AMD 386DX-40, with 100 MHz oscillator: 50 MHz clock speed
Contaq "the beast", jumpered to 25 MHz bus speed
256kb L2 Cache, 15ns chips
16meg ram, 70ns
Diamond Speedstar64 (CL-GD5434), 2mb
Siig enhanced controller
512Mb SanDisk compact flash disk
MS-DOS 6.22, nothing of any importance inside auto/config.

Low detail = 13.609 (Hehe, all that "extra firepower" as seen above, and I get ~13.5 fps!)
High detail = 8.261

When I run doom -timedemo demo3, it says that it can't open demo3.lmp. The demo it opens is the one where you are in front of a door. The door is opened, and then you are in a large area, and you get attacked by lots monsters, including a "cloaked" Pinky.

Also, 3DBench = 18.8

It's pretty cool that the scores are pretty much the same within ~3 frames per second.
Maybe video speed isn't as important here as clock speed and memory bandwidth.

[Edit]
That demo3 warning is normal.

So after neglecting my poor 386 for about a month I finally had a spare weekend to fiddle again 😀

I decided to satisfy my curiosity and replaced the 100ns SIMMs with 4x 1MB 70ns SIMMs.
As predicted though, it made no difference to performance, neither observed nor in benchmarks like 3dbench or speedsys.
I'm already running at the maximum performance settings allowed in the BIOS setup so I put the 8x 1MB 100ns SIMMs back in.

I also did the DOOM timedemo, running Ultimate DOOM 1.9, low detail was 12.9 FPS
High detail was 7.6

Are we running the same timedemo? The one I got was where he starts in front of a blue torch and 4 green torches in the distance, then he runs to the right, through a door and over a couple of lava pits, eventually he gets the invulnerability sphere and kills a baron of hell with the shotgun

That timedemo sounds different to the one I use/see. I downloaded the free shareware demo called doom 1.9, and then I run
doom -timedemo demo3
at the C:\ DOS command prompt.

Guys excuse me for a perhaps silly question. Is there a specific version of Doom for the use of the timedemo command? And also would it work on Doom 2?

I go by this webpage: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/misc/doombench.html

Then go to the paragraph labelled "How do I submit results?" It then says: Get Doom version 1.9s (link) and type in

doom -timedemo demo3

I can't find my Doom trilogy CD-ROM at the moment, so I can't check if the -timedemo command works with Doom 2. BTW, the letter "s" in 1.9s refers to "shareware".

Thanks a lot!

I think I've got the magic motherboard for a 386! 😜
In high detail I get 14420 realticks (~9,37 fps) and in low detail it does 9219 realticks (~14,66fps)
My system configuration is the usual 386dx-40 cpu with 16mb 70ns ram, 128kb 15ns cache memory, cirrus logic 5422 1mb vga and my old 240mb maxtor hdd. The only modification is the at bus clock speed which is set to 20MHz. 😀

edit : I run again the demo, but this time I used normal settings (8MHz ISA bus). In high detail I have 15973 realticks (~8,46fps) and in low detail 10091 realticks (~13,39fps). Not bad I think!

Markk, congratulations! 😀 However, please note that I idiotically set Doom to Full screen when I ran my test. This goes against the testing environment stated in that "complang" Doom benchmarking webpage that I referred to earlier. Please can you rerun your Doom test, but with the game set to Full screen - that is, you don't see any "weapons / health / etc bar" at the bottom of the screen, just the 3D "game window". Thanks a lot.

Of course RG 100. Just tell me how to change it, as when I try to increase the size it gets me to the game menu.
edit : don't bother, I found how to set the cfg file. I'll be back in a few minutes with the results.

So with screenblocks set to 11, I have 8,18 in high detail and 14,18 in low detail. Interesting that in low detail it's not that slower compared to high detail (I mean compared to my my previous measurement in 9 screenblocks).

Markk wrote:

I think I've got the magic motherboard for a 386! 😜

You most certainly have! 😀

WOW 😳

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI … e=STRK:MEWAX:IT

One day I will have one of these. It was my very first own PC. A 33 MHz, but otherwise just like that one...

Guess I'm not the only one and prices are quite high...

I've thrown away two of these in 1997. 😢 That's 342 € down the drain!

you have no idea how much old computer stuff I've thrown away over the years. I used to have a shed full of stuff ranging from 386 to socket 7 pentium. Was all taken to the tip about 6 years ago.
Now I have to chase the bits I need and pay top dollar for them 🙁

I always sold my stuff, either via eBay or classifieds (before eBay was around). Mostly because I needed the money for the next build, but also because I move a lot and I don't like to collect / accumulate to much stuff.

DonutKing wrote:

you have no idea how much old computer stuff I've thrown away over the years. I used to have a shed full of stuff ranging from 386 to socket 7 pentium. Was all taken to the tip about 6 years ago.
Now I have to chase the bits I need and pay top dollar for them 🙁

And I must be one of those people who took those homeless systems home with me 😁

Thank god for people who throw out stuff that will be very wanted 5 years down the road! 😁

Markk wrote:

I think I've got the magic motherboard for a 386! 😜

Please can you run 3DBench version 1.0, and tell us your score. Thanks a lot.

Ooooh man, who's green with envy?

<-- This guy!

I have no more room for retro computers! JUST NONE!!!! 😵

Got my 286/20 box, 486/66 box, Pentium 133 box, P3 667 box, and Amiga A1200HD. There is no more room on my museum bench, and no more room for benches in my den!!

It's all a matter of priorities dude.
For example, you don't really need a bed if you've got couches in the living room, and they take up heaps of space that could be better used for old computers 😀

but the downside is, you'll be paying regular visits to the chiropractor! 🤣