What retro things have you done today?

manisses · 30 Mar 2022 at 19:47

Thanks to @LewisRaz, I managed to get hold onto a Tiny mouse and after a quick search of just in case on eBay, I found a monitor too. I paid 50£ posted, which I consider to be decent, as I haven't seen too many around. The only issue is that the base of the monitor is not holding onto the monitor, all the clips are busted. But that shouldn't be a problem.
With all the other parts, I have now a complete Tiny system

Kurgen · 1 Apr 2022 at 14:17

No One lives for ever, doesnt work on my windows 98 PC , and has so many bugs im not going to try and resolve. The same for Tomb Raider III, graphics all glitched.

If anyone wants them FOC i will pop them in 2nd class post

Armageus · 1 Apr 2022 at 14:30

Kurgen said:
No One lives for ever, doesnt work on my windows 98 PC , and has so many bugs im not going to try and resolve. The same for Tomb Raider III, graphics all glitched.

If anyone wants them FOC i will pop them in 2nd class post

Sounds possibly more like an issue with your PC/Install, as both of those were definitely playable on Win98. NOLF in particular I remember working fine as I had that version - it's only XP onwards and much faster newer PCs that were an issue.

Might be worth trying some of these suggestions if you haven't already:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Operative:_No_One_Lives_Forever
https://tombraiders.net/stella/walks/TR3walk/warnings.html

Kurgen · 1 Apr 2022 at 14:35

Armageus said:
Sounds possibly more like an issue with your PC/Install, as both of those were definitely playable on Win98. NOLF in particular I remember working fine as I had that version - it's only XP onwards and much faster newer PCs that were an issue.

Might be worth trying some of these suggestions if you haven't already:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Operative:_No_One_Lives_Forever
https://tombraiders.net/stella/walks/TR3walk/warnings.html

I had it back in the day with no issue, on the Unity fan page there are loads of issues with this game for various GPUS, soundcards etc. Ive tried plenty of other games, like ST elite force, Jedi knight, and just tried Deus EX, all run fine

Kurgen · 4 Apr 2022 at 12:03

new old stock arrived today

Kurgen · 4 Apr 2022 at 12:48

@Armageus i think you might be right, something has to be at fault here, mortal kombat is also not working. I have the correct drivers etc, could it be an actual fault with the GPU ? FX5200 ?

Kurgen · 4 Apr 2022 at 15:29

was advised on RMCretro discord to use drivers 45.23 which runs but only at something like 300x200 i think the game is so poor you cant even have the option to changed res. No one lives for Ever wont even start with this driver. however elite force looks better than ever with really cool lighting effects.. and tomb raider wont run in hardware mode only software.. is that elite force is really late and XP era, and the other games are early and need a voodoo or something to get hardware working.. not only that , it might be coincidence but when i tried the game pad, its now kiled all sound out put from the soundblaster card.. tried differnt speakers, and tried the speakers on my phone

maybe i will bin it and turn the case into a sleeper PC lol

Pman85 · 4 Apr 2022 at 15:55

Brought an Anbernic RG350M. First impressions are extremely good.. good weight, premium feel all round including buttons and analogue sticks.

Such a step up in quality from a JXD device I owned years ago.

Guest2 · 5 Apr 2022 at 20:57

Kurgen said:
was advised on RMCretro discord to use drivers 45.23 which runs but only at something like 300x200 i think the game is so poor you cant even have the option to changed res. No one lives for Ever wont even start with this driver. however elite force looks better than ever with really cool lighting effects.. and tomb raider wont run in hardware mode only software.. is that elite force is really late and XP era, and the other games are early and need a voodoo or something to get hardware working.. not only that , it might be coincidence but when i tried the game pad, its now kiled all sound out put from the soundblaster card.. tried differnt speakers, and tried the speakers on my phone maybe i will bin it and turn the case into a sleeper PC lol

Many people hated Mortal Kombat 4 but I think its one of the best ones. Works beautifully on my PSP Go too (including output to TV through cradle)
Might give it a try on my Win98 Dell inspirion 8100 at some point

Kurgen · 6 Apr 2022 at 08:23

Guest2 said:
Many people hated Mortal Kombat 4 but I think its one of the best ones. Works beautifully on my PSP Go too (including output to TV through cradle)
Might give it a try on my Win98 Dell inspirion 8100 at some point

trouble is on the PC there isnt an options screen at all, no way to change the resolution or detail level, it just goes straight into the game, and keeps jumping into windowed mode

Guest2 · 6 Apr 2022 at 10:03

Kurgen said:
trouble is on the PC there isnt an options screen at all, no way to change the resolution or detail level, it just goes straight into the game, and keeps jumping into windowed mode

Here, F1 F2

Plays perfectly on the aging 8100 in software or D3D

Kurgen · 6 Apr 2022 at 17:51

ah ok will try that

manisses · 6 Apr 2022 at 19:40

Guest2 said:
Many people hated Mortal Kombat 4 but I think its one of the best ones. Works beautifully on my PSP Go too (including output to TV through cradle)
Might give it a try on my Win98 Dell inspirion 8100 at some point

Oh man, it was the only MK I've played back in the day on my P133. It ran ok in Software mode and it was cool that it had 2 players option.
I didn't had a D3D card and I didn't knew why it doesn't work in 3D like on my friends PC. I think it was in 98' or 99' and I was a kid, starting to figure it out what Direct3D was...good days

Guest2 · 6 Apr 2022 at 20:52

manisses said:
Oh man, it was the only MK I've played back in the day on my P133. It ran ok in Software mode and it was cool that it had 2 players option.
I didn't had a D3D card and I didn't knew why it doesn't work in 3D like on my friends PC. I think it was in 98' or 99' and I was a kid, starting to figure it out what Direct3D was...good days

You’ll have probably missed 3dfx

manisses · 6 Apr 2022 at 21:48

Guest2 said:
You’ll have probably missed 3dfx

I did, I had that Pentium 133 for a few years, until my brother managed to get a Duron 700 and Geforce 4. I was so happy.
That's why for me 3dfx is something so cool and I have a few of them.

Guest2 · 6 Apr 2022 at 22:29

manisses said:
I did, I had that Pentium 133 for a few years, until my brother managed to get a Duron 700 and Geforce 4. I was so happy.
That's why for me 3dfx is something so cool and I have a few of them.

A P133 was my (mine / my dads) first PC in 1996. It had on board graphics so saved up £150 for a Matrox mystique 220 which I bought in 1997. I almost cried when I realised how bad it was
I saved up again, did my research and bought Voodoo 2 in late early/mid 1999. I was a bit late but what a card it was. It lasted many years. From memory I sold in in around 2005 for the same money I paid for it. The Matrox fetched about £4

There's a GOG version of MK4, it's cack. They have implemented nglide to try and get 3dfx working but it makes it look worse than software rendering on my old Dell laptop - https://www.gog.com/en/game/mortal_kombat_4

Hardware 3dfx never looked like that in the game, it looked more like the arcade version

manisses · 7 Apr 2022 at 11:40

Guest2 said:
A P133 was my (mine / my dads) first PC in 1996. It had on board graphics so saved up £150 for a Matrox mystique 220 which I bought in 1997. I almost cried when I realised how bad it was
I saved up again, did my research and bought Voodoo 2 in late early/mid 1999. I was a bit late but what a card it was. It lasted many years. From memory I sold in in around 2005 for the same money I paid for it. The Matrox fetched about £4

There's a GOG version of MK4, it's cack. They have implemented nglide to try and get 3dfx working but it makes it look worse than software rendering on my old Dell laptop - https://www.gog.com/en/game/mortal_kombat_4

Hardware 3dfx never looked like that in the game, it looked more like the arcade version

I played MK4 only on software, 3D looks better, but it doesn't have the same nostalgia factor on me. I will play it on my Voodoo3 system actually to bring back some memories. Play it as it was meant to be played

My first contact with hardware was through a Romanian computer magazine called XtremPC. I don't remember the year, but it was showing off Geforce 2s, GTS and Ultra. I wanted one of those so bad. I already missed the 3dfx train, they were bankrupt by the time I started learning about hardware. I can't remember when I heard about 3dfx, but I was fascinated by those cards and intrigued that I haven't heard about them before. Back then, even a Vanta card would have been something wow for me haha
That's why I still play 2D games like Cossacks, Diablo2, Seven Kingdoms 2..

Retro6 · 7 Apr 2022 at 17:40

I picked up another Q6600 processor from CEX 4.00 pounds. They must have been pretty pricey back in 2007 when they first came out. I'm upgrading another machine to get better performance for some XP era gaming. Apparently if you put some tape over one of the processor pins you get 3GHz per core. I think I'll leave it stock at 2.4GHz because I'm not sure how efficient the stock cooler is.

The processor doesn't work. Now I have to return it. I'm assuming they don't test processors before selling them.

almoststew1990 · 7 Apr 2022 at 18:57

That's interesting I don't think I've ever had a dead CPU from CEX or anywhere else!

I have a cheapo G41 chipset board and whilst I can adjust voltages and buses continuously in the BIOS, it won't overclock at all... except if I tell it to run at 1066 / 1333 MHz bus specifically. I have my Q6600 at 3GHz on a 1333 bus and it works great in XP and Windows 7.

If your XP machine really is just XP, I would be tempted by a E8500 3.1GHz also for pennies.

Today I missed out on a £30 C64 that was about 3 minutes down the road. Ah well.

Kurgen · 7 Apr 2022 at 22:17

Update, Geforce4 MX4000 installed using detonator drivers 53.04. Mortal Kombat working fully with textures, No one lives for ever fully working with all textures.