Those mentioned SCI games are speed sensitive aren't they? Pentium Pro might be aiming too high for them. Pentium Pro is only really recommended for 'period correct' early SVGA 3d games prior to Pentium II's launch, and Quake with FASTVID enabled 😀

And don't fast CPUs keep Sierra adventure games from detecting sound cards?

For starters Pentium Pros are not very good at executing MS-DOS instructions as they were designed for 32-bit environments and not 16-bit-- you'd be far better off with a regular Pentium 1 or 486. You can use 98SE to run those DOS games file (however you may need to restart in MS-DOS mode and specify various parameters).

Unless you're planning on playing Ultima 8 or Theme Park Windows 9x is fine. I'm sure you could get both of those titles working in restart in MS-DOS mode but they're irritating.

Actually Pentium Pro in 16bit applications is not that bad. Performance is similar to the classic Pentium P54 or Pentium MMX at the same clock, much faster than any 486.
I have one retro PC with Pentium Pro @ 233 MHz and DOS games are running very well.
In 32bit, the PPro 200 MHz is almost on par with P300 MMX (fsb 100) and K6-2 300.

havli wrote:

Actually Pentium Pro in 16bit applications is not that bad. Performance is similar to the classic Pentium P54 or Pentium MMX at the same clock, much faster than any 486.
I have one retro PC with Pentium Pro @ 233 MHz and DOS games are running very well.
In 32bit, the PPro 200 MHz is almost on par with P300 MMX (fsb 100) and K6-2 300.

Running a Pentium Pro for 16-bit isn't efficient I suppose I meant to say-- with all of the TDP and resources it takes to do what a 486 can even do. It's like using a shovel to eat your food instead of a spoon.

A K6-2 would not be on par with a PPro because the AMD CPUs use a completely different FPU than intel which dramatically changes performance on things that need it (such as path finding). So there are many variables to consider before comparing different architectures just by raw clock speed-- clock speed does not guarantee performance. My 3.4 Ghz Pentium 4 is extremely inefficient despite running at such a high clock speed. And we haven't even included bus limitations either.

I agree, Pentium Pro for DOS games is quite an overkill. Still - if OP likes this platform (and already have all necessary components), there is no problem using it.

I'm not comparing performance of PPro and K6-2 just by the clock. What I'm saying is that average performance based on ~ 30 benchmarks (32bit applications) results in PPro 200 MHz going as fast as K6-2 300.

Here is an example of different CPUs performance in IrfanView.
http://abload.de/img/irfan5ku8b.png

I've heard the PPro 16bit debate a lot on the net, but I haven't found conclusive evidence. As far as 3D games and SVGA games are concerned, a Pentium Pro should annihilate any 486 and should be faster than an MMX 233 on every 3D game. This is with a Pentium Pro 200 in mind.

I'd love to get my hands on one and then max it out with an Overdrive, just because!

I don't know how much it matters for DOS gaming, but Pentium Pro does not support MMX.

For the 16 bit code deficiency, I always read that it was not inferior, but rather on par with, then current normal Pentiums (P54, P55).

Yeah a PPro is at worst similar to a Pentium Classic per clock. DOS games are not even always 8/16bit. For example, PPro is excellent for Quake and Wing Commander 3. Anything that does 3D graphics calcs tends to do very well on P6. The cache/memory subsystem and FPU are so much better than anything on Socket 7.

But you definitely want to use Fastvid or similar because otherwise PPro has very low DOS PCI bandwidth and will seem slow. The video card will be bottlenecked. Pentium II and III can have this issue too. It's a chipset thing.

Although yes a PPro is perhaps the first x86 CPU that really noticeably consumes power. The hottest 1MB 200 is a 50W chip I think, but that is similar to a typical Athlon. Not that scary.

Actually the more demanding DOS games use 32-bit protected mode anyway. (True at least for Doom and Quake, and probably for most 3D games of that era.)
Wolfenstein 3D is 16-bit, it will run on a 286.

Yeah essentially the DOS games that are demanding tend to benefit from PPro. PPro was a hot setup in 1996. It excelled at the emerging 3D games. If you put in a Voodoo2/3 it can even run Unreal pretty well, probably better than most of the overappreciated K6 line.

I think you want to avoid PPro chipsets prior to 440FX though. The older ones were not great, though they had some advantages for servers IIRC.

Thanks for all the replies. I decided to give Windows 98 a shot. Just had to wait to get the RAM in the mail.

I'm using the VS440FX, although it's a Gateway variant, which means it'll be difficult to update the BIOS. I'm hoping that won't be necessary.

I still want to build a 486 (and even a 286) at some point, but the older the hardware gets, the harder it gets to find reliable parts.

I have a VS440FX too. Solid board. It has an undocumented 3.5x jumper setting for 233MHz. 😀 It also seems to work fine with the 1MB PPros.

eBay usually has quite a few 286 / 486 OEMs available < $100.

Here it is, up and running. Just needs a sound card. Not sure if I should get ISA or PCI, though:

http://imgur.com/a/imreI

swaaye wrote:

I have a VS440FX too. Solid board. It has an undocumented 3.5x jumper setting for 233MHz. 😀 It also seems to work fine with the 1MB PPros.

Do most of the 200's seem to overclock without any trouble?

PeterLI wrote:

eBay usually has quite a few 286 / 486 OEMs available < $100.

I've seen a couple. Although I'd rather get/build a custom than an OEM. I never had an OEM growing up so for nostalgia's sake, I'd like to build one again, or at least get a custom built one. The first item on the list will be a nice AT case 😀

I wouldn't care about TDP when it comes to retro builds unless unable to get decent coolers. Building a socket 4 system so I can care less about TDP. As some have said Pentium Pro isn't that slow in 16 bit and if you run into a dual or quad PPro go with NT4 or Win2K. Still lusting after a ALR Revolution 6 and there were a few videos of that system on the net but can't find them 😒

AllUrBaseRBelong2Us wrote:

Do most of the 200's seem to overclock without any trouble?

Yes, I have six of them here (4x 200/256, 1x 200/512, 1x 200/1M) and all of them working just fine at 233 MHz. The 1MB variant however runs very hot and requires good cooling.

The 1 MB chips are around 50W. It's a bit more than the other PPros but the same cooler should work. Adding a larger fan might be worthwhile if the original fan is a dinky 40-50mm thing. I have a 70mm Athlon fan attached to a stock PPro heat sink.

AllUrBaseRBelong2Us wrote:

Do most of the 200's seem to overclock without any trouble?

I have seen stable and unstable chips.