Very Computer

The recent news that Hammer had been delayed _again_ forced me to give
up waiting. New machine _now!_ So I go off looking, and this turns up:

AMD Athlon XP 1900+ processor
Asus A7V266 motherboard with VIA KT266A chipset
2 x 256MB DDR RAM (PC2100)
80GB UDMA100 hard disk drive
64MB ATI Radeon 8500LE with TV-out and DVI
16x DVD-ROM drive
CD-RW drive (24x10x32) with Justlink BURN-proof technology
v90 56k Internet Ready modem
Sound Blaster Audigy Dolby Surround & Firewire (OEM)
Midi-Tower case (195x440x420)
250/300 watts ATX power supply
1 x Parallel port
2 x Serial ports
4 x USB ports (2 front mounted)
Keyboard
Mouse
1.44MB 3.5" floppy disk drive
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
     - 500 + vat

OK, shame about the OS there. Still, it won't take long to nuke. Odds
are that's a Winmodem, too, but I've got a perfectly serviceable
external serial modem right here. Board looks OK for anything else in
the Athlon series that might come before Hammer, so that ought to be
getting on for 3000-ish.

But am I setting myself up for catastrophe with that video card?
What's the current situation with 8500LE cards? How about
SoundBlaster?

Plan is to insert a TV card (one I've got already and like) and make
something of a media centre of this. I'll be playing and ripping and
generally messing around with DVDs, divXen, CDs, .oggs, watching TV,
using the hard disk as a great big VCR, and quite possibly plugging a
Gamecube into the TV card... Is this likely to be a painful
experience? Apart that is from Hollywood goons coming round to kneecap
me ;-)

n.b. this is a clearance model on auction from my local computer co.;
switching for a GeForce 3 Ti or something is probably not an option
:-(. There's a cheaper model (400) which seems to have once wanted to
be a server, it has a TNT2 video card and no sound; I could
*ise a Voodoo 4 from my old machine and get a sound card
separately if necessary, but I'd rather avoid that...

The SB Audigy cards are supported by the ALSA drivers
(http://www.alsa-project.org/), maybe the kernel drivers
too...don't know.  ALSA drivers are still the only way to
get the wavetable synth working under Linux on the SB Live
cards.  And, IMHO, that's one of the cards' best features.

ATI provides binary drivers for the Radeon 8500LE on their
website (http://www.atitech.ca/).  There were some recent
posts about possible problems with those, though.  Check the
newsgroups archives for the past week to see if they've been
resolved.

Quote:> The recent news that Hammer had been delayed _again_ forced me to give
> up waiting. New machine _now!_ So I go off looking, and this turns up:

> AMD Athlon XP 1900+ processor
> Asus A7V266 motherboard with VIA KT266A chipset
> 2 x 256MB DDR RAM (PC2100)
> 80GB UDMA100 hard disk drive
> 64MB ATI Radeon 8500LE with TV-out and DVI
> 16x DVD-ROM drive
> CD-RW drive (24x10x32) with Justlink BURN-proof technology
> v90 56k Internet Ready modem
> Sound Blaster Audigy Dolby Surround & Firewire (OEM)
> Midi-Tower case (195x440x420)
> 250/300 watts ATX power supply
> 1 x Parallel port
> 2 x Serial ports
> 4 x USB ports (2 front mounted)
> Keyboard
> Mouse
> 1.44MB 3.5" floppy disk drive
> Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
>      - 500 + vat

> OK, shame about the OS there. Still, it won't take long to nuke. Odds
> are that's a Winmodem, too, but I've got a perfectly serviceable
> external serial modem right here. Board looks OK for anything else in
> the Athlon series that might come before Hammer, so that ought to be
> getting on for 3000-ish.

> But am I setting myself up for catastrophe with that video card?
> What's the current situation with 8500LE cards? How about
> SoundBlaster?

> Plan is to insert a TV card (one I've got already and like) and make
> something of a media centre of this. I'll be playing and ripping and
> generally messing around with DVDs, divXen, CDs, .oggs, watching TV,
> using the hard disk as a great big VCR, and quite possibly plugging a
> Gamecube into the TV card... Is this likely to be a painful
> experience? Apart that is from Hollywood goons coming round to kneecap
> me ;-)

> n.b. this is a clearance model on auction from my local computer co.;
> switching for a GeForce 3 Ti or something is probably not an option
> :-(. There's a cheaper model (400) which seems to have once wanted to
> be a server, it has a TNT2 video card and no sound; I could
> *ise a Voodoo 4 from my old machine and get a sound card
> separately if necessary, but I'd rather avoid that...

When it comes to applications the ATI driver set is pretty good, but if you
are planning on using the system for games I would think twice about it.
There set is not ready for games if you look back into the * side of
things there are issues.  Speaking to ATI you get one story and looking at
the boards you get another.  Just something to think about.

Adam Raff