Posts by Gold Leader

Quote from GrandAdmiralThrawn

FLAC Unterstützung so wie die Unterstützung für viele andere Audioformate in WinAmp benötigt in der Tat ein Plugin. Das kann ich bestätigen. Nennt sich in_flac.dll und gehört in den Plugins\ Unterordner des WinAmp Installationsorders. Ich habe das Plugin als ZIP Archiv an diesen Beitrag angehängt:

[in_flac.dll.zip]

Nachdem man die DLL Datei in den korrekten Ordner gelegt hat, muß WinAmp neu gestartet werden. Der Player sollte das Plugin automatisch laden und jetzt in der Lage sein, 16-bit und 24-bit FLAC Dateien mit beliebiger Abtastfrequenz wiederzugeben.

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FLAC support like support for many other audio formats in WinAmp requires a plugin, yes. I can confirm that. It's called in_flac.dll, and needs to be put into the Plugins\ subfolder of your WinAmp installation folder. I've attached it to this post as a ZIP archive:

[in_flac.dll.zip]

After putting the DLL into the correct folder, WinAmp needs to be restarted. It should auto-load the plugin and support 16-bit and 24-bit FLAC playback at arbitrary sampling frequencies now.

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Is there also a MP4 patch for Winamp 2.81 for 98SE?

Thanks again

the 9070 XT crushes the competition in some cases it manages to beat the RTX 50980, and even if FSR4 is used it can match the 5090, despite barely any image quality loss, AMD was wise to wait to on launching these, yet the name should of been RX 8800 XT, they should not focus on how nGreedia names their cards, name changes can often be bad despite if sales are good.

ALl cards sold out within 2 to 5 minutes worldwide there were well over 200.000 cards, so yea it is obvious they become out of stocka nd the scalpers ake over, this should be gone by the time cards are back in stock, even if a 9070 XT is 730 Eur it's still a much better deal than a 5070 Ti that goes for well over 1100 Eur even if they are in stock lol.

NVIDIA fucked up and now AMD is slapping back hard and it's not even the fastest GPU on the market it doesn't need to be that, however it is the best performing card per dollar and this is where they focussed on.

For now I am sticking to my Sapphire Nitro+ RX 6800 XT Special Edition, I do not like that Sapphire went for the unreliable 16 pin power connector for their Nitro+ RX 9070 XT, the Sapphire Pure will be my choice then.

Quote from GrandAdmiralThrawn

FLAC Unterstützung so wie die Unterstützung für viele andere Audioformate in WinAmp benötigt in der Tat ein Plugin. Das kann ich bestätigen. Nennt sich in_flac.dll und gehört in den Plugins\ Unterordner des WinAmp Installationsorders. Ich habe das Plugin als ZIP Archiv an diesen Beitrag angehängt:

[in_flac.dll.zip]

Nachdem man die DLL Datei in den korrekten Ordner gelegt hat, muß WinAmp neu gestartet werden. Der Player sollte das Plugin automatisch laden und jetzt in der Lage sein, 16-bit und 24-bit FLAC Dateien mit beliebiger Abtastfrequenz wiederzugeben.

--

FLAC support like support for many other audio formats in WinAmp requires a plugin, yes. I can confirm that. It's called in_flac.dll, and needs to be put into the Plugins\ subfolder of your WinAmp installation folder. I've attached it to this post as a ZIP archive:

[in_flac.dll.zip]

After putting the DLL into the correct folder, WinAmp needs to be restarted. It should auto-load the plugin and support 16-bit and 24-bit FLAC playback at arbitrary sampling frequencies now.

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Hey thanks this works like a charm, I use WinAmp 2.81 btw
I played Jason Mraz - Backyard Concert Ootmarsum, Netherlands LIVE 2007 in Flac format and it plays wonderfully with the EWS64 XL.
this sound card gives a very clean sound thanks to the gold caps it now has.

Quote from sdz

Gold Leader The hardware is there, and it is correct. However, without the Rush driver source code, not much progress is possible. I don't feel like decompiling and patching Rush drivers for the next year or so. The AT BIOS most likely has no impact on any of this.

Well maybe someone from VA can apply some aid with,my friends AmigaMerlkn, dborca & ps47 from 3dfxzone.it may also have an idea on what to do with this.

Veyr interesting take on to make the Voodoo Rush a better card, Dual TMU's will surely do it if it can be done hardware wise it can also be done via the software , but you may need to address a few things, keep up the great progress bud, a Bios update or modification may also be of need so the second TMU is seen and can be put to use.

Quote from undertaker_2

Quote from undertaker_2

One of the best sound cards ever produced.

Quote from Gold Leader

and by fa r the best I ever used,

... as I said...

I know and I heard it myself hence why I stated it

Hey many thanks guys , yet I think both methods can work, I;ll try the DLL method first.

GrandAdmiralThrawn Here the gold recapped card btw, it's a true piece of beauty now and it sounds fantastic as well!






And here the complete set:




I made sure that I polished the retention bracket and the front panel as well

Oh thanks guys, I guess both solutions can work, and thanks again, just love the EWS64 XL's sound quality, the gold recap did the card a lot of good btw!

Hey nicely done there, I think you are at x-3dfx as well, weren't you the one that did the Obsidian 2 200 SBi PCI-E project by any chance?

Either way very nice work sir!

Lotosdrache Well after several months of enjoyment the EWS64 XL keeps on giving, just a fantastic Midi music card, and by fa r the best I ever used, it really puts the AWE64 Gold to shame as it comes to midi music sound quality, only when playing games and playing my favored music in them it can't do this, like game sound effects + MP3's for example.

it also can't seem to play FLAC files with the AWE64 Can, I guess sound cards that came out in 1996 did not have the support for FLAC yet, just my guess, everything else runs great 320 Kbps MP3's no problem, DVD Video's also no problem

But yea I now understand why the EWS64 XL series of cards is so loved and is highly recommended to the Midi music lovers of retro land.

English:
Here a midi music hit compilation I made this week, if any of you have a nice Midi sound card or sound canvas you can play these high quality midi files, I used 7-Zip to pack it in.

German (Translated with DEEPL)
Hier eine Midi-Musik-Hit-Zusammenstellung, die ich diese Woche gemacht habe. Wenn jemand von euch eine schöne Midi-Soundkarte oder Sound Canvas hat, könnt ihr diese Midi-Dateien in hoher Qualität abspielen, Ich habe 7-Zip verwendet, um es zu verpacken.

Midi Hits.7z

Quote from Marlon

Quote from Gold Leader

03. Mental As Anything - Live It Up (1985)

Pures Gold, Danke!

Hell yea man! and many thanks!

As the Midi set goes I will make a whole new set for you guys before the years end, I'll make it two files so one with all the old tracks and the second with all the new ones, lots of 1980's material btw, the EWS64 XL has been a great aid in this midi music project.

Here my fully reworked & Gold recapped Terratec Promedia Audio System EWS64 XL Rev 1.2 9733 playing some 80's Midi music files!

01. George Benson ~ Give Me The Night (1980)
02. Jermaine Jackson, Pia Zadora - When the Rain Begins to Fall (1984)
03. Mental As Anything - Live It Up (1985)

EWS64 XL playing Midi music

Here's my Terratec Promedia Audio System EWS64 XL playing some nice quality midi files, not proper capture device yet,still something I really need to work o...

www.youtube.com

Yea yea not great sound quality but fuck it it works and I am really enjoying this gem!
Many thanks for everyone that part of this epic long id, fantastic work for recapping and fixing the traces on this card Backfire  
Lotosdrache you were right though, the EWS64 XL is by far the absolute BEST Midi sound card of all time, it's that good, the gold recap made it even better.

What I will do is a make a new Midi music compilation for you guys, been working on a new set, the EWS64 XL is good aid for such things

Quote from Lotosdrache

Quote from Gold Leader

Savage 2000 also had S3TL as the first card to have this technology, sadly the effect was disabled on release

The claim that S3 were the first to have T&L seems a little exaggerated. As far as I know, S3 Transform & Lighting didn't work due to a hardware bug in the Savage 2000 chip. It wasn't possible to fix it via software. So they had to disable the function. And if it doesn't work, then you weren't the first either. Some times later, S3 released a revised version of the chip called Savage XP aka AlphaChrome.

By the way, I would love to have a card with Savage XP aka AlphaChrome. If anyone knows someone who would like to sell such a card, please let me know.

Savage XP I did see on ebay a few times I can keep watch for you if you'd like
And yea back in 1999 I had a beta driver for S3TL, the X-Tension Roling Demo did work but there were certain glitches here and there, a shame though would of been nice if it would just work the way it should of

Quote from undertaker_2

True! I had a 96KHz monster from 17"Samsung CRT @ 1280*1024 @85Hz. with a GF2 - and the image quality in Photoshop was subterranean. With ATI and Matrox cards, on the other hand, the image was razor sharp.

Yea exactly! then again after having around 800 graphics cards since 1988 NVIDIA was by far the worst I ever worked with, always driver issues and image quality issues and I had literally all their top tier cards, 3dfx 's Voodoo3 3000 & 3500 were 3dfx's absolute best cards as 2D image quality went, their Voodoo3 3000 PCI was also seen as the ideal dos gaming card thanks to it's superb 2D acceleration and crisp image output, plus great 8 bit per pixel rendering as well.

Matrox & ATi also share those wonderful advantages, ATI also had iDCT for hardware video acceleration as the only one out there that had this, this was a very neat advantage over all others

Matrox came with Environment Mapped Bump mapping aka EMBM on their G400 line of cards yet for Dos gaming the G200 was still the better bet, although the G400 series are a fine choice for Win98SE, WinMe & Win2K Pro.

S3's best cards were the Savage 4 Xtreme & Savage 2000, these two brought in S3 Texture Compression, this gave a very nice touch to 32 bit OpenGL & Glide Games and they also had the S3 MeTaL API sadly only Unreal Engine based games could take advantage of it and it was more buggy on the Savage 2000 as well, 2D S3 was a nice choice it wasn't too expensive, but it was certainly a tad better than the dreadful TNT cards from NVIDIA.

Savage 2000 also had S3TL as the first card to have this technology, sadly the effect was disabled on release, NVIDIA copied the idea and used it for their NV10, and did as if they were to first to have Transform & Lighting, yes they were the first to use it but no they were not the first to have it, that is the difference most trip on over,a typical NV behavior they still execute today, rather petty of them.

Ah yea it was a time when choice existed, I never sadly experience the PowerVR Kyro cards, these also have superb image quality output as I been treading about, also something I would love to try out someday the Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 AGP 64MB per example would be a fun card to try out some day.

Not sure how SiS's Xabre cards were though, same for XGI as they went as for their Volari line of cards.

Quote from Marlon

Nvidia's TNT got 91% from Anandtech wich is quiet good.

I checked Savage 3D, G200 and TNT with several Games and the TNT was very impressive in 1998.

My choice for a 98 2D/3D Graphics Card is Rage Fury or Banshee.

TNT 1 &2 had terrible image quality, I liked none of these cards even I did have them myself ATi, Matrox & 3dfx as their V3's went were the image quality kings., NVIDIA always degraded image quality for more performance and it was very notable, TNT did not really impress me as I was shocked by the poor image quality output I used a 20" EIZO FlexScan CRT at the time which can do 1600x1200x32 @ 100Hz, the ATi, Matrox, S3 Savage &3dfx V3 cards I had at the time did a much cleaner job.

it's well known that the image quality output of all NVIDIA cards before NV30 were pretty bad, not worth the experience if it were me, yikes.

Quote from Early3D

Hi Gold Leader, thanks for the insights. Is SoF an OpenGl only game? Can you share some performance figures for the g400 max? I always missed some tests with and without Trilinear filtering in benchmarks and thought that this might affect the results. It was mostly not stated if that was turned on and maybe this is why sometimes the g400 seems to be lacking well behind a TNT2 or a voodoo 3 (lower texture quality for the Voodoo of course also makes it easier for it). Still, older tests suggested that the g400 was not keeping up with the competition in SoF.

The G400 MAX is quite faster than the TNT2 Ultra in most games plus the image quality iwas the ebst at it's time in2D and 3D, TNT cards were the absolute worst as it came to Image quality even Anandtech strongly advised people not to go for the TNT 1 &2 series when it came to their very poor image quality output:


the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 has on par 2D image quality but 3D the G400 MAX in 32 Bit is superior but using 3dfx Glide API this is 22Bit color and has better alpha blending so Glide is really not a bad choice, plus it's Box filter also helps the V3 give some very nice results a Voodoo2 how ever is different as these lack the 2x2 Box filter the V3's have in advance.

The graphics card I am using is the Matrox Millennium G400 MAX DH AGP 32MB 128Bit SGR Rev.A 4399 or say the G400 MAX for short, as it's the first experience I have with this card and tbh I am very impressed what it is capable of, it also has EMBM which stands for Evironment Mapped Bump mapping only the G400 & G500 series had this incl the Parhelia & Parhelia LX Series which came after 2002.

128 reasons not to buy nVidia
Canopus SPECTRA 2500 Riva TNT

None of my retro PCs will ever get a NVIDIA based card, but vendors like S3, Matrox ATi & 3dfx will only be used.

Hey all after seeing what good games to play with my P3/E 850 Slot1 build I came to a memorable classic from March year 2000 which is Soldier of Fortune by Raven Software one many of you may recall, at first after installing the game the version I have is 1.03 It was very unstable with the G400 MAX but also the V2 PCI 12MB , so after giving it the 1.6 Gold Patch this fixed a ton of things to improve multiplayer I also added patch 1.07,this last patch only fixes a few things for the multiplayer segment of the game, but does not affect single player 1.06 Gold patch fixes all of that.

Here some pics I made at 800x60x16 with the G400 MAX:


And here at 800x600 with 32 Bit colors the bricks look much sharper


So yea I been playing at 800x600x16 and that runs really nice everything maxed out with Trilinear_filtering, but even 32Bit runs fine as well and looks a little bit more crispier the EWS64 XL plays the sound effects and music beautifully so no issues with that one either.

And here two pics at 1024x768x32:

But hey I am really enjoying it so far.

For those that seek SOF Gold Patch 1.06 you can grab that from here:

Soldier of Fortune Gold patch

Upgrades the original release of Soldier of Fortune to the Gold Edition. This update is not needed for the Gold Edition retail release. See the included readme…

community.pcgamingwiki.com

Here the list of fixes made to Soldier of Fortune:

ADDITIONAL FEATURES:
   01. · Re-worked single player AI
   02. · Two new Deathmatch Modes for multiplayer: Control and Conquer the Bunker
   03. · 18 new multiplayer maps. 11 for Conquer and 7 for Control. Standard Deathmatch, Assassin, and Arsenal are also readily playable on all of the new maps
   04. · A brand new multiplayer team consisting of six new player skins
   05. · A computer controlled bot for Standard Deathmatch and Arsenal
   06. · Pure Server support for multiplayer games
   07. · Various bug fixes
   
BUG & FEATURE FIXES
   01. · Added support for multi colored names in the Deathmatch scoreboard
   02. · Added RED/BLUE team support in CTF
   03. · Added RED/BLUE team support into CONQUER deathmatch
   04. · Added downloads of menu .rmf files for deathmatch levels
   05. · Added downloads of bot pathing files for deathmatch levels
   06. · Added support for newer EAX map versions, so we are concurrent with EAX map output from the latest version of Eagle.
   07. · Added a "-nostart" command line option, so that dedicated servers won't automatically start dedicated.cfg
   08. · Added a check for invalided saved game files in the menu code
   09. · Addressed an issue where people behind firewalls are connecting from the same IP
   10. · Update to A3D's A3DAPI.dll to provide detection for Vortex 2 chipsets
   11. · Update to the WON library that addresses some bugs
   12. · Fixed crash in EAX sound code when playing old sounds
   13. · Fixed crash in DM when getting killed by standing over a flaming body
   14. · Fixed crash in DM for Arsenal caused by weapon switching / inventory bug
   15. · Fixed problem where people had difficulty connecting to servers
   16. · Fixed an issue with spectator mode
   17. · Fixed an overflow issue with demo playback
   18. · Fixed CTF issue with force join
   19. · Fixed irqctf1 where players could get into bad spots
   20. · Fixed scripting problem in KOS3 when killing the helicopter
   21. · Fixed a bug in detection of remote IP address for systems with multiple IPs
   22. · Changed the "Error during Initialization" dialog to report the specific error
   23. · Circumvented W2K bug, which would basically not allow various GL implementations to initialize under W2K
   24. · Re-organized CD copy protection
   25. · Made it so that the winsock error WSAECONNRESET doesn't drop you to the console during DM server browsing
   26. · Server Browser updates info when bringing up the status of a particular server
   27. · Automatic account login for dedicated servers
   28. · Clients connecting to dedicated servers no longer need a CD
   
Also included in this version is a DLL from Creative Labs. This emulates EAX2.0 on any card that supports EAX1.0. This would include SB PCI cards, Vortex2 cards, and older Sensura based cards. To install this feature, run the batch file in the SoF directory called "installeax.bat"
   
GENERAL:
   01. · Custom maps may not be compatible between patched and non-patched versions of Soldier of Fortune.
   02. · Saved games will not be compatible between patched and non-patched versions of Soldier of Fortune.
   03. · This upgrade will work for English, German, French, and Tactical CD-ROM versions of Soldier of Fortune. This patch upgrades your copy of Soldier of Fortune to version 1.06. After installing this upgrade, you will only be able to play multiplayer games with people who have also installed this same upgrade.

Patch 1.07 can be grabbed from here:

Soldier of Fortune patch 1.07

Download Soldier of Fortune patch 1.07 now from AusGamers - its free, and no signup is required!

www.ausgamers.com

The OS I am using is Win98SE USA + UnOfficial SP 3 Version 3.66 and everything runs rock solid.

Just an update all is going very well even all games I tried such as these sound very good as well:

Ultimate Doom
Doom II: Hell on Earth
Duke Nukem 3D
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
Hexen: Beyond Heretic
Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
Hexen II
Hexen II: Portal of Praevus
Matrox G400 Tech Demo
Star Wars Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
X-Tension Rolling Demo


Still some more to go like my Descent & Freespace games but so far I am very impressed on the midi music quality as well, it's really nice, it puts the AWE 32 & 64 cards to shame in various ways, the EWS64 XL is by far the best sound card I ever used, especially when it comes to 1990's gen ISA sound cards.

Hello there,

Well here's my 3Dfx based Voodoo 2 PCI 12 MB build, as my 3rd 3dfx based Retro PC.
Even it's actually focused on the EWS64 XL for midi music making and listening.

Avenger M99

Intel Pentium !!!/E Coppermine 850Mhz S.E.C.C. II Slot1 CPU
Thermaltake Golden Orb for S.E.C.C. II Slot 1 CPU's
2x 256MB PC-100 Legend CL2 matched kit (Kingston ram chips)
EPoX EP-BX3 + Modified Bios 4.23
Matrox Millennium G400 MAX DH AGP 32MB 128Bit Rev.A 4399 + Soltek Bronze Orb
Gainward Dragon 3000 PCI 12MB Rev.A 9846 (Voodoo2)
Terratec Promedia Audio System EWS64 XL Rev. 1.2 9733 (Year 1997 - Week 33) + 32MB 60ns 72 pins EDO Ram
(Full Gold Nichicon Recap & Stereo sound reworks done by Backfire from Voodoo Alert, Germany)
1x Maxtor DiamondMax 9+ 30GBB 7200 rpm HDD (Main drive)
1x Western Digital WD1200BB 120GB 7200 rpm HDD (Game drive)
1x Creative Labs 12x DVD-Rom Drive
1x Mitsumi Electric 3.5" FD Drive
FKI FK-6043 Midi Tower

Win98 SE USA + Un-Official Service Pack 3 Version 3.66
Latest G400 Max drivers from 2002
3dfxzone.it's FastVoodoo2 Driver kit Version 4.6




Here the bootup screen revealing the modified Bios version 4.23 posting the Intel Pentium III Coppermine 850Mhz without issues second shot is the EPROM Bios menu where you can manually setup the IRQ's, DMA's and Port values for the EWS64 XL sound card:


Here I removed the PSU, just to reveal the parts a lot better

Full build log can be seen here:

Thread

Something lovely arrived this week! Palit Gainward's Voodoo2 & Terratec EWS64XL boxed

Hey all

Here's something new from me for a change, even it is 3dfx related.

it's been a while like 14 years ago that I held a Palit GainwardDragon 3000 PCI 12MB in my own hands and yes I of course I did clean her up here and there, it looks new actually.
All thanks to a good friend from Victor Bart's community for helping me find and buy this card for a very good friendship's deal.

But here the photo's of it after I have neatly cleaned this beauty:

Palit Gainward Dragon 3000 PCI 12MB 192Bit EDO Ram…

Gold Leader

June 5, 2024 at 1:45 AM

Scroll all the way to Page 05 where the final steps were made to it on how it's all working as it is right now
Or read everything I been through to make it all happen from page 01 post 01.
That is all up to you

Major thanks go to Lotosdrache for guiding me with the correct drivers & installation methods for the Terratec Promedia Audio System EWS64 XL Rev. 1.2 9733 ( Year 1997 - Week 33)
And also major thanks go to Backfire for the Gold Recap with 55 Japan made Nichicon Professional Audio grade Gold Capacitors for the card and the 5.25" IO Drive and for the three reworks to fix the main left audio out and other things
Backfire also recapped the Gainward Voodoo2 with KEMET Polymer capacitors and the Enermax EG351P-V with Panasonic Capacitors as well.
Also many thanks to SWZSSR for the G400 MAX, the EPoX EP-BX3 vVer 1.1 and flashing it with Bios version 4.23, after looking in to this for quite some time
Also I thank SWZSSR for the system memory and the Thermaltake Golden orb for S.E.C.C. II Pentium 3 Slot 1 CPU's which came new in box, he added a second Thermaltake Golden Orb Box for the K7 Athlon Slot A Golden Orb that I use in my Nighthawk build, the 2nd box also contained the system memory and a micro SSD to ATA convertor unit with a 90cm FDD cable.
This made both Golden Orbs 100% complete.


Gold Recapped Terratec EWS64 XL:


Recapped Gainward Dragon 3000 PCI 12MB Rev.A 9846 (Voodoo2)


Recapped Enermax EG351P-V:

Thereby making this system safe for use.

Without these people and their amazing skills, this project would never of been a success.
Until the next 3dfx build.

May The Force Be With You, Always,
Gold Leader.