TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[GreiverBlade]

When unlocking the multiplier was easy.

ah! the graphite pencil trick!

darn i want that Athlon (i have a ceramic package Duron, my famous "cracked core edition" )

And I consider myself as a FF veteran.

so do i ... my forum name come from FFVIII (with a typo ... it's actually Grieverblade ) and my RL "callsign" is "Squall"

 

[Trekkie4]

So there, the video card issue has been (temporarily?) resolved...


IDK, I just don't like the way it looks, or even sounds to be honest. It was meant to be a unique build (especially since I've never done a non-MMX Pentium before), but this is just too much. Sure, it will work, and yes, it DOES work, but this 133MHz CPU doesn't have what it takes to tame a Voodoo2 card IMO. Besides, this means I had to "sacrifice" one of my previous builds, in order to grab a spare Voodoo card in working condition. So I took apart one of my old builds, a Pentium III 866 (Asus CUSL2-C) & removed its Voodoo2 card, replacing it for Hauppauge TV tuner card. I feel really bad for having to "steal" from myself, but this particular system also has GF4 MX400 AGP card, capable of so much more than a stand-alone, 8MB Voodoo2 card. So at least it's not a HUGE loss, but it's still a loss nevertheless...


On the other hand, my only other alternative is to keep the software rendering mode & put up with all sorts of issues. So IDK, you be the judge! At least I decided to use the 8MB version, somehow 12 seemed way too much for a system that's supposed to have around 2, 4MB of VRAM at max

 

[lexluthermiester]

I played FF XIII over 200 hours on X360, tried to hunt down that Treasure Hunter achievement... didn't get it. I'm not still even near to that on Steam version.
Truly an underrated game, love the story, characters, SOUNDTRACK! and gameplay. And I consider myself as a FF veteran.

See, I'm way old school. FF6[3 in the US] was easily my fav Final Fantasy, with FF4[2 US] a close second.

but this 133MHz CPU doesn't have what it takes to tame a Voodoo2 card IMO.

Not true, the Voodoo2 was my default 3D card in my old P133 system back in the day and it did very well. When I upgraded to a P200MMX most 3D accelerated games only got a small bump which showed that the CPU wasn't the bottleneck. Software rendered games got a larger boost from the upgrade. Keep the Voodoo 2!

 

[Trekkie4]

Alrighty then! if I ever come across another, functional Voodoo (1) card, or perhaps Rush/Banshee, I'll most likely put them inside instead of the Voodoo2.

Until then,


...let it


...be magic!


Meanwhile, my inner voice:

 

[StrayKAT]

See, I'm way old school. FF6[3 in the US] was easily my fav Final Fantasy, with FF4[2 US] a close second.


Not true, the Voodoo2 was my default 3D card in my old P133 system back in the day and it did very well. When I upgraded to a P200MMX most 3D accelerated games only got a small bump which showed that the CPU wasn't the bottleneck. Software rendered games got a larger boost from the upgrade. Keep the Voodoo 2!

Oh I like the whole series. I just meant "even FF13". It starts slow, but I think it gets unnecessary flack.

 

[Mr.Scott]

And so the Pentium 133 project continues...

Tomb Raider III (barely runs, at around 1 FPS )


CART Precision Racing DEMO


Monster Truck Madness II


Grand Theft Auto (1)


Grand Theft Auto London


Duke Nukem 3D


Dangerous Dave


Doom/Doom2


Heretic


The Lionking


The Secret of Monkey island



Prince (of Persia)


Stunts


And that's about it for now... The only thing left is to resolve is the hardware upgrade, I would really, REALLY like to get my hands on a decent PCI video card, because this is just absurd IMO! And I would prefer to stay "true" to the original formula & avoid using 3dfx ... but considering I don't have much of a choice, I might end up grabbing the Voodoo (2?) card from one of the other systems & putting it inside this one here *shrug*

What?....no Full Throttle?

 

[Trekkie4]

What?....no Full Throttle?

Nope! Not even Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis (my all times, personal favorite!) Thing is, I ran into problems with SCUMM VM emulation (CPU bottleneck?), but couldn't get the game started under Win95 either *shrug* IDK, first time to encounter a problem like that.

But TBH, with all the 3D problems going on, I didn't have the time (or patience) to look into it, so I just moved on with other games.

 

[Ruru]

See, I'm way old school. FF6[3 in the US] was easily my fav Final Fantasy, with FF4[2 US] a close second.

Those are still excellent games. I'm just pissed that they haven't made I & II for PC, at least not yet, since they have ported so many FF games in recent years. FF II is such an underrated game, love the PS1 version which I have.

ah! the graphite pencil trick!

darn i want that Athlon (i have a ceramic package Duron, my famous "cracked core edition" )

I have another 1GHz Athlon under the Thermaltake cooler on my Asrock K7VT4A Pro. It has also a cracked core, but it seems to work. Those didn't usually give a crap if there were minor cracks on the die. But as you can see, that one in the pick has the legendary AXIA stepping, those usually clock easily 1400MHz, IIRC there were rumors that the AXIA ones were meant to be for a 1500MHz model, but AMD never released such one as the 1.4GHz was the fastest Thunderbird. Bought that from ebay FYI

I just need to get a bios update for that motherboard, since it doesn't like that I'm going to install WinXP from an USB drive. Hey come on, who has FDDs or DVD drives lying in closets anymore..

At least the X800 Pro (which I've planned to use with the Socket A platform) works when I tried with Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA, too bad though it's just a X800 Pro, not a VIVO model which could be flashed to XT PE..

so do i ... my forum name come from FFVIII (with a typo ... it's actually Grieverblade ) and my RL "callsign" is "Squall"

I know, I remember when you had Griever as your avatar

 

[Trekkie4]

Those are still excellent games. I'm just pissed that they haven't made I & II for PC, at least not yet, since they have ported so many FF games in recent years. FF II is such an underrated game, love the PS1 version which I have.


I have another 1GHz Athlon under the Thermaltake cooler on my Asrock K7VT4A Pro. It has also a cracked core, but it seems to work. Those didn't usually give a crap if there were minor cracks on the die. But as you can see, that one in the pick has the legendary AXIA stepping, those usually clock easily 1400MHz, IIRC there were rumors that the AXIA ones were meant to be for a 1500MHz model, but AMD never released such one as the 1.4GHz was the fastest Thunderbird. Bought that from ebay FYI

I just need to get a bios update for that motherboard, since it doesn't like that I'm going to install WinXP from an USB drive. Hey come on, who has FDDs or DVD drives lying in closets anymore..

At least the X800 Pro (which I've planned to use with the Socket A platform) works when I tried with Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA, too bad though it's just a X800 Pro, not a VIVO model which could be flashed to XT PE..

I know, I remember when you had Griever as your avatar

Also got one of those, except mine is super rare "White Edition"


Model number reads: A1000AMT3C, AMD Athlon 1000MHz, Thunderbird

 

[Ruru]

Also got one of those, except mine is super rare "White Edition"


Model number reads: A1000AMT3C, AMD Athlon 1000MHz, Thunderbird

The 1GHz model is important to me, that powered my PC when I moved away from being only a console gamer.. looked tips for overclocking it, broke the multiplier lock also back then, and it was 24/7 stable at 1404MHz. Abit KT7A, 512MB PC133 and GF4 Ti 4200, oh the memories..

 

[Trekkie4]

The 1GHz model is important to me, that powered my PC when I moved away from being only a console gamer.. looked tips for overclocking it, broke the multiplier lock also back then, and it was 24/7 stable at 1404MHz. Abit KT7A, 512MB PC133 and GF4 Ti 4200, oh the memories..

Right, I hear you We all got our personal (& sentimental) favorites... Mine are 66MHz (DX2) & 350MHz (Pentium II) By the time I reached 1.4GHz, I had that Pentium 4 machine, which I mentioned yesterday. Socket 423, with 128 RIMM memory, Matrox G450 AGP card & 40GB Maxtor.

 

[Ruru]

Right, I hear you We all got our personal (& sentimental) favorites... Mine are 66MHz (DX2) & 350MHz (Pentium II) By the time I reached 1.4GHz, I had that Pentium 4 machine, which I mentioned yesterday. Socket 423, with 128 RIMM memory, Matrox G450 AGP card & 40GB Maxtor.

No experiences of RDRAM here, if you don't count PS2 which has RDRAM

There's just something about that 1GHz clockspeed which still being memories. Hell, even some music tracks brings me back to that era when I listened those with Winamp on my 1GHz computer.

But what's that core stepping of yours? ASH*A? Never heard of those. I've got experience only of AYHJA and AXIA Thunderbirds, recently I got an AXHA version which I've never heard before, that's the one what I mentioned with cracked die which works after all..

edit: Ah, Matrox... I had a G400 as a temporirary card back in the day, and damn the VGA video quality was great with my 21" Trinitron which I had then.

 

[Trekkie4]

No experiences of RDRAM here, if you don't count PS2 which has RDRAM

There's just something about that 1GHz clockspeed which still being memories. Hell, even some music tracks brings me back to that era when I listened those with Winamp on my 1GHz computer.

But what's that core stepping of yours? ASH*A? Never heard of those. I've got experience only of AYHJA and AXIA Thunderbirds, recently I got an AXHA version which I've never heard before, that's the one what I mentioned with cracked die which works after all..

edit: Ah, Matrox... I had a G400 as a temporirary card back in the day, and damn the VGA video quality was great with my 21" Trinitron which I had then.

IMO, 1GHz was a breaking point. Up until then, all the CPUs were measured in MHz, therefore 1GHz introduced a whole new generation, new range to the computer industry & opened up new possibilities.

Are you referring to Athlon? The model number reads A1000AMT3C, not ASHA

 

[Ruru]

IMO, 1GHz was a breaking point. Up until then, all the CPUs were measured in MHz, therefore 1GHz introduced a whole new generation, new range to the computer industry & opened up new possibilities.

Are you referring to Athlon? The model number reads A1000AMT3C, not ASHA

No, not the first line on the die. My sitting-on-desk CPU says

A1000AMT3C
AXIA0118XPAW
*copyright markings* 1999 AMD

I remember how to read when it was manufactured, week 18 in 01.

 

[Trekkie4]

No, not the first line on the die. My sitting-on-desk CPU says

A1000AMT3C
AXIA0118XPAW
*copyright markings* 1999 AMD

I remember how to read when it was manufactured, week 18 in 01.

Oh, right! Right, it says ASHHA 01325PE(W?) Can't tell the last one for sure...

 

[Mr.Scott]

I just need to get a bios update for that motherboard, since it doesn't like that I'm going to install WinXP from an USB drive. Hey come on, who has FDDs or DVD drives lying in closets anymore..

I do.

 

[Ruru]

I do.

Well, I'm getting also now when you mentioned it!

 

[Trekkie4]

Just messing around with 3dfx, not really much of a "progress", I guess


In fact, I gave it a real challenge - to run Half-Life! I'll be honest, I was expecting this thing to crash &/or hang, but to my surprise it's working just fine!


And for the sake of comparison, here are the two Half-Life loading screens - Software rendering on the left & 3dfx Voodoo2 on the right. I have to say, the accelerated one seems kinda blurry & out of proportions, but the framerate is mostly stable, at around solid 25, 30FPS.


Speaking of lags & slow framerate, Tomb Raider III is now running smoothly & feels more dynamic. Screenshot is not really doing it much justice I suppose, but comparing to what I had before, around 0.5 to 1 FPS this thing is just plain awesome!

 

[lexluthermiester]

In fact, I gave it a real challenge - to run Half-Life! I'll be honest, I was expecting this thing to crash &/or hang, but to my surprise it's working just fine!

I'm not. HL1 was based on the Quake 1 engine, which the Voodoo 1 & 2 easily ran. Still, I wonder how Quake 2 and 3 would run?...

 

[Trekkie4]

I'm not. HL1 was based on the Quake 1 engine, which the Voodoo 1 & 2 easily ran. Still, I wonder how Quake 2 and 3 would run?...

True! But Half-Life (or rather, GoldSource) was a heavily modified Quake engine... And they are BOTH originating from the Doom engine, aka id Tech 1 but now I digress.

By the time Half-Life got released, it was already miles ahead of Quake, I would dare to say even Quake2 so it would be interesting to see... Will give it a try later today

 

[hat]

I remember really wanting to play Quake 3 when I had a 400MHz K6-II, but I had no graphics card. I played Unreal Tournament instead.

 

[lexluthermiester]

True! But Half-Life (or rather, GoldSource) was a heavily modified Quake engine... And they are BOTH originating from the Doom engine, aka id Tech 1 but now I digress.

By the time Half-Life got released, it was already miles ahead of Quake, I would dare to say even Quake2 so it would be interesting to see... Will give it a try later today

Good points. I'm not sure that the HL1 engine was ahead of Q2 though. That would be an interesting analysis..

 

[StrayKAT]

I remember really wanting to play Quake 3 when I had a 400MHz K6-II, but I had no graphics card. I played Unreal Tournament instead.

I think I had a PowerMac funnily. Not many other games on Mac OS at the time.. that was one of them (classic Mac OS, that is).

HL1 was innovative to me narrative/story wise. It didn't stand out to me for other reasons. 2 did because of physics.

 

[Aaron_Henderson]

I got this Duron 1800 CPU, but the board it came with does not have an AGP slot...it does have onboard...but that won't do...anyone recommend a decent but cost effective board for it? Will eventually be a WinXP retro build to go along with my Win98. SE machine I built not long ago.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I got this Duron 1800 CPU, but the board it came with does not have an AGP slot...it does have onboard...but that won't do...anyone recommend a decent but cost effective board for it? Will eventually be a WinXP retro build to go along with my Win98. SE machine I built not long ago.

Ebay is great for older parts. Just type in " Socket A motherboard " and you will find a good number of choices.