My personal preference for PCI graphics for this era will always be the classic Matrox Millennium. There was so much writing in the press about that card back when I had a 486, and it became the card that every young person around where I live dreamed about. I do have a soft spot for some of the old Cirrus Logic cards as well. I had on-board Cirrus Logic in my AST 486, and never had any compatibility issues, unless you'd count the first time I ran into a game the needed 1MB of video ram, as my on-board graphics only had 512KB. I'm going to have Matrox cards in all of my retro builds, not only for the build- and image quality of the cards, but because there are drivers for any OS imaginable for most Matrox cards.

Sound card... Hmmm... I always wanted a GUS back in the days, so I would always vote a GUS now, but if you want an easy life and top compatibility, then go with a SB Pro2 (if you can find one that doesn't cost a small mortgage), a SB 16 of some type or an AWE32 or 64. SB cards are usually always easy to get on with, and unless you want very specific models, they are cheap as well.

When it comes to finding a case... Oh wow, that's a bit of a hard nut to crack. I'm using an ATX case at the moment with an AT I/O shield plate. Depending on where you live, you may be allowed to rummage through the local recycling center and such (I know that may sound silly, but it's worth a look). eBay does have AT cases from time to time, usually with either a full or most of a system inside already. Postage on a whole system can be quite hefty though. I think it's just a case of patience and keeping an eye on all the used hardware ads and such. Also, schools and companies from time to time recycle old computers that have been sitting in storage for years. I guess there may be a chance to come across something from those kind of places. It's a case of asking around I guess.

As for USB on a 486. Wow, never tried that. It is fiddly enough getting USB mass storage working on a Win9x system regardless of what kind of hardware it is, so getting a modern USB card to work in such an old system might prove more work than it's worth. USB for memory stick type devices didn't really catch on properly until the XP days, and even then it was so slow that when I tried using this method on my P3 under Win9x a few months ago, I could hardly believe it had been so bad, ever. Transferring files via LAN is probably a better idea in all honesty, and the choice of OS will affect transfer rates. Copying a few MB of files from a Win7 computer to a Win9x system is dead slow compared to copying from Win7 to WinXP, even though it's the same hardware, same switch, same LAN cable. Would be interesting to see if it would work though.
PCI2.0 (3.3V) came out in 1993, so I guess it is possible that even a 486 board might support it. But I guess seeing as you have the manual for your board, you've already checked that.

Good luck on the build though. I have a particular soft spot for 486-class systems myself, as that was when PC's finally surpassed the Amiga in terms of gaming capabilities, and hence when I replaced my Amiga for a PC.

Anything from 3DFX is going to be overkill. The 486 can't feed it fast enough to get the best results from it. Save your 3DFX cards for a faster system that can utilize it effectively.The FPU in a 486 is also too weak for games that require one so a fast 3D card (or any 3D card) is unnecessary. 386/486 era games can be played with a 2D card without hardware 3D acceleration. What should be on your list of requirements is a card with fast GUI acceleration if you plan to also install Windows. Getting good image quality on the CRT's of the day was also a consideration when choosing a video card back then.

If you could ever find one and trust me they crazy rare these days but a pci version of the Nvidia Riva 128ZX (I think) has very good DOS support but a lot faster than any of the S3 cards. Tseng if you can find them as they are good and if anything as said there is always Matrox. I wouldn't bother with USB at all except for maybe having one of the drives on the 486 as a CF card for easy file transfer. Sound cards are another story, some are common and dirt cheap but the really good ones are absurdly expensive as well as rare as hens teeth.

There are brand new tseng labs Et4000/w32p's PCI cards on the german Ebay for 5 euro + shipping (he ships outside germany if you ask him)

http://bit.ly/1jlth0g

Not to hijack the man's thread, but even a USB 2.0 card in a Win 98 machine is going to be slow? I can see USB 1.0 being nearly useless for anything but mouse and keyboard or other low speed peripherals, but it seems like USB 2.0 would be tolerable for jump drives. I don't think I ever had USB in my system back then because it was so new and the jump drives that were available were very small capacity and expensive as well. Now they give them away as corporate promo pieces at trade shows.

My personal preference for PCI graphics for this era will always be the classic Matrox Millennium. There was so much writing in the press about that card back when I had a 486, and it became the card that every young person around where I live dreamed about. I do have a soft spot for some of the old Cirrus Logic cards as well. I had on-board Cirrus Logic in my AST 486, and never had any compatibility issues, unless you'd count the first time I ran into a game the needed 1MB of video ram, as my on-board graphics only had 512KB. I'm going to have Matrox cards in all of my retro builds, not only for the build- and image quality of the cards, but because there are drivers for any OS imaginable for most Matrox cards.

The Maxtrox Millennium only has 512KB/1MB? If so that isn't what I want. In my current 486 the card has 768 KB and I cannot
run as high of resolution as I want

Sound card... Hmmm... I always wanted a GUS back in the days, so I would always vote a GUS now, but if you want an easy life and top compatibility, then go with a SB Pro2 (if you can find one that doesn't cost a small mortgage), a SB 16 of some type or an AWE32 or 64. SB cards are usually always easy to get on with, and unless you want very specific models, they are cheap as well.

I am very unpicky about vintage sound cards. I will just buy an SB16 or clone that works without emulation

When it comes to finding a case... Oh wow, that's a bit of a hard nut to crack. I'm using an ATX case at the moment with an AT I/O shield plate. Depending on where you live, you may be allowed to rummage through the local recycling center and such (I know that may sound silly, but it's worth a look). eBay does have AT cases from time to time, usually with either a full or most of a system inside already. Postage on a whole system can be quite hefty though. I think it's just a case of patience and keeping an eye on all the used hardware ads and such. Also, schools and companies from time to time recycle old computers that have been sitting in storage for years. I guess there may be a chance to come across something from those kind of places. It's a case of asking around I guess.

I guess I will have to "scrounge"
How is the ATX case working out?

As for USB on a 486. Wow, never tried that. It is fiddly enough getting USB mass storage working on a Win9x system regardless of what kind of hardware it is, so getting a modern USB card to work in such an old system might prove more work than it's worth. USB for memory stick type devices didn't really catch on properly until the XP days, and even then it was so slow that when I tried using this method on my P3 under Win9x a few months ago, I could hardly believe it had been so bad, ever. Transferring files via LAN is probably a better idea in all honesty, and the choice of OS will affect transfer rates. Copying a few MB of files from a Win7 computer to a Win9x system is dead slow compared to copying from Win7 to WinXP, even though it's the same hardware, same switch, same LAN cable. Would be interesting to see if it would work though.

Its all part of the challenge. LAN or USB either way it will take a while, but files are usually small with 486s anyway
I have a USB 1.1 P2 Laptop and its very slow but usable

PCI2.0 (3.3V) came out in 1993, so I guess it is possible that even a 486 board might support it. But I guess seeing as you have the manual for your board, you've already checked that.

I already checked and it doesn't give any details about the PCI implementation

Good luck on the build though. I have a particular soft spot for 486-class systems myself, as that was when PC's finally surpassed the Amiga in terms of gaming capabilities, and hence when I replaced my Amiga for a PC.

Thanks

Anything from 3DFX is going to be overkill. The 486 can't feed it fast enough to get the best results from it. Save your 3DFX cards for a faster system that can utilize it effectively.The FPU in a 486 is also too weak for games that require one so a fast 3D card (or any 3D card) is unnecessary. 386/486 era games can be played with a 2D card without hardware 3D acceleration. What should be on your list of requirements is a card with fast GUI acceleration if you plan to also install Windows. Getting good image quality on the CRT's of the day was also a consideration when choosing a video card back then.

Don't late 486/early pentium games have some 3d acceleration like Quake and Tomb Raider 1?
I would think those would be playable. What about early directX windows games (yes I know slow)

For me 20 FPS = playable

If you could ever find one and trust me they crazy rare these days but a pci version of the Nvidia Riva 128ZX (I think) has very good DOS support but a lot faster than any of the S3 cards. Tseng if you can find them as they are good and if anything as said there is always Matrox. I wouldn't bother with USB at all except for maybe having one of the drives on the 486 as a CF card for easy file transfer. Sound cards are another story, some are common and dirt cheap but the really good ones are absurdly expensive as well as rare as hens teeth.

I could only find AGP Riva 128.
USB opens up a LOT of possibilities.
Flash drives
card readers
mice
WLAN

and pretty much anything else you could imagine attaching to a computer. Totally worth it

There are brand new tseng labs Et4000/w32p's PCI cards on the german Ebay for 5 euro + shipping (he ships outside germany if you ask him)

I am not sure if the shipping would be economical. And I don't know how much VRAM it has

A regular Matrox Millennium has 2MB, and can be upgraded to 4. It was one of the cards back in the days that could run the highest resolutions and best image quality, so that shouldn't really be a worry. It was usually advertised as "The world's fastest Windows accelerator". You could even go with a Millennium II with 4/8MB.

When it comes to Quake. In software rendering (normal Quake), anything below a Pentium is going to be slow and not very fun. Quake was very much a Pentium showcase game. GLQuake was hardware 3D accelerated, but really should be run on something faster than regular Quake.
Tomb Raider 1 usually came bundled with cards like the original 3dfx Voodoo cards and the like, but to get the most out of a Voodoo you'd need to be into Pentium MMX territory. Mau1wurf1977 has made some good videos about that. For a 486 system I'd skip hardware 3D altogether.

I agree that USB could be useful. Don't know if USB mice would work well (or at all) in dos though, but if it's going to be a Win95 only system, then it'll be perfect. If you'll stick with Win95 (or 98), I'd probably look into a SB Live! as well, as PCI soundcards generally perform really well in Windows9x.

I think the norm for Tseng ET4000 is 1MB. Most main stream graphics back in those days had 512KB or 1MB. You might find a S3 Trio64V+ with 2MB if you look around a bit though. Very compatible and pretty decent dos performance.

I just went through this. Here is my tale. And video.

http://www.bytecellar.com/2014/03/11/behold-t … ld-is-complete/

For DOS gfx you prob want a Tseng ET4000/W32p. VLB better than PCI if you can clock to 40MHz, but prob can't on a DX120. I went 5x86 133 @ 160.

It took 2-3 weeks to find a fine AT case on eBay. FYI.

bp

blakespot wrote:

I just went through this. Here is my tale. And video. […]
Show full quote

I just went through this. Here is my tale. And video.

http://www.bytecellar.com/2014/03/11/behold-t … ld-is-complete/

For DOS gfx you prob want a Tseng ET4000/W32p. VLB better than PCI if you can clock to 40MHz, but prob can't on a DX120. I went 5x86 133 @ 160.

It took 2-3 weeks to find a fine AT case on eBay. FYI.

bp

Thanks for the info
How does the ET4000 compare with an S3?
This board does not have VLB.

I think the DX120 IS 40MHz FSB (40*3). If the PCI cards won't take it I guess I will have to settle for 100 MHz

I am not sure if the shipping would be economical. And I don't know how much VRAM it has

Germany has very cheap international shippping. I paid 4 euro if I recall corrextly. It has 2mb vram
It has 2

I am really leaning towards the S3 ViRGE at this point

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViRGE#Specifications

I've got a Virge DX in my Dx4 120 and happy with it, although its a Dos only PC and I'm not that picky with Dos graphics cards.
I got it as I could play around with S3D in my P3, but always knew it would end up in the 486 as there are better cards for a Pentium class PC and this way don't have a spare card lying round being useless majority of the time

smeezekitty wrote:

I think the DX120 IS 40MHz FSB (40*3). If the PCI cards won't take it I guess I will have to settle for 100 MHz

Ahh, yes - makes sense - 40*3. PCI would likely remain the same (33) at that clock, btw.

bp

First run video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaRMzlIpzvI
For some reason the first few trys it would not give me a display but now it seems to work.
Connected a floppy and booted DOS

Just received my S3 ViRGE
It works! And the graphical BIOS with mouse support is so cool. Way before UEFI

Here is a speedsys result.

I also ran norton system info 8 which said the CPU benchmarked at 92 which seemed a little low?

Just having a USB PCI card in Windows on a 486 reduces performance in Windows-based benchmarks. I forget the actual number, but it was around a 10% performance hit. It was significant enough to warrant pulling the card out of my 486's. You can re-gain the performance loss by setting the USB card to disabled in the device manager. I have had success in getting a USB 2.0 card working on a 486.

I prefer to use an NIC though. Using a stop watch, I recall getting, at best, around 3 MB/s with a PCI 10/100 NIC card for file transfers.

If you want to over optimise your 486, certain graphic card and motherboard chipset combinations allow for playing Quake II with about 10 fps in GL mode. This was using Windows 98SE; it has not yet been determined how much extra fps could be gained if using Win95. You can read about it here, Modern graphics on a 486

The main benefit in using overkill graphic cards in 486 systems seems to be getting GL or 3DFX mode games working for the sake of arguement. The most prominent cards for such systems are the Voodoo2, Voodoo3 (SiS MB only), Banshee (SiS MB only), Matrox G200 (UMC MB only; some SiS MBs), ATI Rage 128 VR (not PRO), and NVIDIA RIVA TNT (not TNT2 or M64).

If you consider Quake at 320x200 to be playable, some 486's can yield around 18 fps in software mode, or 21 fps if you use a POD-83. I don't recall what GLQuake yielded at 320x200, but it is presumably better than 18 fps. It could have been that 320x200 is not a selectable resolution for GLQuake? For whatever reason, I focused on Quake II GL instead of Quake I GL for my tests.

If you plan on running Windows 9x, I recommend a PCI ATA or SCSI controller. The PIO IDE on these 486 boards tend to hog the CPU during HDD access.

I have never had issues installing W2K on my 486s. You really need to be using a Cyrix 5x86-120/133 or AMD X5-160 with 128 MB of RAM for this OS to be operable. Win9x/NT4 is my preferred OS combination for such systems. I sometimes throw W2K on another partition for fun. After installation of W2K, it idles with a consumption of about 60 MB of RAM. I think NT4 idles with around 30 MB. This is very dependent on which services you have running though.

Your Speedsys screenshot indicates that your system is performing in the AMD DX4-100 range. A DX4-120 should yield a Speedsys score of 45 (AMD) or 51 (Intel). You will want to utilise Speedsys version 4.78 for better comparison with other benchmarks on this forum.

A score of 92 in Norton Sysinfo 8 is in the Intel DX40/50 speed range. It sounds like you have a system configuration problem - be it with jumpers, cache type, memory type, CMOS settings, etc.

feipoa wrote:

Just having a USB PCI card in Windows on a 486 reduces performance in Windows-based benchmarks. I forget the actual number, but it was around a 10% performance hit. It was significant enough to warrant pulling the card out of my 486's. You can re-gain the performance loss by setting the USB card to disabled in the device manager. I have had success in getting a USB 2.0 card working on a 486.

Thanks "feipoa"
Well considering the variations between chipsets, drivers and operating systems I will try myself to see if it causes the same problem.
If worst comes to worst I can disable it in device manager when not needed (I know it would need a reboot)

I prefer to use an NIC though. Using a stop watch, I recall getting, at best, around 3 MB/s with a PCI 10/100 NIC card for file transfers.

I am going to be using an ISA NIC so it will probably be quite a bit slower. Not a big problem though

If you want to over optimise your 486, certain graphic card and motherboard chipset combinations allow for playing Quake II with about 10 fps in GL mode. This was using Windows 98SE; it has not yet been determined how much extra fps could be gained if using Win95. You can read about it here, Modern graphics on a 486

The main benefit in using overkill graphic cards in 486 systems seems to be getting GL or 3DFX mode games working for the sake of arguement. The most prominent cards for such systems are the Voodoo2, Voodoo3 (SiS MB only), Banshee (SiS MB only), Matrox G200 (UMC MB only; some SiS MBs), ATI Rage 128 VR (not PRO), and NVIDIA RIVA TNT (not TNT2 or M64).

Yeah I was thinking I might still buy the ATI RAGE just to see if it works for DX/OGL support.

If you consider Quake at 320x200 to be playable, some 486's can yield around 18 fps in software mode, or 21 fps if you use a POD-83. I don't recall what GLQuake yielded at 320x200, but it is presumably better than 18 fps. It could have been that 320x200 is not a selectable resolution for GLQuake? For whatever reason, I focused on Quake II GL instead of Quake I GL for my tests.

Not bad

If you plan on running Windows 9x, I recommend a PCI ATA or SCSI controller. The PIO IDE on these 486 boards tend to hog the CPU during HDD access.

I might do that if the disk access has a high overhead. It definitely slows by DX/33

I have never had issues installing W2K on my 486s. You really need to be using a Cyrix 5x86-120/133 or AMD X5-160 with 128 MB of RAM for this OS to be operable. Win9x/NT4 is my preferred OS combination for such systems. I sometimes throw W2K on another partition for fun. After installation of W2K, it idles with a consumption of about 60 MB of RAM. I think NT4 idles with around 30 MB. This is very dependent on which services you have running though.

I did some experiments with 2000 in a virtual machine and it will definitely need 128MB of RAM with 50+MB of RAM usage just sitting on the desktop.
Wanting to do a multiboot with a big drive and:
DOS/3.11
Windows 95 or 98
Windows NT4
Windows 2000
Linux

But I am not sure if it possible.
I like to experiment with my machines more than anything

For 128MB RAM I will try to upgrade to 512KB cache. Not really sure how to do that though

Your Speedsys screenshot indicates that your system is performing in the AMD DX4-100 range. A DX4-120 should yield a Speedsys score of 45 (AMD) or 51 (Intel). You will want to utilise Speedsys version 4.78 for better comparison with other benchmarks on this forum.

A score of 92 in Norton Sysinfo 8 is in the Intel DX40/50 speed range. It sounds like you have a system configuration problem - be it with jumpers, cache type, memory type, CMOS settings, etc.

I finally found speedsys 4.78 and I will run it when I get a chance but I am not sure when that will be.
Sure thought it seemed kind of low. And the memory bandwidth seems down too.

As for the jumpers, it didn't have a setting for a DX4-120 so I jumpered it as a DX4-100 and then moved the FSB jumper to 40MHz.
Any tips for configuring for more performance?

smeezekitty wrote:

As for the jumpers, it didn't have a setting for a DX4-120 so I jumpered it as a DX4-100 and then moved the FSB jumper to 40MHz. Any tips for configuring for more performance?

It depends. The AMD and Intel DX4-100 came with, both, a write-back and write-through L1 cache option. The DX4-120, I think, was write-back only. I am not sure which jumper setting your board is configuring, that is, for WB or WT L1 cache. The motherboard manual should specify which jumper setting is for the A80486DX4-100SVB or the A80486DX4-100NV8T. The last letter of "B" in the part number is for the write-back chip, the "T" is for the write-thru chip.

If your motherboard is jumpered for the "write-thru" chip, it could explain some of your performance hit in the benchmarks, although I suspect not entirely. You will want to verfiy all jumper settings on the motherboard as well as the CMOS settings. There may be a CMOS setting to set L1 write-back or write-through for the L1 cache, as well as for the L2 cache. Set it to write-back. For the memory timings, set the number as small as possible. For the L2 cache timings, set the smallest number possible, that is, if you are using 256 KB of L2 cache. For more than 256 KB of L2 cache, you may need to set the L2 cache timings higher (slower) for improved Windows stability. If your CMOS has an option for the TAG bit, be sure to use 8-bit, or sometimes called 8+0 bit, when you set your L2 cache to write-thru mode. Use a TAG bit setting of 7, or sometimes called 7+1 bit, when you set your L2 cache to write-back mode.

Please refer to the Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison pdf file in my signature to see what benchmark values each CPU should be approximating.

feipoa wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

As for the jumpers, it didn't have a setting for a DX4-120 so I jumpered it as a DX4-100 and then moved the FSB jumper to 40MHz. Any tips for configuring for more performance?

It depends. The AMD and Intel DX4-100 came with, both, a write-back and write-through L1 cache option. The DX4-120, I think, was write-back only. I am not sure which jumper setting your board is configuring, that is, for WB or WT L1 cache. The motherboard manual should specify which jumper setting is for the A80486DX4-100SVB or the A80486DX4-100NV8T. The last letter of "B" in the part number is for the write-back chip, the "T" is for the write-thru chip.

Well I am pretty sure my DX4-120 is write through only. The part number is A80486DX4-120NV8T
I jumpered it for write through. I could try write back mode but somehow I doubt it will work

If your motherboard is jumpered for the "write-thru" chip, it could explain some of your performance hit in the benchmarks, although I suspect not entirely. You will want to verfiy all jumper settings on the motherboard as well as the CMOS settings. There may be a CMOS setting to set L1 write-back or write-through for the L1 cache, as well as for the L2 cache. Set it to write-back. For the memory timings, set the number as small as possible. For the L2 cache timings, set the smallest number possible, that is, if you are using 256 KB of L2 cache. For more than 256 KB of L2 cache, you may need to set the L2 cache timings higher (slower) for improved Windows stability. If your CMOS has an option for the TAG bit, be sure to use 8-bit, or sometimes called 8+0 bit, when you set your L2 cache to write-thru mode. Use a TAG bit setting of 7, or sometimes called 7+1 bit, when you set your L2 cache to write-back mode.

I can't boot the board right now. But I just looked at it and noticed it has 15ns cache chips and the CMOS was configured for 20ns so I might be able
to increase performance a bit there. I also remember that the L2 was set to write through and 8 bit TAG width

It has two modes "Engineer mode" and "End-user mode"
In "Engineer mode" it lets me set the cycle timings individually so I guess I will try to trim them down.

The Norton SI score is really dismal even for writethrough.

Please refer to the Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison pdf file in my signature to see what benchmark values each CPU should be approximating.

It looks like it is definitely underperforming. But the amount depends on the benchmark

Thanks again

I also have a mobo with graphical bios and it gives me memory speed of only~35mb/s too! Isn't it very low for a 486?