very few games from that era will use dual cpus - possibly only quake 3, there was a recentish thread about this, and also one on nt gaming.

Windows NT 4.0

SMP enabled games (pre-2005)

As far as I know, the main differences between the Pentium Pro and the Pentium II are:

• No MMX
• Full speed L2 cache
• Half as much L1 cache

So other than games, you could use it as you would a Pentium II system.

Back in the day, I think Pentium Pros were intended for servers.

Also as far as I know, games have to be written to take advantage of multiple CPUs, but I could be wrong.

Yes, PPRO was Intel's first serious workstation and server CPU.You can certainly see this in the robust chipsets Intel built for it. However, it is also a powerful gaming chip in most cases. Its main weakness is 8/16bit legacy code, because the CPU designers targeted primarily 32bit software. Pentium II addressed this issue, added MMX and more L1.

A few games, like Build engine stuff, show the 8/16 bit slowdown. Win9x isn't really an issue though. Usually the slowdown makes it equal to PMMX at the same clock speed.

Early P6 chipsets and BIOSs have quirks with PCI performance that need attention for DOS gaming. FASTVID addresses this for video cards. If you don't use FASTVID or similar to set up the chipset properly, the video card has limited bus bandwidth. Windows video drivers often take care if this though. Newer BIOSs sometimes do too for DOS (afaik).

Put a second PPro and install BeOS, it will happily use the two processors.
Change your graphic card for a Voodoo 3 if you want hardware accelerated openGL (using unofficial/leaked drivers) for the GLTeapot, Quake 1, 2 and 3.

Commercial games available are Civilzation:Call To Power, Corum3, official ports of Doom, Quake 1&2, Abuse, Elasto Mania and probably some other I forgot...
You can find emulators for 8/16 bits systems, there's also an old ScummVM port.
Games and softwares can be found at http://www.bebits.com/

Here's a compatibility list for x86 hardware:
http://www.tycomsystems.com/beos/x86_ready.html

Which socket does your motherboard use?

PPro is socket 8.

Then you may be able to use Pentium II overdrives.

There's only one Overdrive for socket 8 - it's quite rare and expensive, definitely way more than the $69 coppercitymt got his system for 😀

Might as well dig up a Xeon system if you want a faster, still non-consumer x86 box.

Thanks everyone for your input, I think I will go with windows 95 and use it as a DOS and early windows gaming system. Since its the same as a normal PMMX. If I have any problems with I will check out that fast vid.

swaaye wrote:

Yes, PPRO was Intel's first serious workstation and server CPU.You can certainly see this in the robust chipsets Intel built for it. However, it is also a powerful gaming chip in most cases. Its main weakness is 8/16bit legacy code, because the CPU designers targeted primarily 32bit software. Pentium II addressed this issue, added MMX and more L1.

A few games, like Build engine stuff, show the 8/16 bit slowdown. Win9x isn't really an issue though. Usually the slowdown makes it equal to PMMX at the same clock speed.

Early P6 chipsets and BIOSs have quirks with PCI performance that need attention for DOS gaming. FASTVID addresses this for video cards. If you don't use FASTVID or similar to set up the chipset properly, the video card has limited bus bandwidth. Windows video drivers often take care if this though. Newer BIOSs sometimes do too for DOS (afaik).

You should definitely look into FastVid if you plan on playing SVGA DOS games. FastVid can increase PCI bus bandwidth for the video card by several times and this definitely has an impact with some more demanding games.

I'm a bit of a PPro fan myself. I have an Intel VS440FX motherboard running a Pentium Pro 200 MHz (1MB L2 variety) at 233 MHz. This system can run Unreal rather well when combined with a 3dfx card of any sort. 😀

Ppro FTW! I have one myself and it blows a 233 MMX away. I installed NT 4.0 when I first got it, but there's not many games for that o/s...though AoE plays nicely . Then I installed Win95, but too many features like USB and networking are missing. Then Win2000 just for lols. Finally Win 98SE, which I find strikes a nice balance, enough modern features + ability to play old 90s games. I also installed a Diamind MOnster 3d, which is a pretty underpowered card- very slow performance in Quake 2, nice for NFS2. But it's period correct from 1996 so there it sits.

I'm another lover of the ppro. I have been looking for a single cpu SDRAM based mobo for one in working order for cheap for ages, I may find one someday... my luck lately seems to be on the upswing!

I know most of them took EDO DIMMs, but I personally have messed with one that took SDRAM, so I know they are out there...somewhere.

Could you be thinking of EDO DIMMs? Some 440FX boards use them.

440FX does not support SDRAM though, so you'd need 440LX in that case. There are Socket 8 Slotkets for 440LX Slot 1 boards but they seem uncommon.

jaqie wrote:

I know most of them took EDO DIMMs, but I personally have messed with one that took SDRAM, so I know they are out there...somewhere.

🤣 please excuse my comprehension failure. I read that as SIMMs.