Nonsense

It’s been a hot minute since I wrote anything for the blog, I’ll admit. I have plenty of dead drafts sitting on my WordPress dashboard that I never finished, and I struggle to really motivate myself to write anything for the blog. But I might as well write some more about my XP PC while I’m here.

You may be familiar with my XP PC if you read my previous post about it. While I haven’t exactly used it much since then, it is still a source of coziness I occasionally return to, mostly just to play Bejeweled 3 or something. I enjoy tinkering with it and installing new software on it every now and then, most of it being games I find on archive.org and think I might play.

That being said, I never really delved into the technical side of it, nor have I provided a single update on it since a year ago when the previous post on it was published. So here it is in all its glory.

For the technically minded, the specs of my XP PC are:
– CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 445
– Motherboard: ASUS M4A785-M
– RAM: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2-800
– GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4850
– Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium (SB0880)
– Power Supply: Corsair CX450

It’s pretty funny to me that this PC (and by extension my first ever PC, as a lot of the components are shared) happens to have a tri-core CPU. It’s always been a bit of an interesting curiosity to me in recent years, but back when I actually used it as a daily driver as a kid, I never cared or paid much attention to it (except for it being slower than I’d like around the time it was replaced). Some other interesting parts (though not originally in my first PC) include a 250 GB HP Enterprise hard drive as the main HDD and a DVD-RAM optical drive mostly used for regular CD/DVD reading. No clue where my dad got those enterprise-tier parts but sure.

Of course, the other highlight of the build is the sound card (at least, in my opinion). It’s actually an upgrade that I literally installed today, mostly for hardware accelerated EAX on the supported games. I lucked out on getting the final X-Fi card that is compatible with XP while still being very up-to-date for my purposes. Honestly, considering I have a good pair of cans to justify it, I should look into getting a DAC/Amp for my main PC or even a newer sound card. We’ll see if that ever turns into anything. But for now, I get to enjoy higher quality output from my XP computer to my TV’s internal speakers, lol.

As for the updates: most of it is just more software/games installed, to the point where the hard drive is slowly but surely getting filled. I actually thought about formatting it and reinstalling XP for a cleaner and more focused system, but I find it hard to part with installs that I’ve had for years, so I won’t do that for now. Here’s the desktop in its current iteration:

That is it for now. I may or may not properly get into the swing of things and write more for this dead blog that like 2 people read at any point in time, but for now, enjoy this small bundle of XP-focused joy written up by yours truly.

I usually don’t rank things I enjoy in any list whatsoever. The main reason is that I’m a terrible critic, and my ratings aren’t exactly reliable. I usually give games 4 stars even if they might be worse than one another. I’m a soak that either enjoys or hates media, without much care about precise ratings or preferring one to the other. Picking out specific favorites is even harder, as I have to consider a lot of variables, such as how it affected me and how much I enjoy and go back to it. Plus, I switch favorites all the time, so whatever list I might make some time will probably be outdated anyway the moment I find a new artist or game that genuinely left a huge impact on me.

That being said, I decided to make such a list anyway, as there are some picks that I actually believe are going to be pretty concrete and set in stone. If that ever changes so drastically that 85% of the post is outdated, I’ll make a new one, but for now, here’s my Top 5 Favorite Albums and Songs.

Some basic guidelines and notes first: I will only include one album/song per artist, otherwise both lists will be nothing but Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree. The album/song counts as my favorite, if I replayed it to the point of memorization and I always fully enjoy it. Anything below #1 on both lists has completely interchangeable positions, and I don’t prefer one over the other. And finally, I keep each entry description to one or two sentences, as I’m not a very good music critic at all.

Albums

#5: The Campfire Headphase by Boards of Canada

Boards of Canada goodness with more guitar intertwined. Makes me wish for more of this sort of thing.

#4: MM..FOOD by MF DOOM

Very witty lyrics about food and genuinely great and unique beats.

#3: In Rainbows by Radiohead

Lots of catchy back-to-back bangers making for an album that flows wonderfully.

#2: Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory by Dream Theater

An incredible progressive metal concept album about a man rediscovering his past life.

#1: Hand. Cannot. Erase. by Steven Wilson

If there’s a single album that I’ll use as the definitive proof that music is art, it’s this.

Songs

#5: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

Probably my favorite Pink Floyd track. Really enjoyable listen.

#4: Drive Home by Steven Wilson

The guitar solo at the end alone makes this a certified SW classic. Has a great music video to go along with it as well.

#3: With You Friends (Long Drive) by Skrillex

Oddly emotionally powerful for a Skrillex track, made me tear up a couple of times.

#2: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater

42 minute masterpiece about various mental illnesses. The best Dream Theater track ever made.

#1: Trains by Porcupine Tree

Beautiful song from what is arguably Porcupine Tree’s best album. My favorite track from their discography, and my favorite track of all time.

And so that was the list of albums and songs. I couldn’t really fit in a Porcupine Tree album in the album list, because there are so many classics to choose from that I genuinely couldn’t pick one. Also keep in mind, I don’t always listen to these specific albums and songs 24/7. I rotate a lot between certain albums whenever I feel like it. If you want a more comprehensive and larger list of albums I like, feel free to check out the music page on the main site.

Since about 2018, I had a separate computer with old parts running Windows XP. However, due to the inconvenience of having to swap cables around every time I wanted to use it, it didn’t see a lot of runtime, especially with me playing games from the XP era on my modern computer (now named “yoshibox”, hence the post title) after fixing incompatibilities and other bugs. It was the same issue when I brought it out of the basement 4 years after I put it there. I really needed a separate setup for just that computer to really enjoy using it…

…and I eventually did assemble it! After finding a spare keyboard, mouse, mousepad and TV in a room in the basement, I got the urge to set up the XP computer there. So after finding all the appropriate cables and plugging it all in, I was able to enjoy all my childhood classics on my childhood OS in a neat little setup. In fact, it has seen a lot of usage since I assembled that setup, more than even my modern PC has recently. The convenience of being able to just instantly turn it on whenever I wanted really helped with increasing my desire to use it.

Now that the backstory is over and done with, I would like to describe the computer itself a little more.

Funnily enough, most of the parts in the computer are the exact same as my first ever PC from 2010. The CPU, motherboard and RAM are the exact parts that were in that first PC, and the graphics card was identical to the one I had in the first PC before it broke and was replaced. The PSU is not from the first PC, if I recall correctly, and the hard drive was also a separate acquisition. The hard drive from the first PC went on to be heavily used for about 11 years without a single issue, before I got my current PC and put the previous one in storage.

As you probably deduced with your master investigative skills, the operating system on the computer is none other than Windows XP. Specifically, it’s running Service Pack 3 with all of the post-SP3 updates and hotfixes obtained through the great Legacy Update. It also has a pretty sweet custom theme called Watercolor Emico (the light black variant, I believe?), which had to be patched in with a theme patcher.

The software on the computer is mostly old versions of modern software that I actually use on my current PC. A lot of them cut off XP support a while ago, so they’re pretty outdated versions, but I was pleasantly surprised to see VLC and WizTree in particular still support XP on their latest versions. They were probably the last programs I expected to still support XP after all this time. If you’d like to see some of the other software used, I have a list of most of them on my XP repository page.

The PC was obviously built to play games, so it is no surprise that most of the installed programs are games. I have installed some real classics like The Sims 2 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but also some obscure no-name platformers from my childhood like Dracula Twins and The Three Musketeers. No idea why or how I stumbled upon them back then, but I enjoyed them a lot as a kid, and even tho they’re pretty mediocre, the fond memories still makes me enjoy playing them today.

(The “actual” PC name is COWLOVER, but I consider the OEM PC name to be the canonical one. It’s a reference to a Porcupine Tree demo cassette.)

So that’s my XP PC. It’s a pretty convenient box and place to conserve some childhood memories, with a little twist and additions from present me. You might think of this post as pretty dry and boring, but I honestly don’t care, I just find it fun to describe things like this, so that’s what I will continue to do for as long as I and this blog are alive.

Oh, and the computer also has the best bootscreen on Earth.

This blog has a pretty slow update pace, all things considered. I find it funny that immediately after I said I wanted to make the music library posts weekly, I drop off for a month. Truth be told though, my music library updates have minimized a lot, and I typically don’t have that much to talk about for entire new posts. Perhaps I should consider making general life updates and accumulate the smaller things that I do into one post. Maybe I will. For now, here’s a post about a game I’ve spent a bunch of time on recently: Geometry Dash!

Yes, I’m playing a mobile game way past it’s prime. Shut up. To be more serious though, I used to play this a bunch in 2014 as a kid, back when it was considerably more popular in the general flow of the internet. And I predictably sucked. I could barely even finish the first level in normal mode, which I completed on my second try as an adult now. I suppose my video game skills aren’t entirely hopeless after all.

However, also predictably, the later main levels on Insane difficulty kicked my ass pretty good. I eventually beat them, but they were still very challenging to me, either because my brain does a fart and I fuck up a jump too early or too late, or because I genuinely don’t know the click pattern, and need a bit of practice or readjusting before passing that point. I do find beating the main levels very fun and rewarding though. You have infinite tries and a practice mode, so you’re not stressed by a limited amount of lives, and you can always replay any particular section you struggle with. And you tend to get pretty cool rewards in the form of an icon or vehicle, an achievement, and a sense of pride and progression (reward not applicable for all customers).

While I haven’t dabbled a lot into user-created stuff, I did get through a small handful of map packs and a few levels I found on my own. I do intend to dive more into this world when I beat all the main levels, but for now, the main levels keep me plenty occupied. The later and harder ones especially get a lot more engaging, as they’re way more visually interesting than the beginner levels, and have the challenge to make you want to sit down, practice the patterns, and eventually beat them. So far, the latest (and hardest) level I’ve beaten is Theory of Everything. I enjoy it’s visuals and music a lot, and I can see myself replaying it a bunch, either to collect the secret coins, or just for the hell of it.

So yeah, this has been my latest gaming venture. I do have one more for you though.

I’ve recently decided to completely call it quits with Counter-Strike. I played it a bit with friends since about a month or two ago and it was seriously an incredibly miserable experience. If you’re not going with a full stack, you need the patience of a saint to tolerate the toxic and terrible teammates. Even with that, it still causes tension between friends because of a fail on someone’s end. Overall, it’s just not a fun experience, and instead of dragging it out further like I have been, I’ve completely quit. I sold off any and all skins I had and uninstalled it. I don’t ever plan to come back to it at any point, and I hope I won’t have to.

Since almost exactly 2 weeks ago, I’ve built and enjoyed a functional MiSTer setup. It was quite pricey, as to be expected, but I view it as an investment, and much like a satisfied stockbroker, I would even call it a great investment. Enjoying near hardware-perfect retro gaming has been a treat, and more importantly for me, a great opportunity to dive into the weird and obscure corners of it. While I still have yet to properly do so (mostly played arcade games and the popular consoles for now), the fact that I have a painless way already set up is fantastic, and I will eventually get around to doing it. Maybe I’ll even write a post or two about my experiences. We’ll see.

(My setup as of today. Sorry to the 2 people in the audience who give a shit about it not being a direct screenshot. I tried.)

For now, I’ll talk about what I’ve already accomplished.

Setting it up was a lot easier than expected (for many, at least). While I had some slight trouble with building the setup itself due to the lack of a standoff screwdriver in the house, a wrench ended up working well with unscrewing the standoffs included with the DE10-Nano (the main brains in the operation of this thingamajig). Installing a heatsink, USB hub and SDRAM module was no problem after that, and I got it to power up and function.

Flashing the SD card with the OS was a minor hurdle, however. Due to me being an idiot and not knowing how to actually use dd, and not being able to get Etcher to work, I wasn’t able to get it properly flashed on my Linux laptop. I had to resort to the only functional Windows laptop in the house with an SD card slot to flash it with Etcher, but after that, it was all smooth sailing! Eventually the setup of Mr. Fusion finished, and it booted right up into the menu!

After that, it was trivial automated setup, courtesy of the great update_all script. This was definitely the most frustrating step however. Not because of the script or the setup being broken in one way or another. The main cause of frustration was the agonizingly slow Wi-Fi dongle I had installed.

See, some months ago, I’ve been using one of my spare PCs as a Windows XP box for retro gaming and whatnot. Since I had no way to connect it to the internet outside of wireless, I had to rely on my phone with a hotspot and USB tethering to get online, which was… less than ideal. So, I quickly scrambled and ordered the cheapest dongle I could find that worked with XP. I saw mentions of it having terrible range, but I thought “surely, it can’t be THAT bad!” Well, needless to say, it WAS that bad.

(Seriously, this thing is fucking unusable. 150 Mbps my ass.)

Even on the XP machine it was originally for, I got very slow speeds due to the modem being on the opposite end of the house, and since this thing has less functional range than my own fucking arms, it was slower than molasses. However, I had no choice but to use it on the MiSTer setup, which means the update_all setup took… 4 AND A HALF HOURS. I wish I was exaggerating. The setup does take at least an hour usually, but not quadruple that, and I instantly figured it was the shit range of this dongle. Still, it worked, and I got arcade games working out of the box, which I enjoyed a bunch! (Fun fact: the first game I tried on it was Robotron 2084.)

Eventually I got FTP to also work, which meant I didn’t need to take out the microSD card to get my games on the device. This caused even more frustration, and it was so slow it could take a quarter of a day just to get a few smaller ROMsets to upload. I was quickly fed up with the agonizing upload times, and got myself a better Wi-Fi dongle. While the speed was only around 5-6 MiB/s with a single transfer going, again, due to the modem’s distance, it was MILES better than my old one and uploading all the ROMs was a breeze. (For reference, the best performance I could get out of the old one on a good day was around 500-600 KiB/s and that’s just with a single transfer going.) I uploaded the larger ROMsets I put off for later and I felt the difference. The AmigaVision/MegaAGS ROMset, which is around 10 GB, was fully uploaded in about half an hour. I don’t even want to IMAGINE how long it would take with the Snail Mail dongle.

Ranting about garbage cheap dongles aside, I’ve enjoyed myself with the arcade and console cores I picked. I played stuff like R-Type Leo, DoDonPachi, Robotron, NewZealand Story, NeoGeo, NES, SNES, and even a bit of PS1. While the latency on my end wasn’t as mindblowing as the MiSTer’s reputation would lead you to believe (completely my own fault, I’m using a wireless Xbox controller over Bluetooth), I could still feel enough of a difference to enjoy the games a lot more than usual. Once I get myself some SNAC adapters and the appropriate controllers (and an IO board and case, since I don’t have those yet), I’m sure the experience will be even better. For now, it will suffice.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing since 2 weeks ago when it comes to MiSTer. However, the future looks to be incredibly bright. Not only do I have a huge amount of cores I didn’t even try yet, but also the N64 core development is progressing at a rapid speed, to the point where I can confidently say that N64 games will be properly playable by the end of the year. Plus, The Simpsons Arcade core was recently finished and is currently in beta, which is incredibly exciting to me, as it’s one of my favorite arcade games of all time.

Some of you will be asking: “Why not use MAME and emulators?” Well, I HAVE been using emulators, and in fact, I still use them for games outside of MiSTer, but I’m too dumb to figure out how to set up MAME properly with the games I want to play, so having the arcade games MiSTer offers, and with basically no additional setup needed, is a treat.

Of course, I’m not going to be an elitist about it and shame others for playing on emulators. They’re still fantastic options. However, I chose to go with the MiSTer for the cores it provides, and I’m not disappointed at all. If you’re looking for very high accuracy and authenticity, and you have the dough to build one yourself, I highly recommend it.

This is a blog for blog things. Not much else to it.