What retro things have you done today?

paradigm said:
It really is, but then Two Point Hospital is a fantastic modern rendition as well.
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I played the hell out of that at launch, was so hyped. Even got retweeted by the devs. Just eventually got bored of the AI being really stupid. Perhaps its been patched by now I really should go back and look.
 
This P4 PC is actually a pretty solid all rounder in Windows 98. It's very fast and very stable in Windows and DOS, not too hot or loud, passable sound in DOS.

Just need to persuade the sound card to use IRQ 7. "Game Device" for FM Synth is at 220 which is great but an effects are at i10 d1.

I even got the stupid capture card to work in Windows 98 so I can use this W98 PC to capture another W98 PC :s

Edit - I reserved irq10 so now the sound card switched to 7 yay
 
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I went to our local recycling centre today.

A gent was getting rid of some older servers and the urge to intercept him was great. I didn't because err my wife.

But looking back at what he'd put in the electrical bin; I saw a server that looks like it would have been great to nab.
 
This Pentium 4 machine has tested my patience over the last 48hrs! I could not get the thing stable with the 6800GT when trying to run 3D games or benchmark, it would just crash or blue screen. I did get Q3 to run for a bit but it would eventually crashed. Numerous Install's, different drivers but just no dice. Decided to whip out the 5900XT in my P3 machine and give that a go. Runs perfect, so for some reason the P4 doesn't like my 6800GT. The 5900XT will stay in the P4 and i've put the Zalman cooled Ti4600 into the P3.
 
cee-S-dee said:
This Pentium 4 machine has tested my patience over the last 48hrs! I could not get the thing stable with the 6800GT when trying to run 3D games or benchmark, it would just crash or blue screen. I did get Q3 to run for a bit but it would eventually crashed. Numerous Install's, different drivers but just no dice. Decided to whip out the 5900XT in my P3 machine and give that a go. Runs perfect, so for some reason the P4 doesn't like my 6800GT. The 5900XT will stay in the P4 and i've put the Zalman cooled Ti4600 into the P3.
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What OS? And have you tried tweaking AGP parameters in the BIOS?
 
Win 98. Ain't much to tweak in this BIOS it's set to 4x and that's about it.. Its strange as i'm sure I've had this card working on my S754 machine with Win98 in the past. Just benched Q3 at 1280x1024 and got 245fps. With the 5900 it seems solid.
 
I got my retro machine built over the last couple of days.

Forgot that although IDE is 40 pin (as was my motherboard), most cables are only 39 pin with a blank key pin - so had to open that up to allow it to fit.
Forgot that Windows 98SE doesn't support Flash drives without drivers (although easily fixed with NUSB), and also ended up adding a PCI USB card I had lying around, as only having 2 USB ports on my motherboard was annoying having to keep unplugging the keyboard.

The graphics card turned out to be a normal GF2 GTS, but working fine (once I realised the newest Win98 drivers for it aren't the best - went back to 30.something, rather than the latest legacy drivers from NVIDIAs site).

Dug out a couple of old games (although still have plenty to try):-
- Duke 3D sounds great on the AWE64.
- Unreal Tournament works fine once I went back to older NVIDIA drivers
- Midtown Madness 2, worked ok (and one of my Kids had great fun "trying it out") but I'm fairly sure the Graphics card is being bottlenecked by the PII 300Mhz


I tried a PIII 500Mhz in the board, but it doesn't even post, so no chance of running a PIII even underclocked (due to the 440LX's 66mhz FSB).
Not sure whether to try and get hold of a slotket/celeron 533, try and get a "cheap" replacement board (e.g. BX), or just to keep it as is and accept it's going to be more for DOS games and Pentium1 sort of era games.
 
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Armageus said:
Cheers - will do, although will depend what it goes for.

I'm sure I actually have a 370 celeron kicking around (probably a 466 or 533), so if I actually find that, then it will at least be a backup option.
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If you decide to go the Celeron route I have a slotket adapter that I don't need (came with a Celeron 500MHz chip that I was after). Let me know and I can post it your way, if not then no worries.
 
hohum said:
If you decide to go the Celeron route I have a slotket adapter that I don't need (came with a Celeron 500MHz chip that I was after). Let me know and I can post it your way, if not then no worries.
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Thanks for the offer but already bought one - £6 for this one seemed a good deal (as has various jumpers unlike the generic ones)
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AOpen-Sl...Mendocino-Celeron-CPU-Processors/392921070380

Can't find the celeron I thought I had, although found two other celerons (733Mhz and 1Ghz).

Was looking at whether it's possible to add Coppermine microcode the BIOS - checking with rom.by bios patcher, and the last version (which I haven't yet flashed) of the official BIOS adds support for Mendocino celerons, but also has Microcode for CPUID 671/672 which should be some form of Katmai PIII.

The manual actually states support from 1.3V to 3.5V, although how true that is - If I flash the later BIOS, I'm tempted to try updating the microcode at the same time. A Coppermine celeron should be ok at 1.8V right?
 
Armageus said:
The manual actually states support from 1.3V to 3.5V, although how true that is - If I flash the later BIOS, I'm tempted to try updating the microcode at the same time. A Coppermine celeron should be ok at 1.8V right?
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Should be fine, most are 1.75v anyway so 1.8v is well in tolerance.

I'm looking to do a microcode addition (of Tualatin) to my Asus P3B-F's BIOS, as whilst the PC works, I do get a microcode error on boot which I don't like seeing!
 
@Armageus Erk. I was listing some items last night on eBay, and because I hadn't received a reply from you by that time I figured I'd stick the adapter up also. Checked this morning, sold already, so packed it up and posted it whilst I was out earlier today. Didn't realise it was you that bought it! If it's any consolation it should turn up pretty quick in the post, plus after postage costs and eBay/Paypal fees I haven't made any money off it really.

As for modding it for Coppermine-based chips, don't know - I was careful to put on the listing description it was for Mendocino Celeron chips only. That said, the link you posted above suggests it can be done, but it's whether your board would support it I guess (can an LX be overclocked to 100FSB?).
 
hohum said:
@Armageus Erk. I was listing some items last night on eBay, and because I hadn't received a reply from you by that time I figured I'd stick the adapter up also. Checked this morning, sold already, so packed it up and posted it whilst I was out earlier today. Didn't realise it was you that bought it! If it's any consolation it should turn up pretty quick in the post, plus after postage costs and eBay/Paypal fees I haven't made any money off it really.
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Haha no worries :)


hohum said:
As for modding it for Coppermine-based chips, don't know - I was careful to put on the listing description it was for Mendocino Celeron chips only. That said, the link you posted above suggests it can be done, but it's whether your board would support it I guess (can an LX be overclocked to 100FSB?).
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I've picked up a cheap 533Mhz Celeron to go in it anyway, but may still have a go at the Coppermine mod - it's one wire to solder (how hard can it be!), and one pin to remove from my donor 733Mhz Celeron. 100FSB isn't an issue as my 733 Celeron is 66 FSB :)
 
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