Try some id tech2 games (Quake2, SiN, etc), but gl_flashblend 1 to save some cpu power from dynamic light calculation (a 486 killer)

Will Hexen 2 even want to run? Id be curious.

i strongly recommend you to run it at 50*3 if your mainboard and ram can handle it, board needs a 2/3 pci divider though.

We'll give it a try.
MaxWar, Hexen 2 should run, as it is based on idtech1 (Quake 1 Engine). Obviously it will be insanely slow in software mode, I'm curious as to how such games will perform in OpenGL with the aid of the Voodoo 2 cards though!

which mobo are you going to use for this tests?

This one : http://motherboards.mbarron.net/models/486pci/j446b.htm .
I think I have at least 32MB of RAM that would work on that, and both ADZ and ADW cpus. It's easy to run the cpu at 160MHz. When you do that, on the POST screen it changes the rating of the processor. Instead of 5x86-133 P75, it becomes 5x86-160 P90. But I'm not sure if it can do 3x50. Haven't tried it.

GLquake & Outlaws are good ones to try, is your goal to find games that are playable or whether it runs?

I was going to start a topic about this subject as its very interesting to see what a Socket 3 system can run.

I don't really know. Actually I don't expect too much. A year ago I tried to run the first Need for Speed, but even if it was playable on an overclocked 486@160, it still wasn't as smooth as on a Pentium 100, using the same video card. But F2bnp had the idea to try the voodoo cards. It would be interesting, as I didn't bother to try anything besides pure DOS on the 486.

I wonder how dethkarz would work on this machine. It works flawless with my 233MMX @262 + Voodoo graphics, yet rendering distance is about 20% of MAX (still very huge).

The goal is to see how well the games run. Good performance should be 10-15 fps on each game at 512x386 or 640x480 resolutions!
I'll see if I can find dethkarz, should be interesting!

Dethkarz ran terrible on my Pentium II when I tried it several ages back.

Another one to try are I76 Gold and Battlezone with the Voodoo2. It should be very playable as they're pretty much integer games still

I think you can try Pył too Pył, Pyl, Dust English language version

If you're going to be playing 3D games on a socket 3 machine then a Pentium Overdrive or Cyrix 5x86 would be a better CPU to use than an AMD 5x86 because of the stronger FPU, which 3D games make heavy use of. The AMD 5x86 still uses a 486 class FPU, which is more limiting.

That "GL_flashblend 1" definately improves the performance.

For Quake 2 Default at 640x480 for demo1.dm2 = 11.5fps (with sound)
GL_flashblend 1 at 640x480 demo1.dm2 = 13.5fps

This option really helps when you have explosions or the glow of gunfire as it reduces the quality of those effects, the slowdowns are nowhere near as severe but overall the experience is'nt quite passable,

This is on POD83 with Voodoo3

Well, the point is to see how a 486 performs, so no Pentium Overdrive. The Cyrix 5x86 also doesn't clock as high AFAIK so it should be pretty equal in performance to a faster clocked AMD 5x86.

dirkmirk wrote:

That "GL_flashblend 1" definately improves the performance. […]
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That "GL_flashblend 1" definately improves the performance.

For Quake 2 Default at 640x480 for demo1.dm2 = 11.5fps (with sound)
GL_flashblend 1 at 640x480 demo1.dm2 = 13.5fps

This option really helps when you have explosions or the glow of gunfire as it reduces the quality of those effects, the slowdowns are nowhere near as severe but overall the experience is'nt quite passable,

This is on POD83 with Voodoo3

gl_flashblend 1 is good, but gl_dynamic 0 is even faster. 😁
there are a few more options that may improve your framerates:
cl_gun 0
gl_picmip 2 or 3
gl_polyblend 0
gl_texturemode gl_linear_mipmap_nearest
and vid_restart to take effect.
to turn off sound:
s_initsound 0
snd_restart

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess the AMD CPU is gonna suffer with any game that requires the Math-Coprocessor?

If so, I guess for a Win95-based 3D game running on a 486 system, Quake 1 is a good start.

Others to try (I'm not sure if some of these will run on a 486 - haven't tried) :

2. Quake 2.
3. Heretic II
4. Blood II The Chosen
5. Err...Unreal Tournament?
6. Gulp.....Half-Life?

And also, to torture the 486 further, try upping the resolution to at least 1024x768.

Yes, Unreal (not UT) and Half-Life are already on the list 😜.
Half-Life skeletal animation will probably absolutely KILL performance though!

A great idea!

F2bnp wrote:

Well, the point is to see how a 486 performs, so no Pentium Overdrive. The Cyrix 5x86 also doesn't clock as high AFAIK so it should be pretty equal in performance to a faster clocked AMD 5x86.

You may want to prefer to the comparative charts in the Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison. Only the ALU of an X5-160 has an advantage over a Cyrix 5x86-120. If the games you are testing are heavily FPU-based, a Cyrix 5x86-120 is a better choice.

If you are trying to max out the possibility of a 486 with 3D games, I am in agreement with Sliderider, a Cyrix 5x86-120's FPU is about 10 pentium ratings better than an AMD X5-160. A POD83-WB is 3 pentium ratings better than the Cyrix 5x86-120. If you are using a Cyrix 5x86, ensure that you set LSSER to 0, FP_FAST to 1, and BTB to 1, otherwise, you're preformance drops. Refer to Cyrix 5x86 Register Enhancements Revealed for performance improvements and how to enable these bits. LSSER and FP_FAST are probably the most important for this test, but if you can enable BTB, that's another bonus.

Since you are going to use a 40 MHz FSB, did you confirm that this SiS board is not adding an automatic 2/3 FSB-to-PCI bus multiplier? If so, that would drop the PCI bus down to 27 MHz.

I also think a Voodoo3 card is the way to go. The Voodoo3 OpenGL drivers in Windows just work, which is more than I can say for the Matrox Millennium G200 drivers (at least the old Matrox drivers which are required to use a 486 had OpenGL issues, the later Matrox drivers worked fine with OpenGL on socket 5/7's).