matze79 wrote on 2022-05-17, 21:50:

The VIA C3 dosnt work reliable for me at multi 3.0 below 100Mhz FSB. I also have to set it step by step, going instant to 3.0 en […]
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The VIA C3 dosnt work reliable for me at multi 3.0 below 100Mhz FSB.
I also have to set it step by step, going instant to 3.0 ends up with freeze.
66*3.0 does not work for me, also freeze.
Just 100/133 FSB works pain free for me on Samuel 2.

So the slowest i can achieve is 300Mhz.

Yes, this topic has mostly been about the VIA C3 Ezra-T, which works down to 150 MHz without issues.
Nehemiah, on the other hand, has issues at FSB 50 when using lower multipliers (it does work fine with FSB 66 or above).
I do have two Samuel CPUs, but I've never tested them (as far as I know, they are very slow). Maybe I'll check them out in the future.
Sadly, I've been very busy lately, so no time for any retro activities. 🙁

Garrett W wrote on 2022-03-13, 10:52:

UT is indeed a good CPU benchmark, be sure to run UTBench which is more indicative of actual gameplay, instead of the flyby intro.

Is it me or is "utbench" actually very flawed and does not reflect the gaming experience in any meaningful way?
I've noticed it on multiple builds, but now that I'm actually testing it again on an ultra-overkill build, something seems very off.

SYSTEM SPECS
MB: Asrock 775i65g rev 3.0
CPU: Pentium Dual-Core E5800 @ 3.73 GHz (FSB 233 x 16)
RAM: 1 GB DDR PC3200 Single Channel
GPU: ATI Radeon "All-in-Wonder" X850XT
SOUND: Creative Audigy 2 ZS

Benchmark results:

1Unreal Tournament  640 x  480 x 16: AVG 122.51 FPS / HIGH 215.00 FPS / LOW 74.44 FPS
2Unreal Tournament 1024 x  768 x 32: AVG 118.06 FPS / HIGH 203.21 FPS / LOW 71.74 FPS
3Unreal Tournament 1280 x 1024 x 32: AVG 115.06 FPS / HIGH 204.44 FPS / LOW 70.89 FPS

This system in particular, runs ALL games/benchmarks at many hundreds of FPS (usually close to 1000 FPS), however, utbench is the only one that actually has a minimum framerate of ~ 70 FPS 😁.
And, sure enough, I ran a practice session with 16 bots, on the exact same level as utbench, and the game is actually unplayable without vsync because of how fast it runs (300+ FPS was the minimum framerate after a 30 minute gaming session).

That's... odd to say the least. Thanks for noting it out, I'd like to look into it a bit more before ruling it out as a benchmark issue.

bloodem wrote on 2022-07-22, 11:20:

This system in particular, runs ALL games/benchmarks at many hundreds of FPS (usually close to 1000 FPS), however, utbench is the only one that actually has a minimum framerate of ~ 70 FPS 😁.
And, sure enough, I ran a practice session with 16 bots, on the exact same level as utbench, and the game is actually unplayable without vsync because of how fast it runs (300+ FPS was the minimum framerate after a 30 minute gaming session).

Interesting findings!

Out of curiosity, how are the frame rates on the default flyby intro sequence?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-07-22, 12:59:

Interesting findings!

Out of curiosity, how are the frame rates on the default flyby intro sequence?

Did not test the flyby, unfortunately (and the PC is now back in storage, because I'm leaving my hometown tomorrow and returning... home 😁 ).
Will definitely test it again soon, on a different system. If I were to guess, I'd say the flyby intro is most likely extremely fast.

My turn to test a C3 Nehemiah 1200 with a C5P core. It's running on an Asus TUSL2-C, 512MB PC133 and Windows XP. I first used an eBay IDE to SATA converter (as you see on the photo) but it's really an unstable piece of junk, so I switched to a Promise SATA300 card.

First of all some 3Dmark 2000 scores with a Radeon 9600 XT with the Catalyst 10.2 and then a Radeon HD 3450 AGP (there is a PCI-Express to AGP bridge on the rear of the card) with Catalyst 10.7 drivers. Both cards are quite "similar" in performance despite their difference in age but I have to say that the 3450 has much better drivers in terms of visible texture bugs in games...one quirk is that the standard 3450 drivers you find at AMD don't support this card, I used the ones provided on the HIS website. The card itself is a Powercolor branded one, but CPU-Z reveals it's actually made by HIS...

Radeon 9600 XT:

Radeon HD 3450 AGP:

Then I overclocked the C3 using CrystalCPUID which lets you set the multiplier, I didn't change the stock voltage despite what CPU-Z seems to indicate. To my surprise it went from 1200 (9x133) to 1600 (12x133) and is absolutely stable at this frequency! It runs Quake 3 as long as you want and 3Dmark 2000 the same...at 12.5x133 Windows crashes with a BSOD.

The Quake 3 results are not that impressive (maximum quality, 1280x1024) but it remains very playable:
9x133 42 fps
9.5x133 43 fps
10x133 44.7 fps
10.5x133 45.9 fps
11x133 47fps
11.5x133 48 fps
12x133 49.2 fps

And the CPU-Z screenshot once overclocket to 1600MHz, and also the 3Dmark 2000 score:

~PIII 800.

Unfortunately for Centaur/VIA it's exactly that...same performance at double the frequency. But well, I have a soft spot for these underdogs.

Not with such new video card, yes.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-03-29, 15:02:

and then a Radeon HD 3450 AGP (there is a PCI-Express to AGP bridge on the rear of the card) with Catalyst 10.7 drivers. Both cards are quite "similar" in performance despite their difference in age but I have to say that the 3450 has much better drivers in terms of visible texture bugs in games...one quirk is that the standard 3450 drivers you find at AMD don't support this card, I used the ones provided on the HIS website. The card itself is a Powercolor branded one, but CPU-Z reveals it's actually made by HIS...

That's the second time recently I have been hearing that the HD3450s do well for earlier XP stuff. I've had two sitting unemployed for years, looks like they might have a purpose in life after all... though mine are PCIe with Display Port weirdness (got cables)

I wouldn't hold my breath over it. It's more or less equal to Radeon 9600XT/X600XT, but with gimped anti-aliasing (bane of all HD2xxx/3xxx cards), no 16-bit dithering support and bloated drivers with inferior OpenGL ICD. So practically zero performance benefit over X300/X600, but with all the drawbacks.

I guess really it's only gonna get tried if I get more curious, if I fill every PCIe slot I've got with the best cards, then somehow explode them all at once, then fill every slot again with the next best cards, and wow, the same thing happens... then maybe the HD3450s would come into play.... then if I blow up the 3rd lot and the 3450s with them, and it's a cold day in hell, the x300 hypermemory might get a turn 🤣

edit: Upon reflection, that might be a lie, 3 of the boards have onboard graphics I'd rather use and I've got 4 32bit PCI cards I'd rather run than the x300 hypermemory, so I might have to blow all those up first. Pretty much have to get down to being the last working dx8 or better card that will go in a PCIe system

I have exactly 1 PCI card which is a Matrox Mystique 220 and 3 AGP cards, so I do with what I have on hand. The 4350 is clearly a low-end card, but as it's a late low-end card it is still very much usable in older games. I also heard on some youtube videos that cards which have a PCI-Express to AGP bridge often suffer of stuttering compared to pure AGP cards.

Warlord wrote on 2022-02-16, 07:03:

It's common knowledge that K6 450-600 is more like a PII 350-400. I have no idea why some people keep thinking its more than that and it also has a slower FPU than a pentium

Keep in mind most games back in the day were optimized in one way or another for the Pentium's FPU. The biggest offender was Quake 1. Quake 2 is another story as there's 3Dnow! optimized ports for it, but in general the Pentiums were up to twice as fast in games if now 3dnow! support was present.

You're 100% right about the super socket 7 platform, but don't blame VIA. The ALi Aladdin is just as slow and even buggier. Bugginess aside, the BX chipset has up to 3 times the memory bandwidth, and pentium 2 / 3 chips have much faster L2 cache then the regular K6-2 which has no L2 and relies on slow on-motherboard SRAM chips. The K6-2+ and K6-3 are excepted from this, but they don't benefit too much from the on-die cache due to socket 7's memory speed limitations. Keep in mind super 7 platform based on socket 5 which came out in 1995? - and that in turn is based on socket 4 which came out in 1993.... I'd say the K6 series performance is impressive considering what it runs on.

It would be interesting to see the K6-2+ or K6-III run (somehow) on a socket A motherboard, without the limitations of (even then) ancient socket 7 platform.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-03-29, 15:02:

My turn to test a C3 Nehemiah 1200 with a C5P core. It's running on an Asus TUSL2-C, 512MB PC133 and Windows XP. I first used an eBay IDE to SATA converter (as you see on the photo) but it's really an unstable piece of junk, so I switched to a Promise SATA300 card.

Interesting! I'm using a C5P core as well (but it's revision A, so newer?) on a VIA 694T motherboard. I don't think my system is very stable beyond 1400, and at 12x it just freezes, so the furthest I went so far is 133x11.5. But I don't care about overclocking all that much.

To be honest I've been really enjoying the setup. I've paired it with a Voodoo 5 card and an SB32 soundcard in mATX form-factor, giving me a fairly balanced and versatile compact system.

The motherboard comes with built-in UltraDMA100, so while this is basically a 440BX-tier system, it feels a lot snappier. Yes, you can add any kind of IDE controller, but with mATX, expansion slots are at premium. Also the board POST is very fast compared to most 440BX boards I've used. Usually by the time my monitor syncs with the videocard, I'm already booting into Windows. To go one step further, I went with 98lite Micro. I like it, but not entirely sure it's a must-have at this performance level.

Another thing is, the chip runs very cool. I was a bit afraid to turn down the fan RPMs on my Tualatin, but here I did it, and the chip is routinely at ~30-35 degrees Celcius after hours of use.

And finally, the slowdown options are there too. Not as versatile as Ezra, but I can reach mid to high 386 levels with everything turned off in setmul on a 133 MHz FSB. Unfortunately, the chipset doesn't allow switching between 66 and 133 MHz FSB through software, otherwise I think it would be even better. It seems to play Wing Commander 1 decently, but realistically I'm only going to need slowdown for a few newer titles.

Currently my only gripe is that the motherboard's (it's a Chaintech 6VIA5T) front panel pins are located right next to the ISA slots, so you just can't fully secure something like Terratec EWS64XL (and it's not a particularly long card). Clearly they only had short ISA modems in mind with this layout.

Also for some reason the motherboard doesn't display my FSB correctly in POST (shows 266 Mhz vs actual 133), but this doesn't affect anything. Tried updating the BIOS and also using BIOS patcher, didn't help.