Tekk Posted August 23, 2000 Share Posted August 23, 2000 I have gone through the whole computer buying process and I have to say that I am dissapointed with the industry's review on various products. Specifically, in Video and Sound. So I though that while the KBlair thread is running, I would start a new one, on the topic of building the best STABLE computer. A geForce2 is great if you want to brag about speed, but if you want it to work all the time and with every product, it might not be the best choice. drivers. So let the fun begin. This baby will smoke anything: 'Next Blue' ATX Case from http://www.colorcase.com This case slides on and slides off. You can get it with power supplies from 250-330W. And they are Athlon Approved. Asus K7M Motherboard Why not get the K7V, or a KT133 Chipset? The K7M has a faster booting bios, and it has an ISA slot. Samsung 900ift Monitor .20 Dot pitch, the flattest screen out there. This baby is a 19" GOD when it comes to monitors. At .20, You wont get better image quality, it lists for 330 on http://www.pricewatch.com The Matrox G400 Optional Dual-Head, The only card with Environment Mapped Bump Mapping. This has built in algorithms for producing weather effects, shading, and the best T&L. Cubic Mapping sucks compared to this. Lists for 100 or so on pricewatch.com The ISA SoundBlaster64 The PCI version is really an ENSONIQ128, which sucks. This card is bulletproof, and it supports beautiful 4 speaker sound. While it might not have the positioning effect of EAX, it kicks *** when it comes to compatibility, realiability, and stability. And this one has good drivers! Netgear FA310TX 10-100 NIC This thing is really cool. It delivers the best peer-to-peer speeds I've ever seen. 128MB PC133 SDRAM Forget Rambus, Set your hardware config to server to take advantage of 128mb. Go with PC133 and set your bios to a 4:3 DRAM-CPU Ratio Here is a pic of the case: Last but not least, if you aren't using USB up the ying-yang, go with Windows95. Bus Mastering, the technology that was developed about 4 years ago, will improve everything that connects to your South Bridge (PCI, ISA, IDE) by about 50% in access speed. Its not available for 98 or 2000, which is why I like to use it. Also, turning off Windows Power Management (ACPI) will drastically reduce the number of Invalid Page Faults. Unfortunately you cant do much about this in 98 or 2000. I'd appreciate any insight you might have about good device with good drivers, ESPECIALLY Sound. ------------------ ---------------------- That's the bottom line, Cause Tekk said so! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Distec Posted August 24, 2000 Share Posted August 24, 2000 IMO, intel BX chipset has been the most stable I have encountered. Athlon motherboards have had some problems(especially with power). However, why would you get a KX chipset mobo when AMD is switching to KT? I would say the Asus A7V or the Abit KT7 would be better choices(especially for raid). The monitor looks nice, although i still drool over a 21" Trinitron =Þ First of all, the g400 does NOT have T&L(not that games use it anyways). The rest of the features you mentioned aren't used either, so it doesn't make sense buying the card just for these unused features. Secondly, the v3 drivers are probably the most stable out of the bunch(excluding 3500). You can get the voodoo3 2k for around $80, which is excellent considering you can get it with PCI and it performs just as well as the G400. Nvidia reference drivers are pretty damn stable, and I haven't had any problems with them at all. Of course, if you are using beta drivers, I seriously doubt you will get any stability. For the best price/performance, and would say the Geforce MX wins it. It also has optional dual head(like the G400), with geforce DDR performance for around $120. I had the sb64 about two years ago, and dumped it for the MX300. The sb64 just doesn't have the features cards have now, such as 3d sound, multi-channel sound, EQ, etc. The MX300 has been very stable for me with the latest reference drivers. Netgear makes good NICs, and the 3COM 905 series is great also. I don't know why anyone would choose rambus. $400 for 128mb for negligible performance gain isn't worth it. Not to mention you can't use Rambus on Athlon motherboards =Þ Busmastering drivers are platform specific. Drivers that work on the BX won't work on apollo, etc. Busmastering drivers are used on all versions on Windows. I have not heard or seen any evidence of the 50% increase in speed using busmastering drivers in win95, and frankly it doesn't made sense to me. There is no reason why later versions wouldn't support this(since win95 drivers work in win98), and it doesn't make sense to slow down access time. If you can show some evidence for this, I would be interested in it. My system has been rock stable. Here are the specs on my system: Celeron II 566mhz @ 850mhz Abit BX6 rev 2 192mb Generic PC SDRAM Voodoo3 2000 (overclocked to 166mhz) Diamond MX300 USR 56k modem Standard case with 250watt PS Maxtor 18.2 GB HD and Quantum 9.1GB HD(have had lots of problems with the Quantum; its sitting in my drawer at the moment) Pioneer 10X DVD and Aopen 40X CDROM The only crashes I get are from program bugs(such as from diablo2). I can leave my computer on for weeks without crashing it using win98 SE(months using Linux). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekk Posted August 24, 2000 Author Share Posted August 24, 2000 Hey Distec, obviously we disagree on certain things. But hey, that's what BBS is for, right!! If you found Bus Master drivers for Windows98, Id be glad to see it. Im sure we agree on Rambus, but could you explain why you think the G400 doesn't have T&L? First, lets get Bus Mastering straight. I got the 50% performance increase based on defrag time with 1 hard drive after a clean install of Win95 with Office97 w/ and w/out Bus Master. The reason why I steer away from NVidia is because many of their chipsets require DirectX 7.0. (I had to install 7.0 to get Anything to work on a GeForce256) As you may know, DirectX 7 has a terrible conflict with InstallSheild, and it can crash while installing apps, even in the middle of writing to your registry. 98 has Active Desktop, which consumes system resources. Plus, it turns your registry into a .CAB file. I am aware that most boards have Bus Master Controllers, but if they are using FIFO technology for the individual IDE device, everything on your South Bridge will be held up! If you think Bus Master works in 98, Try installing it. It won't work, period. You can install Piix4, but not Piix3. This means that you will resolve youe PCI PCItoPCI bridge, but not your PCI Busmaster IDE Controller. Hope you respond, I think this will be an interesting discussion! ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KBlair Posted August 24, 2000 Share Posted August 24, 2000 Are you insinuating that my new PC isn't going to be a REAL PC? j/k If you want stability, my personal experience is an ASUS K7V, Athlon 500@700, running RedHat 6.1 as a web server. It's been up 24/7 for 8 months without having to reboot. Admittedly, it's only a web server, but it's rock solid. Windows is buggy, it's just something that I've learned to live with. Reboot, Reinstall, Reformat. You know the routine. I know this though, I'm not at all happy with VIA's MVP3 chipset for the Super7 platform. Nothing but problems. I think that going back a generation in technology is smart if you are looking for stability. I didn't upgrade to Win98 till SE came out. Power management sucks and I've always turned it off as much as I can, even on my laptops. What are Matrox's plans for their next-gen chipset? Have they announced anything at all? The buggy drivers comes with fast product cycles. There is no way to release solid drivers for a new product every 6 months. As far as soundcards, MX300 with Aureal reference drivers. Never caused a problem, rock solid. Let's face it, ISA is on it's way out. Not because it's not a good platform, but it's speed-limited and that's a big no-no in today's comp world. I don't use any ISA cards at all now and can't say that I've missed them much. PCI plug-and-play is great when it works properly. Holding on to legacy technology (ISA) causes major problems for developers and overall increases the bloat factor of code. Imagine how much leaner Windows would be if there were no ISA devices to deal with. That case is nice, but I prefer the Penguin version! Comments? c>------------------ Who knows what evil lurks in the darkness of The Kave ? www.thekave.net Home of The Klipschmonster! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekk Posted August 24, 2000 Author Share Posted August 24, 2000 Of Course I wasn't insinuating anything!! I might grab the MX300 JUST to give it a try, just curious, what driver version are you using? I agree with you completely on power management. I figured, If Im gonna shell out some dough to get a new computer, I want it to work, dammit! I have the K7V actually, and it works good, I have a little regret that I didn't get the M purely for the ISA slot so I could run an old soundblaster, but that was a minor issue. The K7M Bios boots real quick though! Its weird, Good campanies have really crappy websites! (Except for Klipsch OF COURSE). Take Asus Yeah, ISA is gone, but when it worked, it wasn't so bad. Hey pretty soon, Everything will be 64bit, and then 128bit (And it will never be fast enough for anyone :rolleyes ) Your setup was good, I just think that the G400 is a little under-appreciated. What do you think of my signature? ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geekysteve Posted August 24, 2000 Share Posted August 24, 2000 hilarious, but too friendly. ------------------ PLEASE SEARCH THE GOD D@MN ARCHIVES BEFORE ASKING A QUESTION Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Distec Posted August 25, 2000 Share Posted August 25, 2000 As I said before, bus master drivers are motherboard specific. However, these drivers will run in both windows 95 and 98(and NT I believe). Without these drivers, windows runs in ms-dos compatibility mode, which obviously kills performance. Of course, windows will usually install basic bus master drivers, which are slow, but much better than ms-dos compatibility mode. The Geforce was the first card to come out with T&L. The G400 came out a few months before the geforce. The next generation card, the G800, should have T&L, but the g400 does not. Matrox' website does not advertise its T&L, and I doubt you could find any evidence that shows the G400 with T&L. I haven't experienced any problems with install shield conflicting with DX7. When was the last time you formatted your hard drive? I find that windows will start randomly crashing and going extremely slow after 4-6 months of use, and a reformat is usually needed. I would never think of running windows for more than 6 months without reformatting. The Piix4 works perfectly on my computer. I don't see how the earlier versions can be any faster than the later ones. It may not install because your motherboard may be too old, or might not be using a BX/LX chipset. This is what version I'm using: If you could tell me the specs on your computer, it would be helpful... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KBlair Posted August 25, 2000 Share Posted August 25, 2000 I ran across this review of the G400 MAX at combatsim.com from august of 99. It's a little old but what I thought was nice was the demonstration of Environmental Bump Mapping. Expendable with normal water Expendable with Environmental Bump Mapping You can really see the difference in the eye candy. The pics are on the second page of the review where you can see larger images. c>------------------ Who knows what evil lurks in the darkness of The Kave ? www.thekave.net Home of The Klipschmonster! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvobiker Posted August 25, 2000 Share Posted August 25, 2000 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGG......that is the most realistic water ive EVER SEEN......does the gf2 have the environment bump mapping?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Distec Posted August 25, 2000 Share Posted August 25, 2000 The only problem with these additional features is that they have to be programmed for. Very few games actually incorporate these features, which makes them fairly useless. I believe the GF2 has enviromental bump mapping, although I'm not 100% sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekk Posted August 25, 2000 Author Share Posted August 25, 2000 No, the Matrox G400 is the ONLY card with Enviornment Mapped Bump Mapping. Other cards, perhaps the GF2 have Cubic Bump Mapping, but that won't simulate water, lighting, or clouds. You won't (admittedly) get the ridiculous frame rates of the Geforce2, but everything with look so much better!! Distec, you proved my case an point about Bus master. Your snapshot shows that you have a Busmaster controller, but that your IDE drivers are interfacing with Dual FIFO, the older and slower technology. This is what is should look like: http://www.crosswinds.net/~tekknikal/index.htm The reason that I don't have the primary listed is because it got burned during a power surge Notice how the daughter devices say Bus Master and not FIFO. A Bus Master controller does you no good if your not actually using it!! ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekk Posted August 25, 2000 Author Share Posted August 25, 2000 P.S. Distec: You can install Piix4 on 98, but that won't install Bus Master. Piix4 is added support for the PCI Bridge and other Southbridge related motherboard devices. Piix3 will not install on 98. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Distec Posted August 25, 2000 Share Posted August 25, 2000 FIFO is an acronym which stands for first in, first out, which is a technology based on busmaster. You can say its a more advanced version of it, since it uses DMA(direct memory access). Of course, windows 95/98 doesn't automatically enable DMA with any of the drives; you have to enable it yourself. You do get a substantial performance increase when enabling DMA. It is still considered busmastering though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekk Posted August 26, 2000 Author Share Posted August 26, 2000 Distec, Do you know when FIFO was invented?!?! Like in the early 80's, when there wasn't even a south bridge! I think your timeline is a little messed up. Bus Mastering came out after the south bridge, FIFO came out before the south bridge. And don't even try to say that FIFO is more advanced. Go find a Win95 machine, defrag, install some apps, install Piix3, then defrag again, and tell me which one went faster. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekk Posted August 26, 2000 Author Share Posted August 26, 2000 Intel says Piix3 won't work on 98 right here Look at the section entitled 'Do I need to install the Bus Master IDE Driver' Intel says, "The Intel Bus Master IDE driver should be used only with the retail version of Windows 95(4.00.950) or OEM Service Release 1 (4.00.950a). Users running Windows 95 OSR 2.0 or later (4.00.95c) or Windows 98 (4.10.1998) should NOT use the Intel Bus Master IDE driver." Now Intel also says that Windows98 should have native bus mastering, but that is crap. Windows 98 uses the same Single/Dual FIFO technology that was implemented in 95. By the way, With Bus Master, my drivers run in UDMA, not DMA. ------------------ A cookie is just a cookie, but a Fig Newton is fruit and cake. (TA DAO!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekk Posted August 26, 2000 Author Share Posted August 26, 2000 View a properly Bus Mastered Device Manager here: http://www.crosswinds.net/~tekknikal/index.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Distec Posted August 26, 2000 Share Posted August 26, 2000 tekk, I have no idea where u get the notion that busmastering isn't unabled in win98 because it says "fifo", and that dma and udma are totally different things. Please, provide some real proof of this. Show me some websites that prove your point. I have been working with computers for over 5 years now, and know these systems inside out. What you are telling me goes against what I have learned for myself over the years. As for FiFo being an advanced version of bus mastering, I meant to say that bus mastering is an advanced form of FiFo. They are both ways of moving data over the bus, the same with dma. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neo22582 Posted August 27, 2000 Share Posted August 27, 2000 quote: Originally posted by Tekk: No, the Matrox G400 is the ONLY card with Enviornment Mapped Bump Mapping.... This was true....now ATI's Radeon also supports EMBM. I hear it supports all forms of bump mapping and at framerates that are close to the GeForce2 (which is much faster than the G400). Just thought I would pass that along. I can't wait for my Radeon! ------------------ My Pros are here...there goes the neighborhood!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvobiker Posted August 27, 2000 Share Posted August 27, 2000 damn......AND I JUST SPENT BOUGHT THE GEFORCE2 64MB....oh well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KBlair Posted August 28, 2000 Share Posted August 28, 2000 Gimme RADEON!!! (a MAXX version please!) I'd be interested in seeing those websites that talk abut Busmastering, you guys have peaked my interest. Luckily, it will be a couple months before I buy my next vid card. Unless something changes, it's probably going to be a Radeon 64MB. Do you know if you can get the G400 in PCI flavor?c>------------------ Who knows what evil lurks in the darkness of The Kave ? www.thekave.net Home of The Klipschmonster! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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