What retro things have you done today?

Soldato
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Anyone else have any trouble with removing CF cards? This is the 2nd time now my CF has corrupted after loading some files onto it from the modern pc. Really annoying to install w95 and all the drivers again
 
Soldato
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Spent about 2 hours trying to get my voodoo 1 to do something. Just get crashes as soon as it should kick in. Tried GTA in pure dos and it does not crash but says "what 3dFX card".

The card itself does have some bent pins on the big lower chip although they dont appear to be touching. Tomorrow I shall look closer and attempt to move them apart.
 
Soldato
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Anyone else have any trouble with removing CF cards? This is the 2nd time now my CF has corrupted after loading some files onto it from the modern pc. Really annoying to install w95 and all the drivers again

I've had problems with CF cards in the past but it's always turned out to be power supply (or rather 50p molex/sata to floppy power adapter issues). I've not had any problems copying files from a modern PC. What sort of USB to CF adapter are you using?
 
Soldato
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I'm actually quite liking this 4890 crossfire set up.

Jv6nYCnh.jpg

It's not ridiculously loud and in the right game it's quite capable. The GPUs are fairly cool, especially the lower one. I did a few benchmarks with and without crossfire:

ARMA 2 39FPS single card | 48FPS two cards
Skyrim 51 | 60 (locked)
Crysis 2 34 | 42
GTA V 48 | 44
Bioshock Infinite 56 | 70
Witcher 2 35 | 58
Sherlock Holmes C&P 53 | 37

So hit and miss about whether it would add or detract from the performance! This was on the ol' overclocked i7 860 so I was never CPU limited any time.

Next up is my FM2+ build as the parts for that arrived today.
 
Soldato
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@almoststew1990 it is just an "integral" branded usb - cf adapter, nothing fancy. Perhaps it is faulty. It does disconnect and reconnect sometimes while tranferring files.

That is usable performance from those Xfire gpus! You should attempt to see what is the most modern graphicly decent title you can get to run on them!

I put some daylight between the pins on my V1 and still no joy.. But I am making this harder than it needs to be by using a 486. The whole PC refuses to post with the voodoo in certain slots. Going to throw a quick pentium 1 build up at some point to test it there.
 
Caporegime
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Finally got around to checking all my post (been away in Devon) and found that the mystery £1.65 GPU I bought (the picture was a blurry mess, could tell it was an ATI Radeon of some type) is an original Radeon DDR 32MB All-In-Wonder.

Might be able to do some captures using this!
 
Soldato
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Huge collection of motherboards here
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Joblot-c...ards-Computer-Repairs-Builds-621/174422400771

Mostly Socket A or AM2, but an Intel 478 board, 2x DFI Lanpartys and 2 Tyan boards (1 is ~Skt 370 age yellow/blue box, the other is newer)

A DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra in there!!!! :cool:

Something really appealing about some 939 overclocking goodness with sli suddenly... even if my authentic 939 set up had the ati chipset of this and a x800gto2 (that ocuk special)
 
Soldato
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Well the board that got me into retro gaming several years ago has finally died :( it continually and rapidly triggers the power supply turning on and off without me going near the power button, and tries to power up as soon as the ATX connector is plugged in (which was quite scary considering only half the connector was in) . Farewell, basic but completely issue free until now MSI G31something something motherboard.

To be replaced by a slightly better DDR3 G41 bosrd which is on the way!
 
Soldato
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Soldato
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Southampton
I actually did some retro activities today!

My new controller card arrived and thank balls it actually works with my 486. Disabled all on-board controllers and used the card for everything. I might be able to refine it so that only the serial ports on the card are in use (as that is the issue I was having before, the board's serial ports were weird in some way) but for the moment I can't be arsed.

It's a DX4 100 or a DX2 75 (labelled as 80) with 16MB RAM, a Tseng 6000 (I think - a STB Lightspeed 128) and my SB2.0. And the turbo switch is definitely activated :p Time for some Sim City 2000, Secret of Monkey Island and Duke 3D.

Its still set up with a Gotek and a real floppy drive as A and B because I want to go through my random box of disks that I have. I've seen DOS 6.00 install disks, Word Perfect 5.1, MS Works 2.0, Route Express, Professor DOS, and a couple of other utility looking things.

r46HaMP.jpg

hV8nYH2.jpg

RxHznFR.jpg
 
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Soldato
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Nice work! Glad to see you got it going.

I had an unexpected child free evening so decided to build a S7 machine to properly test my V1.

Only the machine had other ideas... I knew the onboard floppy controller was dead so had all onboard floppy/ide/serial disabled and a controller card at the ready. Except I was getting floppy error 40 now.

3 controller cards and 4 cables later I thought I should check the drive itself and yes it had a loose pin. Sorted now but its 10:30pm and windows 95 is only halfway installed.



If this PC is fun to use and works nicely I will keep it in this case and set the display to 120. Although the turbo button will be defunct.
 
Soldato
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Had more time to tinker with this pentium 120 and Voodoo 1 tonight. The voodoo works! Although I have seen many a video on the subject it is still crazy to see the difference between software and glquake. 3dfx GTA looks considerably better too.
 
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@almoststew1990 That box of floppy disks brings back memories, a mixture of 3Ms, Verbatims and cover disks housed in Argos's finest 3.5" floppy storage. Pure nostalgia. :D

The satisfaction of getting a 3.5" floppy disk label perfectly lined up and folding the tab over the back of the disk. /Hovis theme
 
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