Re: what was it like watching the death of 3dfx post voodoo 3 (late 1999-2000)?

Posted on 2024-05-21, 19:47

by

by bZbZbZ

in Milliways

in Milliways

I was there. The thing you need to realize is just how rapidly the scene evolved at that time. I remember the voodoo banshee being hot shit for a while, then the TNT happened. The TNT basically ended 3dfx for all but the most hardcore who could afford v2sli. And that was still 1998! When TNT2 …

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Re: My voodoo3 rig

Posted on 2024-05-21, 19:31

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice system! Voodoo3 is a great card, and getting difficult / expensive to obtain. I suggest having a fan nearby, to possibly prolong the longevity of the card. I use 2x 92mm fans and some AliExpress brackets in my similar system . In my experience, finding a junk (maybe nonworking) beige computer …

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Re: Is the Pentium 4 underrated for retro computing?

Posted on 2024-05-15, 14:19

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Socket 478 3rd party coolers are harder to find and usually less effective than what's available for AMD s754/939/AM2/AM3/AM4 which incredibly all use the same clip Irrelevant at this day, because you can 3D print Socket 478 mountings brackets for Socket AM2 coolers. Cool, I didn't know there were …

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Re: Is the Pentium 4 underrated for retro computing?

Posted on 2024-05-14, 18:16

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On a related note, I never intended for this thread to be a debate about whether the Pentium 4 is consider retro. Rather, it was a question whether the Pentium 4 is underrated when used for retro computing. IOW, using it for software and games from the 80s and 90s. Whether or not a platform is …

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Re: My experience returning to Win98 after 25 years

Posted on 2024-05-13, 02:39

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Your experience sounds remarkably authentic :) Back in the day, I had all of those same experiences. Windows 9x is horrifically unstable compared to Windows XP, and as others have said it seems to get worse and worse the more you touch it. I find for a retro gaming machine that I turn on once every …

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Re: Can't disable automatic brightness with GTX 970 and CRT

Posted on 2024-05-11, 02:01

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Interesting. I have a very similar system (Core i7-3770, GTX 980 driving a CRT using a passive DVI-I to VGA adapter), and I've never experienced any automatic brightness. I'm running a dual boot of Windows 10 x64 and Windows XP 32-bit. When I search online (you have probably searched longer than me …

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Re: Double Reverse Retro Sleeper (ivy bridge, GTX980, WinXP+10)

Posted on 2024-05-10, 04:42

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

After several months, I have tested ***DOS. At this point, this computer basically 'plays' nearly everything I desire from a retro computer, with a great "authentic +" CRT experience, through a combination of: DOS emulation running in Windows 10 various tweaks for running Win9x games in Windows XP …

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Re: Windows XP/98 Gaming PC Build Log

Posted on 2024-03-29, 03:32

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Sorry to hear about your 9800 Pro. I guess on the bright side you got it in a bundle for a good price. My original Raeon 9700 (which I bought new back in the day) died after a few years of use. Recently I bought a 2nd hand Radeon 9800 Pro which worked perfectly for a year or so then died. On the …

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Re: Windows XP/98 Gaming PC Build Log

Posted on 2024-03-27, 06:34

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Back in the day, we used to use Norton Ghost and Partition Magic frequently. Mostly because I would find odd ways to bork my Win9x install (modded drivers, questionable software from the internet, etc). I think I also had some legacy FAT16 partitions (which were only 2GB) since the drive was …

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Re: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Posted on 2024-03-26, 22:10

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hooked up my wired Xbox360 controller to this rig. There are drivers for WinXP as well as Win7, and it works great under both operating systems. The intent is to use it with certain games from the 2006-2013 period which use the Xbox button layout and symbols by default. A good example would be the …

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Re: Windows XP/98 Gaming PC Build Log

Posted on 2024-03-26, 21:45

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I have the exact same motherboard and CPU as you. Looks like you got a great deal on the parts... A working Radeon 9700/9800/Pro isn't that easy to obtain these days. Yes, you should be able to install Win98 on the SATA SSD when the SATA controller is in IDE mode. I'm running a similar nForce 3 …

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Re: SFF CRT "DOS/9x/XP" sleeper time machine

Posted on 2024-03-16, 19:35

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Wow, nice find! Thanks for the tip regarding the Startech DP2VGAHD20, I'm sure that will be handy for people who come across this thread in the future. What refresh rate does your monitor hit at 2048x1560? Both of my 19" CRTs run 1600x1200 @ 75Hz and 1280x1024 @ 85Hz. I actually prefer the latter, …

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Re: What to do with a Core 2 system (...now that there's better stuff around)

Posted on 2024-03-04, 03:59

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wanted to go back to playing the games that I used to play back in the day. 1980 - 1995 is the timeframe so definiteley DOS and C64. Had the C64 and 128 way back, then moved to 286, 386... There's just no way I can justify the prices of vintage machines today. Recently I got a hold of a couple of …

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Re: What to do with a Core 2 system (...now that there's better stuff around)

Posted on 2024-03-03, 05:49

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I got the Core 2 Quad Q9400 installed under Windows XP, and ran some Cinebench R11.5. It was a remarkably easy overclock from 2.67 GHz to 3.2 GHz. I simply raised the FSB from 333 to 400, lowered the memory multiplier to keep the RAM at DDR2-400, and kept all the voltages on "auto". My specific …

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Re: What to do with a Core 2 system (...now that there's better stuff around)

Posted on 2024-03-01, 16:24

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Four sticks of 2GB DDR2 should be easy to find; try looking for 4GB DDR2 sticks and now that's a challenge :) (I actually had 4GB DDR2 SODIMMs for a laptop at one point around 2011... now that was hard to find... and I sold them for a decent price on eBay when I was done with them too...) (Sorry if …

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Re: Back-in-Black ( Pentium-lll , 933mhz , with Voodoo-3 )

Posted on 2024-02-29, 20:29

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice system! I like that the black case's color scheme still works well with beige drives. Back in the day, when beige was becoming un-cool, I built a computer with an Antec case in "performance grey". That was great... except nobody makes optical or floppy drives in performance grey. I realized …

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Re: What to do with a Core 2 system (...now that there's better stuff around)

Posted on 2024-02-28, 16:46

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Fair point regarding chipset reliability. Intel chipsets are rock solid, with excellent driver support across a wide range of operating systems. I have found AMD Phenom II on AM2+ using the AMD 780g / 785g chipset to be quite stable as well, but Intel is definitely the benchmark in this regard. …

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Re: What to do with a Core 2 system (...now that there's better stuff around)

Posted on 2024-02-22, 16:23

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I guess the main question I still have is... how is a Core 2 better than a similar core-count Phenom II? (besides person-specific nostalgia)

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Re: What to do with a Core 2 system (...now that there's better stuff around)

Posted on 2024-02-22, 16:06

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's as period correct as something can get. Vista never had a period. It barely got past 20% market share within Windows and it only took about half a year for W7 to overtake it while it took 2 years to overtake XP. Also, for XP era a fast Core2 perfectly fine performance-wise. The bottleneck is …

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Re: What to do with a Core 2 system (...now that there's better stuff around)

Posted on 2024-02-22, 03:16

by

by bZbZbZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm using Windows 10 on this machine... Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz, 2933 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s) it runs ok for non-gaming things. Is it worth making a quick trip to eBay and looking for a Q9x50, if your board supports quad-cores? I think it's a tough …

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