How purist you want to be with your build?

.legaCy wrote:

How purist you want to be with your build?

Not stricktly purist. As such, the machine works beautifully as it is. For the most part, then I wish to go with something a bit different.

brostenen wrote:

.legaCy wrote:

How purist you want to be with your build?

Not stricktly purist. As such, the machine works beautifully as it is. For the most part, then I wish to go with something a bit different.

I would add a network card, i like old school networks.
And since you mentioned that you have scsi, scsi to sd came to mind.

For VLB VGA the question is what software (OS) you want to run. If it's just DOS gaming, 1MB would be enough and I'd suggest focussing on S3 or ATi (or maybe CL) controllers. If you want to run Windows (3.1?) then 2MB is a lot more interesting, and things with Weitek might be interesting.

Second the idea of adding LAN. It's simple, particularly with something like a 3Com Etherlink III (3C509B). If anything it makes file transfers much simpler than messing around with CF/SD cards. Or you could go complete overkill and try a Gb PCI adapter 😜

And you can load vogons.org on your old computer.

An Am486 DX4-120 is certainly not a very common setup. Its nice to see someone setting up a system around this CPU.

dionb wrote:

For VLB VGA the question is what software (OS) you want to run. If it's just DOS gaming, 1MB would be enough and I'd suggest focussing on S3 or ATi (or maybe CL) controllers. If you want to run Windows (3.1?) then 2MB is a lot more interesting, and things with Weitek might be interesting.

Second the idea of adding LAN. It's simple, particularly with something like a 3Com Etherlink III (3C509B). If anything it makes file transfers much simpler than messing around with CF/SD cards. Or you could go complete overkill and try a Gb PCI adapter 😜

Well i disagree on the versatility of file transfer with cf cards, front or back mounted it is really easy, however even on my builds that uses cf/sd i install a NIC and use networking.

feipoa wrote:

And you can load vogons.org on your old computer.

An Am486 DX4-120 is certainly not a very common setup. Its nice to see someone setting up a system around this CPU.

Yeah, vogons and some few sites, im currently working on a 90's "homemade" pages to create my site.

.legaCy wrote:

brostenen wrote:

.legaCy wrote:

How purist you want to be with your build?

Not stricktly purist. As such, the machine works beautifully as it is. For the most part, then I wish to go with something a bit different.

I would add a network card, i like old school networks.
And since you mentioned that you have scsi, scsi to sd came to mind.

Well. I am not going to use any network card. I actually have no use for network at all, unless it is for internet and that is reserved for modern machines. So a network card will just honk all the resources at no use. I use CD's anyway for transferring files to any vintage or retro machine. 😀

dionb wrote:

For VLB VGA the question is what software (OS) you want to run. If it's just DOS gaming, 1MB would be enough and I'd suggest focussing on S3 or ATi (or maybe CL) controllers. If you want to run Windows (3.1?) then 2MB is a lot more interesting, and things with Weitek might be interesting.

Second the idea of adding LAN. It's simple, particularly with something like a 3Com Etherlink III (3C509B). If anything it makes file transfers much simpler than messing around with CF/SD cards. Or you could go complete overkill and try a Gb PCI adapter 😜

I have noticed, that for some reason, S3-Trio/Virge does not give all they can give, if they are in a 486 machine. For them to perform max, they need to be in a Pentium in the neighbourhood of 200 mhz or faster. In a 486, then Ś3-Trio64 and S3-Virge will perform the same as an CL-5446. And personally, I like the picture quality of that card better. To me they are a bit warmer on the colour side of things.

For windows, then I am going to run this machine with Win95 and Os2 Warp 3.0 this time. I might do a tripple boot, and install MS-Dos 6.22 as well.

feipoa wrote:

And you can load vogons.org on your old computer.

An Am486 DX4-120 is certainly not a very common setup. Its nice to see someone setting up a system around this CPU.

Yes...
Been running this machine the last half a year, with the 486-dx4-120. The sweet thing is the FSB at 40, and I am running genuine 120. Not a 100 overclocked to 120 solution. Mmmm.... It's a bit like my dx2-80 setup VLB Setup (VLB IDE Controller and VLB GFX).

There is a lot of hype around the dx2-66, and (correct me if I am wrong) it seems as everyone want a dx2-66 setup because of Phils Computerlab and LGR. Not that I blame them, it is just a kind of hype factor that I see. Personally I see Doom running a bit laggy on a 66, were's the 80 it is running butter smooth. It is not much it is lagging on a 66, yet enough to annoy me personally.

As for CF/SD cards on SCSI controllers. I am planning to get one of those SD2SCSI adaptors. I like the concept, and as much as I like mechanical harddrives, then some are so loud, that I feel that a flashram/solid-state-storage solution like those cards, are a blessing. More modern harddrives, like an thin 3.5 inch 80gb Samsung PATA drive, is silent enough for me to use. Compared to the 3.4 GB 15.000 RPM SCSI drives that I have. They are extremely loud and make an extreme amount of heat. To me they are in the collection for training/playing purpouses, and not for installing inside a computer.

brostenen wrote:

As for CF/SD cards on SCSI controllers. I am planning to get one of those SD2SCSI adaptors. I like the concept, and as much as I like mechanical harddrives, then some are so loud, that I feel that a flashram/solid-state-storage solution like those cards, are a blessing. More modern harddrives, like an thin 3.5 inch 80gb Samsung PATA drive, is silent enough for me to use. Compared to the 3.4 GB 15.000 RPM SCSI drives that I have. They are extremely loud and make an extreme amount of heat. To me they are in the collection for training/playing purpouses, and not for installing inside a computer.

I share the same opinion, and the hdd of this age is getting pretty old and unreliable, prone to failure, i rather keep one of those in working order without use and use a cf/sd solution.
And since you mentioned scsi, PhilsComputerLab did a review of one solution and i though that was pretty interesting

brostenen wrote:

Yes... Been running this machine the last half a year, with the 486-dx4-120. The sweet thing is the FSB at 40, and I am running […]
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feipoa wrote:

And you can load vogons.org on your old computer.

An Am486 DX4-120 is certainly not a very common setup. Its nice to see someone setting up a system around this CPU.

Yes...
Been running this machine the last half a year, with the 486-dx4-120. The sweet thing is the FSB at 40, and I am running genuine 120. Not a 100 overclocked to 120 solution. Mmmm.... It's a bit like my dx2-80 setup VLB Setup (VLB IDE Controller and VLB GFX).

There is a lot of hype around the dx2-66, and (correct me if I am wrong) it seems as everyone want a dx2-66 setup because of Phils Computerlab and LGR. Not that I blame them, it is just a kind of hype factor that I see. Personally I see Doom running a bit laggy on a 66, were's the 80 it is running butter smooth. It is not much it is lagging on a 66, yet enough to annoy me personally.

Doom's quite demanding, so the DX2/66 is pretty much low end in terms of performance especially if you're playing part II(opinions like these wouldn't fly in 1994 of course).

I wonder what the worst, but happily tolerated, DOOM frame rate was in 1994? 12 fps maybe?

brostenen wrote:

There is a lot of hype around the dx2-66, and (correct me if I am wrong) it seems as everyone want a dx2-66 setup because of Phils Computerlab and LGR. Not that I blame them, it is just a kind of hype factor that I see. Personally I see Doom running a bit laggy on a 66, were's the 80 it is running butter smooth. It is not much it is lagging on a 66, yet enough to annoy me personally.

I feel like the same can be said about the whole 486 family. Nobody really builds those for practical reasons. A generic Socket 7 build will run Doom much better than any 486 (and you do need fairly rare hardware to achieve 60FPS on a 486). Not to mention Build-based games and Quake. So yeah, 486 is purely hype/nostalgia-driven.

feipoa wrote:

I wonder what the worst, but happily tolerated, DOOM frame rate was in 1994? 12 fps maybe?

Possibly. I remember playing through the whole game on a 386SX-33 with an abysmally slow Tseng ET3000 VGA. I switched to low resolution, took the screen size down a few notches, then I could play on those few remaining kilopixels at some... not very nice frame rate. I know because I have a 386SX-40 now and I can equip it with much faster VGAs, and it's still slow.

But it worked. And I was happy that it worked at all.

jheronimus wrote:

brostenen wrote:

There is a lot of hype around the dx2-66, and (correct me if I am wrong) it seems as everyone want a dx2-66 setup because of Phils Computerlab and LGR. Not that I blame them, it is just a kind of hype factor that I see. Personally I see Doom running a bit laggy on a 66, were's the 80 it is running butter smooth. It is not much it is lagging on a 66, yet enough to annoy me personally.

I feel like the same can be said about the whole 486 family. Nobody really builds those for practical reasons. A generic Socket 7 build will run Doom much better than any 486 (and you do need fairly rare hardware to achieve 60FPS on a 486). Not to mention Build-based games and Quake. So yeah, 486 is purely hype/nostalgia-driven.

My dx4-100 vlb (with 512k of cache) build ran quake with a smaller window with playable framerate, duke3d in 320x200 also worked fine, and doom was smooth .
Even having this 486 build i still use my s7 build because there are more parts out there, so in case of any failure it will be way easier to replace anything.

.legaCy wrote:

My dx4-100 vlb (with 512k of cache) build ran quake with a smaller window with playable framerate, duke3d in 320x200 also worked fine, and doom was smooth .
Even having this 486 build i still use my s7 build because there are more parts out there, so in case of any failure it will be way easier to replace anything.

I'm not saying it's not doable on 486. I'm saying almost any Socket 7 will do that easily, and a Socket 7 is much easier to source, build and is a lot cheaper than your DX4/VLB configuration. Bear in mind that I have a DX4/VLB system myself. Finding a good motherboard alone was tricky (and expensive).

feipoa wrote:

I wonder what the worst, but happily tolerated, DOOM frame rate was in 1994? 12 fps maybe?

Most likely 10+ being regarded as playable and 20+ as butter-smooth.
The mother of a former ladyfriend of mine had a Compaq 386DX40 with 8MB of ram and when I tried running Doom on it I nearly fainted. Being a pampered early P60 user I couldn't comprehend how one would regard such frame-rape as fun.
WAY better were the 486 DX33s at school - I think for Doom I they were adequate. You could play HUD'd fullscreen and the game would stay in the 10+ frames region even during intense fights... abusing the school's LAN was the icing on the cake though.

If you want to do something different with this build, install OS/2 Warp 3 on it.

I ran Warp 3 on my DX4-100 until 1998 and loved it.