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Found a couple old computers in my dumpster

racketboy - Jun 6, 2003

		racketboy	Jun 6, 2003
		I just noticed the case has dip switch CPU setting for speeds up to 233 -- so I guess that answers the CPU question (?)

		ExCyber	Jun 6, 2003
		If you can score a deal on one, get a Matrox Millennium. For 2D work, they make most modern cards look like toys. Edit: the original ones, not the G200/G400 stuff.

racketboy

Jun 6, 2003

Originally posted by ExCyber@Jun 7, 2003 @ 02:58 AM

If you can score a deal on one, get a Matrox Millennium. For 2D work, they make most modern cards look like toys.

Edit: the original ones, not the G200/G400 stuff.

Millenium or Millenium II?

Could you give me a quick rundown/comparison on Matrox cards?

		Tindo@heart	Jun 6, 2003
		oh, so the 166 is MMX. good for you. I'm not sure what type of RAM it uses, but I was referring to the 72-pin RAM . . . forgot if it's called SIMM or DIMM . . but that can be expensive, and some pentiums 1's still use it. MMX pentiums might requier the newer PC66/PC100 Ram though, which is cheaper. You might can try those dip switches and overclock, it shouldn't hurt anything. I'll be getting a Pentium II 233Mhz soon someone found on the side of the road. It boots to a black screen. I can't wait to get my hands on it and toy around. I'll try to post and ask questions about it here. I think it is a Packard Bell Multimedia 705, not sure. have you tried anyting from the URL that you posted about the BIOS? that seemed like good advice.

ExCyber

Jun 6, 2003

Millenium or Millenium II?

Just looked it up; I'm pretty sure I'm thinking of the Millennium II.

Could you give me a quick rundown/comparison on Matrox cards?

Basically:

Millennium II: best for 2D and has some 3D (but nothing that will help you much for games made in the past few years or so)

m3d: A dedicated 3D accelerator add-on.

Millennium G200/G400: modern style 2D/3D hybrid cards. Supposed to have pretty nice 2D but not quite as nice as Millennium II from what I hear. 3D is supposedly competitive but not quite up to beating NVidia at the time they were released.

Productiva: A heavily "budget" version of the G200.

Mystique: "Budget" cards.

Marvel: Cards with video input/output (comparable to ATI's "All-In-Wonder" line).

Rainbow Runner: Add-on video I/O cards.

Quadriflax

Jun 6, 2003

Originally posted by racketboy@Jun 6, 2003 @ 06:21 PM

any star wars games that will run on a 486?

X-Wing and Tie Fighter should both work okay. Rebel Assault as well, but I didn't like that game. Oh, and Dark Forces is a blast. There's probably more, but those four come to mind.

		Area-51	Jun 6, 2003
		ok, racketboy you're gonna love this..... Them old compaq machines, and i've worked on many, are a pain in the arse They typically, 99% of the time have a hidden partition on the hd that contains the BIOS. If someone has Fdisk'd the drive and repartitioned it, then the BIOS partition is toast. You can go out to the compaq website from another computer and look up all the drivers for your particular model and d/l the Bios onto a bootable floppy. Then you can boot the computer having no BIOS with the floppy in the drive and install the BIOS onto the harddrive(it creates it's own ~2MB hidden partion).(You must go in and remove any partitions on the HD with FDISK before you do this). Once the BIOS is installed on the HD in it's own hidden partion, boot with the win 98 startup disk and use fdisk to partition the rest of the drive. once you've installed the BIOS from the floppy to the HD, most of the compaqs use F10 when you see compaq in big red letters on the screen and you see a little white box blink up in the top right corner of the screen.

		racketboy	Jun 7, 2003
		thanks for the tips yeah I've never big on Compaqs. This is actually the nicest one hardware-wise I've dealt with. I like the case and the board layout. I'll keep you posted....

		racketboy	Jun 7, 2003
		win9x doesn't supprt partitions over 2GB, right?

		ExCyber	Jun 7, 2003
		Win9x doesn't support files over 2GB.

racketboy

Jun 7, 2003

Originally posted by Tindo@heart@Jun 7, 2003 @ 02:26 AM

I'd get a soundblaster AWE64. or someone might can suggest a "real" full duplex ISA card. Don't use any driver for this card you find on the Net, use the Windows drivers that automatically install when you insert the card. That should give you good full duplex capability.

just ordered one for $8 shipped on eBay -- nice deal

		Tindo@heart	Jun 8, 2003
		Great! I got mine for 9, I think. This card produces beautiful midi, and it has some type of "Sound fonts" that I never mess with . . I think it has 512K of memory and expanable to 4MB to hold .wav recordings that .midi files can use. . Like real piano sounds and stuff. . NEway, that's all I know. If you use >=Win98 you'll want to use the standard Windows drivers. I never had luck getting "full duplex" with any other driver. I couldn't play more than 1 sound at once. For example; If I was listening to an MP3, I couldn't hear when I got an email. The (WDM) drivers are what you need. With these you can play 6 MP3s at once if you want and record it into a wave file. I can't remember if Win98 installed those automatically. Tell me your results and I might can tear out the WDM drivers for you to use. I hope to get a few more of these cards.

		racketboy	Jun 8, 2003
		this computer will only be running one app at once most of the time so that shouldn't be much of an issue same with RAM requirements they can play CD audio and stuff right?

Tindo@heart

Jun 8, 2003

Originally posted by racketboy@Jun 8, 2003 @ 01:11 AM

they can play CD audio and stuff right?

*I made a small edit in the previous post*

Yup, they have two different types of "input jacks" *terms

for your audio cable that runs from the CDROM.

racketboy

Jun 8, 2003

Originally posted by Tindo@heart+Jun 8, 2003 @ 05:14 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tindo@heart @ Jun 8, 2003 @ 05:14 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-racketboy@Jun 8, 2003 @ 01:11 AM

they can play CD audio and stuff right?

*I made a small edit in the previous post*

Yup, they have two different types of "input jacks" *terms

for your audio cable that runs from the CDROM. [/b][/quote]

well, I mean... the games she has has music and voice clips.

will those play with no problems?

Tindo@heart

Jun 8, 2003

Originally posted by racketboy+Jun 8, 2003 @ 01:16 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(racketboy @ Jun 8, 2003 @ 01:16 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>
Originally posted by Tindo@heart@Jun 8, 2003 @ 05:14 AM

<!--QuoteBegin-racketboy

@Jun 8, 2003 @ 01:11 AM

they can play CD audio and stuff right?

*I made a small edit in the previous post*

Yup, they have two different types of "input jacks" *terms for your audio cable that runs from the CDROM.

well, I mean... the games she has has music and voice clips.

will those play with no problems?[/b][/quote]

voice and music? . . probably better than ever. If you mean "music" as in Midi files. . .but if you mean Music as in CD audio then it will play it just as great also.

I also have DOS drivers if you need them for some of these games. The DOS drivers you get from Creative are very stubborn and won't install in anything higher than Dos 6.22, . . it halts the installation . . it's a real pain in the ass.

Luckily I had a Dos boot floppy and ran the install . . BUT! Dos didn't recognize my FAT32 partitions.

SO! I plopped in an extra 120MB harddrive in and installed it, booted Windows and moved the install files over.

If you need a copy contact me.

		racketboy	Jun 8, 2003
		well ya just made me wonder since all you mentioned was MIDI -- as if that was the only thing it could do. But yeah she does a lot of MIDI stuff. So anyway, this should handle most anything I'll throw at it, correct? Sorry -- I was never really much of a sound card expert

Tindo@heart

Jun 8, 2003

Originally posted by racketboy@Jun 8, 2003 @ 01:24 AM

well ya just made me wonder since all you mentioned was MIDI -- as if that was the only thing it could do. But yeah she does a lot of MIDI stuff.

So anyway, this should handle most anything I'll throw at it, correct?

Sorry -- I was never really much of a sound card expert

Well, I'm no expert either. . . but I think it can handle everything you throw at it . . . except Dolby 5.1

I listen to my Audio CDs with DAE(Digital Audio Extraction) which means I bypass the audio cable all together and played on the WAV channel. This is mainly the capability of the CDROM, but the AWE64 plays it great!

A soundcard has different channels. The AWE64 has 6 that show up in the Windows Volume control; Main, Wave, Midi, CD Audio, Line-In, Microphone, and PC Speaker. I listed 7 but "Main" is the main volume. Your card can play all of these at once. . . if the occasion calls for it.

The volume control also has an "Advanced" button to access "Bass" and "treble" levels. I always give both a boost

You'll also see a checkbox for "3D Stereo Enhancement" that really gives some great surround sound type feel with 2 properly placed speakers. It sounds really great so I keep it checked.

Some cards don't power the Mic well. I find that this card is very adiquate at powering the Mic, so it workds great as well.

		gamefoo21	Jun 8, 2003
		i love my awe 64 i run 4 speakers offa it call it fudged surround sound, but you can't do it on the gold version. and if i had money i'd get a woofer and badda boom dolby 5.1almost heh but in Xp it has full duplex firing gun listening to game music all at once.

		racketboy	Jun 9, 2003
		well my wife's current teaching box revived itself yesterday (I turned it on and it works -- very weird) so now I need to re-think my purposes for the Pentium. I'm thinking of an MP3 reciever for my home theatre. Once I get my new PC, I'll have all my MP3s on that and then maybe I could network the 2 Is there software that could let me, say run Winamp on a remote computer (the newer box) and have the music play on the HTPC?