TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[lexluthermiester]

Yup! pretty much the reason why I never got my hands on V4, V5 5000 and/or 5500 & 6000

They were worth the cost though! Especially the Voodoo 4000 AGP 64MB DDR version. Best bang for buck of that gen of Voodoo cards.

On a side note, I found one of the very few remaining links for the free version of Black Mesa (Source) available on MODDB

Sweet!! I've been looking for that!

 

[Trekkie4]

They were worth the cost though! Especially the Voodoo 4000 AGP 64MB DDR version. Best bang for buck of that gen of Voodoo cards.


Sweet!! I've been looking for that!

I got BM Installer on my external hard drive, I even burned the whole thing to a DVD. But I wanted this to be transparent & legit without any legal doubts, so finding MOD DB links worked out perfectly!

As for all the differences between retail, paid version & free unfinished one let's just say that apart from missing XEN levels there's not much else to say. Franky I was disappointed with the paid retail edition, and even found bugs throughout the game which hadn't been there in the older, free version. So ... if you don't mind not being able to play through Xen, I'd say that the free version is the way to go.

 

[Susquehannock]

Uhh ... OP? (Original Poster?)


I never had a Voodoo4 before, but judging by the bench test results, I have to say that I'm somewhat disappointed ... 3473 points?! I was always under the impression that Voodoo4 was much more powerful than V3, and V3 obviously being more powerful than V2. Yet, I'm getting 2,659 points on my V2 SLI setup. Which (when you think about it) isn't that far off from your results. From what I remember, V3 3000 (AGP) was around 3,000-something...

Either way, thanks for sharing. There's only so much documentation & information on V4 cards out there


Wait ... From what I understood, you prefer GTX760?

My resolution perhaps? = 1024x768. How does score 5,000 range sound? Seem to remember 800x600 being common test resolution with these cards.

Has been amazing to watch average Ebay selling price of the V4 4500 AGP rise about 400% since I pulled mine out of storage five years ago. Even if price was reasonable I don't see a need to buy one except to round out a 3dfx card collection. Certainly not a stellar performer. Basically half a V5 5500 geared toward the budget sector was it not? Only reason I have this one is because it was free back in year 2000. Thought about selling many times. My GF2 GTS blows it away but nostagilia factor always wins out. Even more so re-visiting my own UT'99 maps made with the V4 card back in 2001.

 

[Trekkie4]

My resolution perhaps? = 1024x768. How does score 5,000 range sound? Seem to remember 800x600 being common test resolution with these cards.

Has been amazing to watch average Ebay selling price of the V4 4500 AGP rise about 400% since I pulled mine out of storage five years ago. Even if price was reasonable I don't see a need to buy one except to round out a 3dfx card collection. Certainly not a stellar performer. Basically half a V5 5500 geared toward the budget sector was it not? Only reason I have this one is because it was free back in year 2000. Thought about selling many times.
View attachment 242705

5,000 certainly sounds a lot better, but nope - it was definitely 1024x768 ... I bench test all my 3dfx cards in this mode

My GF2 GTS blows it away but nostagilia factor always wins out. Even more so re-visiting my own UT'99 maps made with the V4 card back in 2001.

Yup, exactly what I was talking about earlier... I also got GTS, along with TNT2 & GF3 Ti200. It really doesn't matter if something is more powerful than 3dfx, people run Voodoo cards for pure fun & nostalgia

 

[MachineLearning]

Uhh ... OP? (Original Poster?)

Sorry - OP in this case = overpowered.

It does, but with 10 years back I personally think it fits in this thread. I have one Z77 board, got it with a destroyed socket and invested in a socket replacement.

That's such a hot board... God damn.
For sure, I've noticed Z68/Z77 usually have fantastic VRMs for little reason. I guess they were just used to overbuilding them after Westmere and Lynnfield (which actually ran pretty hot for 4c/8t). Then you look at Skylake and Kaby lake boards, and it's like the CPU runs off of a hamster wheel.

 

[Trekkie4]

Sorry - OP in this case = overpowered.

That's such a hot board... God damn.
For sure, I've noticed Z68/Z77 usually have fantastic VRMs for little reason. I guess they were just used to overbuilding them after Westmere and Lynnfield (which actually ran pretty hot for 4c/8t). Then you look at Skylake and Kaby lake boards, and it's like the CPU runs off of a hamster wheel.

Hehe, and here I was thinking Original Poster, Original Picture ... but never overpowered Thanks!

 

[stinger608]

On a side note, I found one of the very few remaining links for the free version of Black Mesa (Source) available on MODDB

Seems that's the one I grabbed several months ago and had nothing but issues with it. Sound issues and game freezing.

I got BM Installer on my external hard drive, I even burned the whole thing to a DVD. But I wanted this to be transparent & legit without any legal doubts, so finding MOD DB links worked out perfectly!

Oh hell, maybe I got it from you? LOLOL

 

[MachineLearning]

Okay, I'm done buying motherboards for a very long time now... If I post another one, someone please yell at me

Got a smoking deal on this ASUS Rampage II Extreme. I love X58, I love (old) ASUS, and it was about 50-60% of the average selling price of these boards on eBay. The only flaws were 1 USB port being broken (wtf is wrong with people?), and the top PCIe retention being broken (don't care).

This was a pretty bizarre board disassembly, similar to the DFI LP Jr. GF9400 T2RS in that the NB has a second heatsink w/ thermal paste. You can grasp what I mean after seeing the heatsinks.

The large part is obvious. The middle square heatsink is what I'm talking about, on top of the NB heatsink. In order to cool vNB, I had to stack 3x 1mm APT2560 pads on top of one another, as the cooler does not extend below to meet the power stages (it had a pretty thick pad @ stock).

The lowest heatsink with the nasty thermal pad is actually for cooling the QPI power stages (and ROG LED), which you may have noticed are missing from the main PCB...

I was NOT ready for this daughterboard to exist. My mind was blown. lol

Yup - I initialed it. It's corny, but if there's a place to sign I'm gonna sign the damn board!!

This board expectedly OC's like mad. I have no idea how high the BCLK will go but it's definitely 210+. It makes my i7-920 absolutely scream. If you're wondering how I got a LFII to work on 1366, it was more simple than you might think:
- LFII comes with a total of 8x washers. grab these and the Intel mounting hardware included
- find an old Asetek (or any usable) WC backplate
- double-stack the washers on the backplate's poles, on the rear of the board only
- install the normal (longer) Intel standoffs included
- done

If you put one washer on the back and one on the front, or two washers on the front, the cooler does not make adequate contact with the CPU. The reason this is possible is because the LFII supports LGA2011, which has identical mounting hole spacing to LGA1366.

I had no idea my 920 was this good.

i7-920 @ 4.5GHz, #1 ranking in 7-zip for this CPU

 

[Trekkie4]

Seems that's the one I grabbed several months ago and had nothing but issues with it. Sound issues and game freezing.



Oh hell, maybe I got it from you? LOLOL

As a matter of fact yes, I did upload Black Mesa files at some point, back on page 430, I think? But I don't see any reasons why the game shouldn't work. Do you have Steam Client & Source SDK2007 installed? The only other thing I could think of are drivers themselves... I even proved that you can run BM on passively-cooled 8600 GTS with no more than 256mb of VRAM

Either way, give it a try with MODDB link & see if it works or not.

 

[stinger608]

Either way, give it a try with MODDB link & see if it works or not.

Yeppers, I'll give that a shot and see.

 

[QuietBob]

Here's something I've been tinkering with lately. The slowest desktop processor with two threads - the Pentium 4C 2.4 GHz (Northwood). In tandem with the slowest DX9 desktop GPU from ATI - the Radeon 9550 SE. I tested them in Win7 to find out if a 1c/2t CPU from 2003 could be used for basic web browsing today

A quick FSB overclock resulted in 3.0 GHz. I couldn't stabilize 3.1 as the board lacks any CPU voltage control:



Then I ran some benchmarks on it:



Surprisingly, the operating system is very responsive. The 32-bit Win7 installation has been fully updated with the latest ESU and MSE for real-time protection. The NetBurst architecture is obviously slow compared to anything more recent, but this 1c/2t system does not feel overly laggy in everyday use. I timed some operations using the 7,200 rpm PATA/100 WD HDD:

desktop from cold boot 1'04"
OS ready 1'21"
Firefox 98.0 loading TPU forums (from clicking the desktop icon) 1'06"
reloading TPU forums 9"
loading TPU homepage 8"

So far so good! But what about media-rich websites? Can this PC be used to watch YT?

loading YT homepage 22"
loading YT video 11" (though the whole page will take up to a minute to load while the video is playing)

The bottom-of-the-barrel GPU offers hardly any assistance in decoding video streams, but clips can be watched in 360p with only occasional stutter (less than 5% frames dropped):

So, can the oldest single core dual-threaded CPU be used as a simple web browser today? With a bit of patience, I'd say yes! But you probably would't want to use a Pentium 4 as a daily driver, at least not a Northwood. Using a modern GPU with a hardware VP9/AV1 decoder would likely speed up YT a good bit, but I'm limited to the AGP slot on this board.

Posted from the actual machine!

 

[Greenslade]

How to put a game on a Floppy disc?
And what is the maximun size of the game i can put on there?
I understand when you format a disc it will be a fair bit smaller them the 1.44. of the discs.
I am waiting for my Floppy Disc drive to come .Apparently they said they tried to deliver it yesterday, but like a lot of the delivery services in the UK, most of the time they never leave a card saying they had called .They say they are trying again today and given a two hour time frame.I am just hoping they do.Are delivery companys like this where you live.?.This particular one are so bad they had to change there name from Hermes to Evri .I would rather use a pick up and collect one ,but the seller was charging a extra two pounds for that I have never seen a seller charing extra for click and collect.It got delivered my buzzer does not work i put a notr on the door about it.Someone else lrt him in.He had a go at me telling me to get it fixed.I am not going to use them again anyway.I prefer mt buzzer not to work it has not worked for years,I don,t get people coming here anyway.The floppy drive is a weighty unit.

 

[Trekkie4]

How to put a game on a Floppy disc?
And what is the maximun size of the game i can put on there?
I understand when you format a disc it will be a fair bit smaller them the 1.44. of the discs.

Uhh... Simply drag & drop files from your hard drive? Or use DOS command, copy C:\Game\*.* (all the files with all the extensions) to A:\Game\. Here's the working example:

copy c:\games\tetris\*.* a:\games\tetris

alternatively, you may use xcopy command which will copy the entire folder/directory to floppy drive. And yes, fully formatted floppy disk will hold capacity of roughly 1.44mb give it or take it. Other than that, floppy will behave like any other CD-ROM drive, USB flash disk or hard drive.

 

[Greenslade]

Uhh... Simply drag & drop files from your hard drive? Or use DOS command, copy C:\Game\*.* (all the files with all the extensions) to A:\Game\. Here's the working example:

copy c:\games\tetris\*.* a:\games\tetris

alternatively, you may use xcopy command which will copy the entire folder/directory to floppy drive. And yes, fully formatted floppy disk will hold capacity of roughly 1.44mb give it or take it. Other than that, floppy will behave like any other CD-ROM drive, USB flash disk or hard drive.

Thanks for that info. Can i only use Dos for a PC?

 

[Trekkie4]

Thanks for that info. Can i only use Dos for a PC?

You've got to be kidding me ... right?!

If not, then I'm going to assume that you never had a 386, 486, or 5x86 machine before? As for the modern systems, I suppose you could ... depending on the motherboard age & chipset. But in short & without too much details - yes, you could. But the real question is why would you want to?

 

[SomeOne99h]

Thanks for that info. Can i only use Dos for a PC?

DOSBox-X​

Cross-platform DOS emulation package​

Complete, accurate emulation and more​

DOSBox-X - Accurate emulation & DOS development

DOSBox-X: Free, cross-platform and complete DOS, Windows 3.x and 9x emulation package

dosbox-x.com

DOSBox-X emulates a PC necessary for running many DOS games and applications that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, similar to DOSBox. However, while the main focus of DOSBox is for running DOS games, DOSBox-X goes much further than this. Forked from the DOSBox project, it retains compatibility with the wide base of DOS games and DOS gaming DOSBox was designed for. But it is also a platform for running DOS applications, including emulating the environments to run Windows 3.x, 9x and ME and software written for those versions of Windows. By adding official support for Windows 95, 98, ME emulation and acceleration, we hope that those old Windows games and applications could be enjoyed or used once more. Moreover, DOSBox-X adds support for DOS/V and NEC PC-98 emulations so that you can play DOS/V and PC-98 games with it.

^^^^^
It is a more complete version of Dosbox. You can even install Windows 3.x/95/98/Me.
I know this is for old hardware. but if Greenslade wants an easier way to play old Windows ME and under /DOS games, this is best solution I know.
EDIT: I forgot to say that you will have better results running DOS games on DOSBox-X than the original Dosbox. And you don't even have to use command lines like in the original. I don't see any reason for me to use the original Dosbox instead of DOSBox-X.

 

[Greenslade]

You've got to be kidding me ... right?!

If not, then I'm going to assume that you never had a 386, 486, or 5x86 machine before? As for the modern systems, I suppose you could ... depending on the motherboard age & chipset. But in short & without too much details - yes, you could. But the real question is why would you want to?

No i am not.It is a novelty thing for me ,i was around at the time but i never got in to Pc,s tell 2005.

 

[Trekkie4]

No i am not.It is a novelty thing for me ,i was around at the time but i never got in to Pc,s tell 2005.

Right, sorry In that case you really should consider what @SomeOne99h wrote, above. Using the "real" DOS (especially when you don't know commands) can be tedious work.

The reason I brought up 386, 486 & 586 machines was because of DOS ... these things mostly ran MS-DOS (v6.22) as primary OS, sometimes in combination with Windows 3.11. But most of the work was still done through DOS commands, which answers your previous question. Yes, you most certainly can use DOS on a PC. But we are talking really old systems in this case, not the modern ones ... I have no idea if it would work on a modern platform.

 

[Greenslade]

Right, sorry In that case you really should consider what @SomeOne99h wrote, above. Using the "real" DOS (especially when you don't know commands) can be tedious work.

The reason I brought up 386, 486 & 586 machines was because of DOS ... these things mostly ran MS-DOS (v6.22) as primary OS, sometimes in combination with Windows 3.11. But most of the work was still done through DOS commands, which answers your previous question. Yes, you most certainly can use DOS on a PC. But we are talking really old systems in this case, not the modern ones ... I have no idea if it would work on a modern platform.

I will be using it on my thin Client with Windiws 98 which i have not got round to getting Win 98 on there yet.I realise that.I just put a bid in for 2 x boxes of 10 x MF - 2HD 3.5" MF2HD1.44MB discs they were asking 10 i offered 8 . that will be it for floppy discs ,what with the 20 i will be picking up tomorrow.40 floppy, s is more than enough for me. Click and collect with no postage. I have never seen the make before

DOSBox-X​

Cross-platform DOS emulation package​

Complete, accurate emulation and more​

DOSBox-X - Accurate emulation & DOS development

DOSBox-X: Free, cross-platform and complete DOS, Windows 3.x and 9x emulation package

dosbox-x.com

DOSBox-X emulates a PC necessary for running many DOS games and applications that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, similar to DOSBox. However, while the main focus of DOSBox is for running DOS games, DOSBox-X goes much further than this. Forked from the DOSBox project, it retains compatibility with the wide base of DOS games and DOS gaming DOSBox was designed for. But it is also a platform for running DOS applications, including emulating the environments to run Windows 3.x, 9x and ME and software written for those versions of Windows. By adding official support for Windows 95, 98, ME emulation and acceleration, we hope that those old Windows games and applications could be enjoyed or used once more. Moreover, DOSBox-X adds support for DOS/V and NEC PC-98 emulations so that you can play DOS/V and PC-98 games with it.

^^^^^
It is a more complete version of Dosbox. You can even install Windows 3.x/95/98/Me.
I know this is for old hardware. but if Greenslade wants an easier way to play old Windows ME and under /DOS games, this is best solution I know.
EDIT: I forgot to say that you will have better results running DOS games on DOSBox-X than the original Dosbox. And you don't even have to use command lines like in the original. I don't see any reason for me to use the original Dosbox instead of DOSBox-X.

Thanks for your in-depth info.

 

[karakarga]

One really bad thing happening soon is, end of life of Internet Explorer 11 in June 2022.

It is bad, because, x86 only processors from Pentium 3 ~ 4 era can not enter into web without that browser. The last browser to use with a P3-1000 CPU is to install Windows 7 with at least 1 GB ram and to use Internet Explorer 11 with it. There is still support for Windows 7 but it is in the last year of extended support.

People still can not managed to find a good solution to crack Windows 10 to run such old hardware because of newer requirements but:

XD ? --> BypassXDCheck for Intel
NX ? --> BypassNXCheck for AMD
XN ? --> BypassXNCheck for ARM (absurd!)
PAE ? --> BypassPAECheck
SSE ? --> BypassSSECheck for AMD Athlon
SSE2 ? --> BypassSSE2Check

- Did anyone tried those commands like bypassing TPM? -

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig]
"BypassTPMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassSecureBootCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassRAMCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassStorageCheck"=dword:00000001
"BypassCPUCheck"=dword:00000001

like that we know.

--> Volunteers wanted to test those in bold above to crack Windows 10 x86 edition to run old hardware! <--

Note: A modified iso image must be prepared and written on 4.7GB DVD before installation!

In appraisers.dll file there are NX, SSE2, LahfSahf, PrefetchW and CompareExchange128 options to play with. I have to delete those all!

Example:

[DT_ANY_PRF_ProcessorRequirementIssues]
I:SSE2ProcessorSupport=FALSE
I:NXProcessorSupport=FALSE
I:CompareExchange128Support=FALSE
I:LahfSahfSupport=FALSE
IrefetchWSupport=FALSE

I will soon try those like being at this link:

but maybe I can be successful for Pentium 4 only "without NX bit" being ones only, not for Pentium III!

 

[Trekkie4]

Let me ask you guys a question... I don't suppose someone in here would have Iomega ZIP drive demo application, which was available on some ZIP disks straight out of the box?

Basically interactive demo/commercial, which would say something like "Iomega, makes data managing faster and easier than ever"? And then you had various ZIP diskette icons (to find out more about Iomega products, and technical information) but when you moved the pointer across each & every one of them, it would make a drum-like sound. And if you tried it for couple of times, it would ask you if you want to play the game? (where you have to repeat the given melody, following the ZIP diskette pattern)

 

[stinger608]

Damn bro.

I wish I had Iomega software but I don't man.

 

[Trekkie4]

Damn bro.

I wish I had Iomega software but I don't man.

It's all good, same here. Used to have this app back in the early 2000s but I lost it over time...

 

[lexluthermiester]

Let me ask you guys a question... I don't suppose someone in here would have Iomega ZIP drive demo application, which was available on some ZIP disks straight out of the box?

Basically interactive demo/commercial, which would say something like "Iomega, makes data managing faster and easier than ever"? And then you had various ZIP diskette icons (to find out more about Iomega products, and technical information) but when you moved the pointer across each & every one of them, it would make a drum-like sound. And if you tried it for couple of times, it would ask you if you want to play the game? (where you have to repeat the given melody, following the ZIP diskette pattern)

I've got a bunch. PM me.

EDIT: pretty sure this will be ok;

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

archive.org

 

[Greenslade]

Let me ask you guys a question... I don't suppose someone in here would have Iomega ZIP drive demo application, which was available on some ZIP disks straight out of the box?

Basically interactive demo/commercial, which would say something like "Iomega, makes data managing faster and easier than ever"? And then you had various ZIP diskette icons (to find out more about Iomega products, and technical information) but when you moved the pointer across each & every one of them, it would make a drum-like sound. And if you tried it for couple of times, it would ask you if you want to play the game? (where you have to repeat the given melody, following the ZIP diskette pattern)

I saw this on the exalant LGR video the other day.

One of the discs equivalent to 70 floppy discs