For Ultima VII, I would suggest trying the Windows 9x patch with this system at full speed, maybe even overclocked, and see if it will play at a playable speed.

Dynablaster runs fine on my K6-III+ Socket 7 build. In fact, i finished the game for the first time on this system.

Great Hierophant wrote:

For Ultima VII, I would suggest trying the Windows 9x patch with this system at full speed, maybe even overclocked, and see if it will play at a playable speed.

Interesting, well worth checking out.

carlostex wrote:

Dynablaster runs fine on my K6-III+ Socket 7 build. In fact, i finished the game for the first time on this system.

Good to know! Thanks for confirming.

I finally found the time to watch this excellent video beginning to end. Kudos to you, Phil, for doing all this marvelous work and educating the users. 😊

It is good to know that I have the option in the future to swap my K6-2 for a K6-2+ / K6-3+ and play with the unlocked multiplier in software, to achieve the flexibility you are talking about.

Currently my K6-2 runs at 500MHz, which I believe is pretty much equivalent to the K6-3+ at 400MHz. It does well on almost all DOS games I play (since I rarely play ancient ones), and quite OK on the Win9x games as well (coupled with a Voodoo 3000).

Out of the games mentioned here as interesting benchmarks I have Jazz Jackrabbit (which runs perfect with the K6), Lotus III (which indeed does not run, I will have to see if disabling caches will fix it), and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 for Windows. I recall JJ2 running fine, but next time I visit my retro machine I will try the settings suggested by dr.zeissler to see if it's actually smooth.

I do have some technical point I wish to understand. It is claimed that disabling the caches can turn the K6 / comparable CPU into a 386/486. But why is that? The CPU clock still stays at 133MHz (with 2x multiplier). So will it be equivalent to a 386/486 @133MHz, if such existed? Or is it actually slower, like a 386/486 at their native clock? if the latter, then what causes it?

carlostex wrote:

Dynablaster runs fine on my K6-III+ Socket 7 build. In fact, i finished the game for the first time on this system.

What settings are you using and what operating system are you using?
And what soundcard's have you had it running with?

I might have overseen something, when trying to get it to work.

dr_st wrote:

I finally found the time to watch this excellent video beginning to end. Kudos to you, Phil, for doing all this marvelous work and educating the users. 😊

I do have some technical point I wish to understand. It is claimed that disabling the caches can turn the K6 / comparable CPU into a 386/486. But why is that? The CPU clock still stays at 133MHz (with 2x multiplier). So will it be equivalent to a 386/486 @133MHz, if such existed? Or is it actually slower, like a 386/486 at their native clock? if the latter, then what causes it?

Thanks 😊

The internal CPU Cache adds massive performance. Cache stores frequently used data and that speeds up things. L1 cache is on the processor. The K6-2+ and K6-III+ also has 256 KB of L2 Cache and the motherboard then has L3 cache, the size depends on the motherboard. Cache is faster, but smaller, the close it is to the processor. When you turn off L1 cache, the processor needs to access the slower L2 and L3 caches instead, and that's what costs performance. If you disable all caches, the CPU needs to access RAM directly for everything, and it's the slowest settings. But it's also very consistent, and that's why you get a nice 386.

SetMul can actually disable just L1 cache, and leave L2 cache enabled. But I didn't want to confuse viewers too much, it adds a bit of extra performance, say a little faster 386 or 486.

Without L1 cache, the chip is indeed slower than a 386 / 486 at their native clock. But you will find that the clock speed does very little when the L1 cache is turned off. There is some change in performance, but it's trivial.

Note that other Socket 7 chips do not have L1 and L2 Cache on the chip. This is unique to the K6-2+ and III+. That's why in the BIOS, the setting for L1 or internal Cache will turn of L1 and L2 cache, and setting for L2 or External cache will turn off the motherboard cache.

I wonder why a 100+ MHz processor with the caches disabled get you 386 speeds. I mean, the fastest true 386 was 40MHz, on a 40MHz bus. The slowed down SS7 is operating at a higher clock in a faster bus, so you'd think the K6+ would still be considerably faster than a 386. Are post-Pentium architectures so reliant on their caches they get absurdly throttled when those are disabled?

alexanrs wrote:

I wonder why a 100+ MHz processor with the caches disabled get you 386 speeds. I mean, the fastest true 386 was 40MHz, on a 40MHz bus. The slowed down SS7 is operating at a higher clock in a faster bus, so you'd think the K6+ would still be considerably faster than a 386. Are post-Pentium architectures so reliant on their caches they get absurdly throttled when those are disabled?

It gets worse with the Pentium III. Turn the Cache off and you got 286 like performance. It's a good question, and I don't know the answer to be honest. Maybe someone with a deep understanding of processor architecture can answer this one.

I remember disabling the CPU Cache on an Intel Atom netbook, and that got it to run Wing Commander und real DOS 😀

Edit: i guess there is a uvii patch for win98

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7139

brostenen wrote:

Hmmm.... Does it run DynaBlaster with full sound? The only way I can get that working, is to run a P133 on a SS7-MVP3 board, dis […]
Show full quote

PARUS wrote:

This is my best DOS sound system.

Hmmm.... Does it run DynaBlaster with full sound?
The only way I can get that working, is to run a P133 on a SS7-MVP3 board, disable motherboard cache, disable all serial and parallel and have IRQ5 free and use IRQ7 for sound. When I load the GUS-ACE drivers or enable serial/parallel. The game will not detect the soundcard.

And the machine is running MS-Dos6.22. I had real quirks running that on a Celeron 233 on a 440ex board.
Swapping between different cards, using all from Aztech-ISA/Creative-SB16-ISA to Ensonic-PCI/Creative-PCI cards, eighter Dynablaster, Lotus-III or Syndicate would not play, or even worse. The games would crash. And that was in Win98SE and Win95-Osr2/3.
Anyway... That was Windows and not dos. MS-Dos is actually even worse, trying to get Dynablaster working, when a "Fast" cpu is chosen.

I just did.
i865, FSB400, Core2 1000MHz, L2 4mb enabled. COM1 and LPT are active.
OS is DOS7.1 included in Windows98SE.
The drivers are loaded at the same time:
- Terratec EWS64
- AV310
- GUS Ace
- AWE64Gold
Resources are used at the same time:
IO 220, 240, 250, 260
IRQ 5, 7, 9 (and 4 for COM1)
DMA 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7

Dyna works properly. Sound is present through resources 220, 7, 1, i.e. "SB Pro".

PARUS wrote:

I just did.

It shure does not on systems build from these parts.

Asus P5A, FIC-PA2013, Gigabyte GA-5AX.
K6-II-500 or K6-III-400 (both NON+)
16mb, 32 or 128mb PC-100
Sound Blaster 16 (CT2890 or CT2910)
Creative SB-Live and Creative Ensonic-AudioPCI.
Creative AWE32 (CT3900 and CT2760)
AWE64 (Value and Gold)
MS-Dos-6.22 (clean, no win) and Win98SE.

Eighter the SFX is missing or both SFX and music is missing.
All depending on wether I disable L1, L2, and/or L1+L2 cache.
Sound/music come and go or the game freezes.

When I try on a system build on these parts, it works when L1 and/or L2 cache is disabled.
Epox MVP3-C
P-133
CL5446-PCI
SB16 CT-2910
16mb Ram
IRQ5 free and IRQ7 in use by the SB16

Maybe there is an issue that relates to someone device in your system. Sometimes it happens.
Try SB/Pro or any clone. Try another mobo.

By the way does it work normally with L1+L2 en and WITHOUT sound card?

PARUS wrote:

Maybe there is an issue that relates to someone device in your system. Sometimes it happens.
Try SB/Pro or any clone. Try another mobo.

By the way does it work normally with L1+L2 en and WITHOUT sound card?

Well...
Have only tried with the cards that I mentioned, as I don't have any other cards at all.
It might be the adlib portion, wich are not entire compatible with those 3 mobo's when running too fast.
Actually... Have tried it with my Epox-MVP3-c using a K6-2-500, and that did not work.
Only when I run the Pentium-133, and using a SB16 the game will work.

Yeah... Could be the soundcard, mixed with too fast a CPU, mixed with a SS7 mobo.
Both Ali-V and MVP-3 chipsets give the same results for me. K6's are no-go Pentium-133 work.

This is weird.

Indy256.exe (aka Indy3) does not start, even if caches are disabled, but if I start it from Win311 it runs pretty fine?
Dyna-Blaster runs fine too. The scrolling "vga-test" does not run smooth and is very slow and stuttering, but the game itself runs quite good, the soundlag is gone too.

that's weird ! Other games don't like being started from a already running win3x like "biomenace".

Isn't Indy3 one of the few gameblaster games, that's probably better worth running in SCUMMVM? I like to run the actual game, but when SCUMMVM enables a combination of graphics and sound that wasn't possible at the time, I tend to give that a go..

my PII333 has not enough Power for ScummVM.

Back in the day's, most people ran Indy3 with Adlib. One can use midi (if I am remembering correct), yet Adlib is what most people were used to hear.
To get that old feeling, use Adlib. And if one would like to play a "rich old dude" 😁, then go for midi.

Last Crusade doesn't support MIDI. Adlib is as good as it gets. But with an AWE64 Gold you can apply some fancy Chorus and Reverb which actually sound quite nice. Game Blaster version is interesting but I wouldn't call it better.

Nice lil build Phil, I may have to invest in a 2+ 500mhz and build one of these. I'll need to look at the motherboard I have though, ASUS P55T2P4, I think it is.

On a side note.. I watched your Vid on that Gotek floppy to USB and I am interested. Does it work on all era builds or just mid range years (90s to 2K)?

Bullmecha wrote:

Nice lil build Phil, I may have to invest in a 2+ 500mhz and build one of these. I'll need to look at the motherboard I have though, ASUS P55T2P4, I think it is.

On a side note.. I watched your Vid on that Gotek floppy to USB and I am interested. Does it work on all era builds or just mid range years (90s to 2K)?

The GOTEK floppy works on any machine that has a floppy header 😀

I even have one in my Capture machine, an AMD FX6300 based PC.