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Journal Chacham's Journal: Got a new computer 15

Journal by Chacham

Well, lo and behold, someone gave me a computer. It's a neat box with a 1 gigahertz Duron, the motherboard has built in sound and NIC (though he gave me a NIC too). The memory was bad, so he threw in 64 Meg he had lying around. Hopefully the upgrade to my computer will work, and I'll throw in 256 to this other one.

The CD-ROM drive kept causing issues, so I replaced that from another computer someone gave me (to be used for the tape library). The hard drive is about 40 GB, and I threw in a stray IDE cable just to put it on another channel. The video card is (forgot, but its something with 32 MB). I wiped 98 from it, as it was slooow. I'm trying to install XP on it just to have a Windows computer. Not that I actually want Windows, it just supports more games than WineX. :-)

Why XP? Because I figure it supports more things. Microsoft seems to help companies want to support later OS's and not always earlier ones. Though I wonder if 98se would work just as well.

In other news, my computer just got up and running. I bought a "Cable/DSL" router, so I removed a NIC from it. I removed the Promise controller, and hope to get the 3ware in today, which I'll then use the two drives as RAID 1, and find another drive to use for swap. I just downloaded 2.4.19, and now I need to find the Tekram patch for it.

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Got a new computer

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  • XP Disadvantage (Score:3, Informative)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:48PM (#4523618) Homepage Journal
    There is one XP Disadvantage. It doesn't work well with legacy hardware, nor legacy games. But anything recent will work great.
    • yeah, word booty, FortKnox. I had to steal my dad's old P166 (98se which runs pretty swimmingly with its ram maxed out... and the ram is slow too (fast page)) just to telecommute to work and to run old sound mixing apps.

      So I suppose that device support isn't very backwards compatible. But XP sure is purty!

      • Re:XP Disadvantage (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Chacham ( 981 )
        Thanx guys. So I guess if I want to play Death Rally or the like I couldn't? That's a show stopper.

        I was having error after error with the install. So, moments ago I started to install 98 SE. (It just finished FDISKing.) I wasn't sure if I'd keep it, but now I think I will.

        BTW, the video card is a Nvidia Geoforce MX.
        • Thanx for the mod, whomever you are.

          Now just two more, and I ought to be back to 50. :-)

          As for an update, copy Win 98 cabs to the HD right now. Hopefully, I'll have Diablo (II) on it tonight.
  • Might want to avoid XP if you are low on RAM. 64M is painful, 128M sluggish, 256M works, gravy after 512M.

    I still use win98se on my gaming box - removable hard drives, so the OS is tweeked for gaming. Granted, if a program horks, you are looking at a re-boot rather than killing the app... but it plays about everything in my library of games. I still like red alert and some of the other oldies that won't load on 2k.

    If you have an nvidia card, might want to try The gentoo ut3k demo [gentoo.org] I was supprised how well it worked with a 32M nvidia card... Not going to get the massive FPS numbers folks are getting with the latest greatest, but it works for those of us on a budget.
    • Thanx.

      Like an idiot, I bought the wrong ram for my Abit MB, so I was stuck with 768 MB ram. I put 512 in the Gaming box, and it's running well. I just got my sorceress up to level 7. I wanted to set the next waypoint but the game quit as I was hitting a unique. How did you you spend your "extra" hour? :-)

      I figure the other 256 should be used for the tape library. But that is way overkill. I'll find someoene with 128, and offer a trade. This was someone ought to see the benefit. I think my sister's computer ought to be a good candidate for it.

      I'm not sure how you tweak 98se for gaming. Anything special that helps?

      As for gentoo, I'll stick with windows right now. As much as I don't like it on my main system, it does fine for games, and doesn't usually crash during a single game, so it ought to be fine. Windows is easier to use at times, at the cost of usability and stability. But if it is for limited use, and for limited times the two main negatives go away.
      • Start with a bare bones install, fresh bios, drivers, etc. If you want to go over 512M in win9x, make sure you set MaxFileCache to 512M or you will have problems. (see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; EN-US;Q253912)

        RAM drives go a long way once you get past the 512M barrier...

        The TweekUI util is handy.... it is on the web if you poke around.

        Under system, performance, I set my drives to File Server. Make sure you lable your drive letters as well. I usually set up a seperate swap partion, and set a fixed virtual memory too.

        Blast extra fonts and check for stuff starting up that you don't need running in the background. Use msconfig to see what is running. Make _sure_ you know what you are cutting out.

        I also removed IE and use the old Win95 file explorer. There are tools out there that will help. I did it the hard way. Mind you, this will make security updates a bit tough. Its a dedicated gaming box, however... look for something called 98lite or something along that line of thought. (It was free a few years back)
        • OK, I have exactly 512 in there, so it shouldn't be an issue.

          MS says not to use TweakUI on SE, so I figured I didn't need it. Though I may go grab it anyway.

          Under system, performace, I didn't see "File Server". Do you mean "Network Server"? Right now its set to "Desktop Computer".

          There's nothing running on startup except systray and a keyboard program. I can nix that, but I'm not sure it'll matter.

          As for fonts, which are the core fonts that should be left on the system?

          With IE, I'll leave. I do plan to use IE now and then, for whatever the reason, so I think it should stay, unless I see a specific performance increase.

          Just hit level 14 sorceress. Wondering what to do with all the skill and stat points though. I'm about to take on Andariel.
          • Yes - there are some core fonts... just avoid loading one of those 2000 free font packs and you should be OK.

            You are right - Networks server... been a while since I looked.

            The IE browser really does a number on the OS. Your call. I just use it for gaming, with other boxes for coding, browsing, email, and what not.

            TweekUI is handy. If nothing else, it makes clean up after a bad install better.

            Tried a necromancer yet?

            • OK, I ought to set it to Network Server after DBZ. In tonight's episode Goku asked Buu to cheat for him. And they call him "innocent".

              Where does the browser hurt the performance of the system. It is for gaming, but having the ability to do other stuff like browsing without having to go to my computer (like when I'm gaming), ought to be nice. However, if it does hurt the system, I'm open to suggestions.

              And, I almost tried necromancer, but I keep liking sorceress. Static field is awesome.
              • A few years ago -- another company -- we use to play often. Started to find set items, so we created mule characters and made a CVS package. When it was sold off, they snagged the package with the rest of our codebase. All of us were a little red and quickly scrolled past the diablo package. They just thought it was a 'code name' for a build. I'll see if I can find it.

                Try the necro - nice class later on.

                Without IE, many of the reasons to patch go away... It gave me a bit more kick, but the box has gone through 3 mainboard/cpu upgrades - hardly matters with a 2ghz cpu. I use mozilla w/o the quick launch for a browser. If your box is fast enough, then don't break what works. (grin)
                • Interesting.

                  I'm almost in need of a jewel mule. My stash is almost full.

                  I've seen and read cool things about the necro. However, I've got to be willing to put in the time. I have a friend with a copy, so if I can use his CD key, I may want to log in twice and zoom a necromancer up at least the first twenty levels. No use in wasting time!

                  Anyway, level fifteen now, just beat Andariel. Sheesh, you know how long it took me to realize that she was cold resistant! I died a few times, and that gets expensive. So I grabbed the king's rod and got her in two lives. I died moment before we killed her. I ressurected my amazon, and she killed Andariel as I retrieved my armor.

                  I see what you mean. Though I always thought that IE patches fixed the errors. And, anyway, as long as it isn't running (in the foreground) I am not sure what difference it makes. That is, I understand that there may be an issue, but I just haven't seen it yet. Right now, D2 is running well in 800x600.

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