- Joined
- Jan 1, 2015
- Messages
- 1,800 (0.50/day)
- Location
- EU
| System Name | Adison "Open Space" 19 |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Pentium II, 350MHz |
| Motherboard | Chaintech 6BTM, Slot 1 |
| Cooling | SECC Cartridge |
| Memory | 1x 64MB, PC100 |
| Video Card(s) | ATI Rage IIc AGP, Diamond Monster 3DII 12MB |
| Storage | BTC BCD-40XH, Quantum Fireball 3.5 Series, EX6.4 GB |
| Display(s) | LG StudioWorks 57M |
| Case | Adison Midi Tower, ATX |
| Audio Device(s) | Creative SoundBlaster 128 |
| Power Supply | Codegen 300W |
| Mouse | Genius SlimStar 110, PS/2 |
| Keyboard | Genius SlimStar 110, PS/2 |
| Software | Microsoft Windows 98 |
Booting up the fresh copies of ME & XP on that former Savage, now Vanta machine. Guess it would be easier to just call it Duron 950, aka the cheap bucket 
Let's compare the benchmark results, just for the sake of fun & nostalgic hardware! 1st result was the Savage4 card (the original one), while the 2nd result is for nVidia Vanta M64
Savage4 Pro
Vanta/M64
You don't even have to be a tech in order to tell there's something seriously wrong with this setup... Savage4 is falling behind Vanta by 526 points! And these were default settings, 1024x768 with color set to 16bit and 16bit z-buffer!
Anyhow, time to move on... I've been experimenting with some of the games I got, I wanted to see just how capable Vanta card actually is. And to my surprise it proved itself to be more than worthy for most of the older titles. OK, some of them were running kinda slow (Colin McRae Rally 2 for example), but once I set the config settings to medium & removed the shadows, it was running around steady 20-25 FPS. On the other hand, Half-Life, Opposing Force, Unreal & UT were all running at even higher rate, without any slowdowns or compatibility issues.
Same thing with Max Payne... For the sake of playing it safe (and therefore saving my time), I set all the values to medium config. But according to in-game experience, it might even accept higher settings, because it's very sharp & responsive, doesn't have any lags or slowdowns whatsoever.
Still have to tweak certain things & have it properly tested tomorrow, but apart from that I'm not going to waste any more time with this build. Even though I didn't get to experience S3TC & MeTaL features, guess I managed to prove just how easy it is to make a cheap, yet reliable retro system! As I already pointed out in one of my earlier posts, you don't really need 3dfx or fancy audio equipment, unless you're going for a retro super-build! In which case you'll need to spend some cash & arm yourself with loads of patience
Edit
Correction - I've just realized that Vanta and M64 are two completely different video cards, even though most sellers (even retailers) refer to both cards as if they're the same thing. In fact, some cards are even labeled as "Vanta M64", which is what had me confused to begin with...
So apparently M64 is the beefed up version of Vanta with higher GPU clock & VRAM between 16 & 32MB, but they're both slower & stripped-down versions of TNT2, which easily outperforms both. Also, one other thing which I noticed is that M64 comes with bigger heatsinks, or even active cooling (such as mine), while the Vanta card has smaller passively-cooled heatsink and/or doesn't even have one to begin with.
Let's compare the benchmark results, just for the sake of fun & nostalgic hardware! 1st result was the Savage4 card (the original one), while the 2nd result is for nVidia Vanta M64
Savage4 Pro
Vanta/M64
You don't even have to be a tech in order to tell there's something seriously wrong with this setup... Savage4 is falling behind Vanta by 526 points! And these were default settings, 1024x768 with color set to 16bit and 16bit z-buffer!
Anyhow, time to move on... I've been experimenting with some of the games I got, I wanted to see just how capable Vanta card actually is. And to my surprise it proved itself to be more than worthy for most of the older titles. OK, some of them were running kinda slow (Colin McRae Rally 2 for example), but once I set the config settings to medium & removed the shadows, it was running around steady 20-25 FPS. On the other hand, Half-Life, Opposing Force, Unreal & UT were all running at even higher rate, without any slowdowns or compatibility issues.
Same thing with Max Payne... For the sake of playing it safe (and therefore saving my time), I set all the values to medium config. But according to in-game experience, it might even accept higher settings, because it's very sharp & responsive, doesn't have any lags or slowdowns whatsoever.
Still have to tweak certain things & have it properly tested tomorrow, but apart from that I'm not going to waste any more time with this build. Even though I didn't get to experience S3TC & MeTaL features, guess I managed to prove just how easy it is to make a cheap, yet reliable retro system! As I already pointed out in one of my earlier posts, you don't really need 3dfx or fancy audio equipment, unless you're going for a retro super-build! In which case you'll need to spend some cash & arm yourself with loads of patience
Edit
Correction - I've just realized that Vanta and M64 are two completely different video cards, even though most sellers (even retailers) refer to both cards as if they're the same thing. In fact, some cards are even labeled as "Vanta M64", which is what had me confused to begin with...
So apparently M64 is the beefed up version of Vanta with higher GPU clock & VRAM between 16 & 32MB, but they're both slower & stripped-down versions of TNT2, which easily outperforms both. Also, one other thing which I noticed is that M64 comes with bigger heatsinks, or even active cooling (such as mine), while the Vanta card has smaller passively-cooled heatsink and/or doesn't even have one to begin with.
Last edited:
)
) fan, 95W copper-core cooler w/~2500rpm Nidec Fan, 65W All-Al cooler w/~2400rpm Nidec Fan)
That's awesome. .....and quite rare.
