Author Topic: Parts for my planned future computer... yay or nay? (I'm als (Read 15400 times)

ficedula · « **Reply #25 on:** 2001-12-01 00:16:00 »

You obviously aren't are a true Dos master (heheh); he's referring to the Menu system you could build into CONFIG.SYS so that when your PC booted, you got a menu just like that Windows boot menu, but user defined. Back about 7-8 years ago (damn ... have I really had a PC that long?) I had one in my config.sys that was something like:

1) Normal boot
2) Games setup (high memory config)
3) Windows boot (didn't load dos drivers, booted straight into Win3.1)

You could basically, if you were devious enough, set up totally different Config/Autoexec commands to be executed depending on which startup option was selected ... it was a pretty nifty feature, actually; if you knew how, it took a lot of the memory management hassles out of dos. Of course, that's what made dos interesting

Sephiroth 3D · « **Reply #26 on:** 2001-12-01 21:26:00 »

Heh... I know exactly what Fice is talking about, cause I have one of those setup on my old-games computer, which, ironically, I call Gaia.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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Reznor007 · « **Reply #27 on:** 2001-12-01 21:38:00 »

You may want a DVD decoder card if you plan on passing the SPDIF signal out to a home theater receiver. I do this for my setup. I have the Sigma Designs Hollywood+ card. It works great for that purpose. I have a few Dolby Digital demo videos I downloaded, and they sound great on B&W speakers

Creative also makes a version of the Hollywood+ card(Dxr3 card, but you can use Sigma's drivers with it).

ficedula · « **Reply #28 on:** 2001-12-01 21:46:00 »

'Course, if your sound card has an SPDIF out, that works great by itself.

BDA7DD · « **Reply #29 on:** 2001-12-02 00:27:00 »

ficedula: I'm always making those DOS boot menus, they rock. Once I'm done with them, I always just screw around with the menu colors to make it look nice. I've got that exact same setup on my old 486DX (I still have it, and I still use it, ph33r me), and the games boot has a submenu to choose between loading the CDROM drivers or not. I've got Windows 3.11 (Windows for Workgroups) instead of Windows 3.1, though.

Jedimark: With good money management and budgeting skills, a small part time job that pays a little over $7.00/hour, and a hell of a lot of resistance to the tempation to splurge, I've saved up this much money in just a few months.

I've decided to make a few changes. Here they are, in no particular order:

Motherboard changed to the Soyo K7M DRAGON Plus. The six channel onboard CMI 8738 audio is probably what convinced me to switch, the EPoX only has AC-97 (which sucks). Plus it's got a smartcard reader and onboard LAN. Although, there's one less PCI slot than the EPoX 8KHA+, but I think five slots will be enough for me.
Thermal Paste changed to Arctic Alumina.
Took the Gravis Eliminator Aftershocks off the list after I tried one at my friend's house. It's okay... but it follows the same Gravis Gamepad tradition of making the DPAD horribly flimsy and loose. I'm already pissed off about the loose DPAD in my dual Gamepad Pros, I don't want this problem with my new gamepads.
Removed the DVD Decoder card from the list. My sound card and the motherboard's onboard audio support SPDIF, and as ficedula said, that should compensate just fine.[/list:u]

Reznor007 · « **Reply #30 on:** 2001-12-02 02:58:00 »

Yes, that works, but not for me...

I have an SB Live 5.1 card connected to my receiver's 5.1ch analog input via 3 stereo minijack->RCA cables. Since the SB Live's SPDIF connection is also the center/subwoofer analog out, I can't use digital out via the sound card, so I have to use the decoder.