What retro things have you done today?

Got an offer accepted on the VLB gpu for £30.
Not often I have paid what I consider "asking price" for a retro item! but they arent exactly common and it will fit the dx4 build nicely.

@paradigm still no sign of the dx66 btw! I think as of right now I have 11 packages that were due early this week and have not turned up. Postie is still about so hold ups must be at sorting level.
 
@paradigm That's pretty quick, I'd figured about a week or so wait! Thanks for your efforts :)

A cheap graphics card from eBay turned up today, a 128-bit TNT2 32MB. Been wanting one of these for a while. Very easy to get the Model 64 but the 128-bit versions can be a bit of a pain to find! The first PC I bought nearly 19 years ago came with a TNT2 M64, but I really don't have any nostalgia for that variant as it got upgraded very quickly to a GF2 Ti. ;)

Anyway, this replaces my TNT 16MB for the moment. One thing quickly became apparent after running 3dmark 99, the scores at default settings were almost identical to the previous card! Clearly CPU limited with a 500MHz Celeron. However there is a big difference when you start ramping up graphics settings. Using 32-bit colour doesn't have a big performance impact (same score on 3dmark), plus I can run games at higher resolutions much more easily. Had a go on Half Life earlier, previously running it at 800x600, now can run it at 1280x960 with a decent framerate. Pleased with that result.

Don't think there's much point going for a faster card with this setup, but that's fine. I'm not after massive performance, just something that can handle older games reasonably well with decent compatibility. Did see a TNT2 Ultra up on auction last week but didn't bid on it, wasn't sure if some components were damaged on the back of the card in the pics. Think it went for about £23 in the end.
 
Nah, the board is S370 for Celeron only (Mendocino). Doesn't bother me though, if I need better performance I have a P4 board with universal AGP also.

On another note, a PCI fan bracket should have come today from Yodel. Tracking says it's been delivered through my letterbox, yet I've received nothing. Super.
 
hohum said:
Nah, the board is S370 for Celeron only (Mendocino). Doesn't bother me though, if I need better performance I have a P4 board with universal AGP also.
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Interesting, so are you overclocking a 400MHz part up to 100MHz fsb?

I assumed Coppermine when you said 600MHz!

Back in the day I modified an Abit BP6 to take 2x Coppermine PIIIs rather than the two Mendocino Celeron 433s that I originally had!
 
Unfortunately not, it's a 500MHz chip not 600 :) The board supports 100FSB overclocking by removing a jumper, but to achieve that I'd need a Celeron 300A and I wasn't able to find one in S370 form. That would overclock to 450MHz based on a 4.5 multiplier of course. Not sure how much benefit there would be over this 500/66 chip though, plus as I say could just dig the P4 out.
 
@hohum

Dodgy cap replaced. Another 9 to go! I've been looking at images of other Voodoo 3 2000/3000 AGP cards and it looks like some use the aluminium cylindrical caps (like mine and yours), some use Tantalum (orange/yellow rectangular ones), some use polymer (possibly tantalum polymer).

I do wonder if any type is more stable than another.

v3-hohum4.jpg


v3-hohum5.jpg
 
paradigm said:
@hohum

Dodgy cap replaced. Another 9 to go! I've been looking at images of other Voodoo 3 2000/3000 AGP cards and it looks like some use the aluminium cylindrical caps (like mine and yours), some use Tantalum (orange/yellow rectangular ones), some use polymer (possibly tantalum polymer).

I do wonder if any type is more stable than another.
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Cheers, hope it makes a difference! I've noticed that too, would assume that the aluminium caps are probably cheaper and/or they used whatever they had in their parts bin at the time. Tantalum caps are lower profile (and possibly longer life?), but I guess quite expensive in comparison given that it's a conflict mineral used.

The mechanism on the front of that case looks funky! Does it have any capacity for fan cooling inside?
 
hohum said:
Cheers, hope it makes a difference! I've noticed that too, would assume that the aluminium caps are probably cheaper and/or they used whatever they had in their parts bin at the time. Tantalum caps are lower profile (and possibly longer life?), but I guess quite expensive in comparison given that it's a conflict mineral used.

The mechanism on the front of that case looks funky! Does it have any capacity for fan cooling inside?
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Tantalum caps (especially 80s/90s/early 2000s) had a reputation for blowing. Far FAR less of an issue today, but I wouldn’t want that era of Tantalum cap. Polymer on the other hand, now they seem to be the most stable (well most stable of the small scale SMD stuff) but like you say probably more costly.

As for the case, no idea yet, it’s not here. I’ll be sure to update the thread once it’s here and it’s been modded from ATX to AT.
 
I received a new Sound card the other week and was keen to try it out in my new 486 PC. Installed without a hitch and surprisingly needed no setup and drivers. Worked straight off the bat! Tried it with Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. I'm surprised how well Doom runs on a DX2-66, It runs really well! I'm still to find out what the actual sound chip is on this card. Looking at some cards the chip looks to be very much like the ESS ES1869f. Another good thing about this card is the Onboard Dream Synth so actually will do General Midi Music too and it sounds pretty good. Going to install win 3.11 tonight.

lRnZ10ml.jpg
 
Got very bored/impatient waiting for my PLCC32 to DIP32 adapter for my minipro, so set about making one. It only bloody works!

minipro-adapter.jpg


Might be able to fix the Voodoo 3 today rather than next week!
 
LewisRaz said:
That is good stuff! Any news on the voodoo?
I really enjoy seeing posts with this level of effort put into repairs. I find retrospectre on youtube incredible for that.
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Not yet, but I'm certain the trick will be finding a non-corrupt bios file. The save I made before flashing is 40KB, but the BIOS images are either 32KB or 64KB, so I'm not sure what's going on there. I'll keep trying until I find one that works.

The 3dfx flash util still sees a compatible device when I try to flash in-pc (using my TSENG ET4000AX ISA card), so it's not totally dead.
 
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