TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[stinger608]

Okay, for anyone interested, I have a bud on another forum that is getting set up to host some ole First person shooter games.

He wants to host Medal of Honor. There is actually a free download of this called Revival Edition:

http://mohaarevival.tk/

I'm going to get one of my ole Socket A systems fired up and do some nostalgic gaming.

If anyone is interested, we could get the game downloaded and do some fragging.

 

[Trekkie4]

I've been searching around, going through the old (archived) websites & forums, and came across some interesting facts, regarding Savage cards... As it turns out, my defective card may not be so defective after all.

According to Wikipedia, Savage4 was (and I'm quoting) "hardly a match for the new 3dfx Voodoo3, ATI Rage 128, Matrox G400, or NVIDIA Riva TNT2. In OpenGL games such as Quake II, Savage4 performed about as well as G400 did with its slow initial OpenGL support and was far behind TNT2 and Voodoo3. Within Direct3D titles such as Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, Savage 4 scored almost 50% slower than TNT2 and Voodoo3 even at a low resolution such as 800x600." Which is pretty much what I experienced myself, about 50% less than nVidia card. OK, I'll admit that TNT2 and Vanta are not one & the same, but it's close enough to make you wonder.

Also, according to xbitlabs.com, the same source which @biffzinker already mentioned, Savage was hardly keeping up with the games such as Quake 3 Arena, running 1024x768 at 22.9 FPS. And this is Savage4 Pro+ version we're talking about, it's not even the cheapest one! At the high-quality game settings, FPS would drop all the way down to 17.7, which is exactly what I'm seeing myself... Not to mention the buggy & extremely basic drivers, and you have a crappy card which can't even keep up with Vanta M64

Sources:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/lowend-roundup.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Savage

I may think twice before swapping Vanta for Savage again... With all due respect to S3, S3TC & MeTaL drivers, M64 seems like the obvious (and cheapest) choice to go with. Kinda ironic when you think about it, especially since Savage was designed to be a gaming card, while the Vanta/M64 was primarily made for budget machines, office workstations & OEM machines, such as HP Vectra series.

 

[Nobified[H]]

Okay, for anyone interested, I have a bud on another forum that is getting set up to host some ole First person shooter games.

He wants to host Medal of Honor. There is actually a free download of this called Revival Edition:

http://mohaarevival.tk/

I'm going to get one of my ole Socket A systems fired up and do some nostalgic gaming.

If anyone is interested, we could get the game downloaded and do some fragging.

Hello, would be more than happy to host a few games for us all to experience it's 2002/2003 all over again! HP DL380-G6 loaded with windows 10-64 with dual Xeon 5520 and 24gb mated with SAS 4x10k spinners. My ISP provides speed of 150mb DL and steady 12mb upload. This should be good for least 12 players????

Any help would be appreciated and getting the Proliant fired up, I can set up a remote login for experienced server admins? Whatever it takes!

My old hardware of socket A boards are on the way in the mail. So, i will have to cheat on modern hardware until I get the old stuff!

We can do other gaming besides MOHAA, if you are willing to share the needed software for the server. I pretty much have all the MOHAA and COD games.

 

[dorsetknob]

Nobified[H] welcome to TPU (and the Nostalgic hardware thread )https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/members/nobified-h.167613/

 

[Trekkie4]

Just when I was about to give up on Savage altogether, I got the msg from the seller, says he wants to meet me tomorrow. So (assuming we work it out), stand by for Savage4 status & updates. Personally, I still think Vanta would (is) a better choice, but since I already have too many nVidia systems laying around, I'm willing to give it a try with something more unusual & "fresh"

 

[Mr.Scott]

since I already have too many nVidia systems laying around, I'm willing to give it a try with something more unusual & "fresh"

SiS Xabre

 

[Trekkie4]

I have to be honest, I never heard of Xabre cards before so I Googled them. The card itself seems exotic & highly unusual ... exactly the kind of mixture I like & prefer lol

But something tells me that Xabre costs a lot of cash, especially since I'd have to order one online So nah, I'll rather give it another try with Savage & hope for the best.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Only because of your location.
They are not that expensive here but they ARE getting harder to find.
I got your MO down
I prefer the odd and unusual also.

 

[Trekkie4]

Right, I figured that much just by browsing through ebay All the previously-listed cards are either sold out or cost a lot of money. Oh well, that's OK I guess - Savage4 is (by my standards, at least) kinda odd and unusual. Especially since I have it on ALi motherboard, as all my other boards are either VIA, Intel, SiS and/or nVidia So therefore it's most definitely going to be unique!

Oh and speaking of MO ... my favorite car (which I'd LOVE to buy someday) is DMC 12, aka DeLorean! It's old (retro), yet stylish & unique, not to mention highly unusual! Just the kind of thing I'd be interested in

 

[Nobified[H]]

Any chance anyone is online with MOHAA installed on their PC. Stinger608 is busy with work, reason I am asking to make sure I have the WAN working well for you guys to jump on. I can't do it from LAN without someone checking the WAN.

Any volunteers? PM me and I will give you server IP.

 

[Trekkie4]

No comment


Now I just have to plug it in & see if it makes any difference or not.

 

[Nobified[H]]

No comment


Now I just have to plug it in & see if it makes any difference or not.

Now that is a nice piece of hardware! Did you pay $ for it or freebie? I bet if we build the retro build of left over parts and wait another 10 years. We could make a nice pocket change? I noticed the K6 amd boards are going for big $.

 

[Trekkie4]

It was almost a freebie, paid it less than $3 Savage cards are kinda hard to find nowdays... Guess I was lucky with this one, especially since it was the one (and only) for sale at the moment...

Not sure if you're familiar with some of my previous posts, but if you have the time & patience go take a look - I've been experimenting with Savage4 & got some pretty lame results, which is why I got this, 2nd Savage card. I don't expect a miracle lol, but I DO hope it'll be able to run games like Deus Ex at decent FPS

As for the value, I'm sure these are all going to cost a fortune someday! Especially Voodoo cards, which is why I always buy those whenever I can.

 

[Nobified[H]]

It was almost a freebie, paid it less than $3 Savage cards are kinda hard to find nowdays... Guess I was lucky with this one, especially since it was the one (and only) for sale at the moment...

Not sure if you're familiar with some of my previous posts, but if you have the time & patience go take a look - I've been experimenting with Savage4 & got some pretty lame results, which is why I got this, 2nd Savage card. I don't expect a miracle lol, but I DO hope it'll be able to run games like Deus Ex at decent FPS

As for the value, I'm sure these are all going to cost a fortune someday! Especially Voodoo cards, which is why I always buy those whenever I can.

WOW, decent...I remember that game running on a friends pentium 2 slot. I will go back and read up on your posts.

 

[Trekkie4]

Yeah, decent FPS. Not sure what's going on with my other Savage4 card, it seems to be working OK (therefore not being damaged in any obvious way), but it's extremely slow! And I really DO mean slow, even for a Savage card. Well IDK, I never had one back in a day, but from what I heard & understood these things were supposed to be faster than that *shrug* Just to help you understand how slow Savage 4 actually was, imagine playing Deus Ex, at 1024x768 (16bit color) and experiencing lags & random slowdowns. Even when you just move your view around, look up & down! So yeah, I got this other Savage4 card today & will give it a try

As most of the guys in this topic already know, I have my share of Pentium 2 machines... 5 of them to be exact, and they're all running 350MHz in various configurations. From the single Voodoo2, up to Voodoo2 in SLI, even Voodoo3 2000 (AGP). In fact, my "pride & joy" RetroMaster 1000 build was based on PII 350! But unfortunately it doesn't take advantage of AGP card (even though it has one, ATI Rage IIc), only the Voodoo2 cards which is why I eventually made the 2nd unit, RetroMaster 2000. I'm sure you'll find references to both of these throughout this topic Still, I might upgrade the 1000 model someday with something better than ATI card... Perhaps nVidia MX200 or something similar.

1st Savage4 (Pro) card

 

[Nobified[H]]

Yeah, decent FPS. Not sure what's going on with my other Savage4 card, it seems to be working OK (therefore not being damaged in any obvious way), but it's extremely slow! And I really DO mean slow, even for a Savage card. Well IDK, I never had one back in a day, but from what I heard & understood these things were supposed to be faster than that *shrug* Just to help you understand how slow Savage 4 actually was, imagine playing Deus Ex, at 1024x768 (16bit color) and experiencing lags & random slowdowns. Even when you just move your view around, look up & down! So yeah, I got this other Savage4 card today & will give it a try

As most of the guys in this topic already know, I have my share of Pentium 2 machines... 5 of them to be exact, and they're all running 350MHz in various configurations. From the single Voodoo2, up to Voodoo2 in SLI, even Voodoo3 2000 (AGP). In fact, my "pride & joy" RetroMaster 1000 build was based on PII 350! But unfortunately it doesn't take advantage of AGP card (even though it has one, ATI Rage IIc), only the Voodoo2 cards which is why I eventually made the 2nd unit, RetroMaster 2000. I'm sure you'll find references to both of these throughout this topic Still, I might upgrade the 1000 model someday with something better than ATI card... Perhaps nVidia MX200 or something similar.

1st Savage4 (Pro) card

What OS are you running on those machines with slow FPS using savage card?

 

[Trekkie4]

What OS are you running on those machines with slow FPS using savage card?

Windows ME. But I had (and still have) dual-boot config with ME and XP, and both of these were equally slow. I followed @Mr.Scott and @stinger608 advice on installing appropriate chipset drivers (ALi board, Asus A7A266) but it didn't make any difference whatsoever.

 

[Nobified[H]]

Windows ME. But I had (and still have) dual-boot config with ME and XP, and both of these were equally slow. I followed @Mr.Scott and @stinger608 advice on installing appropriate chipset drivers (ALi board, Asus A7A266) but it didn't make any difference whatsoever.

Did you check your hard drive or used the appropriate cabling for ATA 66/100? The faster drives used more cabling on the ATA 100/133.

 

[Trekkie4]

It's kinda funny that you mentioned hard drives, because I had some HDD issues with this particular build. After fiddling with IDE ribbon cable (even replacing one, because the original one was apparently shorted), I ended up hooking hard drive(s) to Secondary channel and optical drives to Primary. Now, just to get this clear - I do know the "rules" and realize that HDDs should always be connected to primary channel only, but I did a research and found out that it doesn't make much of a difference, as long as hard drives are connected together in one "chain" and optical drives to another, with the superior & faster unit being the Master one. Which is exactly what I have here, two identical Maxtor 20GB units working in Master/Slave config and two LiteOn CD-ROMs on the other channel, also working in Master/Slave config. But since one of the CD ROM drives is 52x and the other one is 40x, the faster one is master, while the lower drive (40X) is slave.

To eliminate the HDD (and motherboard) factors, I pulled out the old Savage4 card & swapped it for Vanta M64 card. The benchmark score literally doubled, and I got massive performance boost. So really, it HAS to be the card itself, there's no other explanation.

 

[Nobified[H]]

It's kinda funny that you mentioned hard drives, because I had some HDD issues with this particular build. After fiddling with IDE ribbon cable (even replacing one, because the original one was apparently shorted), I ended up hooking hard drive(s) to Secondary channel and optical drives to Primary. Now, just to get this clear - I do know the "rules" and realize that HDDs should always be connected to primary channel only, but I did a research and found out that it doesn't make much of a difference, as long as hard drives are connected together in one "chain" and optical drives to another, with the superior & faster unit being the Master one. Which is exactly what I have here, two identical Maxtor 20GB units working in Master/Slave config and two LiteOn CD-ROMs on the other channel, also working in Master/Slave config. But since one of the CD ROM drives is 52x and the other one is 40x, the faster one is master, while the lower drive (40X) is slave.

To eliminate the HDD (and motherboard) factors, I pulled out the old Savage4 card & swapped it for Vanta M64 card. The benchmark score literally doubled, and I got massive performance boost. So really, it HAS to be the card itself, there's no other explanation.

Sounds like you may need to check the capacitors on that other graphics card that is under performing. It literally could be a simple fix. If it is lacking power but enough to prevent it from crashing, its like running @ 50%. These are old dinosaurs we are messing with LOL!

 

[Trekkie4]

Sounds like you may need to check the capacitors on that other graphics card that is under performing. It literally could be a simple fix. If it is lacking power but enough to prevent it from crashing, its like running @ 50%. These are old dinosaurs we are messing with LOL!

My point exactly, yes. IDK, I'm not going to throw it away but I'm probably not going to fix it any time soon, either. Like I said, I got this other Savage4 card earlier today, so I'm going to swap it some time today (or tomorrow) & will post benchmark results over here

Edit
OK, so this is getting weirder and weirder... I put the new Savage card into the system, fired it up & it hang at the Windows. So I removed the old drivers & swapped them for new ones, different version. This time Windows Millennium started up, except the entire screen was messed up. Not garbled, but really more like messed up - had a black background, pixelated desktop icons, "show desktop" text showing in the upper-left corner, etc. So I gave up on Win ME & booted into XP. Everything worked fine, until I initiated DirectX tests within "DXDiag". Then XP simply hanged & I had to reboot.

Thinking it was the card itself, I gave it one other opportunity, this using 3DMark. Figured if it hangs or crashes upon benchmark, it HAS to be the card (hardware) fault of some kind, right? But no, to my surprise benchmark worked out OK. Again, painfully slow (at the same FPS rate as the other Savage card), but it wasn't throwing any errors or faults... So really, the ONLY logical explanation I can think of is that both Savage cards are OK, but they're not compatible with this motherboard. Maybe there's something between S3 and ALi chipset? Because I already tried to flash the BIOS, even fiddle with the settings but it didn't make any difference.

Of course, needless to say I once again swapped the Savage4 card for Vanta M64 and it seems to be working OK. Performs pretty good under both Direct3D and OpenGL, so I'm going to leave it like this.

Edit2
Nevermind, I'm an idiot! Should have realized that earlier. My suspicions are confirmed, loads of ppl reported having issues between ALi chipset & Savage4 cards *sigh* Just Google for "S3 Savage ALi Chipset"

 

[Mr.Scott]

My suspicions are confirmed, loads of ppl reported having issues between ALi chipset & Savage4 cards *sigh* Just Google for "S3 Savage ALi Chipset"

I had no idea.
Never been much of an ALi guy.

 

[Nobified[H]]

My point exactly, yes. IDK, I'm not going to throw it away but I'm probably not going to fix it any time soon, either. Like I said, I got this other Savage4 card earlier today, so I'm going to swap it some time today (or tomorrow) & will post benchmark results over here

Edit
OK, so this is getting weirder and weirder... I put the new Savage card into the system, fired it up & it hang at the Windows. So I removed the old drivers & swapped them for new ones, different version. This time Windows Millennium started up, except the entire screen was messed up. Not garbled, but really more like messed up - had a black background, pixelated desktop icons, "show desktop" text showing in the upper-left corner, etc. So I gave up on Win ME & booted into XP. Everything worked fine, until I initiated DirectX tests within "DXDiag". Then XP simply hanged & I had to reboot.

Thinking it was the card itself, I gave it one other opportunity, this using 3DMark. Figured if it hangs or crashes upon benchmark, it HAS to be the card (hardware) fault of some kind, right? But no, to my surprise benchmark worked out OK. Again, painfully slow (at the same FPS rate as the other Savage card), but it wasn't throwing any errors or faults... So really, the ONLY logical explanation I can think of is that both Savage cards are OK, but they're not compatible with this motherboard. Maybe there's something between S3 and ALi chipset? Because I already tried to flash the BIOS, even fiddle with the settings but it didn't make any difference.

Of course, needless to say I once again swapped the Savage4 card for Vanta M64 and it seems to be working OK. Performs pretty good under both Direct3D and OpenGL, so I'm going to leave it like this.

Edit2
Nevermind, I'm an idiot! Should have realized that earlier. My suspicions are confirmed, loads of ppl reported having issues between ALi chipset & Savage4 cards *sigh* Just Google for "S3 Savage ALi Chipset"

This is what happens when ur a cheapie guy! Glad you got it figured out.

 

[Trekkie4]

I had no idea.
Never been much of an ALi guy.

Me either lol, this is my very 1st ALi-based system ever. But when you think about it, it's kinda obvious really. Not a hardware fault, not a driver one either. Not related to Windows, so therefore it has to be incompatibility between the two components, I only feel bad for taking so much time to realize that.

This is what happens when ur a cheapie guy! Glad you got it figured out.

I know, right? Serves me right lol Just my luck ... from over 30 retro VIA, Intel, SiS & nVidia systems in my collection, I just HAD to put the Savage card on the ALi board

It's fine though, Vanta M64 seems to be working just fine with Asus A7A266, and I'm sure I'll be able to use both of the Savage cards for some other purpose. Either some completely new build, or the existing one, might put it inside one of the Rage128 systems I have.

Edit
Heh, this is hilarious... Just saw an old post from around 2001, someone pointed out how Savage4 is highly incompatible with VIA-based boards. So wait, it doesn't work with ALi AND VIA?! Makes you wonder which idiot designed this thing! Ppl had exactly the same symptoms as I did, messed up screen image within Windows ME & pixelated icons.

 

[Nobified[H]]

The MOHAA server is up, If you guys want to jump on and frag away. Me and stinger608 did some mighty fine spray and prayin action!

Need to adjust the CFG files to let games play longer and observer for some bug fixes.

If you want IP of server MOHAA PM me, don't really want to tell the world where it is right now until I got everything locked down.