I wonder how many hours people spent playing this simple yet incredibly fun pinball classic from Cinematronics / Maxis back in the Windows XP days?

But let’s start from the beginning – this stripped-down pinball game has a history:
Originally, Space Cadet was just one of three tables in the full-fledged game “Full Tilt! Pinball (1995)” by the American developer Cinematronics, which was acquired by Maxis shortly thereafter. Maxis is best known today for “The Sims” and “SimCity” and was acquired by Electronic Arts as early as 1997.

How did Space Cadet end up in Windows?

First and foremost, this version – which was limited to a single table and otherwise technically stripped-down – appeared on the market as part of the “Windows 95 Plus!” bundle, just as we still know it today. Later, it was re-licensed by Microsoft and included with Windows ME, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP. Personally, I remember it as one of several games included in Windows XP.

Since then, this game has not been included in subsequent versions of Windows – which is a shame, i liked it.

Does it run on modern Windows?

Yes, the game still runs unchanged today on the original systems as well as on Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and 11 – on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system. A port to SDL has also been implemented, so since 2020 you can play this game on many platforms or even in a browser!

You can download the game for example from archive.org in various languages; the “WaveFiles” must also be downloaded separately to get the sound effects. Or you can simply copy the entire game folder from a Windows XP installation to a newer version of Windows, that works too.

Here is the overview page on archive.org: 3D Pinball: Space Cadet (EN/DEU/PL/CS/JP/DA)
Here’s how to combine the files to play Space Cadet in all its former glory:

Step 1: Download the files

Download the two neccessary 7-Zip archives from the link above or from the following direct links:

PINBALL_ENGLISH.7z
WaveFiles.7z

Step 2: Unpacking

WinRAR or 7-Zip is necessary to unpack the archives.
Extract both archives to separate folders using the context menu.

Step 3: Merge sound effects

Copy or cut the entire contents of the “WaveFiles” folder from the extracted archive and paste or move them into the “PINBALL_ENGLISH” folder, which has also been extracted.

There should be 60 wave sounds.

Step 4: Play

Double-click “pinball.exe” to start playing this classic game.
First, the familiar full-screen splash screen appears, and after a few seconds of initialization, the game begins!

Cheats!

Something that used to be relatively unknown: There’s a hidden test mode in this game. To access it, simply type “hidden test” (including the space) into the fully initialized, running game. This unlocks new possibilities:

In addition, instead of “hidden test” you can enter “1max” during the game (as many times as you like) to get an extra ball each time!

Der Beitrag 3D Pinball for Windows – Space Cadet: The favorite among the included games erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

FAT32 is essentially the “standard file system” for many devices, especially embedded and older ones. The Nintendo Wii, for example, only supports FAT32-formatted SD cards, just as many media players (car radios) can only read USB sticks with the FAT32 file system. It has been supported by Microsoft operating systems since Windows 95, but with some limitations – Wikipedia lists these very nicely.

One of these limitations is that Windows only allows formatting with the FAT32 file system for drives with a storage capacity of up to and including 32 GB when formatting via the GUI (context menu in Explorer). Above this, only NTFS or exFAT are offered, both of which are incompatible file systems for many devices.

This is incomprehensible, as significantly larger volumes are supported depending on the selected sector size (up to 2 TiB with the universally compatible standard sector size of 512 bytes!). However, the limitation of individual files to a maximum of 4 GiB cannot be circumvented.

There are several ways…

…to format a drive as FAT32 in Windows anyway. For example, using the command line, where there is no 32 GB limitation:

format S: /FS:FAT32 /Q

format S: /FS:FAT32 /Q

The most convenient way for me so far has been to use a small program from “Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd“: small, free, standalone, and available with or without a GUI.

A description of the application can be found here, and you can download it directly from the developer as a console version here (archive.org). My preferred GUI version is described here (direct download of the EXE, archive.org).

Usage

The application is very easy to use – connect the drive to the computer, ensure that there is only one main partition (Control Panel -> Administration -> Disk Management) and run “guiformat.exe” (as administrator, like requested).

Select the appropriate letter from the drop-down list, set the sector size (for a total size of less than 2 TiB, select 512 bytes to ensure maximum compatibility) and format.
Done!

The file explorer also displays everything correctly as expected:

Der Beitrag Format drives with a capacity of over 32 GB as FAT32 under Windows erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

For the purpose of significantly improving comparability, sp00n, who is active on GitHub and Hardwareluxx, among others, has compiled many benchmark results for different Cinebench versions.

More results are available there for Cinebench R15, R20, R23, and 2024. He makes these available for download on his GitHub repository:

https://github.com/sp00n/cinebench_scores (ZIP-Archive)

To use the downloaded text files, copy the ones that match your version to the “cb_ranking” subfolder in the respective program directory. Then simply start Cinebench and the list of comparison results should be considerably longer.

Der Beitrag Additional results for Cinebench erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

The underlying product is Cinema 4D from the German company Maxon – a performance-hungry rendering software.
Its development history is really interesting; the first version was released back in 1993 for the Commodore Amiga.

This software was used in several movies, for example:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
• Beowulf (2007)
• The Golden Compass (2007)
• Surf’s Up (2007)
• Spider-Man 3 (2007)
• Chronicles of Narnia (Part 1: 2005 / Part 2: 2008 / Part 3: 2010)
• Serenity (2005)
• Inception (2010)
• Van Helsing (2004)
• The Polarexpress (2004)
• He Was a Quiet Man (2007)
• Iron Man 3 (2013)
• Pacific Rim (2013)
• Furious 7 (2015)
• Avengers: Endgame (2019)

…Bleeding edge rendering technology, you might say. Cinebench was then created to test the performance of hardware for use with Cinema 4D: The first version was released at the end of 1999 and was called “Cinebench 2000”. Since then, there have been regular new releases of this benchmark and annual releases of the actual Cinema 4D software, available for Windows and macOS (newer versions for x86, x86-64, and ARM64).

Cinebench is mainly used to test processors; either all threads or a single thread can be fully loaded and measured. Many versions also offer GPU testing. Here is an overview of the different versions in the form of screenshots:

CineBench 2000

CINEBENCH 2003

CINEBENCH 9.5

CINEBENCH R10

CINEBENCH R11.5

CINEBENCH R15

CINEBENCH R20

CINEBENCH R23

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench 2026

Compatibility and more detailed information

Here, I have compiled a table of all versions known to me, including relevant information:

I myself always use version R23 wherever possible, including additional results for better comparability (more on this in the next post). In terms of load and the hardware period I’m dealing with, this is a good compromise between load and compatibility: After all, I work a lot with older systems (Windows 10 and older) – so it’s helpful when two slower cores and relatively little RAM are still able to run in order to compare the existing hardware or test the effects of settings.

Regardless of this, R23 is also my standard version for overclocking processors and the version used in this blog to test and measure almost all CPUs that appear in “Hardware Setups”.

Even the first version, “CineBench 2000,” is still executable under Windows 11 (64-bit) today!

Download

All versions can be conveniently downloaded from TechPowerUp, among other places.

Der Beitrag Cinebench: The long history of a benchmark erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

While sorting through my old games, I stumbled across this classic mini-game once again. I can’t say why, but this game has popped into my mind every now and then over the years. Entertaining, challenging, and yet still fun.

All you need to control it is the left or right mouse button to determine the direction of the barrier creation. However, you need good nerves to play it. After a very long time, the developer Matthew Miller (https://mattdm.org/icebreaker/) has even released newer versions and there is now also a GitHub repository. The game is programmed in C.

I’ve been running v1.9.5 since the beginning, currently on Windows 11 and I still enjoy it just as much as I did “back then” on Windows XP when I first encountered this little game (was it perhaps once part of a CBS CD/DVD?).

Der Beitrag IceBreaker: An open source classic erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

In the past, this function was probably rarely used but since the basic physical structure of x86 processors has changed significantly in recent years, we can now be glad that this API function exists. We are talking about what is known as process affinity: this allows you to determine on which logical processor a task should be executed.

The potential applications become apparent when considering how modern CPUs (including ARM) function. Intel, in particular now offers “performance-” and “efficiency cores”. AMD has models such as the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X*, which have two chiplets with 6 and 8 cores respectively, and only the first chiplet achieves the advertised clock speeds because it was built with better silicon quality.

The scheduler in the operating system normally distributes processes to logical cores or threads on its own, i.e., it pushes performance-hungry processes to cores that are known to be powerful. However, if you don’t want to rely on this, it is possible to force it.

Compatibility

The underlying Windows functions based on “winbase.h” have existed since Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The library is Kernel32.lib with the associated Kernel32.dll. Process affinity can therefore be set on all operating systems since Windows XP.

Functionality

It is important to note that the majority of all x86 processors support “simultaneous multithreading” or “hyperthreading” and can therefore execute more than one thread per physical processor core. Hence the term “logical processor” which refers to each thread and not each core.

To stick with the example of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X: This CPU has 16 physical cores that offer 32 threads with active SMT. So how many CPUs does the process affinity mask / system see?
That’s right, 32.

This is important to keep in mind. The internal distribution follows the initialization logic of the system, i.e., in the example of a 4-core / 8-thread processor with active SMT:

With SMT disabled it would look like this:

Manual usage

It’s quite simple: The process must be running. Then start the Task Manager, switch to the detailed view and right-click on the process. Clicking on “Set Affinity” opens a dialog box where you can select exactly which logical processors the process should run on and which it should not:

In SysInternals’ “Process Explorer” this also works via the context menu of the process.

Permanent application to a process

Now it gets a little more complex: The function works with bit masks. So in order to determine exactly which logical processors a task should run on, some calculations are required:

To find out the bit mask, the easiest way is to start the calculator in Windows and switch to “Programmer” mode:

Then simply add up the decimal numbers of the desired logical processors and see what the value is when converted to hexadecimal. That is then the required bit mask. If, for example, you specifically want the process to run on either core 0 or core 3, that is also possible:
1 + 8 equals 9, which is also 9 in hexadecimal, so “9” is the bit mask.

For CPUs with many cores and / or threads, the numbers quickly become big. The limit before NUMA restrictions occur and make the process more complex is 64 logical processors.

Table for up to 32 logical processors

For simplicity’s sake, here is an overview table:

For example, if I want an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X to run the designated process on the potentially faster first 8 cores or 16 threads, the bit mask would be “FFFF” .

Scripting

You can automate the process using Batch or PowerShell. Here is a simple example in Batch:

@echo off
cd "C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\MySoftware"
START /min /affinity FFFF cmd /C "MyProzess.exe -MyParameter1 -MyParameter2"

@echo off
cd "C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\MySoftware"
START /min /affinity FFFF cmd /C "MyProzess.exe -MyParameter1 -MyParameter2"

In addition, you can also set the process priority right away:

@echo off
cd "C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\MySoftware"
START /high /min /affinity FFFF cmd /C "MyProzess.exe -MyParameter1 -MyParameter2"

@echo off
cd "C:\Users\Admin\Desktop\MySoftware"
START /high /min /affinity FFFF cmd /C "MyProzess.exe -MyParameter1 -MyParameter2"

Possible values are:

/low
/normal
/high
/realtime
/abovenormal
/belownormal

/low
/normal
/high
/realtime
/abovenormal
/belownormal

Der Beitrag Windows: Set process affinity erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

These are two really good games from legendary assembler programmer Chris Sawyer, which were huge hits when they came out and have only gotten better over time. I especially enjoyed playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 with the two expansions, “Added Attractions” and “Loopy Landscapes,” over and over again. Simply a timeless classic.

However, the technical side, or more precisely the resolutions, had long been a problem: the game only natively supports 4:3 resolutions, which have long since fallen out of use. There were hacks to get around this: Using a hex editor, it was possible to make at least 720p playable in 16:9 format. None of this was ideal. With Windows 11, full-screen mode no longer works at all, making it a hopeless case.

OpenRCT2

This is where OpenRCT2 comes in: an open source implementation of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.
RCT2 builds seamlessly on RCT1 and has been improved and expanded in many areas without losing any of its charm (unlike RCT3, which came later). It’s best to have the original game handy, as the experience is only really good with the original game data.

Thanks to this community project, RCT2 is up and running again, with many modern features and support for modern systems and hardware. I highly recommend that every fan of the series take a look at the project.

The system requirements are:

Windows 7 or newer
macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or newer
Linux is more complex: Ubuntu 18.04 or higher, Arch, in principle many distributions should run
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD

…so the whole thing even runs natively on macOS and Linux!

OpenTTD

Just like OpenRCT2, OpenTTD is a community-developed reimplementation of the classic Transport Tycoon Deluxe, which was released in the 90s and is also an absolute classic.

Here, too, many features have been expanded and improved, and TTD now runs flawlessly on modern systems. You should also have the original game data at hand here. Click here for the project, and here for some impressions. The multiplayer mode is also actively used, and there are many servers!

It is also important to know where to copy which original game files.

The system requirements are very minimal:
OpenTTD should run on absolutely any computer with a standard operating system!

Der Beitrag Nice Thing: OpenRCT2 and OpenTTD erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

One of the biggest disadvantages of Windows XP is that the most widely used and compatible version is based on 32-bit. This means that a maximum of 4 GB of RAM can be addressed—overhead from drivers and other system components further reduce this already low value. In the most extreme case I have encountered so far, on a Quad-SLI Retro XP PC: Due to four graphics cards and plenty of other hardware, only a meager 1.44 GB of RAM is available. However, a whopping 64 GB are installed there in the form of eight 8 GB memory modules*.

But even the RetroBooks have a maximum of 16 GB of RAM installed, of which only about 3.25 GB can be used under XP. The same applies to the Acer Veriton S670G – 8 GB are available, but less than half can be used.

You could install the 64-bit version of Windows XP, but many things don’t work on it and there are no functioning drivers for some things. Or you could build a hybrid that removes or extends the RAM limitation, but this brings other problems with it. That’s what this is about now:

PAE?

“Physical Address Extension” – The built-in processor must support this. The software support has the same name. Under Windows, the 4 GB limit is artificial: “Product segmentation”. How can you tell? Even Windows 2000 Advanced Server can use more than 4 GB of RAM, as can Server 2003. Both are 32-bit operating systems.

To make 32-bit Windows XP (with a suitable CPU) suitable for up to 128 GB of RAM, you have to implant two components of the 64-bit version of XP and change the boot parameters. However, there are also disadvantages to this, which I will discuss later.

Modification

First, you need to obtain two specific files from Windows XP 64-bit. You can either extract them from the ISO or download them from MediaFire (archive.org).

Then copy both files to “C:\Windows\System32\” under 32-bit XP. Once this is done, you need to edit “boot.ini” – it is best to add a second entry so that you can still boot normally if problems arise.

The easiest way to do this is as follows (boot.ini is hidden by default):

Add a second entry below the existing one (make sure that the partition etc. matches):

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (RAM-Limit entfernt)" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (RAM-Limit entfernt)" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff

The entire “boot.ini” should then look something like this:

;
;Warning: Boot.ini is used on Windows XP and earlier operating systems.
;Warning: Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options.
;
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Original)" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (RAM-Limit entfernt)" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff

;
;Warning: Boot.ini is used on Windows XP and earlier operating systems.
;Warning: Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options.
;
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Original)" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (RAM-Limit entfernt)" /kernel=ntkl64g.exe /hal=hal64g.dll /fastdetect /PAE /noexecute=alwaysoff

Then simply save the file with CTRL+S or via the menu, close everything, and restart the computer. When booting up, a selection menu should now appear each time, allowing you to choose between the two entries.

Alternatively, you can also use a patcher, but I prefer the method with the additional original files from Microsoft.

Side effects

Some problems have been reported, the most common being:

• General instability
• Driver problems
• Bluescreens
• Disk formatting rarely works or no longer works at all
• Problems with standby or power states in general

These problems may or may not occur. Personally, I have only encountered the problem with disk formatting on RetroBooks – and that the boot process occasionally fails and simply continues loading indefinitely. Once the system is up and running, there is no instability.

Incidentally, a single process still cannot use more than 2 GB. So “only” the overall system benefits in the form of more breathing room.

Conclusion

This modification is not 100% reliable. However, since you can boot normally at any time, it’s a nice, playful addition that you can choose to use or not use each time you start up.

I have modified all XP-based systems with more than 4 GB of physical RAM in this way.

Der Beitrag Full RAM ahead – Windows XP PAE modification erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.

How could it be otherwise when you handle a lot of hardware? Particularly low-priced devices tend to end up sooner rather than later at their final destination—with me.

The combination of mobile, inexpensive, battery life, and x86 rarely bodes well. Add “convertible” to the mix, and well… Such is the case with Lenovo’s “Miix” series. Two tablets from this series found their way into my hands, one after the other, with a little time in between. One was the Lenovo Ideapad Miix 310-10ICR and the other was its direct successor, the Lenovo Ideapad Miix 320-10ICR. Both are equipped with a 10.1″ display.

⧉ Lenovo

⧉ Lenovo

⧉ Lenovo

⧉ Lenovo

⧉ Lenovo

⧉ Lenovo

The first impression when switched off is really not bad. Glass display, the keyboard is securely docked, the workmanship is high quality. After switching it on, disillusionment sets in – the data sheets didn’t lie. Intel Atom with 2 watts TDP in combination with an embedded multimedia card as mass storage is simply very slow – but cheap. Just like the whole device, bought by different people in various Mediamarkt bargain bins on special offer.

At least both have the maximum RAM expansion, even back then (2016/2017) with 4 GB LPDDR3, which was already very small. With 2 GB of RAM, which was also available, these devices would be completely unusable with Windows 10, regardless of the version. Constant swapping to the slow eMMC simply cannot run well.

Upgrade…?

No way. As a classic ultra-mobile device, there is really nothing that can be upgraded in terms of hardware (without special equipment and soldering tools). So the only option is to try to improve the performance of the software. My somewhat hopeful attempt to improve responsiveness by replacing the factory-installed Windows 10 Home with Windows 8.1 Pro failed miserably: There are simply no working drivers, especially for the processor’s iGPU (however, the 64-bit version of 8.1 could be installed without any problems).

It’s a shame, because 8.1 works really well with a touchscreen and, although it is now less widely supported, it is also a less bloated operating system. Only ~700 MB of RAM were in use on the desktop. All it would need is a reasonably up-to-date browser.

Incidentally, 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate with integrated SP1 does not boot even with Secure Boot disabled; it freezes with a pink stripe at the edge of the screen when attempting to do so. 32-bit operating systems generally cannot be booted; they are not even displayed in the boot menu. The UEFI only wants to load x64 EFI files.

Even Windows 10 probably runs noticeably better on such limited hardware in the 32-bit version than the preinstalled 64-bit edition. Well, well.

So Windows what?

I have gradually tested the following systems on the slightly newer Miix 320-10ICR, all 64-bit:

• Windows 10 Home (21H2)
• Windows 10 Pro (22H2)
• Windows 10 Enterprise 1607 LTSB (2016)
• Windows 10 Enterprise 1803 LTSC (2019)
• Windows 11 Pro (22H2, 23H2, 24H2)
• Windows 11 Enterprise IoT 2024

This took a really long time due to the very limited performance. With all these systems, everything ran smoothly with the drivers provided by Lenovo for “Windows 10 64-bit”. It is very important to install the driver for the “Intel Power Management IC (PMIC)” first, as some devices, such as the GPU, will only appear after this has been done.

Windows 10 Home was preinstalled and, due to certain preloaded programs, noticeably slower than the subsequent fresh installation of Windows 10 Pro. Windows 11 Pro, which was installed shortly thereafter, ran for a total of four years and was repeatedly updated with in-place upgrades. The speed of everything slowed down significantly each time until it became almost unbearable with 25H2:

In the end, it was the significantly aged Windows 10 Enterprise 1607 LTSB N from 2016. It runs best and comes debloated in the standard configuration. Even Windows Defender can be completely disabled with three clicks via group policy, and Edge is not even present. The .NET Framework in the still fairly current version 4.8 runs on it—this is a prerequisite for some applications.

Intended use

What do you do with such undersized hardware?
In this case the obvious: control, monitor, and regulate.

Both tablets run at different locations with different tasks, with the software stripped down to a minimum with Ungoogled Chromium in full-screen mode. In this configuration, it’s not as bad as you might think. I do have some concerns about “continuous power supply operation,” which can’t be good for the tablets’ relatively large batteries, but so far everything is OK.

Nevertheless, the best thing to do is simply not to buy hardware manufactured as “Day One electronic waste”. These tablets never ran well, even when brand new. Probably even worse, due to a lot of pre-installed software from Lenovo.

Technically good hardware simply has its price, and an x86-based tablet that cost less than €180 new at the time can’t be any good, no matter how you look at it. Even modern Microsoft Office runs rather poorly on it; when Windows 11 was still installed, even Cinebench R23 crashed due to a lack of free RAM. At least it can run under Windows 10 1607 LTSB N. However, there will be no more updates for this version of Windows 10 from mid-2026, so it is not recommended for everyday use. However, the two devices will probably remain in use as “monitoring screens” for a long time to come.

Der Beitrag Windows with that special touch erschien zuerst auf flohs blog.