rec.autos.simulators

by **Jay** » Wed, 06 Jan 1999 04:00:00

Looking for a bit of advice.....

I've got $100 worth of gift certificates to CompUSA and would like to use
it to upgrade my system with either a bigger hard drive, more RAM or most
likely a Voodoo II board.

They have the Diamond Monster Voodoo II on sale (with mail in rebate) for
$150 this week.

Is this a worthwhile purchase?

I'm running a PII 266, with a PCI Riva128 4meg (Diamond Viper V330) and 64
meg's of RAM. I've got a 2.4 Gig SCSI HD which is my main boot drive. I'd
like to add another HD, but am concerned that adding an IDE drive will cause
problems, as it would most likely be recognized as the primary boot device
by my system?

Any ideas, suggestions ???

Thank you!
Jay J

by **XRaceTr** » Wed, 06 Jan 1999 04:00:00

>I'd like to add another HD, but am concerned that adding
> an IDE drive will cause problems, as it would most likely
> be recognized as the primary boot device by my system?

Only if you tell it to be the primary boot device...

My recommendation is to get a Western Digital drive,
use the handy dandy drive copy utility that comes with
it to make your new drive look exactly like your old
one (partitions, if present, will be proportionally the same)
and then switch the jumpers so that the new drive is
primary and the old drive is secondary. Then, boot up
and re-format your old drive and use it for whatever...

Of course, you can always just use the new drive as
the secondary drive and save a few steps... My personal
preference is to have the biggest and/or newest hard drive
as the primary drive... no real reason for that though...

I don't have a Voodoo card, so I can't really make any
comments about it - that's up to someone else... But I
have as of late installed a few new hard drives and haven't
had any problems making the one I wanted to be the
master or slave...

- m.

============================================
Mike Holthouse - Indianapolis, IN
Drop the "X" to e-mail me.
============================================

by **Bria** » Wed, 06 Jan 1999 04:00:00

You might also need a BIOS update to let your PC recognize a HD of greater
than 8.4GB - I needed one for my Dell PII 266. If your running Win98, you
might want to format your new HD to FAT32 - saves a lot of disk space. Once
you get everything running you can go back and convert the old drive to
FAT32 and reclaim about 25-30% of your used disk space. Voodoo 2 cards are
really cheap now - I just got a MaxiGamer 12MB for $150 CDN after rebate, or
about $100 US.

Brian

>>I'd like to add another HD, but am concerned that adding
>> an IDE drive will cause problems, as it would most likely
>> be recognized as the primary boot device by my system?

>Only if you tell it to be the primary boot device...

>My recommendation is to get a Western Digital drive,
>use the handy dandy drive copy utility that comes with
>it to make your new drive look exactly like your old
>one (partitions, if present, will be proportionally the same)
>and then switch the jumpers so that the new drive is
>primary and the old drive is secondary. Then, boot up
>and re-format your old drive and use it for whatever...

>Of course, you can always just use the new drive as
>the secondary drive and save a few steps... My personal
>preference is to have the biggest and/or newest hard drive
>as the primary drive... no real reason for that though...

>I don't have a Voodoo card, so I can't really make any
>comments about it - that's up to someone else... But I
>have as of late installed a few new hard drives and haven't
>had any problems making the one I wanted to be the
>master or slave...

>- m.

>============================================
> Mike Holthouse - Indianapolis, IN
> Drop the "X" to e-mail me.
>============================================

by **DTrager1** » Wed, 06 Jan 1999 04:00:00

I wish this were true, but the rebate expired 12-31-98. I think Compusa is
tring to pull the ol okeydoke.

by **J Crai** » Wed, 06 Jan 1999 04:00:00

If your gun-shy about installing a 2nd drive, some stores (i.e. best buy)
will install the drive for you for free when you purchase it from them.

by **Jay** » Wed, 06 Jan 1999 04:00:00

I just read on a 3dfx newsgroup that Diamond is discontinuing the Monster
II, which is why they are offering rebates, and apparently their driver
support for that card will cease too!

Look's like I'll wait until Voodoo III comes out to upgrade my video
(perhaps by then the Voodoo II's will drop in price enough to buy two of
them and run them in SLI mode!)

So it's decided, another hard drive looks like the way I'll go...

I've heard Western Digital is a good brand, any I should avoid?
Also thank's J Craig, I'll see about their install policy, hell if they'll
do it for free (included with the purchase price, then I'll let 'um go for
it!)

Jay J

by **Daxe Rexfor** » Wed, 06 Jan 1999 04:00:00

I didn't see the original post of this thread, but if you put an IDE drive
in a computer with only a SCSI HD, the IDE drive MUST be used as the boot
drive.

~dx
"religion is remedial spirituality"

---== http://www.newsfeeds.com - Largest Usenet Server In The World! ==---

by **Rod** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

Here's a news tidbit. A single Voodoo III card will out perform a 12meg
Voodoo II running in SLI mode.

>I just read on a 3dfx newsgroup that Diamond is discontinuing the Monster
>II, which is why they are offering rebates, and apparently their driver
>support for that card will cease too!

>Look's like I'll wait until Voodoo III comes out to upgrade my video
>(perhaps by then the Voodoo II's will drop in price enough to buy two of
>them and run them in SLI mode!)

>So it's decided, another hard drive looks like the way I'll go...

>I've heard Western Digital is a good brand, any I should avoid?
>Also thank's J Craig, I'll see about their install policy, hell if they'll
>do it for free (included with the purchase price, then I'll let 'um go for
>it!)

>Jay J

by **Gollu** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

The jury is still out on whether the V3 will outrun V2 SLI in
multi-textured games (such as those based on the Quake 2 engine), but
yes, with single textured games the V3 will rule. Since there are no
racing sims which implement multi-texturing (yet), you ought to be
golden with the V3. But if you already have V2 SLI there will be little
incentive to upgrade to V3 and the better choice would be to wait on the
"Rampage" from 3Dfx.

> Here's a news tidbit. A single Voodoo III card will out perform a 12meg
> Voodoo II running in SLI mode.

> >I just read on a 3dfx newsgroup that Diamond is discontinuing the Monster
> >II, which is why they are offering rebates, and apparently their driver
> >support for that card will cease too!

> >Look's like I'll wait until Voodoo III comes out to upgrade my video
> >(perhaps by then the Voodoo II's will drop in price enough to buy two of
> >them and run them in SLI mode!)

> >So it's decided, another hard drive looks like the way I'll go...

> >I've heard Western Digital is a good brand, any I should avoid?
> >Also thank's J Craig, I'll see about their install policy, hell if they'll
> >do it for free (included with the purchase price, then I'll let 'um go for
> >it!)

> >Jay J

by **XRaceTr** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

>I'll see about their install policy, hell if they'll
>do it for free (included with the purchase price, then I'll let 'um go for
>it!)

Just make sure they keep your old drive in the system and
not just keep it...

BTW, the Western Dig installation utility will check to
see if your BIOS will handle the drive, and if not, it will
install it's own pseudo-BIOS on the drive itself...

- m.

============================================
Mike Holthouse - Indianapolis, IN
Drop the "X" to e-mail me.
============================================

by **Ronald Stoe** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

> The jury is still out on whether the V3 will outrun V2 SLI in
> multi-textured games (such as those based on the Quake 2 engine), but
> yes, with single textured games the V3 will rule. Since there are no
> racing sims which implement multi-texturing (yet), you ought to be
> golden with the V3. But if you already have V2 SLI there will be little
> incentive to upgrade to V3 and the better choice would be to wait on the
> "Rampage" from 3Dfx.

Maybe you're confusing the V3 with the Banshee, which has only one
texture unit. The V3 will have two like the V2, so there will be at least
the same performance in multi-textured games.

l8er
ronny

--
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by **Sean Kellne** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

> >>I'd like to add another HD, but am concerned that adding
> >> an IDE drive will cause problems, as it would most likely
> >> be recognized as the primary boot device by my system?

> >Only if you tell it to be the primary boot device...

> I didn't see the original post of this thread, but if you put an IDE drive
> in a computer with only a SCSI HD, the IDE drive MUST be used as the boot
> drive.

Only on older computers. Most motherboards nowadays have a "SCSI"
option for boot devices. You just put that in the order you want it to
scan, like A,SCSI,C or something like that. The only possible
exception is the new Compaq's. They didn't appear to have this option,
or very many options at all really.

by **XRaceTr** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

>I didn't see the original post of this thread, but if you put an
> IDE drive in a computer with only a SCSI HD, the IDE drive
> MUST be used as the boot drive.

D'OH!!!!! I just re-read the original post and Jay did say
he has a SCSI hard drive!!

So, Jay, sorry if I caused any confusion... I didn't read
your original post correctly!!

- m.

============================================
Mike Holthouse - Indianapolis, IN
Drop the "X" to e-mail me.
============================================

by **John Simmo** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

>>I didn't see the original post of this thread, but if you put an
>>IDE drive in a computer with only a SCSI HD, the IDE drive
>>MUST be used as the boot drive.

>D'OH!!!!! I just re-read the original post and Jay did say
>he has a SCSI hard drive!!

>So, Jay, sorry if I caused any confusion... I didn't read
>your original post correctly!!

That's not entirely true. On most (if not all) P2 motherboards, and most
(if not all) newer Socket-7 motherboards, you have a choice of booting
off of SCSI, CD-ROM, floppy, or "C:".

I know, because I've done it (10gb IDE with two SCSI drives, booting off
SCSI drive).

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by **XRaceTr** » Thu, 07 Jan 1999 04:00:00

>On most (if not all) P2 motherboards, and most
>(if not all) newer Socket-7 motherboards, you have a choice of booting
>off of SCSI, CD-ROM, floppy, or "C:".

Thanks for the clarification on that... I remember
hearing about the SCSI/IDE thing awhile ago, but
I don't have any recent experience with SCSI (by
choice!) - it's just easier that way! :-)

I will now file this tidbit of information away in my mind
so I can pull out later in a barely recognizable form...

- m.

============================================
Mike Holthouse - Indianapolis, IN
Drop the "X" to e-mail me.
============================================

rec.autos.simulators

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