Small room heater. 😀

It would be a good heater 😀

There aren't many games that use SMP that work on such an old machine.

+1 for noisy space heater.

aftermarket is the only way to go with Pentium Pro. Personally, I love the platform. Are your chips 512kb or 256k cache?

They made 1MB cache ones also.

256k cache on each cpu

mwdmeyer wrote:

It would be a good heater 😀

There aren't many games that use SMP that work on such an old machine.

aren't many....which ones do?

rgart wrote:

256k cache on each cpu

scrap it for gold. Its common for each pentium pro chip to grab $50 US on ebay.

512k chips are relatively uncommon and worth keeping and the 1mb ones have no gold but still fetch a commanding price.

rgart wrote:

mwdmeyer wrote:

It would be a good heater 😀

There aren't many games that use SMP that work on such an old machine.

aren't many....which ones do?

Quake 3

Errmmm...perhaps dual boot with a Win98?

Quake 3 has experimental SMP support yup but it's of little benefit. It's also disabled by default. PPro isn't going to run Q3 well regardless ...

id didn't have useful SMP in an engine until Quake 4's upgraded idTech 4. I think it's most help for the consoles because of their weak CPUs. I didn't really see a benefit on my Athlon64 X2. There is also some kind of sync issue with it that causes occasional stutters.

Doesn't Falcon 4.0 support dual CPU's?

With an SMP system you can do things like run two games at once smoothly. Of limited practical significance I guess unless you want to do a lot of alt-tabbing.

Also by running a game on a specific CPU (using 'set affinity' or whatever) could in theory speed it up a bit if background tasks run on the other CPU.

What ram is in there 512mb !!!! Edo 72p or 168p ?
I think a ppro is awesome there is not much improvement with 512k instead of 256k

Microsoft Flight Simulator X supports multiple processors, but doesn't do it very well from what I have heard.

168 pin ram. The platform really interests me. Maybe linux or win98. Its such a loud system with all the fans going and the scsi. I would have to mod a case and replace the air flow system so it doesnt wake the neighbours 😀

swaaye wrote:

Quake 3 has experimental SMP support yup but it's of little benefit. It's also disabled by default. PPro isn't going to run Q3 well regardless ...

id didn't have useful SMP in an engine until Quake 4's upgraded idTech 4. I think it's most help for the consoles because of their weak CPUs. I didn't really see a benefit on my Athlon64 X2. There is also some kind of sync issue with it that causes occasional stutters.

I has to be of partial help only because what SMP on quake 3 does is just allocating 1 cpu to the video part and the other to the sound core

Even on games as late as HL2 SMP support was (still is?) considered broken so it is not surprising that the much earlier uses of it may be problematic.

Any recommendations on upgrades/gaming uses? I guess what i am asking is what possible uses does it have?

Dedicated server for Doom/Heretic/Hexen/Duke3D/Warcraft2/C&C and the like, BBS server for running stuff like LORD and BRE.

vetz wrote:

Doesn't Falcon 4.0 support dual CPU's?

Stunned speachless....not only flabbergasted that people still remember the dual Pentium Pro 200's, BUT Falcon 4.0 demanded I respond to this. First encountered Falcon 2 on a Compac 385-25. Became a squadron leader when F3 added the multi-element battlespace, with real Ops Orders in support of missions all within a full scale tactical level battlefield environment. That your successful ground attack on an enemy re-supply column that stopped a 155 battery from successful defence fire missions......or when your SEAD flight failed, and bomber flights were all taken out by enemy SAMs....allowing continued use of a re-supply FOB airfield. I was a squadron leader, and then an instructor pilot. I was Invited to join the beta team for Falcon 4.0 - and I kid you not, it took over 5 weeks to merely land the F16 correctly without breaking the gear, or destroying the afterburner ctrl cones cos my AOA was too steep.

It's been over 12 years since my last ultimate setup......projector on bedsheet, full thrustmaster HOTAS and adirondack for the perfect 60 degree posture with throttle & stick strapped to the arms.......

Sorry, I just rediscovered a longtime obsession - and off I went.

In short, the question of SMP is a difficult one. Like multi-threading - The OS kernel would need a complete re-build, as the app itself needs to refine the algorythm, for true parallel sequencing. This code has to be completely re-engineered from the ground up. I believe F 4.0 used the SMP to control all the individual elements, flown by avatar.

Anways....gonna shut up

Cheers for the trip down memory lane

TS