What retro things have you done today?

So news from my world.....I am looking at a pair of Creative Voodoo 2 cards :)

Having a bit of a fight with them at the moment and i think that one might have some problems. bought them as untested and priced accordingly so not too upset at present. One seems fine and I have played some Ultimate Race Pro and Quake 2 on it. with the other installed the system seems unhappy to open display settings and wont run anything 3Dfx related. Assuming possibly a dead / dying card. They are both detected in Windows and will have drivers installed which is the most annoying bit!
 
Are they both the same model of card with the same memory configuration (8 or 12mb isn't it?) should still run off the same driver. Can you try it in another pci slot or won't the external VGA cable stretch that far? Does it appear in device manager ok without errors?
 
The-Plethora said:
Are they both the same model of card with the same memory configuration (8 or 12mb isn't it?) should still run off the same driver. Can you try it in another pci slot or won't the external VGA cable stretch that far? Does it appear in device manager ok without errors?
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Yeah they are matching models / makes etc and are the serials are even 1 after another too. both cards are 12mb models

Have tried it in several slots and no joy on better results so far. Its detected upon boot and the device manager is happy as larry with both of them......thinking maybe memory fault?
 
Take a good close look at the pins on the three main chips, they are easily damaged and a lot of the time end up shorting out if stored incorrectly/without care.
 
paradigm said:
Take a good close look at the pins on the three main chips, they are easily damaged and a lot of the time end up shorting out if stored incorrectly/without care.
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Just took a look and everything looks straight from visual inspection. The system boots up fine with the SLI pair installed but if i click on the display settings tab it doesn't open same goes for DXDIAG. Its like it refuses to be read by the system when called upon
 
phatboy said:
Just took a look and everything looks straight from visual inspection. The system boots up fine with the SLI pair installed but if i click on the display settings tab it doesn't open same goes for DXDIAG. Its like it refuses to be read by the system when called upon
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Can you take some high-resolution photos front and back of the bad card?
 
I got hold of an refurbed, issue 3 rubber key ZX Spectrum with composite mod off of Ebay, and now have it all setup on (would you believe it) an old Commodore 1701 CRT monitor I got originally for my C64 back in 1984, but which works very well with the Spectrum. It's definitely an authentic experience, apart from being slightly clearer than the RF signal. (no bad thing!)

I suppose die-hard Spectrum fantatics might consider it sacrilege though :D. (In my experience Spectrum enthusiasts have a visceral hatred for all things Commodore).

I never had a Spectrum back in the day - I could only afford a ZX81, but I spent many hours playing and experimenting with the machine over my richer friends houses, so it's great to go back and re-live those memories.

But to bring it up to date I've added an SD card reader so programs can be loaded instantly. I also have a tape-deck emulator on order, which allows tape loading from an SD card, which will be more reliable than using tapes in an old deck, or my mobile phone.
 
Ravenger said:
I got hold of an refurbed, issue 3 rubber key ZX Spectrum with composite mod off of Ebay, and now have it all setup on (would you believe it) an old Commodore 1701 CRT monitor I got originally for my C64 back in 1984, but which works very well with the Spectrum. It's definitely an authentic experience, apart from being slightly clearer than the RF signal. (no bad thing!)

I suppose die-hard Spectrum fantatics might consider it sacrilege though :D. (In my experience Spectrum enthusiasts have a visceral hatred for all things Commodore).

I never had a Spectrum back in the day - I could only afford a ZX81, but I spent many hours playing and experimenting with the machine over my richer friends houses, so it's great to go back and re-live those memories.

But to bring it up to date I've added an SD card reader so programs can be loaded instantly. I also have a tape-deck emulator on order, which allows tape loading from an SD card, which will be more reliable than using tapes in an old deck, or my mobile phone.
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This is a proper cool project, nicely done :)
 
phatboy said:
This is a proper cool project, nicely done :)
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Cheers, now it's got me hankering to get my ZX81 up and running again, so I've ordered a new PSU as the original isn't working any more. I've also found a place that can refurb it, converting to composite video, adding internal 16k RAM and replacing the various dodgy bits, even repainting the logo, so I'm tempted by that. I do have a Sinclair 16k ram pack, but that doesn't work.

For C64 use I use the TheC64 Maxi modern reproduction rather than trying to get my original, very yellowed C64 working (It has several faults, joystick port 2 won't go down, and the video keeps breaking up, and the disk drive won't read disks.)

TheC64 reproduction machine has a full size keyboard and can load games directly off USB, and of course it connects to a modern TV.

I'm joking that as my hairstyle is now retro 80's due to lockdown, I'm getting back into retro computers.
 
I have a spare IDE DVD-Rom Drive from my retro project, i havnt tested it but will do. If anyone wants it for postage costs say £4, i will put up in the MM, if you dont have MM sorry you can have it lol. it could do with some retrobrighting

6Cu029y.jpg
 
Found a 40GB IDE in the loft today, so that's now ready to go in the MMX. just need to locate a floppy and create a boot disk as for some reason despite me being pretty sure it just booted from cd last time. Not having it now lol

Need to work out the DOS side of the Yamaha card as well as tried pinball fantasies today and it said that no hardware was found :(

Lastly need to decide what to do with this 2nd voodoo card if its on the blink as I have nowhere near the required talent to fix it to give me SLI :(
 
phatboy said:
Found a 40GB IDE in the loft today, so that's now ready to go in the MMX. just need to locate a floppy and create a boot disk as for some reason despite me being pretty sure it just booted from cd last time. Not having it now lol

Need to work out the DOS side of the Yamaha card as well as tried pinball fantasies today and it said that no hardware was found :(

Lastly need to decide what to do with this 2nd voodoo card if its on the blink as I have nowhere near the required talent to fix it to give me SLI :(
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Windows 98SE "OEM" def boots from CD (if thats what your are installing) , as i installed it this way on mine, my floppy drive doesnt work. just get the image from winworld
 
Kurgen said:
Windows 98SE "OEM" def boots from CD (if thats what your are installing) , as i installed it this way on mine, my floppy drive doesnt work. just get the image from winworld
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I knew it! Lol
10pts for me burning the wrong disk then!!! (Just looked and it appears I burnt the retail)
 
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phatboy said:
Lastly need to decide what to do with this 2nd voodoo card if its on the blink as I have nowhere near the required talent to fix it to give me SLI :(
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I’m going to give your high-res photos a compare with my working pair to see if I can spot anything amiss. A cursory glance looks ok though. What behaviour does the card exhibit if it’s the only 3dfx card in the system?
 
phatboy said:
Found a 40GB IDE in the loft today, so that's now ready to go in the MMX. just need to locate a floppy and create a boot disk as for some reason despite me being pretty sure it just booted from cd last time. Not having it now lol

Need to work out the DOS side of the Yamaha card as well as tried pinball fantasies today and it said that no hardware was found :(

Lastly need to decide what to do with this 2nd voodoo card if its on the blink as I have nowhere near the required talent to fix it to give me SLI :(
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It will need to be initialized, the driver pack for it on vogons drivers has a dos install :)
 
paradigm said:
I’m going to give your high-res photos a compare with my working pair to see if I can spot anything amiss. A cursory glance looks ok though. What behaviour does the card exhibit if it’s the only 3dfx card in the system?
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@paradigm - If it's connected I can't get into the display section of control panel and the system freezes up of I try run a 3dfx enabled game / tech demo or 3dmark. Also messes the system up if i try run in SLI too

Other card everything is peachy, but this one just doesn't want to know at all.

The pass through is working fine for 2d stuff though and it's picked up fine in device manager.
 
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Been trying to get these two to play nicely all afternoon. Man it's been a right ball ache but they are working together now. The Aztech is like a SB Pro 2.0 but I actually think its better. Full SB Pro 2.0 Clone with a bug free MPU401 and absolutely silent output. Juts a shame the setup is a right pain!
 
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