Help- upgraded to XP, now ZSNES slow...

[Gil_Hamilton]

I'm not a big fan of alts for some reason... I prefer most of the other G1 homaging lines to them.

I'm frigging jonesing for the Animated toys. 21st of june can't come sooner(That's the official release date. >.>).

I utterly ADORED Classics. Got every one of them except Cliffjumper(and the QBerting Botcon exclusives... dammit, I wanted Thrust!).


I admit to coming in late to Alternators. My first was Shockwave.
Which was, actually, my first Transformer as an adult. Better for my wallet if I'd left him alone.
And my sanity. Took forever to find Alt Mirage. And I never DID see MP Starscream.

[I.S.T.]

Neither did I. Fucking wal-mart exclusive bullshit.

You've heard of Classics 2.0/Universe?

[Cyrus]

(here we go again)

XP Minimum: 233MHz Pentium MMX, recommended: 300MHz Pentium II-MMX
98 minimum: 486DX2 @ 66MHz, recommended: Pentium 133

I'd like to take the (very late) chance to point out that you're retarded. ZSNES will still lag on a 300MHz P2.

Also, BCprogger what the hell is wrong with you, buying a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 in 2008? You do realize that for about $140 you could have gotten a 1.6GHz Core 2 with 512KB L2 cache, an overclocking motherboard and 2GB of RAM then overclocked the CPU to 3GHz? The difference is that a Core 2 is about 10 hojillion times faster than any Netburst CPU at the same clock speed.

[BCprogger]

(here we go again)

XP Minimum: 233MHz Pentium MMX, recommended: 300MHz Pentium II-MMX
98 minimum: 486DX2 @ 66MHz, recommended: Pentium 133

I'd like to take the (very late) chance to point out that you're retarded. ZSNES will still lag on a 300MHz P2.

My 133Mhz Pentium laptop begs to differ. It can run DOS ZSNES at about 50/60, which in my opinion isn't laggy.

Also, BCprogger what the hell is wrong with you, buying a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 in 2008? You do realize that for about $140 you could have gotten a 1.6GHz Core 2 with 512KB L2 cache, an overclocking motherboard and 2GB of RAM then overclocked the CPU to 3GHz? The difference is that a Core 2 is about 10 hojillion times faster than any Netburst CPU at the same clock speed.

God forbid I have a computer that meets my needs and does no more. What do you say to the fact that I was programming on a 286 in 2001? learned a little assembler, but mostly quickBasic. The fact that some other computer goes any factor of hojillion times faster then mine isn't relevant to me, since I really don't care. This P4 has run everything I can throw at it, and I don't buy into any of these new Bull-shit games (Call-of duty 2 hojillion and one), and I don't see a Vista On my horizon, so I really don't need more. Also if it was over the net, I can't buy anything over the net. No Credit card, no plans on getting one.

Thanks Glenn... I mean Cyrus.

[funkyass]

1.6 P4? that was before dell went back to standard, well, parts. I think those started with the Core Duo machines.

[odditude]

Dimension 2000 and 4000 series machines (black case) were all off-the-shelf. Only things custom were the OEM SBLive!/Audigy cards and the modified BIOS (they even used standard Intel motherboards).

[adventure_of_link]

(here we go again)

XP Minimum: 233MHz Pentium MMX, recommended: 300MHz Pentium II-MMX
98 minimum: 486DX2 @ 66MHz, recommended: Pentium 133

I'd like to take the (very late) chance to point out that you're retarded. ZSNES will still lag on a 300MHz P2.

We were discussing Windows system requirements for win98se, 2000, and XP. NOT ZSNES REQUIREMENTS.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Neither did I. Fucking wal-mart exclusive bullshit.

You've heard of Classics 2.0/Universe?

Yeah. I'm pretty excited. My wallet isn't, but I am.
...
Kinda sad that I'm in my 20s and excited about Transformers.
But PBBBBTH! to everyone that says I need to grow up.

Also, BCprogger what the hell is wrong with you, buying a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 in 2008? You do realize that for about $140 you could have gotten a 1.6GHz Core 2 with 512KB L2 cache, an overclocking motherboard and 2GB of RAM then overclocked the CPU to 3GHz? The difference is that a Core 2 is about 10 hojillion times faster than any Netburst CPU at the same clock speed.

God forbid I have a computer that meets my needs and does no more.

I think his point was that it doesn't really make sense to pay more for a lesser machine.

Aside from a bit more headroom for any future needs you may have...
The Core would use less electricity and put off less heat, making it a cheaper system in the long run.

What do you say to the fact that I was programming on a 286 in 2001? learned a little assembler, but mostly quickBasic.

That it probably wasn't your primary system(and if it was, I am very sorry for you)?

Nothin' wrong with doing QBASIC on an AT.
Hell, you probably learned some lessons about optimization that many modern programmers would do well to consider.

Also if it was over the net, I can't buy anything over the net. No Credit card, no plans on getting one.

I think mine came out to around 250 buying off the shelf(or out of the locked cabinet, as the case may be).
It helps that Microcenter actively attempts to beat online prices for their CPUs. That saved me a good bit of change.

[BCprogger]

That it probably wasn't your primary system(and if it was, I am very sorry for you)?

Then I guess you feel sorry for me. That was back in the day, when I lost possession of my SNES and N64 due to circumstances beyond my control. So I said, what the hell, I'll bring down this thing from the closet. And I think I was only doing QBASIC and Batch programming, Didn't get QuickBasic until my programming teacher gave me a 386. It was nice to have a colour screen, the 286 had hercules monochrome.

I think his point was that it doesn't really make sense to pay more for a lesser machine.
...
Hell, you probably learned some lessons about optimization that many modern programmers would do well to consider.

I know- I didn't really shop around, I mean I had used the K6-2 for almost 6-7 years, if I had to use it much longer I was going to go CRAZY. I understand the plan to get a computer that meets my growing needs, but I plan to use this one for at least as long as the K6, and now that I have N64 emulators running full speed a large library of titles is open for replay. Also I don't play any new games. Take the fact that GTA:Vice City is the most demanding PC game that I play. One day I'll at least try to meet the curve though...


right now the best optimization I can do is to simply avoid .NET

Dimension 2000 and 4000 series machines (black case) were all off-the-shelf. Only things custom were the OEM SBLive!/Audigy cards and the modified BIOS (they even used standard Intel motherboards).

I hope so, might have to dig out my multimeter, just to be sure. All I know is it was fairly close the the border, the question was which side.


what was different about the SBLive! ? I ripped that out and rebuilt the K6-2 with it. Works fine with the Live! Drivers off the Creative web site. Thing that made me laugh when I opened it up would be the Geforce 2MX. <REPLACE> Insert 5500FX which I can FINALLY use, and matches up fairly well with the CPU power.

[Gil_Hamilton]

That it probably wasn't your primary system(and if it was, I am very sorry for you)?

Then I guess you feel sorry for me. That was back in the day, when I lost possession of my SNES and N64 due to circumstances beyond my control. So I said, what the hell, I'll bring down this thing from the closet. And I think I was only doing QBASIC and Batch programming, Didn't get QuickBasic until my programming teacher gave me a 386. It was nice to have a colour screen, the 286 had hercules monochrome.

Ouch.

At least the Hercules was "high-resolution". You coulda got stuck with CGA.

Of course, an ISA VGA card would've been awesome on an AT.

I know- I didn't really shop around, I mean I had used the K6-2 for almost 6-7 years, if I had to use it much longer I was going to go CRAZY.

Yeah. I was using a K6-2 well after it should've been retired.

Careful selection of software kept things running smoothly(and not installing QuickTime. Last Win98 build I ran, most of my crashes were QT-related)


Still got the system (mostly) assembled. If I had space to set it up, it'd be a legacy game box.

[odditude]

what was different about the SBLive!?

For a period, Dell used a custom variant that omitted hardware acceleration. If you have the crappy one, the chipset will be labeled EMU10K1X (instead of the full-fledged EMU10K1).

[BCprogger]

For a period, Dell used a custom variant that omitted hardware acceleration. If you have the crappy one, the chipset will be labeled EMU10K1X (instead of the full-fledged EMU10K1).

I don't know, I'll have to take a look at some point. Might be that someone replaced it at some point though with a real SB Live!

I hope not, I got ripped off big time with that POS that Creative calls the Sound Blaster Audigy SE. I thought SE meant "Second Edition" but apparently it means "Stripped Edition".

Since the 286, I have owned almost as many computers as I would have if I followed a proper upgrade path:

The 386 was some kind of "server" type, it ran at 40Mhz 8MB of Ram. and two lol... 50MB hard drives. Disk Space was at a premium, to say the least. DoubleSpace, anyone? had a 1x CD-ROM drive in it too... some MITSUMI proprietary thing.

I went straight from this to a 133 Mhz Pentium, which was nice. Managed to kludge 95 from a 486 I bought afterward, with some difficulty. Would have been nice to have a OS CD at that point... But I guess the Heatsink on the integrated video kind of fell off, and I was not practiced enough to realize that I could disable the integrated graphics from the motherboard and put in a different one, so I ended up going down a step to the 486.

486: Thankfully, it wasn't some crap version, rather a 486 DX-2 at 120Mhz. I only had a set of DOS 6 floppies at this point so that was the best I could do, that and Windows 3.1. That was when I wrote several utility programs in QuickBasic to structure vb code.

straight from this 486 to my K6-2, which when I first got it, had some fairly shitty components:

32MB of RAM
Win98SE
8 GB HD
ATI 3d Rage Pro
some generic Sound blaster card


I'll spare the details, but I managed to force XP on it when it had 32MB, worked alright- just had to disable themes and stuff. In the end, right before I set up this P4, it was:

512MB of RAM
Windows XP SP2
37.5 GB C:,37.5 D: (BIOS recognition issues, and yet...)
E: was recognized as the full size it was, 160GB. WTF, I don't know...
Radeon 9250 PCI (couldn't rely on the AGP for anything better then my Radeon 7000, which failed)
Sound Blaster Audigy SE (which I failed to realize was the whole reason for my shitty framerates)
Wireless net card
and a USB2 adapter

Never even bothered to install Quicktime. no reason...

[Gil_Hamilton]

The 386 ... had a 1x CD-ROM drive in it too... some MITSUMI proprietary thing.

Ooooh, oldschool.


By the time we built our first PC, IDE drives had taken over from the old Mitsumi/Panasonic/SCSI/Etc mish-mash(and they'd quit putting CD controllers on sound cards).

We were awesome. Our 486(built during the Pentium math bug fiasco) had a 4x CD-ROM changer! So we could run 4 disks at 4x speed.
...
Though we only used it as a single drive. The only time it WOULD be useful was in a multi-disk app, and they all assume a single drive and make you swap disks anyways. Blech.

[BCprogger]

lol- I still have that CD-ROM drive... It doesn't even have an ejecting tray- yoy push it in and the whole assembly slides out, and then you lift a cover and put the CD in. VERY strange. and the 16-bit I/F card that came with it as well. Don't know about the card, I think it might not be in working order, having been boxed up unprotected with a bunch of mean old Video cards,Sound Cards, and the like. Although I did resurrect a few things from there with no problems.

The biggest pain I had in those days was device drivers. I had no problem configuring them, even at the start, it was merely getting the damn things to begin with. I completely missed out on using Windows 3.1 in anything higher then 4-bit colour, I just stuck with the Super VGA driver, instead of getting the REAL driver for the crappy Trident 8900C or whatever it was called. Oh well. I don't even think I had a sound card installed in the 386. But it would have been able to handle it, it had a GIANT power supply. The case was about the height of a desk (not even joking here), and the power supply was good cubic foot at least. I should have kept the case, had a lot of legroom that could have been useful with my future builds.

My favourite Card I have has got to be the full length SB AWE32. Came all he way to the front of the case in my K6-2. But XP doesn't like it, and sound cuts out after a while. Probably because it's ISA...

So right now, I have five computers in running order, this one (the P4), the K6, a shitty Cyrix that I plan on installing NT4 on, a Toshiba Satellite Pro 440CDX laptop, and a 75 Mhz IBM thinkpad, whose AC adapter failed and now requires the use of the docking station. As if it wasn't heavy enough. I'm so glad I didn't buy it, since the person that did (and subsequently gave it to me) spent over 9 grand on the thing. Last formatted in '96, so twelve years ago, and it still runs great when I feel like using it, usually for NES emulation.

About a year ago, some goof was throwing away a bunch of memory and stuff, crapload of P2 processors. So I snapped it up, stored it for a while, and managed to sell it for around $150 for the lot. Might have been less than it was worth, but I got it for free. Man, that felt sweet. Kind of felt weird though- kind of like "oh, I'll give those a good home", and then "hey, who wants to buy this crap?".

We were awesome. Our 486(built during the Pentium math bug fiasco) had a 4x CD-ROM changer! So we could run 4 disks at 4x speed.
...
Though we only used it as a single drive. The only time it WOULD be useful was in a multi-disk app, and they all assume a single drive and make you swap disks anyways. Blech.

I heard about those in my travels through the MSDN library. Did you know windows 98 had problems with some models?

[Kajuru]

I still have my SB16 with built-in "Panasonic IDE".

It's a very long card, was a pain to find an ISA slot where it will fit.

[Cyrus]

blarg

50/60 is still lag and that's in DOS.... my 200MHz Pentium lagged in windows ZSNES. Running ZSNES in XP would require more than a 300MHz P2.

Also I didn't bother read the rest of your post but my point was that it's stupid to pay for something when for a similar or equal price you can get something much better.
You don't need to pay a lot to get a good system. I built this at the start of the year for less than 1/4 of what you would pay for a piece of shit Mac:

- Wolfdale Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz @ 4.3GHz /w Tuniq Tower 120
- 4GB DDR2-1000
- GeForce 8800GT @ 765c/1856s/2100r
- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R motherboard
- Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music /w 5.1 speakers
- 800GB SATA2 HDD
- Antec 900 case
- OCZ GameXStream 700w PSU

I'll take that instead of some useless garbage from Dell or Apple which costs the same or more.

And for the record my name has nothing to do with Chrono Trigger.

(here we go again)

XP Minimum: 233MHz Pentium MMX, recommended: 300MHz Pentium II-MMX
98 minimum: 486DX2 @ 66MHz, recommended: Pentium 133

I'd like to take the (very late) chance to point out that you're retarded. ZSNES will still lag on a 300MHz P2.

We were discussing Windows system requirements for win98se, 2000, and XP. NOT ZSNES REQUIREMENTS.

You'll have to excuse me, I never really pay much attention to what you write... or anyone else for that matter, I read really quickly.

[Gil_Hamilton]

lol- I still have that CD-ROM drive... It doesn't even have an ejecting tray- yoy push it in and the whole assembly slides out, and then you lift a cover and put the CD in. VERY strange.

Ooooh, a caddy. Hot.

That was actually the original plan for CD-ROMs. But no one liked hte caddies, so they created tray-loaders.

What they SHOULD have done was redesigned things so the jewel-case WAS the caddy. Like a 3.5" floppy.

The case was about the height of a desk (not even joking here), and the power supply was good cubic foot at least. I should have kept the case, had a lot of legroom that could have been useful with my future builds.

Mmmm, full-tower.

Sadly, AT cases are dead.

My favourite Card I have has got to be the full length SB AWE32. Came all he way to the front of the case in my K6-2. But XP doesn't like it, and sound cuts out after a while. Probably because it's ISA...

My money's on Creative not spending the time to write decent WinNT drivers for it.

About a year ago, some goof was throwing away a bunch of memory and stuff, crapload of P2 processors. So I snapped it up, stored it for a while, and managed to sell it for around $150 for the lot. Might have been less than it was worth, but I got it for free. Man, that felt sweet. Kind of felt weird though- kind of like "oh, I'll give those a good home", and then "hey, who wants to buy this crap?".

Nice.

*thumbs up*

We were awesome. Our 486(built during the Pentium math bug fiasco) had a 4x CD-ROM changer! So we could run 4 disks at 4x speed.
...
Though we only used it as a single drive. The only time it WOULD be useful was in a multi-disk app, and they all assume a single drive and make you swap disks anyways. Blech.

I heard about those in my travels through the MSDN library. Did you know windows 98 had problems with some models?

Nope, I didn't. Mine worked quite nicely. Aside from the fact that it took forever and a day to change disks.
That and figuring out where I put the driver floppy when I was doing an install was a real QBert(and it won't work at all without them)

[BCprogger]

Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music

everything in your assembly kicks ass except that- it doesn't even have an X-Fi processor to offload any work from the host CPU, EAX and such is all done in software, as far as I know. pretty much Creative's X-Fi version of the Audigy SE.

Running ZSNES in XP would require more than a 300MHz P2

You don't think I actually put XP on a 133 Mhz pentium? Irregardless, your right anyway- the windows version wouldn't even start, since the video card sucked.

Also I didn't bother read the rest of your post but my point was that it's stupid to pay for something when for a similar or equal price you can get something much better.
You don't need to pay a lot to get a good system. I built this at the start of the year for less than 1/4 of what you would pay for a piece of shit Mac:

I totally understand what you mean, but it was either waste money to buy the one I wanted then, or waste time looking for a good deal. I don't really have a whole lot of spare time, so I chose to waste money. Besides, better spent on a new computer then some completely useless upgrade for the K6-2.

Basically this P4 is sort of an "interim" machine, until I decide to get something totally state of the art.

And for the record my name has nothing to do with Chrono Trigger.

Alright, but C'mon! this is a SNES emulator forum!

[grinvader]

Irregardless

... you're aware that doesn't mean shit, aren't you.

[Cyrus]

Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music

everything in your assembly kicks ass except that- it doesn't even have an X-Fi processor to offload any work from the host CPU, EAX and such is all done in software, as far as I know. pretty much Creative's X-Fi version of the Audigy SE.

You're thinking of the X-Fi Xtreme Audio or whatever it's called, that's the model which doesn't have the X-Fi processor. That aside... Microsoft basically gave all X-Fi owners the middle finger and removed DirectSound/DirectSound3D (in Vista) so the load that would normally be on the SPU now goes to the CPU. I had the Xtreme Music card left over from my old rig otherwise I wouldn't be using it in Vista. They don't make the Xtreme Music version anymore, it's now the Xtreme Gamer which is cheaper to produce because it's smaller, they make it out of recycled shit and skip the gold plating.

If you're going to ask "why the hell are you using Vista?" it's because there aren't 64 bit XP versions of all the drivers I need and a 32 bit XP detects only 2.5GB/4GB of my RAM. Thanks to my amount of RAM I have to use a 64 bit OS.

[BCprogger]

Irregardless

... you're aware that doesn't mean shit, aren't you.

I meant to say regardless. oops.

stuff

Oh I see. As you said though, it doesn't matter thanks to MS. I love that though, they are more concerned with keeping people from illegal duplication, and yet are only offering a mild effort against malware (If they where serious, Windows Defender would be built into all the core components, you know, kind of like the DRM).

If you're going to ask "why the hell are you using Vista?" it's because there aren't 64 bit XP versions of all the drivers I need and a 32 bit XP detects only 2.5GB/4GB of my RAM. Thanks to my amount of RAM I have to use a 64 bit OS.

that's a good reason.

[Kiwi76]

I'm sure you probably need the same Dell power supply as a new ATX power supply might not fit in the Dell case.

Well, it would fit, the problem is that Dell "silently" changed the voltage pins around, yet left the plug compatible in some models. That is, plugging an ATX power supply into a standard Dell motherboard is likely to fry them both, same with replacing the dell motherboard with a ATX standard one. Dell has since gone back to standards, but I don't know if this is after they went back. I'll have to do some research.

Have you checked into this yet? If not, I have the answer. Having had three Dells (one was for a few days at most), I know a bit about some of them.

The Dimension 4100 (my only existing Dell) was the last computer to use the proprietary PSU connection, so they went back to standard before your model, meaning your good to go. The Dimension 4300 and onward used standard PSUs (okay, there actually existed a Dimension 4200, but it was basically just a Dimension 4100 in the case of the newer 4300, and only sold in Japan and maybe Germany).

There is one thing to note though. The back of the Dimension 4400 has a grill where the PSU is, and most retail PSUs have an on/off switch whereas the Dell PSUs do not, so the retail PSU won't fit straight in the Dell case unless you cut this grill off and make room where the switch is (tin snips work but leave a bit of a mess). I've done this with an OptiPlex GX270 and it's incredibly easy.

Also I didn't bother read the rest of your post but my point was that it's stupid to pay for something when for a similar or equal price you can get something much better.

True, but your point falls apart because it doesn't apply. Considering he has a Dimension 4400, which is many years old and not sold by Dell anymore, he likely got it second-hand and very cheap. Your computer is very nice (I have a rather similar setup), but given he likely got it for much less than what a setup like that would cost, what you say doesn't apply. There's nothing wrong with getting something less than stellar if it's enough, or more than, what you need.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Also I didn't bother read the rest of your post but my point was that it's stupid to pay for something when for a similar or equal price you can get something much better.

True, but your point falls apart because it doesn't apply. Considering he has a Dimension 4400, which is many years old and not sold by Dell anymore, he likely got it second-hand and very cheap. Your computer is very nice (I have a rather similar setup), but given he likely got it for much less than what a setup like that would cost, what you say doesn't apply. There's nothing wrong with getting something less than stellar if it's enough, or more than, what you need.

Except that he said what he paid. And we spec'ed out what he could've gotten for that price. No one's just assuming that he paid a specific price or saying that he should've spent more for a tricked-out uber-rig with UV-sensitive drive cables.

[BCprogger]

alright- I independently discovered that the PSU had a standard ATX connector (dell website), but I still wasn't sure- thanks for the confirmation, kiwi76.

And everyone else can stop badgering me- what's spent is spent. and on the topic, would I be able to get these "low prices" at a local store, because I can't purchase online (I REFUSE TO EVER OWN A CREDIT CARD! EVER!) and know of no alternate method of payment.

also, Cyrus never mentioned how much TIME he had to invest in building his machine. I didn't have time, I was sick of my 350Mhz machine, I needed to install VS.NET 2005, and I saw an oppurtunity, so I took it. Now this machine will tide me over until I DO get a actual top-of-the heap (or second from the top) computer.

[adventure_of_link]

you *do* know that you can either get a reloadable debit card, or see if you can get one from your bank, right?

Works everywhere they accept your card's brand (eg: mastercard, visa, etc)

I do this all the time when I e-shop.