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UCyborg

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Posts posted by UCyborg

    Extreme Explorer 360 Chromium 78-86 General Discussion

    in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes

    Posted

    @Sampei.Nihira
    I played with the slider in the past to see what it does, seems to disable certain operations related to screen rendering, not sure how if/it relates to Direct3D, would have to try again. I know D3D acceleration can be disabled separately via dxdiag (DirectX Diagnostic Tool).

    The thing with Chrome is that it needs Direct3D9Ex APIs (Vista+) while XP only has regular Direct3D9.

    0

    Support for Chromium "Session" Inside Gecko Browser

    in Web Browsers

    Posted · Edited by UCyborg

    They say something along the lines that anything's possible in the software world if there's interest and money.

    BTW, @Jody Thornton, there's supposed to be some CSS trickery in Vivaldi to get tabs below address bar. I only tried it briefly a number of versions ago. There could be side-effects that may or may not bothersome, depends on how you use it.

    At least that's what I picked up when I searched about it recently and found a relevant thread on their forum.

    2

    My Browser Builds (Part 3)

    in Browsers working on Older NT-Family OSes

    Posted · Edited by UCyborg

    17 hours ago, soggi said:

    so I opened the MSFN board's start page via the logo in the upper left to find a thread or something else...I had a look for some minutes and couldn't find anything. So I tried the menu in the upper right and after some "trial and error" I found it under "Browse" (at the bottom of the submenu). This is a very good place to hide the donation function if you don't want to have any donation.

    Donation meter with the donation button is pretty obvious in the upper right section. Perhaps you don't see the right section because your browser window / resolution / screen is too small? It seems the entire right portion hides itself for some reason when there's not enough space. Zooming out may display it. Late edit: it effectively goes into mobile mode and displays mobile menu on bottom.

    17 hours ago, soggi said:

    add a page with detailed information about why donations are needed / what they are used for and (very important)

    There's the following sub-forum in the General Discussion section: Forum Donations - Donations help go towards ongoing costs related to keeping the MSFN running. Short and concise though.

    1

    Time synchronization on Windows 8+

    in Windows 8

    Posted

    I'm going to have the Windows Time service run in the background the following week to see how often the task gets triggered after some reconfiguration. According to documentation, there was one important change in Win10 1703; SpecialPollInterval setting, specified in seconds, located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient registry key is since bound by MinPollInterval and MaxPollInterval settings located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config. The latter two have to be converted to seconds using the following formula:

    2^<setting value> = x seconds

    Effective defaults are therefore:

    MinPollInterval - 2^10  = 1024 seconds = 17 minutes 4 seconds
    MaxPollInterval  - 2^15 = 32768 seconds = 9 hours 6 minutes 8 seconds

    So eg. changing SpecialPollInterval from the new default value of 32768 seconds to the old default value of 604800 seconds (1 week) won't do anything as effective value will be capped to MaxPollInterval, so the latter has to be upped to 20 (1048576 seconds).

    So far I've tested 45 second sync interval with pool.ntp.org with the manually started service running on Windows 10 20H2 using the following settings changed from defaults:

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters]
    NtpServer=pool.ntp.org,0x9 (space delimited list of NTP server hostnames/IP addressees with setting flags, in this case one server with 0x8 (client) and 0x1 (use special poll interval) ORed together)

    Numeric values that follow are in decimal:

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config]
    MinPollInterval=4
    MaxPollInterval=6

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient]
    SpecialPollInterval=45

    Seems to be working as expected. For the test the following week, I changed MinPollInterval=18, MaxPollInterval=20 and SpecialPollInterval=604800. Service will continue to run in the background, then we'll see if it can be stopped and the "scheduled" task that starts it fires again when it's time to sync again, so at the time after the service is stopped it should only be triggered approximately one week from then.

    If setting value in NtpServer is changed to 0x8, then sync is supposed to occur between MinPollInterval and MaxPollInterval. It seems this mode of operation only effectively accepts shorter intervals. This is something I haven't tested. Manually running sync from GUI resets the value to 0x9, so syncing using SpecialPollInterval is re-enabled then. I haven't ruled out the possibility that it could happen only if change is made and settings are not refreshed.

    I noticed changing sync interval from default to 1 week like how I wrote above then running w32tm /config /update doesn't postpone the next sync to next week, so next sync runs according to old schedule, but the one afterwards is scheduled after a week. But going from 1 week to default then having service re-read its settings is effective right away. Same in the first scenario if time service is restarted instead of having it refresh its config. Maybe something to do with higher MinPollInterval / MaxPollInterval. :dubbio:Running w32tm /query /status /verbose reads Poll interval as 18 (out of valid range).

    0

    Palemoon drama has gotten bad

    in Web Browsers

    Posted

    On 3/1/2022 at 5:45 PM, Sampei.Nihira said:

    My daughter's pc that I recently converted to Linux also has 4 GB of RAM.
    I have tried Edge, it consumes less RAM than Chrome but is less fast.
    Firefox is also less fast despite the fact that I have cached it in RAM.
    For the test I used Spedometer 2.0.

    Firefox 96 and Edge 94 are tied on my end on Windows 10 - 43.6.

    Don't have Edge on Linux anymore, have Vivaldi instead, forgot to note the version...I guess one of the latest 5.0.x or earliest 5.1.x. They come out slower in this test - Vivaldi wins with 37.0 and Firefox 96 lags behind with 24.6.

    Additionally, I ran the test on Pale Moon 29.4.4 and SeaMonkey 2.53.11 beta 1 on Windows, PM scored only 13.4 while SeaMonkey got 27.

    0

    Running Windows 98 in 2020 and beyond...

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by UCyborg

    On 3/2/2022 at 2:04 PM, Mr.Scienceman2000 said:

    here during winter dark comes around 16 so I get many hours of CRT in dark room where colors are amazing. It makes many of my old videos look sharp. Yesterday I was watching Star Trek Motion Picture on it and colors and clarity was much better even compared to my high end Dell Studio LCD screen.

    Have you ever owned a LCD screen made by LG? When we still had a CRT computer screen at home, nothing particularly colorfully rich was run on the computer, but going from CRT TV to LCD one striked me as a clear upgrade. Don't think I ever knew exact models, but a smaller TV was from GoldStar (South Korean, later became LG) and a bigger one was from Gorenje (that's Slovenian company), the latter were quite common in Slovenian homes in its time.

    Years ago, the only thing regarding about picture quality I was reading about that CRT might be better at is black color reproduction. Though the whole CRT technology left "errr" impression on my young-self, bulky, weird noises, stuff coming out of the back - seriously, I have some special stone from the time, I don't think anyone told me what it was, but it was supposed to attract "stuff" coming out the back of CRT screen when you put it at the back on top. And something brownish indeed accumulated on it.

    I haven't seen one such screen live in over a decade. Also recently came across a local company that refurbishes older computers. They collect older computer equipment, but they explicitly don't accept CRTs.

    My current main screen is LG W2361V-PF from 2009 and I dare to say it's a bomb, nice colors, 2 ms response time. Second is Samsung SyncMaster 710N from 2004, 12 ms response time, this one still talks analogoue, have to use DVI to VGA adapter, it's possible to get misaligned picture until it's auto-aligned and it remembers new setting. It may need re-adjusting if you plug it to a different GPU, even if you use same resolution as before. On newer screen, picture is properly aligned automagically. The older screen is OK for "office stuff", but colors are noticeably kinda off in movies, games and such.

    0

    The MSFN café - A Penny for Your Thoughts

    in Funny Farm

    Posted

    And then there was silence.

    On 3/3/2022 at 12:50 AM, NotHereToPlayGames said:

    I've personally always been an "advocate" for $5 per gallon gas prices

    You're welcome in where I'm from. Gas prices haven been increasing steadily and if my math is right (not at home with gallons), they're already above your proposal. Another rise is on schedule tomorrow. Back in late February I paid 65,18€ for 45,55 liters of 95 octane gas.

    And, a topping on the cake, some gas stations are predicted to run out of diesel soon. At least that's what I heard in the news intro on one of the TV channels. Does your SUV run on diesel?

    Right now, I'm going to temporarily forget that the world is terrible and...try to distract myself with something more pleasant I suppose.

    0

    Time synchronization on Windows 8+

    in Windows 8

    Posted

    I don't know when ForceSynchronizeTime is run automatically, but "something" in Windows 8 triggers SynchronizeTime task periodically, hence why time is still synchronized without a trigger. It's done once a week on Windows 8 while Windows 10 does it daily. Still no clue what that "something" that triggers the task is. Are interactions with Task Scheduler logged or how are you supposed to find out what (or who) ran a task?

    Windows 7 way of doing this is obviously more logical since Task Scheduler is utilized to actually schedule it while newer versions offload it to another process for some reason. Since checkbox to toggle synchronization is still there, you can still have clever IT guys turn off the auto-sync and then have the users of an application where time is important complain that the time is off, so can't think of why would they just change how it's triggered and hardcode the interval somewhere else.

    That "something" could read Windows Time service's sync interval setting at boot, which is actually set to about 8 hours out-of-the-box (SpecialPollInterval setting). One thing that is yet to be tested.

    I've read somewhere that users that want custom interval can disable the original SynchronizeTime task and make another one just like it and add a trigger to it with the desired interval.

    And one thing about Windows Time service, if it's started when there's no internet connection in a way that the computer is physically disconnected from the network, it'll wait until connection is established and sync time right afterwards, even if the log says it'll wait 15 minutes and connection is established long before that.

    0

    Running Windows 98 in 2020 and beyond...

    in Windows 9x/ME

    Posted · Edited by UCyborg

    On 3/5/2022 at 8:09 AM, Wunderbar98 said:

    Many NVIDIA ForceWare drivers were trialed with Madden 2000 in Direct3D. Frustrating, for me best seems around v21.81 but still can't play the game in Direct3D without graphic glitches.

    They don't call it the dark ages of graphics drivers for no reason. Does Madden 2000 have Glide renderer? There seems to be a consensus if a game from the era has both D3D and Glide renderers, Glide will work better. Of course that requires either one of those 3Dfx accelerator cards (zero experience with those) or a wrapper (only have experience on newer hardware with them, where they generally work OK).

    On 3/2/2022 at 2:04 PM, Mr.Scienceman2000 said:

    There is not reason to update newer kernel on older HW until it is EOL. I only use latest stable kernel on my Server which runs QEMU and KVM since hardware on it is pretty new.

    I use whatever kernel comes with the distribution. Not sure what I'd consider "the ultimate distribution", in my limited experience; Debian - too conservative, Manjaro - too bleeding edge. Not sure I'd gain anything by trying others, desktop Linux is desktop Linux. Ubuntu is popular enough so could go ask about some aspect of it on some some forum if I really had to. Some say it's crap, but I don't really care.

    Forums like these are of limited usability in my experience, you mostly have to fend for yourself or just live with it if you can't solve something.

    Late edit: What I really tried to convey with previous statement, interesting questions popup at times that never get answered.

    0

    The MSFN café - A Penny for Your Thoughts

    in Funny Farm

    Posted

    If things escalate, might be just time to end it, IDK. Don't know how due to survival instinct though. :}

    Guess it's over anyway if you die from the nuke, but if not, being a refugee, having to fight...to hell with that! I've not much to live for as it is. Basically...

    spacer.png

    They've said something on TV about things getting increasingly bad for Russia, especially if the war keeps going...whatever that means.

    0

    Palemoon drama has gotten bad

    in Web Browsers

    Posted

    Alright, I've calmed down. I'll just use ChrEdge for the app at work in the future. Its target audience are business users and most just use auto-updating Chrome anyway and if some bells and whistles make devs' lives easier, good for them.

    So I tried SeaMonkey over the weekend and did detect some memory that was just never freed without restarting. Tried it on both Windows and Linux. Nothing new that I'm not used to already. -_-

    I like that it's still single-process, this whole multi-process philosophy just doesn't fly as well with me, though that doesn't mean I avoid multi-process browsers entirely.

    4 GB of RAM can get tight as it is. My mobo supports max 8 GB and I thought about upgrading at multiple occasions, but it stops at me not feeling looking around for DDR2 RAM from the museum and then hope it works with my motherboard. I still get by OK more or less, but sometimes some extra GB would be nice.

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