We’ve all seen the classic text splash screens on vintage VGA cards – showing the model, BIOS version, and memory count. But what if we could replace that boring text with a full-color, 256-color image?
Recently, while working with an S3 Trio 3D, I noticed something interesting about the BIOS chips. This discovery sent me down a rabbit hole involving Hex editors, Ghidra, and…
The Hanging Note Bug on the Sound Blaster 16 is a frustrating issue that disrupts MIDI playback in games like Hexen and Doom, causing notes to stick and loop endlessly. Specific to DSP chip versions 4.11, 4.12, and 4.13 [1], the bug stems from faulty firmware that mishandles certain MIDI commands, resulting in persistent audio glitches. While the Sound Blaster 16 has other issues, this particular…
Few games capture the magic of ‘90s gaming like Tomb Raider. Released in 1996, it introduced us to Lara Croft and set a benchmark for 3D action-adventure games. For retro gaming enthusiasts, there’s nothing quite like playing the original Tomb Raider on a period-accurate PC, especially with the enhanced visuals of a 3dfx Voodoo card. But it isn’t that easy to get everything right –…