inselaffe on 27/12/2008 at 21:46

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I'm trying to get my pc into a stage where it can be used as a good kind of "old games" system however as I don't really have any intention of getting up to date with new games at the moment (I have plenty of older ones to tide me over), I don't feel the need for a whole new computer.

Currently I have:
Asus k8N motherboard
3200+ amd 64 processor
radeon 9600pro 256MB
1 GB of ram (can't remember exactly what it is though i can check if that would help)
some shoddy tv card that I don't really use
An ide hard disk
A sata hard disk.

I am aiming for a duel boot between windows xp and windows 98 (for games that struggle to work correctly in xp).

The old power supply I had blew up a few years ago or something else failed or a power surge caused it to blow. Anyway this took out my processor, meant I had to send off my motherboard for repair and also somehow took out my keyboard and mouse (both wired) :S:S:S.

Memory seems fine though but I am concerned that it may have ever so slightly damaged my 9800pro but I dont really know how I can check this. It does sometimes crash and have problems in certain games and can become unresponsive to driver instructions but to be honest this could be due also to messed up drivers. Also h&d2 is a rather unstable game so it could probably have just been that game was the issue. I really need to redo windows anyway, and will be doing this when I redo everything as part of this upgrade. Is there anyway to check if the card is slightly knackered?

I guess i should also test the memory? I think i've done this before with a memtest86 thing that seems to be an option on my bootup (came with linux) and it was all fine.

Another problem i seem to have recently is that my power cables are a bit dodgy and can randomly cut the power off to the hard disks and optical drives (at least I think also the optical drives - something was making strange "pnuematic" type noises and a bit of a click like it was starting up - could this be a disk though or optical? Anyway my dad is pretty sure this is the power supply part of the connectors as he has checked the ends of all of the actual wire connectors and they seem ok.
I had the side of my computer off for nearly a year cos of not getting around to fixing this - It got to a point where it kept cutting out with the side on cos of how the side pushed against the wires but then with it off it would work. The thing is it was rather a big problem as it meant losing power to the disk which had corrupted my disk ntfs filesystem file or something and meant I had to boot into ubuntu (which meant i finally had a use for it haha) to use some downloaded program to repair the necessary file.
But yes hopefully a new good powersupply will sort that problem.

One thing I would like is to be able to play games up to thief 3 and similar at a good performance level (1280*1024 preferrably as that's what my lcd is). From what I remember from the demo, it didn't really run that well and felt a bit jerky although could that have been the actual "movement" in tihef 3? I cant really remember. (I would like to play stalker actually, that is amazing as my friend got it recently however to be honest i think that will have to wait until i bother to get a new pc - at least then parts will be cheap to get good performance and games will be cheaper).

So yes I'm wondering what card I could upgrade to or if there is any point at all. It needs to be compatible with old games though so I guess this really limits me to ati and to a card of the x1950 or beforehand? I'm not too sure?
Another thing is it must be AGP as this is sadly what my motherboard limits me to. Would a X1900 or suchlike even work with windows 98 though? How good a powersupply would I need for this too? Or would a x1650 be any worthwhile improvement from my 9600pro or not (i am doubtful?)?.

I have found various upgrades/versions for windows 98 however that allow it to actually work with ntfs and things. I dont know how this applies to drives for graphics and sound but does this mean it is hopeful?

Another thing I would like to either upgrade or somehow magically get working is my sound. It is onboard realtek from the K8N motherboard. I can sort of get EAX in thief gold and 2 but the footsteps were quiet (i thought this was how it was meant to be for ages). So i followed the advice in the topic and copied the a3d.dll and things into my game directory and it made the footsteps louder, however it also kept changing the loudness of things really strangely depending on the direction i ran. Also in thief i have to disable and then re-enable eax every time i run the game in order for it to work for some reason.

A major problem I have with the sound is also in the game grand prix legends. With engine sound updates it starts to make the sound sound like electronic buzzing bees when you go above medium revs. This does not happen always, but it is most of the time (if you crash it can stop it but not always). In order to get rid of the problem you have to go into dx diag and set sound hardware acceleration to basic (the second option from the left on the slider). I managed to get it to allow full acceleration by installing nvidia drivers for the sound (the motherboard is nforce3 or nforce 2 i cant remember which). However, unlike actual realtek (the soundchip) drivers this means eax does not work in thief. It works in the menus (when you turn it off and on again) however in game even though it tells you it is on and working, for some reason it is not.

I would be able to record sound clips of these sound issues if that would help? It also seems to slightly do the "making sounds sound electronic" in hidden and dangerous 2 when I turn on eax and there is a lot of rapid machine gun fire.

For thief 3 I guess I would need a better card anyway in order to get proper sound card anyway. What would you suggest to get - it doesn't have to be anything too fancy, just to get the "best" from thief 3 or whatever.

Also to go along with the possibility of the sound card I would probably like to get some proper 5.1 speakers - I know you can get cheap ones for about £30 - 40 or something and to be honest all I would want is something that is reasonably good like that but doesn't cost so much. Value basically - i am no audophile, just a multiple speaker setup would hopefully improve sound a lot in games.

I am guessing I would (unfortunately) have to get the graphics card (and probably the sound card as it would probly be a reasonably old one im getting) second hand as getting an AGP card to run thief 3 well is going to be difficult and possibly the same with the sound card. Ebay is not the cheapest for these things either.

Any suggestions and help would be very welcome as I am not really very up to speed with all of this.

(also I am going away tomorrow and won't be back till midweek so it will be a while before I reply :) )

Cheers, Daniel

inselaffe on 28/12/2008 at 00:46

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Wow thanks for the quick reply. I'll reply properly to you when I get back but yer that sounds good, thanks.

bikerdude on 29/12/2008 at 10:36

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not, but the tool works on most nvidia card aswell :cheeky:

bikerdude on 1/1/2009 at 16:05

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* Wouldn't it also be ok to just make a fat 32 partition for it less than 130GB (both my hard drives are too big). I was only planning on say 30 or 20 gb for that partition anyway.
* In terms of soundcard, is this: (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/98938) equivelent of the audigy 2 you posted?
* For the graphics cards, is there are range of ones I should get? How necessary is 512 of ram as opposed to 256?
* There is this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/256MB-ATI-X1950-PRO-AGP-GRAPHICS-VIDEO-CARD-X-
* Also, how good a powersupply would I need to power those cards? mine is apparently 500watt but then you can never be sure with cheap ones anyway hmm.


#yes you can make partitions smaller than 130GB <-- is a max size supported

#that link I gave you, even thoguh the item is second hand it still comes with a 1yr warranty. When it comes to a sound card never get a cut-down version (Audigy SE etc) as you'll be asking for trouble.

#a lot of game benefit from the extra ram, so if you can find a 512BM card for about the same price as a 256Mb card then get it! Also never buy anything new from ebay - the amount of grief you will have if there is a fault does not bear thinking about.

#your PSu sound powerful enough, whats the make and model..?

inselaffe on 1/1/2009 at 18:02

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Hmm the main problem now is about the soundcard - rather getting one that will work.

People keep saying that I should get an xfi to get it to work with gpl without the buzzing bee engine noise.

This problem seems to be caused when the game increases the pitch of the engine sample for when you go to rpms above that of what you have told the game the sample was recorded at. Then it goes all electronicy and weird.

I don't really know why this happens but people say it happens with audigy 2 SE aswell. Is that like cos it is a cutdown version hmm?

If the audigy 2 can work with it then that would obviously be a good cheap card to get. The cheapest xfi, Xfi gamer (as apparently xfi audio doesnt work and should be avoided in general), which apparently works is quite expensive you see (£60 or so) and i dunno how well it would work with older games anyway.

Also would audigy 2 work with thief and what if any sound messing arounds would I have to do with eax - like copying specific dlls to the game directory? or should it work as is?

This sound stuff is quite confusing and frustrating :S

I can provide clips of the problem if that helps.


edit - Also, thanks the Brain but don't need that much space anyway, the windows 98 partition will only be for games that wonyt work on xp and they will be nodoubt small anyway. Probly I could get away with 10GB haha but 30 should be safe. What you have said can help others though anyway :)