Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-04-13, 11:23:

I've experienced this first hand... I got myself recently a Compaq Deskpro SFF with Celeron at around 200 MHz, and it had integrated Rage Pro Turbo (I suppose that is considered Rage 3?) It is indeed better, image quality is much better. I suppose a discrete Pro Turbo would also be faster. Do you have any advice concerning drivers for these... because I had many problems getting them right. Are they manufacturer dependant?

Use my Rage3 drivers if you want, they are the latest that work with ATi CIF, ATi Rage Pro Acceleration works at DDraw/3DCIF/Direct3D/OpenGL/GLUT/DVD + has GlideWrapper.
If this is RagePro or some other Rage3 AGP / PCI card, then drivers will work. These drivers only dont work with later released RageXL PCI (4752) and RageXC PCI (4753) i think.

Latest 5.40x modified drivers here:
Re: ATi RagePro drivers and software
download/file.php?id=239658

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-13, 22:09:

Soooo...
Time for the case reveal !

I love the chunky button on the case. I wish I had a case like that. I did see some when I went to the recyclers , but they were in terrible shape. Though I did get lucky and found a tower 486 like I wanted (see above) but man I want a chunky button

are youi going to retrobrite that case? I have never done it yet but I think its one thing I will try out this year.

PcBytes wrote on 2026-04-14, 01:03:

If only there's a way to figure whether it's wored for 1.5v only or 3.3v as well, that wouldn't involve sacrificing a motherboard (and potentially the GPU itself)

There is:

https://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp30.pdf (Page 40-41)
https://old.pinouts.ru/Slots/agp_pinout.shtml

TYPEDET = 1.5V capable, GC_DET = 0.8V capable

AGP 3.3V cards have GC_DET and TYPEDET pins open
AGP 1.5V cards have TYPEDET grounded
AGP 0.8V cards have GC_DET grounded
Universal cards can have both pins grounded, then the motherboard decides which voltage to use.

But this just specifies the minimum voltage, the maximum voltage is encoded using the keys. If the 3.3V notch is there but the chip doesn't support it, and there is no voltage translation circuitry on the card and it's inserted into a 3.3V mobo, it will be damaged. There's no way to determine if the card is safe or not unless you have a datasheet that confirms the RV350 is 3.3V tolerant.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-14, 01:09:

Identical looking boards are sold as 9600 and 9600 Pro. Incidentally, my 9550 is on a different PCB and also double keyed. I suspect ATI's project managers had a bunch of CRs to circulate and didn't bother. Or worse - ATI knew these cards were cheap and making their way into poorer communities that didn't have a lawyer in the family.

the power colour radeon 9550 pcb is identical to the 9600pro, only difference seems to be the clocks/bios. i guess if they had to sell them at a reduced price they were gonna be assholes and sell them at a reduced speed as well.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-14, 01:09:

I bought a Yamaha XG - not a fancy variant.

Lucky! i just lost out on a yamaha XG on ebay for cheap because im an even cheaper bastard. i already decided what i thought it was worth and what i wanted to pay and was outbid at the last second, i then found another XG card around the same price still cheep at £30 but a basic looking one compared to the one i was bidding on. anyway by the point i decided to buy it, it seems the seller removed the ad as there was an issue with the ad or something. 🤣

i seethed for a little while then bought another cmedia cmi8738, which is an unbranded typhoon acoustic 6, this is the second one i've found boxed with the optical add-on board, should arrive in a few days or so.
also still slightly seething because i wanted the actual typhoon branded acoustic 6 here with the XG softsynth on the driver cd
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/397435756996
£80+ for a cmedia card + £31 delivery to south coast UK, literally just across the water! LMFAO. be reasonable, why are computer parts from germany so expensive, especially on delivery? ive ordered heavy car parts from germany and its cost me next t0 nothing.

also if anyone has one of those Typhoon Acoustic 6 Sound Cards with the original driver cd please upload to archive, the cd that came with mine didnt have the XG softsynth.

Law212 wrote on 2026-04-14, 19:49:

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-13, 22:09:

Soooo...
Time for the case reveal !

I love the chunky button on the case. I wish I had a case like that. I did see some when I went to the recyclers , but they were in terrible shape. Though I did get lucky and found a tower 486 like I wanted (see above) but man I want a chunky button

are youi going to retrobrite that case? I have never done it yet but I think its one thing I will try out this year.

Me too. I just can't justify an AT case right now. Here's the perfect rocker switch though (sold by one of the peeps mentioned in my next post) ...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275531673868?itmme … 9MAAOSw4udkPzEK

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-14, 22:55:

Lucky! i just lost out on a yamaha XG on ebay for cheap because im an even cheaper bastard. i already decided what i thought it was worth and what i wanted to pay and was outbid at the last second..

I lucked out on an ALI Magic + Duron that exactly resembled my own missing PC parts. I negotiated the seller down to £15. Then I paused. Why? I don't know! During my hesitation someone else snagged it.

Then I lucked out on a Torch ATX case. Torch were one of the biggest public listed UK computer manufacturers in the 1980s. They entered administration after 1995 and were broken up, but the Torch brand persisted as a regional PC integrator hence the ATX case. That private limited company then closed down and their last office address on Google Maps now links to an eBay store filled with retro PC parts and other knick-knacks. How the mighty have fallen! I lucked out on that ATX case, which sold for £5 to someone who probably doesn't know what it represents.

Now I'm left thinking, what just happened? I could have rebuilt my Duron in a Torch case for around £20 and I let that go.. why did I do that?!

So I'm sorry I sniped you on the XG, but now you know karma gave me kicking afterwards.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-14, 23:19:

Now I'm left thinking, what just happened? I could have rebuilt my Duron in a Torch case for around £20 and I let that go.. why did I do that?!

Happens to me too, more and more often.
There's something I'd generally like to have, offered for a reasonable price. But instead of klicking "buy" instantly I only put it on my watchlist and watch it being sold days or even weeks later.
Don't know why. May be I'm just tired dealing with other people. Or it's because I know that I already have more stuff than I'm ever able to use at all. May be something else.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-14, 23:19:

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-14, 22:55:

Lucky! i just lost out on a yamaha XG on ebay for cheap because im an even cheaper bastard. i already decided what i thought it was worth and what i wanted to pay and was outbid at the last second..

So I'm sorry I sniped you on the XG, but now you know karma gave me kicking afterwards.

thats the way she goes. 🤣, i wasnt too bothered, i was after a red sound card anyway to match my red mb/gpu, i think ive seen one xg in red though might have been fake.

marxveix wrote on 2026-04-14, 18:13:

Use my Rage3 drivers if you want, they are the latest that work with ATi CIF, ATi Rage Pro Acceleration works at DDraw/3DCIF/Dir […]
Show full quote

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-04-13, 11:23:

I've experienced this first hand... I got myself recently a Compaq Deskpro SFF with Celeron at around 200 MHz, and it had integrated Rage Pro Turbo (I suppose that is considered Rage 3?) It is indeed better, image quality is much better. I suppose a discrete Pro Turbo would also be faster. Do you have any advice concerning drivers for these... because I had many problems getting them right. Are they manufacturer dependant?

Use my Rage3 drivers if you want, they are the latest that work with ATi CIF, ATi Rage Pro Acceleration works at DDraw/3DCIF/Direct3D/OpenGL/GLUT/DVD + has GlideWrapper.
If this is RagePro or some other Rage3 AGP / PCI card, then drivers will work. These drivers only dont work with later released RageXL PCI (4752) and RageXC PCI (4753) i think.

Latest 5.40x modified drivers here:
Re: ATi RagePro drivers and software
download/file.php?id=239658

Awesome, thank you 😁 It was hit and miss with all the ones available online. Anyway... I also have a new ATI card coming soon that I ordered few days ago. It's all red and "chrome". So hyped 😁

Absolute bargain for this PCI 6200 (£16.95) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/336535191948

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/evga-ge … ci-256-mb.b2273

Law212 wrote on 2026-04-14, 19:49:

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-13, 22:09:

Soooo...
Time for the case reveal !

I love the chunky button on the case. I wish I had a case like that. I did see some when I went to the recyclers , but they were in terrible shape. Though I did get lucky and found a tower 486 like I wanted (see above) but man I want a chunky button

are youi going to retrobrite that case? I have never done it yet but I think its one thing I will try out this year.

Hi Law212

I will not retrobright it .. I will give it a good scrub with "jif" and let the retrobrighting to its new owner
I already have many cases and I will pass this one along
These days I love to buy this systems more for the hard drives and its "digital archaeology" so from this system I will keep only that lovely Conner 420mb with some old software (nothing terribly rare)

Hope you get your AT case with chuncky power switch 😉

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-15, 14:27:

Hi Law212 […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on 2026-04-14, 19:49:

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-13, 22:09:

Soooo...
Time for the case reveal !

I love the chunky button on the case. I wish I had a case like that. I did see some when I went to the recyclers , but they were in terrible shape. Though I did get lucky and found a tower 486 like I wanted (see above) but man I want a chunky button

are youi going to retrobrite that case? I have never done it yet but I think its one thing I will try out this year.

Hi Law212

I will not retrobright it .. I will give it a good scrub with "jif" and let the retrobrighting to its new owner
I already have many cases and I will pass this one along
These days I love to buy this systems more for the hard drives and its "digital archaeology" so from this system I will keep only that lovely Conner 420mb with some old software (nothing terribly rare)

Hope you get your AT case with chuncky power switch 😉

Thats cool. You know, I used to find a few systems at thrift stores in my home town and I found one that was a nice pentium 1 with a voodoo 2 in it but the coolest part was on the HDD . It ended up that it belonged to a couple brothers i knew in high school. I found it a couple years ago now, but it had their homework from high school in the mid nineties with some pictures from school . I also found a second computer from a family in the area and it was full of their stuff from the 90s as well.

I love to find old sy stems , check them out and then sell them if I dont need them after taking the best parts of course.

Got my lot of video cards in today! All 8 cards worked with no issues at all! Here is what was in the lot. Yes they are all lower end cards, but that is okay... just nice to have them in my collection!

-> HIS Radeon 9250 128MB DDR 64-Bit, Core: 238.5 MHz & Mem: 333 MHz
-> Celestic Gold Edition Radeon 9600SE 128MB SDRAM 64-bit, Core: 324 MHz & Mem: 200 MHz
-> Asus V9400-X (GeForce 4 MX4000) 64MB DDR 32-bit, Core: 250 MHz & Mem: 400 MHz
-> GeForce 2 MX400 64MB SDRAM 128-bit, Core: 200 MHz & Mem: 334 MHz
-> Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64 32MB SDRAM 128-bit, Core: 120 MHz & Mem: 125 MHz
-> Asus AGP-V3800M (Riva TNT2 M64) 32MB SDRAM 128-bit, Core: 125 MHz & Mem: 143 MHz
-> Matrox Millennium G550 32MB DDR 64-bit
-> GeForce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 128-bit, Core: 525 MHz & Mem: 525 MHz

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2026-04-12, 02:55:

1.) HIS Radeon 9250 128MB 2.) TNT2 M64 3.) Matrox G450LP https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/millenn … m-g450-lp.c3529 4.) Can […]
Show full quote

johnvosh wrote on 2026-04-11, 20:04:

Bought a lot of 8 AGP video cards on eBay to add to my collection. Should be here in a couple weeks hopefully!
Any ideas on what cards could be in the lot? I've included pics in this post and the next of the cards included in the lot!

1.) HIS Radeon 9250 128MB
2.) TNT2 M64
3.) Matrox G450LP https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/millenn … m-g450-lp.c3529
4.) Can't tell, there is a part number on that barcode I am pretty sure tho. My guess is that its an MX4000 or an SIS 315
5.) Pretty sure this is another low end Radeon 9000 series.
6.) GeForce 6600 or 7600
7.) GeForce2 MX-400 with SD-RAM (https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pd … 7V641620HG.html)
8.) Another TNT2 M64

That orange sticker on that one bodes ill in my opinion, thats a common way to mark a defective item. I think you got conned into buying someones broken stuff and garbage cards. The x600 AGP and the GeForce2 are the only cards here of note. The rest is eWaste in my opinion. The Radeons are too slow to be useful in DX8 or DX9 games and Radeons lack critical legacy rendering features that NVIDIA kept support for up through GeForceFX. TNT2 M64s are roughly as fast as an original TNT, they would pair nice with a early Pentium II system but I'd never go out of my way to acquire one.

Thoses were some really good guesses! #3 was actually a G550. #4 was a MX4000. #5 was a Radeon 9600SE. #6 was the 6600GT. All the others were correct!

Law212 wrote on 2026-04-15, 15:14:

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-15, 14:27:

Hi Law212 […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on 2026-04-14, 19:49:

I love the chunky button on the case. I wish I had a case like that. I did see some when I went to the recyclers , but they were in terrible shape. Though I did get lucky and found a tower 486 like I wanted (see above) but man I want a chunky button

are youi going to retrobrite that case? I have never done it yet but I think its one thing I will try out this year.

Hi Law212

I will not retrobright it .. I will give it a good scrub with "jif" and let the retrobrighting to its new owner
I already have many cases and I will pass this one along
These days I love to buy this systems more for the hard drives and its "digital archaeology" so from this system I will keep only that lovely Conner 420mb with some old software (nothing terribly rare)

Hope you get your AT case with chuncky power switch 😉

Thats cool. You know, I used to find a few systems at thrift stores in my home town and I found one that was a nice pentium 1 with a voodoo 2 in it but the coolest part was on the HDD . It ended up that it belonged to a couple brothers i knew in high school. I found it a couple years ago now, but it had their homework from high school in the mid nineties with some pictures from school . I also found a second computer from a family in the area and it was full of their stuff from the 90s as well.

I love to find old sy stems , check them out and then sell them if I dont need them after taking the best parts of course.

I know what you mean

I bought an early 2000s pc last year with loads of family photos and I was very tempted to contact the person to ask them if they wanted their stuff backed up ... there was some email addresses there
but I thought it might look weird someone coming out of the woodwork with their old computer so I just erased the hard disk, hopefully they saved the pictures before trashing/selling the PC.

Some time ago I also got a PC with thousands of MP3 songs and the best part is to have a perfectly random playlist someone picked even with songs I never heard... now I play the collection when I'm working on my retros
Because yeah... a retro guy likes retro songs 😉

Unfortunately I never found something dramatic like a voodoo card ... but haven't lost hope yet

cheers

Nunoalex wrote on Yesterday, 11:25:

I know what you mean […]
Show full quote

Law212 wrote on 2026-04-15, 15:14:

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-15, 14:27:

Hi Law212 […]
Show full quote

Hi Law212

I will not retrobright it .. I will give it a good scrub with "jif" and let the retrobrighting to its new owner
I already have many cases and I will pass this one along
These days I love to buy this systems more for the hard drives and its "digital archaeology" so from this system I will keep only that lovely Conner 420mb with some old software (nothing terribly rare)

Hope you get your AT case with chuncky power switch 😉

Thats cool. You know, I used to find a few systems at thrift stores in my home town and I found one that was a nice pentium 1 with a voodoo 2 in it but the coolest part was on the HDD . It ended up that it belonged to a couple brothers i knew in high school. I found it a couple years ago now, but it had their homework from high school in the mid nineties with some pictures from school . I also found a second computer from a family in the area and it was full of their stuff from the 90s as well.

I love to find old sy stems , check them out and then sell them if I dont need them after taking the best parts of course.

I know what you mean

I bought an early 2000s pc last year with loads of family photos and I was very tempted to contact the person to ask them if they wanted their stuff backed up ... there was some email addresses there
but I thought it might look weird someone coming out of the woodwork with their old computer so I just erased the hard disk, hopefully they saved the pictures before trashing/selling the PC.

Some time ago I also got a PC with thousands of MP3 songs and the best part is to have a perfectly random playlist someone picked even with songs I never heard... now I play the collection when I'm working on my retros
Because yeah... a retro guy likes retro songs 😉

Unfortunately I never found something dramatic like a voodoo card ... but haven't lost hope yet

cheers

Yeah, doing that might freak them out. Especially if they can't remember where they saved that picture - the one they kept only for themselves! 😉

In the mid-90s I remember finding an retro Mac shareware game on 1.44" floppy and it was good, but it was in demo license mode and I didn't know how to hack the game. The creator had of course provided an email address, and I had just acquired my first email address. So, I reached out to them.. to my surprise the respondent had no clue and wanted to know why they keep getting random emails about games!

Either someone didn't proof read their app, or they were losing their faculties.

I did not get a license to unlock the rest of the game and I can't remember what it was called.

It happened... went on thrift patrol in the neighbouring town because I was over there for other stuff...

Some months ago one of the volunteer thrifts put up a new glass cabinet, intended solely for digital and personal electronics, and one or two computer items made it in there, now, it has fallen to the old ladies, and is full of "pretty plates". ... despite 4 more cabinets and a couple of display shelves in the store also being full of "pretty plates". Gah.

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 17:12:

It happened... went on thrift patrol in the neighbouring town because I was over there for other stuff...

Some months ago one of the volunteer thrifts put up a new glass cabinet, intended solely for digital and personal electronics, and one or two computer items made it in there, now, it has fallen to the old ladies, and is full of "pretty plates". ... despite 4 more cabinets and a couple of display shelves in the store also being full of "pretty plates". Gah.

Bleh.

I have some relatives that have been selling antiques for a few decades and they are mostly focused on glassware. They told me recently that the market for such things has basically vanished. Younger generations have absolutely zero interest in glass and the people who care(d) are trying to downsize and no longer want it. So, it doesn't surprise me that thrift stores would have more and more of it to sell. As people from the baby-boom generation die off and their used-to-be-super-valuable glassware is no longer worth trying to sell and ship on ebay, the stuff will go to thrift stores.

I wonder when that will happen with computer stuff... 😮

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 00:27:

Bleh. […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 17:12:

It happened... went on thrift patrol in the neighbouring town because I was over there for other stuff...

Some months ago one of the volunteer thrifts put up a new glass cabinet, intended solely for digital and personal electronics, and one or two computer items made it in there, now, it has fallen to the old ladies, and is full of "pretty plates". ... despite 4 more cabinets and a couple of display shelves in the store also being full of "pretty plates". Gah.

Bleh.

I have some relatives that have been selling antiques for a few decades and they are mostly focused on glassware. They told me recently that the market for such things has basically vanished. Younger generations have absolutely zero interest in glass and the people who care(d) are trying to downsize and no longer want it. So, it doesn't surprise me that thrift stores would have more and more of it to sell. As people from the baby-boom generation die off and their used-to-be-super-valuable glassware is no longer worth trying to sell and ship on ebay, the stuff will go to thrift stores.

I wonder when that will happen with computer stuff... 😮

It's becoming a bit of concern... Most 90s computer stuff of collectors are nostalgia driven, and these generations will be on their way out in about 20-30 years. It's difficult to see how new generations are relating to this era, but it's safe to say they do not share our exact enthusiasm. Meanwhile my collection is getting bigger by the day, and some of these cards were very expensive... hundreds of dollars. It's not that I'm regreting it, it's just when I think long-term I can't see it getting more expensive, because that requires interest and I'd say we are at the peak just about now. If someone was to inherit my collection later, God knows what would he think of, or do with it, so.... I think our own satifaction with our hobby and interest in old hardware should be the only consideration regarding it's worth or "fate".

Shader_BiH wrote on Today, 09:59:

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 00:27:

Bleh. […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 17:12:

It happened... went on thrift patrol in the neighbouring town because I was over there for other stuff...

Some months ago one of the volunteer thrifts put up a new glass cabinet, intended solely for digital and personal electronics, and one or two computer items made it in there, now, it has fallen to the old ladies, and is full of "pretty plates". ... despite 4 more cabinets and a couple of display shelves in the store also being full of "pretty plates". Gah.

Bleh.

I have some relatives that have been selling antiques for a few decades and they are mostly focused on glassware. They told me recently that the market for such things has basically vanished. Younger generations have absolutely zero interest in glass and the people who care(d) are trying to downsize and no longer want it. So, it doesn't surprise me that thrift stores would have more and more of it to sell. As people from the baby-boom generation die off and their used-to-be-super-valuable glassware is no longer worth trying to sell and ship on ebay, the stuff will go to thrift stores.

I wonder when that will happen with computer stuff... 😮

It's becoming a bit of concern... Most 90s computer stuff of collectors are nostalgia driven, and these generations will be on their way out in about 20-30 years. It's difficult to see how new generations are relating to this era, but it's safe to say they do not share our exact enthusiasm. Meanwhile my collection is getting bigger by the day, and some of these cards were very expensive... hundreds of dollars. It's not that I'm regreting it, it's just when I think long-term I can't see it getting more expensive, because that requires interest and I'd say we are at the peak just about now. If someone was to inherit my collection later, God knows what would he think of, or do with it, so.... I think our own satifaction with our hobby and interest in old hardware should be the only consideration regarding it's worth or "fate".

I think of it differently, you’re assuming all 40 year olds (today, 100% of the pool that like 90’s gear) will get nostalgia for 90’s gear. I think only a portion of say 40 year olds (today) are getting nostalgia for 90’s gear (may only be 30%). Most 40 years will be retiring in 20 or so years. There may be a larger portion of those 40 year olds (the remainder, 70% of the pool) who will get the nostalgia in their 60’s for 90’s gear. They want something to do in their retirement. Something to tinker with. They will have the money for it. With that theory, we haven’t reached the peak yet. There is a good chance prices will continue to rise. Discussion of this topic is at Is the interest in retro PC hardware decreasing?