I guess this depends on whether it's a 486SX or a tuned 5x86.

I still probably wouldn't play Win95 games on one at this point in time. But in the ancient times I played a lot of WIn95 games on a 486. Lots of Diablo. It didn't run extremely great, but it got the job done.

swaaye wrote:

I guess this depends on whether it's a 486SX or a tuned 5x86.

I still probably wouldn't play Win95 games on one at this point in time. But in the ancient times I played a lot of WIn95 games on a 486. Lots of Diablo. It didn't run extremely great, but it got the job done.

Yea, I mean WinCiv runs fine, it's just a lot of apps do not.

Which is really strange, machine can pump Doom and Duke3D like a champ, but it's Achilles heel is SimTower.

Windows 95 runs quite acceptable on a 486 DX4 100 MHz for ordinary tasks (I've been doing it for years on my DX4 100 MHz).
To improve performance, I would recommend at least 16 MB of RAM and either a VLB or PCI graphics card. If you're installing OSR2.5, then you can also skip the Desktop enhancements installation after the initial setup completes.

However, I do agree that a 486 doesn't have the necessary processing power to run native Windows 95 games (especially at higher resolutions). Windows 3.1 based games should run OK.

jesolo wrote:

Windows 95 runs quite acceptable on a 486 DX4 100 MHz for ordinary tasks (I've been doing it for years on my DX4 100 MHz).
To improve performance, I would recommend at least 16 MB of RAM and either a VLB or PCI graphics card. If you're installing OSR2.5, then you can also skip the Desktop enhancements installation after the initial setup completes.

However, I do agree that a 486 doesn't have the necessary processing power to run native Windows 95 games (especially at higher resolutions). Windows 3.1 based games should run OK.

I have 32 MB of memory and a faster than PCI (VLB 40mhz) Diamond Multimedia Stealth SE/Trio32.

I've got 3.11 on my 486 DX4-100 and it runs perfectly fine for what i need it for: simple windows games, word processing, etc etc

I suppose more demanding games might need a faster system but mine plugs along just fine.

Anything Windows 95 or newer is pointless it can be done but there is no point to it. 3.11 or earlier is great if you've got software specific to that you want to run.

Win95 *might* be useful for certain productivity-type apps, or if you have some specific legacy thing you need to run, but it's a lot of overhead, and not terribly good for gaming on a 486. If you're looking for GUI utilities and other such, Windows 3.1(1) as suggested, or perhaps OS/2 Warp would be good.

Actually, if you've never looked at OS/2 before, it might be worth a peek. Back when I got my first Real Computer(TM) - a 486DX4 with 32MB of RAM - I put OS/2 Warp 3 on it, and that was my main OS, dual-booting with DR-DOS for games, for several years. I did eventually put Win95 on it, but I was so annoyed by the terrible speed and crashiness that I went back to OS/2 and DR-DOS.

If you're running a Trio32 you should install the Trio32/64 driver package.

Way, way back in the day, when I had my 8 MB 486 running at 66 MHz (or was it 33?), I had one of my greatest video game experiences ever in the form of Bernard the Bard, probably the most sophisticated game ever completed in the Megazeux game creation system. In fact, it was so sophisticated that it started going wonky in some of the more complex sections – characters would appear incorrectly and I would be unable to proceed, basically. But, for whatever reason, those bits worked correctly when I ran the game under Windows 95; I suspect it was taking advantage of virtual memory, if that makes sense.

But memory is cheap and plentiful these days and something like Megazeux will run perfectly well on a much better system anyway.

I think I might have at least tried running the SimTower demo at the time, and found it to be quite insufferable. Perhaps it would work better with sound disabled? I seem to recall it relies on Microsoft's WaveMix; a little Googling suggests there might be an improved substitute.
http://www.compuphase.com/wavemix.htm

Windows 3.0 / 3.1x is perfectly fine for 486. Avoid Windows 95 on a 486 (Though some don't mind running it on a 486). Reserve it (Win95) for Pentium class with at least 16MB and above.

our first 486 was a 66 Mhz with 8 Mb ram and came with windows 95, it ran perfectly fine

Using W98SE on any older retro rig that can handle it. Sure, from a pure gaming aspect, there's no real point using it on a 486, but DOS 7 seems to work just as well as 6.22 with everything, and you avoid the hassle setting up SMB networking in DOS/W3.11 usually is. Also, I imagine that platform homogeneity generally is a good thing if you want to avoid networking problems.

Richo wrote:

our first 486 was a 66 Mhz with 8 Mb ram and came with windows 95, it ran perfectly fine

...and we walked uphill both ways in the snow to school every day and were perfectly fine with it, because that's all we knew! 😉

It's amazing what we put up with as computer pioneers, and remember with rose colored lenses. I have nothing but positive memories playing Ultima VII on my very first IBM-compatible, even though it was terribly under-powered (386SX-20) for that game. I don't remember it being slow at all. What I do remember is the immersive storyline, atmosphere and music, hearing The Guardian speak, and the 3D engame animation of the Guardian reaching out at me from behind The Black Gate.

I just don't understand the bashing of the 486 going on in here. I remember using NT4 and 98 on my Intel DX4/100 (custom build). Sure I needed 8-12mb of RAM and had to use the older explorer shell on 98 but it was useable....for 9x. I mostly ran everythng I could on NT4 anyway Diablo ftw. Now as for games there really weren't any decent 9x games from 95-98 that really interested me but for the ones I did play on 9x they ran fine.

clueless1 wrote:

Richo wrote:

our first 486 was a 66 Mhz with 8 Mb ram and came with windows 95, it ran perfectly fine

...and we walked uphill both ways in the snow to school every day and were perfectly fine with it, because that's all we knew! 😉

It's amazing what we put up with as computer pioneers, and remember with rose colored lenses. I have nothing but positive memories playing Ultima VII on my very first IBM-compatible, even though it was terribly under-powered (386SX-20) for that game. I don't remember it being slow at all. What I do remember is the immersive storyline, atmosphere and music, hearing The Guardian speak, and the 3D engame animation of the Guardian reaching out at me from behind The Black Gate.

Yea it is amazing, I still remember my Pentium 133 with some random Texas Instruments ISA VGA card and how happy it made me playing Civ II and SimCity2000, and my 3gb Hard Drive at 4200rpm seemed so fast and like I'd never ever fill it up. It also ran 98SE

Some people just like to look back at the past wearing poop coloured glasses. 386 and 486 PCs were amazing in their era.

DosFreak wrote:

I just don't understand the bashing of the 486 going on in here. I remember using NT4 and 98 on my Intel DX4/100 (custom build). Sure I needed 8-12mb of RAM and had to use the older explorer shell on 98 but it was useable....for 9x. I mostly ran everythng I could on NT4 anyway Diablo ftw. Now as for games there really weren't any decent 9x games from 95-98 that really interested me but for the ones I did play on 9x they ran fine.

To me, it's not so much bashing the 486: the question wasn't "will Win95 run well on a 486". The answer to that, I think, is yes, especially if you have enough RAM. The question was "is Windows pointless on a 486", and I think yes, it mostly is nowadays, because most apps and games that you need Win9x for, you also really need a Pentium or better for. Most games that run well on a 486 - and there are many - are designed for plain DOS. There is, of course, some value in getting Win9x running in its own right, but personally, I never actually liked Win9x - I put up with it, because of all the cool games and apps that ran on it.

If I were trying to go full-retro, and use a 486 as a daily driver, I might install Win98SE and pare it down, but I think even then, one could be just as well served by dual-booting DOS and OS/2 Warp, or maybe NetBSD.

My first computer was a 486 with Windows 95. It had a PCI sound card that wouldn't produce any sound in DOS at all. So I played Windows games on it -- games like Myst, The Dark Eye, 9: The Last Resort, Golden Gate, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, The Arrival, Shivers, Connections, etc. None of these games work in DOS because they require Windows, but they'll all work on a 486. Some of them will even work on a 386. I didn't actually play any DOS games on the 486 until years later, after I finally replaced that awful PCI sound card with an ISA SB16 and sound in DOS suddenly worked.