I have the first three generations of Voodoo graphics card.

By the way the click of the relay when the Voodoo engages is magnificent.

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely as close as Ill get to a full 1Ghz Slot A CPU, the other Athlon is an Orion core with cache at 33% of CPU speed, I have a 850 Pluto Athlon so passed on this.

Also grabbed a Athlon 1400 Socket A CPU which was going cheap, its the rare 3b version clocked at 100FSB rather than the more common 4b 133FSb version. (Rare as in this is the first one I've seen hit the bay in a long while)

These two CPUs pretty much round out my turn of the era AMD collection and unless a 1Ghz Slot A Athlon hits the bay at crazy low prices I'm pretty much done collecting CPUs from this era.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-04-13, 04:59:

Brawndo wrote on 2023-04-13, 04:25:

I picked up a matched pair of brand new in box XFX GeForce 7950 GTs to finish what I thought was going to be my "over the top" 2 […]
Show full quote

I picked up a matched pair of brand new in box XFX GeForce 7950 GTs to finish what I thought was going to be my "over the top" 2006 midrange XP build, only to discover after trying them that the motherboard (Intel 975X) does not support SLI! Doh! Guess I should have checked that first.

So I put another single 7950 GT back in it and now I'll have to decide to keep the matched pair to build yet another XP system, which I really don't need as I have 3 already, or sell them.

just grab HyperSLI and use that to bypass the Intel SLI issue.

It's not a big deal, I prefer systems to run natively as much as possible, so I'll likely just hang on to them and build another system dedicated to SLI as I have most of the parts laying around already.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:50:

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely as close as Ill get to a full 1Ghz Slot A CPU, the other Athlon is an Orion core with cache at 33% of CPU speed, I have a 850 Pluto Athlon so passed on this.

I believe 112 FSB on those was viewed as pretty easy if you wanna see the magic number. 124 was a bit difficult at the time, because most boards had to jump there from 115, so not much incremental tuning potential.

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:31:

An Orchid Righteous 3D Voodoo1. Installed in my P233MMX system.

Now I have the first three generations of Voodoo graphics card.

By the way the click of the relay when the Voodoo engages is magnificent.

You need one of those monitors with relays now, so you have your own Spanish dancer with castanets to segue you into games.... 🤣 ... or you can cheat by batching a string of off hook on hook AT commands to modem.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-04-13, 14:17:

I believe 112 FSB on those was viewed as pretty easy if you wanna see the magic number. 124 was a bit difficult at the time, bec […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:50:

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely as close as Ill get to a full 1Ghz Slot A CPU, the other Athlon is an Orion core with cache at 33% of CPU speed, I have a 850 Pluto Athlon so passed on this.

I believe 112 FSB on those was viewed as pretty easy if you wanna see the magic number. 124 was a bit difficult at the time, because most boards had to jump there from 115, so not much incremental tuning potential.

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:31:

An Orchid Righteous 3D Voodoo1. Installed in my P233MMX system.

Now I have the first three generations of Voodoo graphics card.

By the way the click of the relay when the Voodoo engages is magnificent.

You need one of those monitors with relays now, so you have your own Spanish dancer with castanets to segue you into games.... 🤣 ... or you can cheat by batching a string of off hook on hook AT commands to modem.

Id love to get my hands on a Goldfinger but they are much like the 1Ghz Slot A CPUs ...stupidly expensive and rare, but ill give the FSB a bump !

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-04-13, 14:35:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-04-13, 14:17:

I believe 112 FSB on those was viewed as pretty easy if you wanna see the magic number. 124 was a bit difficult at the time, bec […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:50:

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely as close as Ill get to a full 1Ghz Slot A CPU, the other Athlon is an Orion core with cache at 33% of CPU speed, I have a 850 Pluto Athlon so passed on this.

I believe 112 FSB on those was viewed as pretty easy if you wanna see the magic number. 124 was a bit difficult at the time, because most boards had to jump there from 115, so not much incremental tuning potential.

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:31:

An Orchid Righteous 3D Voodoo1. Installed in my P233MMX system.

Now I have the first three generations of Voodoo graphics card.

By the way the click of the relay when the Voodoo engages is magnificent.

You need one of those monitors with relays now, so you have your own Spanish dancer with castanets to segue you into games.... 🤣 ... or you can cheat by batching a string of off hook on hook AT commands to modem.

Id love to get my hands on a Goldfinger but they are much like the 1Ghz Slot A CPUs ...stupidly expensive and rare, but ill give the FSB a bump !

You can build you own. Their is a thread here on vogons with parts and board drawings, etc.

BitWrangler wrote:

You need one of those monitors with relays now, so you have your own Spanish dancer with castanets to segue you into games.... 🤣 ... or you can cheat by batching a string of off hook on hook AT commands to modem.

Ohhhg... This gives me great idea! I need to put together the most relay-filled build possible.

Someone gave me a monitor recently that has a real strong relay click when it changes modes. That would be awesome along side a Righteous 3D!

Does anyone know of any old sound cards with clicky relays? My Xonar DX has a really satisfying click when it initializes, but that's not going to work in Windows 9x or DOS.

And how cool would it be if your 2D card also had a clicky relay for some reason?

I can't think of a reason for most hardware to have relays, but if there are any others out there I must put them in a build together. 😲

Only 2D cards I would think had an excuse for one would be older DOS/Windows accelerators with two chipsets or ones with some NTSC/PAL video input or output modes.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:50:

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely a […]
Show full quote

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely as close as Ill get to a full 1Ghz Slot A CPU, the other Athlon is an Orion core with cache at 33% of CPU speed, I have a 850 Pluto Athlon so passed on this.

Athlon 900-Thunderbird.jpg

Also grabbed a Athlon 1400 Socket A CPU which was going cheap, its the rare 3b version clocked at 100FSB rather than the more common 4b 133FSb version. (Rare as in this is the first one I've seen hit the bay in a long while)

Athlon 1400.jpg

These two CPUs pretty much round out my turn of the era AMD collection and unless a 1Ghz Slot A Athlon hits the bay at crazy low prices I'm pretty much done collecting CPUs from this era.

I have an A0800MPR24B that I got in a bulk purchase a few years ago, and I have no idea if it's good or not (though all of the other motherboards and CPUs in the lot worked) and I'd really enjoy playing with a Slot A system but the motherboards are so rare. Just waiting for the right deal to come along.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-04-13, 11:50:

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely a […]
Show full quote

Saw that three 900Mhz Slot A Athlons hit Evilbay and two of them are full Thunderbird cores so I grabbed one as this is likely as close as Ill get to a full 1Ghz Slot A CPU, the other Athlon is an Orion core with cache at 33% of CPU speed, I have a 850 Pluto Athlon so passed on this.

Athlon 900-Thunderbird.jpg

Also grabbed a Athlon 1400 Socket A CPU which was going cheap, its the rare 3b version clocked at 100FSB rather than the more common 4b 133FSb version. (Rare as in this is the first one I've seen hit the bay in a long while)

Athlon 1400.jpg

These two CPUs pretty much round out my turn of the era AMD collection and unless a 1Ghz Slot A Athlon hits the bay at crazy low prices I'm pretty much done collecting CPUs from this era.

I have an A0800MPR24B that I got in a bulk purchase a few years ago, and I have no idea if it's good or not (though all of the other motherboards and CPUs in the lot worked) and I'd really enjoy playing with a Slot A system but the motherboards are so rare. Just waiting for the right deal to come along.

An AMD K6-2+ 400MHz arrived today, a cpu with integrated L2 cache (128KB), this can be used on motherboards with VCORE lower than 2.0V, but I know that they can also be used with voltages up to 2.1V, obviously if you is below 2.0V will be better.
A lot depends on the motherboard, usually the minimum selectable is 2.0V (without jumper), other older cards don't go below 2.5-2.8V, but there are some cards that can go down to 1.8V or less. Obviously having one of these cards, the 1.6V CPU can be installed without any problems, the slight 0.2V overvolt will be tolerated without creating problems.
Otherwise, what to do?
Here the simplest solution is to use it in boards with a minimum voltage of 2.0V (without jumpers), but what if instead we wanted to go below 2.0V? What could be done? The solution could be found in some old site, assuming it is still online, or having knowledge of electronics, you could make some changes. Well, personally I don't have such knowledge, and therefore I wouldn't know if a component can be replaced with another, but over time I have made numerous measurements on the mosfets, so I assume that when you measure on the 2.0V mosfet, that is the voltage that reaches the CPU, so I thought, usually after the mosfet there is an inductor, if I detach one side and insert a resistor in series, I could lower the voltage to 1.6V or 1.7V (depends on the value used), if this were actually the case, it would be perfect!
The same thing could be done with motherboards that do not go below 2.8V, bringing the voltage to 2.2V or 2.0V, or even 1.5V or 1.6V, you could install newer K6 CPUs, or a 2.2V Cyrix (assuming you have one), perhaps for the sole purpose of benching.

Meatball wrote on 2023-04-12, 21:25:

7950GT 256MB (for an upcoming Windows ME/Windows 2000 dual boot machine)

I didn't believe Geforce 7 series ran on Windows 9X/ME. Is there a modified driver for it?