I'm currently mucking around with MTRR utilities (Memory type range register) to unlock graphics performance on Intel Pentium 2+ machines.

I have attached what I have found so far. But there are other and I am also interested in older versions which might work better for us.

I'm chasing VESAMTRR: http://www.mdgx.com/umb.htm#VMT

There is a link to a project. The files are all there but it seems they need to be compiled, which is beyond my skills 😒

Also what about utilities to enable MTRRs on AMD or other CPUs?

I got VESATEST going so here are my steps to speed up VGA:

VESATEST 320 200 8 LFB

Will test 320 x 200 resolution 8 bit colours.

It will output a fps and MB/s score.

On a slot 1 machine with PIII-600 with TNT2 M64 I got 756 FPS and 46 MB/s.

VESATEST 320 200 8 LFB MTRRWC

Will test 320 x 200 resolution 8 bit colours and set the registers and enable write combining.

On a slot 1 machine with PIII-600 with TNT2 M64 I got 3315 FPS and 202 MB/s.

BUT the settings don't "stick". It only shows how fast a machine would be be, which is weird. As soon as you run another benchmark after VESATEST it's back to being slow.

FASTVID on the other hand works quite well.

Windows 95 or 98 apparently also enables this and a soft reboot into DOS should retain the settings (easy to test performance). But a hard reset reset these settings. Worth testing if someone has the time!

To use MTRRLFBE you type

MTRRLFBE VGA WC

Something for fun 😀

VIDEO: DOS VGA benchmarking on an Intel Core i5

Well the result on this is quite obvious - and the scores doesn't give any reasonable new information.
f.e. the NVidia GPUs since the GTX200 series run VGA as a kind of emulation with a fixed speed. So scores do not reflect CPU or GPU speed at all.

However it would be more interesting if you would explain what Memory Type Range Registers really do and how this can speed up graphics performance. Which CPUs are affected a.s.o.
(K6-2CXT etc.)
Also some analysis until which CPU power the Doom score scaling make sense would be fine...

I'm not the right person to do the topic of CPU registers and whatnot justice 😀 I'm more into the practical and fun stuff such as to where can I download it from, what does it do for me and how do I use it. But please feel free to chip in with your knowledge!

VIDEO: DOS VGA benchmarking on an Intel Core i7

Who is going to crack 1000 fps in Quake? 😎 😵

Moved a couple of overclocked entries from the stock table to the overclocked table. Elinda did the same with the VM result. I'd like to focus on real computer, not virtual machines or emulators please 😀

On a Phenom II I get 500.0 FPS - seems to be the upper framerate-limit of that superscape benchmark...

Aside from that, everything is whirling around like crazy - exactly as in the Core i7 video on YouTube.

Just added my own overclocked Time Machine to the mix. This is the PC I mostly use for retro games. Doesn't do too badly I think 😀

I just ran the benchmarking-suite on my Octane2, running on SoftWindows 95's DOS-Mode. (=pure Emulation X86->MIPS)

The Superscape-thingie hangs at the splash-screen 🙁 Everything else runs fine, but slow...

@Mau1wurf1977: Perhaps we could add a new sheet for DOS-Emulation.

Geoman thanks for the suggestion and contribution. I will add a page 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Geoman thanks for the suggestion and contribution. I will add a page 😀

Cool! Thanks! 😀

Geoman wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Geoman thanks for the suggestion and contribution. I will add a page 😀

Cool! Thanks! 😀

Hehe I shall do a run in DOSBox and see what I get 😀

Got a pair of fairly obscure 486 DX2 80s on deck that I hope to get to tomorrow.

Very nice!

Very nice topic Mau1wurf, good to compare our oldies to spot a tuning problem quickly 😀

Chart Version 1.0

Guys, terrific effort!

We have amassed over 150! results so far! I can't imagine what this project will look like in a year 😀

But there is still a lot to do. We have a HUGE need for Pentium 4, Core 2 Duo, anything from Cyrix, UMC, TI, more from AMD, S754, S939, AM2, AM3...

Here a chart of our current progress:

So if you are building a retro DOS system and want an avarage FPS of 37 you would need a Pentium 100 or a Pentium 3 850...
Some information gets lost in that chart 😁

Skyscraper wrote:

So if you are building a retro DOS system and want an avarage FPS of 37 you would need a Pentium 100 or a Pentium 3 850...
Some information gets lost in that chart 😁

Well hopefully one realises the outliners and applies a bit of common sense 😀

Plus one can then dig deeper, taking a look at the configuration of that machine or contacting the tester. Or I could remove outliners myself 😀 The bulk of data will organically bring out the truth 🤣

It's early days in the project, lots to learn and discover. The impact of FASTVID / MTRRLFBE for example. And how much faster AMD graphics cards are on newer machines.

EDIT: That machine has an ISA video card 😀 That explains it.

...but my AMD Phenom II is only 4th place :'(

--joke 😉 *g*

Thats a cool chart indeed!

And it is interesting to see for example, that K6-III+ based systems score so differentially - it shows that the MoBo, GFX & memory combinations have a huge impact on performance.

Geoman wrote:

And it is interesting to see for example, that K6-III+ based systems score so differentially - it shows that the MoBo, GFX & memory combinations have a huge impact on performance.

Hehe AMD rocks under DOS 😀

Totally! Unlike the reviews back in the day, when you got 1 score and that was it. This chart shows a nice spread with certain system. Whereas with a P3 for example they are all grouped quite tightly, indicating that with a BX440 system it hardly mattered what you got, they all perform very similar.