Re: Config.sys and autoexec.bat for Dos 7.1

Posted on 2024-04-06, 14:35

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I guess it depends on how you use the system. I don't like menu clutter, and when I want to play a game I commit to it. So if said game requires a certain config/autoexec, I just go ahead and REM lines from my "do it all" default config. After a few days when I'm done with the game, I revert my …

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Re: Hex editing a game exe - How do you figure out which parts represent what?

Posted on 2024-04-06, 14:31

by

by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

FOV will be a floating point value. These are much harder to hunt out in a hex editor. Your best bet is to attach a debugger and change the FOV in the game via some mechanism (menu option? console?) and watch the memory to see the locations that are changing data. Floats are 32-bit values, so you …

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Re: List of games that benefit from SMARTDRV?

Posted on 2024-04-06, 14:18

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

My theory on why CD drives run slower with caching: 1- It is reading ahead data that probably won't be used. 2- If the cached data was indeed being used, the CD won't be accessed, which sounds good, but then the drive might have the time to trigger spin down, which makes the next uncached access …

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Re: Config.sys and autoexec.bat for Dos 7.1

Posted on 2024-04-03, 12:47

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

A generic config cannot always get the best out of the machine. Applies to both EMM386 and QEMM. That's why both have this rigorous setup where they try many combinations before deciding in the best. Each machine has its own particularities that could eat out of the UMBs or fragment them. You have …

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Re: Do DC-DC AT PSUs exist? PicoPSU for older PCs?

Posted on 2024-04-03, 09:41

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use it in my P233MMX build as well (the 120w version): https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=91280 It's holding up quite well. Never failed me. My build has 2 floppy drives and a DVD drive. On the otherhand, no mechanical HDD nor a dedicated graphics card. So I'm not gonna claim it will hold …

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Re: AYMO - Accelerated YaMaha Operator

Posted on 2024-03-31, 22:44

by

by wbahnassi

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

3x sounds like a reasonable target if you are going for 4-component-wide SIMD. There will always be overhead when moving data in/out of SIMD registers, so 4x is kinda theoretical.

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Re: Old Creative CD Drives MK4140 Needs Help

Posted on 2024-03-31, 22:39

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Creative moved to IDE with 4x and up. Only 2x and 1x used Panasonic and required MK driver. Just try a regular driver like OAK.

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Re: How to get a list of available DirectSoundBuffer caps?

Posted on 2024-03-30, 14:00

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Not sure what specifically are you looking for. DSCAPS has quite a bunch of flags and values about the sound device. But they won't be as many as D3D caps of course because there are a lot of individual 3D features compared to sound features (esp. that DSound is just for PCM playback, without any …

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Re: 2024 - End of the era of Retro Computing Youtube channels?

Posted on 2024-03-25, 18:31

by

by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

Yeah, but JEMM itself also has compatibility issues as well even on MS DOS 6.22. SBEmu only works on JEMM as far as I know. I tried to get it to run on QEMM as it is advertised as supported, but I failed. QEMM has much better compatibility than JEMM IMO.

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2024-03-25, 18:27

by

by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm stuck in MM1 as my party is barely able to hit enemies. They miss like 70% of the time. When they hit, they do hit hard though. So I often die easily, and can't really make it through an entire dungeon or any of the tougher towns. And yeah, mapping... I photocopied the maps from the clue book …

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Re: Son of Fat Bstd...a multi win OS PC

Posted on 2024-03-20, 01:14

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IIRC Windows XP and Office XP are still legitimately activatable until today via the phone option. So I bet Win7 is also still activatable via that route at least...

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Re: List the PC games that you have beaten

Posted on 2024-03-20, 01:07

by

by wbahnassi

in Milliways

in Milliways

Finally finished Bad Dudes on my Turbo XT. Yes, no cheats. This is the original booter game. It was one of my first PC games in the late 80's, and now I came back to finally beat it. Took me about 12 attempts. I played it on 4.77MHz speed. It's a tad slow, but the game's hit detection works much …

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Re: Tiny 486 build - SBC with ISA backplane

Posted on 2024-03-20, 00:55

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Looking great, but don't forget to slice a few vent openings on opposite sides and place a fan behind them, otherwise it will be a wooden oven 😅

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Ideas for fixing floppy drive head

Posted on 2024-03-13, 00:51

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi guys, I got me a YE-Data YD-308c 5.25" floppy drive. It's in great condition, except its upper head (Head 1) doesn't want to read at all. Head 0 reads very well. I fully disassembled the drive and its boards and couldn't find anything wrong with visual inspection. No bulging caps, no browning, no …

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Re: Do discrete sound cards have any gaming utility in modern computers?

Posted on 2024-03-07, 12:51

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

LED lights 😋

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Re: Stunts\4D sports driving no sound effects when audio is MT-32

Posted on 2024-03-06, 00:41

by

by wbahnassi

in DOS

in DOS

Yes 🙂

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Re: Stunts\4D sports driving no sound effects when audio is MT-32

Posted on 2024-03-05, 11:00

by

by wbahnassi

in DOS

in DOS

Stunts doesn't use digitized sound at all. Only Adlib for both music and FX. When running on MT-32, you should indeed hear everything sounding via the MT-32, including engine and skid and crash sounds. The only thing I don't remember is whether Stunts programs the MT-32 at start up, or just use the …

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Re: Win98SE - MBR Corruption?

Posted on 2024-03-04, 23:50

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

If you restore your image to a different HDD, does that get corrupted too after a while? Just trying to figure out if the HDD itself is at fault here or not.

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Re: Voyetra Software Multimedia Essential Pack

Posted on 2024-03-02, 13:12

by

by wbahnassi

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

It doesn't do that during copies. It only writes its own boot sector when you use it to format a disk. The way you format in VGA Copy is by pressing one of the function keys to load an internal image matching the format you want (360K, 1.2M, 720K..etc), then you use the regular Write command to …

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Re: EcoQuest 1 CD - artwork restored & fixes

Posted on 2024-02-25, 08:08

by

by wbahnassi

in DOS

in DOS

Nice! Gonna make an installer for it and put it on a floppy disk along with the original game CD I have. Cheers!

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