What retro things have you done today?

That's unfortunate with the bios flash on the V3, but hopefully it can be put right in the end!

Going back to the earlier topic, did a quick test today with the USB 2.0 card removed - reran 3dmark 99, no difference in performance scores whatsoever. So that's good, I can leave it installed without worrying. Perhaps you could try a card with a different chipset, such as VIA?
 
I'm getting the (continued) urge to build a 486 and I quite like the baby AT form factor as it will work in my ATX case! I just wonder if I miss half the fun as I would not have VLB capability.

I kind of think of DOS PCs are quite binary - slow being 386SX and 286 and fast being Pentium 2s and onwards but I'd quite like a DX2 50 to DX4 80 equivalent as an "upgrade" to my slow 386 for slightly less slow DOS gaming...
 
My SX50 is at the lowest I really have any interest in. Its quite enjoyable to tinker with and still plays good games.

One thing you wont like about VLB is fitting/removing the cards. it requires an uncomfortable amount of force!

User tau_cety on ebay has some cheap "parts only" vlb motherboard with best offer. 1 just looks to have blown caps. Could be decent little projects if he accepts some low offers.

I am thinking I might try and do a little build video when I build the 486. I enjoy watching them on youtube so it might be nice to do one myself.
 
I've had a number of Dual CPU boards now. Always end up moving them on for some reason. I have a Epox EP-DV3a and a Tyan S2567 currently

I been working on the Dan PC this for a bit. I switched out the VGA card for the VLB Cirrus, swapped the HD for a 1.2Gig job and added My Music Quest MPU-401 card for the Roland MT-32. I also cheated with the CD Drive as i had a Panasonic Drive in much better condition so swapped that out too. Will try and retro-bright the original drive with all the nice weather we are having.

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@LewisRaz It has a installation of dos on it and runs as expected, but now i have put the new drive in i'm going to do a Fresh Dos 6.22/Win 3.11 install.

The first card you posted is the exact card i just installed in the Dan PC. I know that particular card has really good compatibility, but is not exactly the fastest card. I'm not clued up on trident cards. I did at one point have a Tseng labs et4000/w32p VLB card which i really regret selling now but at the time had nothing to use it with so moved it on for a good profit.
 
Cheers. Chucked in a £25 offer on it see what happens. Any of them will be better than an ISA card!

This also turned up today:

99p + 2.50 postage.
Been trying to snipe myself a boxed copy of XP for quite some time (No reason I just want to collect boxed versions of the big OSes) so was quite happy to get xp pro and plus for that price.
 
Still not had chance to try the Geforce 2 GTS Pro, mainly because it doesn't fit where I've modded the dell case and I really CBA modding it again right now.

For a laugh I tried the PCI Nvidia Quadro 400 NVS I have here (essentially a GF4 MX420, NV17 core), 3DMark99 MAX overall score has gone down from 3238 to 2089, but the CPU score has increased from 7272 to 7390, I guess the Nvidia card relies less on the CPU as it has hardware TnL.
 
LewisRaz said:
I am thinking I might try and do a little build video when I build the 486. I enjoy watching them on youtube so it might be nice to do one myself.
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Just noticed this, it's surprisingly difficult to record yourself building a PC without it just being out of focus video of your arms in the way. The insides of PCs are generally quite dark (or at least, most of it is in shadow unless your light source is from directly above). I gave it a fairly serious go; buying white lights to replace the horrible (on camera) yellow lightbulbs everyone has in living/bedrooms, setting up "side lights" with paper over the top to softly light up the PC without loads of reflections, getting a tripod... and it still looked very amateur! I tried both my DSLR which can only do 720p 30fps and my Pixel 4 which can do 1080p 60fps (and beyond, probably) and neither looks anything like as good as the high quality youtube channels.

I still want to give it another go though!
 
almoststew1990 said:
Just noticed this, it's surprisingly difficult to record yourself building a PC without it just being out of focus video of your arms in the way. The insides of PCs are generally quite dark (or at least, most of it is in shadow unless your light source is from directly above). I gave it a fairly serious go; buying white lights to replace the horrible (on camera) yellow lightbulbs everyone has in living/bedrooms, setting up "side lights" with paper over the top to softly light up the PC without loads of reflections, getting a tripod... and it still looked very amateur! I tried both my DSLR which can only do 720p 30fps and my Pixel 4 which can do 1080p 60fps (and beyond, probably) and neither looks anything like as good as the high quality youtube channels.

I still want to give it another go though!
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You should try again! I think lighting will be the most important. I still have all of my studio gear so I will have tripod mounted lights and I am hoping that my phone can do good enough video! (I sold my camera gear).
The camera angles will be interesting to set up as you say to stop arms being in the way. Perhaps lock the focus so that even if you do block an area for a moment the focus doesnt start going crazy
 
Sounds like you're starting a few steps ahead in terms of knowledge and gear! My main issue even with added lighting was still noise - I was using a black case, reasonably dark desk. When filming a monitor the noise on the darker parts of the video, usually shadows, were horrendous. Even the white-ish walls were super noisey!

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I suppose people like LGR, as well as having build up good knowledge and kit over the years, they also usually film beige things :D
 
That is a lot of noise! What were you filming it on? It does look quite dark still. You really cant underestimate how much light is needed. Shoot a video outdoors in daytime then go indoors and there is a clear difference in noise. Even in bright rooms.
 
I was filming it on a Google pixel 4. I think the issue was having lots of light from the front creating shadows behind the screen. Channels like Budget Builds do a lot of his shots outside for this reason I guess. And desks are quite boring!

I think I'll have a go at filming (re)building my 386 build. At least that will be moderately interesting in that it uses modern parts. I should have filmed me drilling the holes for the power switch! Maybe I'll do my other case too :D
 
@hohum, the caps arrived this afternoon (quick delivery much!) so I’ll crack on with the recap tomorrow then start stress testing the card.

I’ve also spent most of today practicing removing and reattaching various plcc32 EEPROMS from various devices before having a go at my Voodoo 3. So far so good, the only booboo I made was an attempt to remove a plcc32 socket from an old socket 478 board (the plan was to socket my Voodoo 3 for easier removal for reflashing later) and I melted the socket, however cleaning up the board and soldering the chip back on was fine, the board still works. I’ll just stick to putting the EEPROM directly on the board!
 
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