kanecvr wrote:

- Get a Power Supply with a strong 5A rail! This applies to both socket A and socket 478 systems. In my experience, most modern 80+ PSU's don't provide enough amperage on the 5V rail to correctly run a power-hungry high end Athlon or Pentium 4. The system might BSOD randomly. I recommend at leas 18A on the 5V line - if possible 25A would be best. Most modern PSU's have 10-15A on 5V, so be on the lookout for that.

Pentium 4 draws the majority of its power via 12V (and even provides an auxiliary connector to that end); AthlonXP can be similar, such as on the NF7, using the same aux 12V connector. For an older Athlon, ~20A on the 5V line isn't a bad place to start for a higher-end PSU; many top-end models from "back in the day" offered around twice that, but that's not always necessary. 😊

oerk wrote:

God Of Gaming wrote:

it has 8 expansion brackets instead of the common 7, which is what I'll need so that I can use the ISA slot at the bottom of the KT7A

Nope, you don't need a case with eight expansion slots! The ISA slot on the KT7A is shared with the lowest PCI slots, i.e. you can insert either a PCI or an ISA card. A standard case would be fine.

(Standard) ATX has seven slots, period. Baby AT has eight.

Is that so? I didn't know that 😀 I first thought I'd go with Cooler Master K380 which is twice cheaper and just as practical, but I saw it only has 7 expansion slots and the mobo has 8, so I freaked out and started looking for one with 8. Well, I guess I'll still go with this aerocool case, I took a liking to it already 😀

kanecvr wrote:

My advice is to only use nforce chipsets under winXP. I would recommend you get a KT600 or KT880 based board - driver support is lovely for Win9x - most of them have SATA - they support most memory modules - dual channel works correctly - there is no incompatibility with some ATi cards (i.e. the Radeon 9800PRO/XT witch all 3 of my nforce2 boards hate)

Actually I did have one of those, it was my first PC - Asrock K7Upgrade-880 with AMD Sempron 2600+, a single 512MB DDR400 stick of ram, Asus Radeon 9550 128MB, Seagate 120GB 7200rpm SATA1 HDD, LG CD-Rom, some sort of 3.5" Floppy, an ugly cheap case, some no-brand 17" 1280x1024 LCD, and ordinary keyboard and mouse. I have only used Windows XP on it, and I still have it, though it's not working anymore, it died last year and I don't know exactly what happened to it. When I plug it in the fans start spinning right away without me even touching the power button, and there's no output on the screen. I tried unplugging anything unnecessary and using a Radeon 9250 that I borrowed from a friend and another power supply, still the same. So it's either the motherboard, the CPU or the Ram, but I don't know how to find out which. At any rate, even if it still worked, it probably won't do the job for what I want now, the AGP slot is keyed for 1.5V, and it doesn't have an ISA slot.

The K7Upgrade-880 is not a particularity good board. It's an odd job mb designed to facilitate an upgrade path to either 754 or 939 athlon 64 cpu's. I've seen quite a few dead ones in my day, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the culprit. For the KT880 chipset I would recommend a MSI KT880 Delta, a ASUS A7V800 or a Abit KW7 (I prefer the latter). The MSI is excellent for OC (the only KT880 board I know of with a properly working FSB to PCI clock divider), and the Abit is very stable. The asus board is "meh" but it should be easyer to find then the MSI and the Abit. It's also several times better then the K7Upgrade.

@obobskivich - I've recently had issues with a 3,2 GHz 478 prescott CPU on a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000G using a modern 730W Thermaltake PSU. It has a 15A 5V rail and 60A 12V rail. The machine was incredibly unstable in load and presented random symptoms. I swapped everything out, neglecting the PSU because I also knew that the socket 478 P4 gets power troght the 4 pin 12v cpu connector. When I replaced the PSU with an old Antek Trupower Quattro with a phat 30A 5v rail and quad skinny 45A 12v rails, all symptoms disappeared. I moved the Thermaltake into a modern core i5 rig (i5 2500k @ 4,2GHz + twin R9 280x CF), witch was acting up with both video cards installed, and now it performs beautifully, so the TT PSU is good. If it's not the CPU feeding off the 5V rail in older systems, something else is - because it seems to make a world of difference.

kanecvr wrote:

@obobskivich - I've recently had issues with a 3,2 GHz 478 prescott CPU on a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000G using a modern 730W Thermaltake PSU. It has a 15A 5V rail and 60A 12V rail. The machine was incredibly unstable in load and presented random symptoms. I swapped everything out, neglecting the PSU because I also knew that the socket 478 P4 gets power troght the 4 pin 12v cpu connector. When I replaced the PSU with an old Antek Trupower Quattro with a phat 30A 5v rail and quad skinny 45A 12v rails, all symptoms disappeared. I moved the Thermaltake into a modern core i5 rig (i5 2500k @ 4,2GHz + twin R9 280x CF), witch was acting up with both video cards installed, and now it performs beautifully, so the TT PSU is good. If it's not the CPU feeding off the 5V rail in older systems, something else is - because it seems to make a world of difference.

It's hard to diagnose, and that should occur in another thread. PSU quality may still be a factor - it may simply be that your newer system is less sensitive to ripple/regulation errors, or that the Thermaltake is not performing properly under a light load, or whatever. The fact remains that Pentium 4 systems draw the majority of their power from the 12V rail. That doesn't mean old hard-drives, old optical drives, etc don't lean on the 5V, so if you're coupling a lot of old components with that P4 system that may be an issue. As far as power draw goes, my 3.2GHz Gallatin with GF6800 Ultra draws well under 300W under load, and with a different graphics card (e.g. FX 5900XT) is perfectly functional on a 250W PSU (with 19A 5V and total combined 3.3/5V output of 105W). An Athlon or AthlonXP system will generally draw much less power than any of this though - especially an XP-M system with an older graphics like Voodoo3 or Radeon 8500.

Are there any WinXP-era games (2001-2007) that could use a dedicated WinXP retro PC, or they all work perfectly fine on modern PCs with modern OS-es? Also is there any audible difference at all between hardware-accelerated EAX and ALchemy EAX?

God Of Gaming wrote:

Are there any WinXP-era games (2001-2007) that could use a dedicated WinXP retro PC, or they all work perfectly fine on modern PCs with modern OS-es? Also is there any audible difference at all between hardware-accelerated EAX and ALchemy EAX?

My experiences are that with XP, you will have less issues, but most issues are solvable under Windows 7 or 8. As for EAX vs ALchemy EAX, ALchemy works very well, but I'm not aware of a proper A-B comparison. I haven't come across anything really though that would you think there is much of a difference.

Ok, now this is getting complex... ALchemy is a DirectSound and EAX wrapper to OpenAL, there's some Glide wrappers like nGlide, and I just found an Aureal 3D wrapper to DirectSound (haven't tested it yet but looks promising, A3D-Live). DOSBox can emulate Gravis Ultrasound and Sound Blaster 16. Looks like I might be able to cover most old games on a modern machine after all, leaving so few games that I'm not sure if I can justify building a dedicated Win98 PC anymore... Guess I'll go try out all good old games on my current PC with those wrappers and emulators, and see how many don't work well or at all... If I can count them on one hand, probably I won't be building a retro PC...

My real purpose is not to be able to play all games ever made, but rather just the good ones, that are worth playing, I don't need the crappy ones.

God Of Gaming wrote:

Are there any WinXP-era games (2001-2007) that could use a dedicated WinXP retro PC, or they all work perfectly fine on modern PCs with modern OS-es? Also is there any audible difference at all between hardware-accelerated EAX and ALchemy EAX?

IME DX9 games have worked without a hitch in Windows 7 (and I would assume this largely also applies to Vista and 8, but I have done much less game-testing on Vista, and don't have a personal machine with Windows 8 to play around with). Phil reported that FarCry has some glitches with reflections in Vista and later (and this is reportedly a documented issue), but otherwise I've neither seen nor experienced a DX9 game that fails to run (and if I remember the FarCry thread right, the game was still playable under Vista). If you're primarily looking at big-name AAA titles from the mid-to-late 2000s I wouldn't expect too much in the way of problems (and honestly I'd say for the more popular games, I've had good luck with stuff even from the mid-to-late 1990s just working out of the box too).

However, I have run into a few DirectX 7/8 games that are much easier to live with under Windows XP than Windows Vista/7. In most cases there are workarounds for Vista/7 if you're so inclined. Really comes down to preference at that point imho. Basically do you want to spend your time working on old hardware, or modern wrappers/emulators/etc.

There is no/should be no difference between "EAX" and "ALchemy EAX" - at least not from the application's perspective. ALchemy is a DirectSound 3D wrapper which also supports EAX extensions, and it allows compatible hardware to run that code under Windows Vista and later. IME it works perfectly seamlessly, warts and all (and I've "tested" this on X-Fi and SoundCore - behavior is identical). DS3D itself doesn't have to mean ALchemy though (so if you don't care about EAX, you don't have to have a Creative card) - many other audio vendors have implemented similar wrappers, but as far as I'm aware only Creative has included EAX support (Asus may support it to some extent, but I'm not very familiar with their newer cards). The bigger difference I've noticed in terms of the gaming experience between Sound Blaster cards is the changes to their surround processing simulacrum over time - for example Audigy 2 ZS with CMSS vs SoundCore with THX.

God Of Gaming wrote:

Ok, now this is getting complex... ALchemy is a DirectSound and EAX wrapper to OpenAL, there's some Glide wrappers like nGlide, and I just found an Aureal 3D wrapper to DirectSound (haven't tested it yet but looks promising, A3D-Live). DOSBox can emulate Gravis Ultrasound and Sound Blaster 16. Looks like I might be able to cover most old games on a modern machine after all, leaving so few games that I'm not sure if I can justify building a dedicated Win98 PC anymore... Guess I'll go try out all good old games on my current PC with those wrappers and emulators, and see how many don't work well or at all... If I can count them on one hand, probably I won't be building a retro PC...

My real purpose is not to be able to play all games ever made, but rather just the good ones, that are worth playing, I don't need the crappy ones.

This is a similar conclusion to what I arrived at for my "main" configuration. I've had good luck with older DOS titles under emulation or similar on more modern machines, and more recent DirectX titles have generally not been much of a fuss either. I still have a Windows XP box for fun, but there's probably only 3-4 games that I really preference with it for convenience sake. 😊

obobskivich wrote:

If you're primarily looking at big-name AAA titles

AAA, Indie, mid-ground, doesn't matter, graphics quality doesnt matter (much), what matters to me is that the gameplay or story or both are good enough to warant for more than 1 playtrough. So I'm generally open to most games that are not so bad that most other people avoid them too.

obobskivich wrote:

The bigger difference I've noticed in terms of the gaming experience between Sound Blaster cards is the changes to their surround processing simulacrum over time - for example Audigy 2 ZS with CMSS vs SoundCore with THX.

I don't know why most people say those are HRTF, it feels more like virtual surround. I think those techs take positional data only from 5.1 or 7.1 channels and virtualise it for headphones, not like true HRTF where you can judge the direction and distance accurately even vertically. I don't have an actual dedicated sound card yet, I'm wondering whether I should go for Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty or Auzen X-Fi Forte or Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD, right now I'm using modded drivers for my onboard Realtek ALC892 that let me use CMSS-3D and ALchemy, and from what I can see, I prefer using actual 5.1 speakers to CMSS-3D, but true HRTF like the one that you can enable in OpenAL Soft is actually very impressive.

You're right, the newer games I played all take 5.1 information and create virtual surround over headphones. This happened when Vista came out, but also hand in hand with many console ports who all used DD or DTS.

Now my memory could be playing tricks on me, but when I used to play Battlefield 2142 with CMSS-3D, I could have sworn that you could distinguish sounds coming from above or below you. In Battlefield 4, if you're in a building with a few floors, you can hear someone run around, and the direction, but impossible to tell that person is above or below you.

Make sure you check out some A3D games on a Windows 98 machine if this topic interests you: https://www.youtube.com/user/philscomputerlab … earch?query=a3d

I also like / prefer 5.1 speaker setup, but often there are issues with space, cabling and so on. Speakers are better with positioning, but playing with headphones also has benefits, less disturbing other people and making out more detail.

Without buying a soundcard, you can get X-Fi MB3 for $30 which adds the latest Creative features to your current sound cards.

I did a review here: https://youtu.be/gSBMrHfsXjE

God Of Gaming wrote:

AAA, Indie, mid-ground, doesn't matter, graphics quality doesnt matter (much), what matters to me is that the gameplay or story or both are good enough to warant for more than 1 playtrough. So I'm generally open to most games that are not so bad that most other people avoid them too.

Oh I wasn't meaning to make any sort of value judgment on quality or anything - more that the bigger-budget/more popular games seem to be better supported/work right out of the box. For example WarCraft III has "just worked" in Windows 7x64 for me, while ORB (which is a Strategy First game from around the same time) is more of a pain in the neck, and a lot easier to run on XP (I don't know if the Steam version of ORB is improved in any way). WarCraft III and ORB is just one specific example ofc - but this kind of trend is something I've noticed with a number of games. Usually more popular games are also more documented by community members, because more people have tried them and reported on their experiences, so finding workarounds is usually easier.

I don't know why most people say those are HRTF, it feels more like virtual surround.

Where, specifically, did I say "those are HRTF" or even bring "HRTF vs virtual surround" into the discussion? Where did I even bring headphones into the discussion?

What I actually said: "surround processing simulacrum over time - for example Audigy 2 ZS with CMSS vs SoundCore with THX. "

That does not imply a headphone-only or headphone-specific feature or bent; although, if you want to talk headphones, we can talk headphones. 😀

I think those techs take positional data only from 5.1 or 7.1 channels and virtualise it for headphones, not like true HRTF where you can judge the direction and distance accurately even vertically.

Not entirely. The surround simulacrum features on Audigy 2 ZS, PCI X-Fi, Recon3D, and Sound Blaster Z can all work on stereo sources or multi-channel sources, and output to stereo or multi-channel speakers. The SoundCore products' "headphone mode" will tell a little fib to Windows and other software applications that it's wanting a 5.1 signal, and then it performs a real-time downmix for headphones. You can configure the X-Fi and Audigy 2 ZS (and all other Audigy models, as far as I know) to do the same thing with clever manipulation of Windows and Creative sound settings. There are many long and bloody debates as to whether or not this produces better imaging or soundstaging on headphones (and in which games, applications, etc - some of this stuff really has been dragged on to the end of the universe).

This feature absolutely is "virtual surround" whether or not it is working on surround speakers, or headphones. The headphone modes do employ HRTFs (and other responses and filters) but it's all on-the-fly processing working on dynamic content, as opposed to a static binaural mix (e.g. Chesky Records releases). The quality of the source material, processing algorithm, headphones, etc all factor into how convincing the effect is. Especially if the source material is not originally surround sound content (so it has to be converted before processing). The various simulacrum implementations between the different Sound Blaster cards (and non-Creative cards, like Razer ESP on the AC-1) all perform a little differently, and have different configuration options. There is a YouTube video that compares a few of the more recent simulacrum features, here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04yEtZJVpyY

CMSS and THX TruSurround (as well as SBX Surround on the Sound Blaster Z cards) have modes for stereo and surround speakers as well. Dolby and DTS also offer comparable suites (e.g. DTS Interactive) depending on your audio interface.

All of these features are distinct from taking the 2.0 downmix from a standard Dolby decoder into headphones - they all employ various modeled responses and equalization to attempt to make the sound more pleasing or convincing on headphones. However because they aren't working from an exact calibrated model with the same equipment (or source material), and they all have slight internal differences, how well they work for you will be variable.

I don't have an actual dedicated sound card yet, I'm wondering whether I should go for Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty or Auzen X-Fi Forte or Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD, right now I'm using modded drivers for my onboard Realtek ALC892 that let me use CMSS-3D and ALchemy, and from what I can see, I prefer using actual 5.1 speakers to CMSS-3D, but true HRTF like the one that you can enable in OpenAL Soft is actually very impressive.

I would avoid Auzen cards - the company is long out of business, and driver updates are not generally available as Creative does not support non-Creative hardware. My X-Fi is an Auzen-built card, and there are a variety of features that X-Fi boards have (especially under Windows Vista/7) from newer driver builds that the Auzen does not offer. Having said that, I'm also not too fascinated with the X-Fi. I know, the currently popular/hip thinking is that X-Fi is the holy grail of all things PC audio, and SoundCore is the son of the devil, but honestly I much prefer the two SoundCore boards I've got versus the multiple X-Fi boards I've had. Specifically, the drivers are significantly better (and no wretched "mode switching"), DDL is included out of the box (as opposed to a paid download), and the built-in headphone amplifiers are very good (even the Maxim on the original Recon3D). No support for WinXP though, but that's not too much of a problem in a modern system imho. For older machines I'd much rather have an Audigy or Live! (or a non-Creative card).

philscomputerlab wrote:

You're right, the newer games I played all take 5.1 information and create virtual surround over headphones. This happened when Vista came out, but also hand in hand with many console ports who all used DD or DTS.

Older games support it too - it isn't really a game-side feature (it doesn't have to be, at least). It's a downmix feature in the decoder. A lot of AV receivers will also perform this downmix. The Dolby decoder specs actually require supporting stereo downmix (DTS does not, AFAIK, but most modern decoders implement it because it's what the people want), and specify a matrix for that downmix. Dolby Headphone takes things further, employing HRTFs and FIRs (albeit generalized ones) among other things to enhance the effect, and also adds the ability to "stack" Pro Logic II for handling of stereo sources (and how the material behaves with Pro Logic II depends on how it's mastered/encoded; Dolby Surround content will perform the best - if you have a game that can only output mono or stereo audio it will likely not behave as well as a game that supports surround sound of some form or another). CMSS and THX TruStudio are similar to the Dolby suite - they provide a surround simulacrum for stereo->surround, as well as a headphone mode that processes either surround->headphones or stereo->headphones. DTS has more recently gotten on-board with this with DTS Connect, and offers largely the same kind of features through their own proprietary decoders.

You can also get a similar experience if your computer can output 5.1 via Dolby or DTS to an AV receiver, as many will support a 5.1->stereo or 5.1->headphone downmix feature. Some manufacturers have taken things a step further, and developed their own processing enhancements. Yamaha is probably the best example, with CinemaDSP for speaker output, and Silent Cinema for headphones.

If you're really sold on a virtual surround system for headphones, something like the Smyth Realiser is worth a look - it allows for more fine-tuned configuration/calibration for a specific user's HRTF, headphones, tastes, etc. Razer's Surround application also provides some calibration options, and may be worth a look.

Now my memory could be playing tricks on me, but when I used to play Battlefield 2142 with CMSS-3D, I could have sworn that you could distinguish sounds coming from above or below you. In Battlefield 4, if you're in a building with a few floors, you can hear someone run around, and the direction, but impossible to tell that person is above or below you.

2142 supports most (if not all) of the X-Fi's features, including the CMSS Elevation Filter, which is what enables that to work. Very few games do that though. 😊

obobskivich wrote:

Where, specifically, did I say "those are HRTF" or even bring "HRTF vs virtual surround" into the discussion?

Sorry, I was not refering to you, I've been researching HRTF in recent weeks, and noticed in many forums and comments and stuff, most people refer to CMSS-3D as if it was the same kind of HRTF as the one in OpenAL Soft, if not better.

God Of Gaming wrote:

Sorry, I was not refering to you, I've been researching HRTF in recent weeks, and noticed in many forums and comments and stuff, most people refer to CMSS-3D as if it was the same kind of HRTF as the one in OpenAL Soft, if not better.

CMSS Headphone uses HRTFs in its algorithms, but it is not itself "an HRTF" (nor is OpenAL). It uses a generalized/averaged HRTF to provide virtual surround via headphones. Many other virtual surround technologies for headphones rely on HRTFs as part of their algorithms as well (e.g. Dolby Headphone). CMSS Headphone is also not in the same category as OpenAL - CMSS is a post-processing decoder feature, whereas OpenAL is an API.

I know, but OpenAL Soft 1.16 (the open source variant, not the Creative proprietary variant) has an option in the config tool to force stereo HRTF, which for all games that support it provides the most accurate positional audio over headphones I've heard yet. I know Aureal 3D is probably even better though, since it also calculates wall reflections in real time and applies HRTF to them as well. Can't wait to try A3D out. Too bad it's dead, and no one seems to try to make a modern version of A3D...

God Of Gaming wrote:

which for all games that support it provides the most accurate positional audio over headphones I've heard yet

Could you share a few of these games please?

I think it works for any game that support the normal OpenAL, at least most of them. So far I've only tested it in Serious Sam 3 BFE, STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl and ioquake3, and it sure works. It didn't work in Killing Floor though, so it probably won't work in Unreal Tournament 2004 either. Then again, it seems they are trying to wrap OpenAL calls to DirectSound for some reason, so that might be why.

Probably some other games where it should work would be Doom 3, Quake 4, Prey, and maybe Amnesia. Maybe Unreal Tournament 3? Also Unreal Engine 4 can be made to use OpenAL on Windows with a few simple changes in the code, it already uses it on Linux.

BTW, while ALchemy can be made to wrap DirectSound to OpenAL Soft instead of Creative OpenAL, the HRTF setting in OpenAL Soft doesn't seem to work in those cases. And EAX 3, 4 and 5 don't seem to work either this way.

God Of Gaming wrote:

I know, but OpenAL Soft 1.16 (the open source variant, not the Creative proprietary variant) has an option in the config tool to force stereo HRTF, which for all games that support it provides the most accurate positional audio over headphones I've heard yet. I know Aureal 3D is probably even better though, since it also calculates wall reflections in real time and applies HRTF to them as well. Can't wait to try A3D out. Too bad it's dead, and no one seems to try to make a modern version of A3D...

So it sounds like its calculating the virtual surround more accurately, likely because it's starting from the "beginning" as opposed to applying processing to an already rendered output. That's a good thing, of course, but it will be limited to OpenAL applications. As far as A3D being dead - ask Creative... 😦

AFAIK, with XP and hardware accelerated audio, the sound stage was indeed rendered in real time. Now it's more a case of mapping 5.1 speakers to virtual speakers. In modern games like BLOPS2 or BF4 it gets the job done. I really must play some BF2142 on a XP machine with a X-Fi just to see if I'm imagining things or if it indeed was so awesome 😀

philscomputerlab wrote:

AFAIK, with XP and hardware accelerated audio, the sound stage was indeed rendered in real time. Now it's more a case of mapping 5.1 speakers to virtual speakers. In modern games like BLOPS2 or BF4 it gets the job done. I really must play some BF2142 on a XP machine with a X-Fi just to see if I'm imagining things or if it indeed was so awesome 😀

It's rendered in real time in any case - it isn't a static mix being replayed. Virtual surround technologies have advanced considerably since the early 2000s as well, as have software rendering techniques for audio, which is why h/w acceleration is largely deprecated. The majority of applications target a 5.1 mix and then process it, because it's a more solid target, and a lot of virtual surround techniques were built to work with 5.1 content from DVDs and HDTV and then translated to gaming and other uses. 😊

In an attempt to verify which games cannot be experienced at their best on a modern PC, I started re-playing good old games on my modern PC since I last posted here. So far from which I played everything seems to work fine after some fiddling with the files, and ALchemy EAX seems to work pretty satisfactionary too. So I now wanted to try out how A3D would work out, I just installed that A3D-Live wrapper, and some A3D demos, and from what I can see, I only get working A3D 1.0 and it seems to be stereo sound only... though I guess stereo is fine as I think it includes HRTF so I can use headphones, I want A3D 2.0 to work too, and A3D-Live is supposed to also support A3D 2.0 and 3.0, but it doesnt work here. I guess the reason is that A3D-Live is a wrapper to DirectSound3D. So I was thinking, there should be a way to use ALchemy to further wrap it over to OpenAL, but I don't know how to go about it, which folder should I set it into? I tried the folder of the demos that I was testing with, but that didn't help at all, still A3D 1.0 Stereo only. Has anyone tried it?

P.S. forget this, found a discussion about it, turns out compared to a real A3D sound card, that A3D-Live wrapper sounds completely different and very wrong. Guess there is no going around it, a retro PC will be needed if for nothing else then at least for A3D games. Saying that, I know I was thinking about a mobile Athlon XP-M Barton CPU, but now I noticed a dirt cheap Pentium III 800MHz socket 370 for sale, together with a motherboard and some ram, is this thing a good deal?