Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AzyWng]

BTW I recommend 98lite as a tool to reduce the footprint and resources of 95 and 98 installs.

I'm, ah, not exactly too eager to purchase a $25.00 piece of software just because I want to play a game the developers released for free.

And why would a isometric game that was released for free in 2007 (and probably made a good deal earlier than that) require such a beefy pc? Software quirks or something?

Also, I have no idea how to use any kind of pc emulator, so advice on how and/or where to look would be greatly appreciated.

[Lord Shonus]

The game you're talking about probably requires at least a Pentium II, which PCem can't emulate. Even if it only requires a Pentium I, emulating that chip is very intensive. Thus, my preferred solution will probably not work for your use case.

[AzyWng]

All right, but any idea why a game like this would require a beefy computer?

I mean, games like Half-Life 2 and Running with Rifles (both 3D) run just fine on my laptop...

[Lord Shonus]

I'm going to break this down very, very simply.


The game you want to run does not appear to require a beefy computer.

The game you want to run does appear to require Windows 9x.

One of the best ways to run Windows 9x for older games is PCem, which emulates period hardware.

PCem does not emulate more than a Pentium I processor.

Emulating a processor is very system intensive, and requires a processor many times as powerful as the one you are trying to emulate.

If the game you want to run requires more than a Pentium I processor, PCem can not help you.

If the game you want to run does not require more than a Pentium I processor, PCem can help, provided you have a PC powerful enough to emulate a Pentium I processor.

Your ability to run other software has no relation whatsoever to this.

[wierd]

They can always try virtualbox instead.  Rather than full emulation, it does CPU virtualization.  It is also capable of emulating PCI cards for sound and network hardware, so it can emulate more period equipment.

It will just run faster, and will present a more modern CPU.

Worth a shot.

https://www.virtualbox.org/

[Reelya]

BTW I recommend 98lite as a tool to reduce the footprint and resources of 95 and 98 installs.

I'm, ah, not exactly too eager to purchase a $25.00 piece of software just because I want to play a game the developers released for free.

Go read the actual licensing agreement. You only need to pay the licensing fee if you're doing commercial-scale stuff with it:

https://www.litepc.com/prev_lic.html

2. USAGE
98lite Preview Edition is freely licensed for non-exclusive use by a single individual for personal use only. You require an ENTERPRISE license if you want to use 98lite in a multi-user setting, or want to install 98lite on your clients computers.

3. DISTRIBUTION
You may distribute the 98lite Preview Edition software without permission only so long as:

    the original distribution archive remains intact, with no files having been altered, added, or removed.
    all costs for distribution are paid by you, the distributor, and 98lite is delivered to the end user, or any intermediate receiver, FREE OF CHARGE.

There's nothing to stop you using it for free or giving copies to friends, you just can't commercialize it.

[AzyWng]

I'm going to break this down very, very simply.
(snip)

Ah, I see. That helps clear things up a lot.

[Parsely]

I'm on my Windows 10 PC, I have two pairs of headphones and I want to get both pairs to output my desktop audio without needing to buy a splitter.

I have a front panel headphone jack and of course I have the sound card in the back with speaker, stereo mix, and headphone jacks. I tried various things with my 2nd pair of headphones in either the speaker and or heaphones jacks in the back. I tried using the Realtek HD Audio Manager since there's a toggle you'd think would solve this called "make front and rear output devices play two different audio streams simultaneously" but that didn't do anything. I'm really baffled that this is so hard to figure out, any advice?

[Il Palazzo]

Yo peeps, how can I find out if me USB sticks are 2.0 or 3.0?

Confusing context: I've recently bought a Gigabyte Brix mini-PC, with a separate Win installer supplied on a USB drive. Now, the stick has a blue inserty bit, which is what makes me think it's USB 3.0 (and also because it's 2018, so why would they supply anything else?). At the same time, the Brix documentation says the MOBO it's not backwards compatible with 2.0 because reasons.

Seems alright, right? I have a 3.0 stick, and the system reads only 3.0s.
But the Win10 stick fails to boot (everything slows down to a standstill, with 10+ seconds to respond to any key pressed, as soon as I plug it in). On the other hand, I found an older 8GB stick with no blue bits (hence I'm thinking it's 2.0?), that booted perfectly once I burned a Win10 image on it.

So, it's like the documentation says one thing, but the reality appears to be the opposite (i.e. 2.0 ok, 3.0 bad, instead of the other way around).

Any way I can check the sticks' version without too much trouble? I can't make heads nor tails out of it and it bothers me bigly.

[wierd]

It should be USB3 with a blue plastic bit inside it...  Do you have the USB3 drivers installed?

As for booting...  It could be that your Mobo does not support EHCI mode USB in the BIOS?  (EG, the bios does not have handlers for USB3 mode, but does for OHCI, or USB2 mode)...

[Il Palazzo]

To restate the issue: The documentation supplied with the Brix says it's only good with 3.0s and not with 2.0s (lack of backwards compatibility due to some Intel-related proprietary reasons. But, in practice, 3.0 doesn't seem to work. 2.0 works.

Then again, all I'm using to identify the USB sticks is the colouring of the insides of their plugs.

I don't get to install anything, as it's a barebones out of the box, with no system in it apart from the BIOS (most recent version as far as I can see).

[Starver]

(Response and reply happened while writing this. Looks like some mild ninjaing going on.)

USB 1,2 (Type A)


USB 3 (Type A)


Examine the respective socket/plug for signs of the extra five connectors. May need favorable illumination/line-of-sight, but the pale blue colour of the plastic tab is the industry-standard shortcut indicator that it (should be!) USB3, or "SS" (superspeed) written alongside the USB 'trident' sigil printed, embossed or in relief around the port/connector housing.


I may be just unaware of it, but SFAIK there is no intrinsic reason for USB3 hardware (either host or peripheral) being unable to slob it with a non-3 (peripheral or host) complimentary connection. The USB 3.0 spec requires that devices be fully backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices, and if it's not then it's not spec-worthy and could be deficient in other ways.

The top-rate of 'superspeed' won't be available, so it could not work with high-demand data transfer. But I'd expect that only to slow drive access (and neuter the better negotiatable framerates/resolutions of Ultra-HD webcams, maybe) not to not work at all. 'For reasons'. That sounds like a fudge like "My website isn't gonna bother to display for you, 'cos your browser is apparently, like, soooo last year, and I can't be bothered to maintain the less fancy version without all the latest bandwidth-hogging bells'n'whistles!".


I know you suggest you got the (alleged USB3) original stick supplied alongside the main hardware, but can you check that the supplier has remembered to properly 'bootify' the thong, and not just copy it across without bootability set? It could be a honest error. Or the "slow down to a crawl" might suggest a 'disk error' on the stick encountered while bootstrapping. Needs several more stages of investigation to rule in/out various possibilities.

[Il Palazzo]

Cheers Starver.

As far as I can tell after some semi-sober looking at them in dim light, the self-prepared stick I booted the system from doesn't have any extra connectors in the back whatsoever, while the Win 10 supplied one does (can't make it out if it's 5 or 4). It's an original Microsoft Win10 package I bought from a large retailer. I don't think the supplier had anything to do with it themselves.

The documentations says:

Due to a lack of legacy EHCI controller support from Intel on the 5th and 6th generation CPU, the USB 3.0 ports of the Brix are not compatible with USB 2.0 devices. (...) After the installation of the OS and drivers, the USB 3.0 ports will be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices.

So yeah, it reads like the opposite of what had happened.

BTW, my other system reads the contents of the Win10 dongle alright, so I'm guessing it's not damaged.

[Parsely]

That's an interesting and obnoxious problem, I was just having a conversation with my coworker the other week about how to tell female USB 2 and USB 3 ports apart if it doesn't have the blue port and we weren't sure.

[Truean]

Problem: While playing games, "turning" a character in first person is too fast and choppy. Particularly when playing Might and Magic 6 the Mandate of Heaven.

Example: It doesn't matter if I'm playing Skyrim or MM 6 (a 20 year old computer game). I see "let's plays" on youtube with smooth turns. Not mine. It defaults to 45 degree angles.

The game is old, my system is new and good. I don't understand why others have smooth camera turns and I do not. Ideas, please?