First post, by jheronimus
- Rank
- Oldbie
Hi, all
I have a 486 Compaq all-in-one machine with an external LPT CD-ROM. However, this machine only has a regular parallel port, and so it's only usable for data transfer and not playing games that rely on having a 4x or even a 2x drive (such as Full Throttle or The Dig). I really enjoy this machine so I want to make it able to play as many games as possible. So I want to get an LPT controller. Couple of questions, though I imagine not many people have bothered with this kind of issue:
1) according to Wikipedia, to get a 2 MB/s or 2.5 MB/s speed I need to get an EPP or ECP-capable controller. However, I remember someone on this forum saying that LPT CD drives can use a lot of CPU power, making the game unplayable. EPP is supposed to be CPU-demanding, while ECP isn't (not the other way around, thanks @bjt). So, from my understanding, if I get an ECP card, I'll be fine. Is that true?
2) LPT controllers aren't exactly highly desirable items, so while there a lot of cheap ones available, I don't expect most sellers know the specs of their controllers or have the patience to plug the card into an actual machine and run NSSI. Are there any visual tells of an EPP card vs a regular PP? Are there any common cards with such capabilities?
Thanks.