mockingbird wrote on 2022-09-04, 21:37:

Titus also surprisingly runs perfectly fine (at least at the level start) with just SETMUL L1D. CPU spec is Barton running at 16x100. Sound is perfect (ALS100 ISA), speed is correct. -update: For Jazz, I set the FSB in the BIOS back to 133 (133x16 = 2.13Ghz), ran SETMUL 3 which brought it down to 400Mhz, and then ran cpuspd t6. Works great.

That's the neat thing about AthlonXP CPUs, the speed that you get with L1D (and Throttle) varies depending on the current CPU frequency. You need to measure your effective speed when the CPU is running at 2 GHz with either L1D or Throttle, and then compare that to the lower values. You'll get slightly different results when the CPU is at 1 GHz, at 700 MHz, at 500 MHz and so on.

I find that NSSI gives me a better (rough) estimate than Speedsys, but like @bloodem says, 3DBench 1.0C is even more accurate. Phil has a nice chart that you can use for documenting your slowdown results. Then, once you get to a place where you're satisfied, you can set up some batch files that simulate something like a 386DX-33, a 486SX-25 and a Pentium MMX 166. With those three slowdown settings, you can play 90% of DOS games. Of course, you can get even more settings by combining Throttle and SetMul.

I used to play around with this back when the AthlonXP was my only retro rig. Nowadays, I just use a Pentium MMX for this purpose since it can be slowed down using the test registers and covers all of my DOS gaming needs.

Sombrero wrote on 2022-09-05, 04:54:

The same question popped to my mind earlier last week on another topic, I had been under the impression ACPI throttling is nearly always problem free.
<snip>
I'm starting to believe bloodem is correct and it's more common than I thought.

Indeed... I think my expectations of it were unrealistic. Maybe it's good for someone else out there for what they're doing, but not for me.

bloodem wrote on 2022-09-05, 05:15:

<snip>...(or you can patch the game with the TPpatch and then you can play it at full CPU speed - however, with certain sound cards, sound might be affected/run at a lower sample rate 🤣 )

Ah, splendid! I think I will opt to use the patch.

I doubt that there's a single DOS game that won't run perfectly on the Ezra-T (with the right combination/settings). With the Ezra-T, you don't need ACP Throttle... at all!

Fascinating. I see that you have L1 and BPD for the Ezra-T...

As with VIA KTxxx chipsets and Throttle, it's basically a matter of knowing what speed a certain game needs (and knowing what tools actually show the correct speed - again, 3DBench 1.0c has always worked perfectly for me, so it's only a matter of learning what FPS is equivalent to what speed).

I'm abandoning ACPI throttling entirely, in league with Alex Papadimoulis' philosophy of 'just wear gloves'. I now more than ever strongly believe in having more than one computer for everything. Here's what I decided on:

Windows98 & DOS fast: KT133A and mobile (or modded) Barton. I'll pair this with an FX5800 analogue (QuForce). In Windows it will run DX9 games, and in DOS with SetMul, it will run modern DOS games (ROTT, Doom, etc...). This gets paired with an ISA soundcard and a wavetable daughterboard. Newer DOS games usually support general MIDI and not just MT32.
Windows98 Slow: My P4 SBLink system with the GeForce2 GTS and early detonator drivers. This is for early DirectX games like Turok which break with anything over version 6.0. Dual sound card: 1)Vortex2 for Windows; 2)YMF724 with Wavetable for the odd DOS game
DOS Slow: My Cyrix 5x86. With 1x setmul (according to what I've read here, it's exactly a DX33 at that multiplier when running at 100Mhz), I can have it run stuff like Titus when multiplier throttled, and then bring it back up to speed to fiddle with Windows 3.1 stuff. ISA soundcard with wavetable, and MT32-PI out the serial port for the oldies.

As for the Ezra-T I ordered: I emailed RayeR and asked him if he could add support to the P3B-F... If he does, cool, it's worth experimenting with. Ezra-T will do a minimum of 3x66 = 200Mhz... I genuinely wonder what L1D and BPD will do for it and how that scales at higher speeds... I know VIA's CPUs are already a lot slower clock-for-clock with their counterparts. But I wonder what the actual speed is for the baseline of 200Mhz.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-09-05, 06:12:

That's the neat thing about AthlonXP CPUs, the speed that you get with L1D (and Throttle) varies depending on the current CPU frequency. You need to measure your effective speed when the CPU is running at 2 GHz with either L1D or Throttle, and then compare that to the lower values. You'll get slightly different results when the CPU is at 1 GHz, at 700 MHz, at 500 MHz and so on.

Not to be disputatious, but that's not what I found at all. I found that once L1 was disabled, performance was always equally slow, regardless of CPU speed (with Barton at least).

Of course, you can get even more settings by combining Throttle and SetMul.

Throttle.exe does the same thing as 'cpuspd t'... So that's out.

I used to play around with this back when the AthlonXP was my only retro rig. Nowadays, I just use a Pentium MMX for this purpose since it can be slowed down using the test registers and covers all of my DOS gaming needs.

Yes, thank you, learning about that just now was very cool indeed. I think a Pentium MMX is a FAR more practical solution to a Cryix 5x86 or a real 486 for that matter (read: expensive)... You truly do get incredible scaling with it compared to almost anything else out there.

mockingbird wrote on 2022-09-05, 14:49:

Not to be disputatious, but that's not what I found at all. I found that once L1 was disabled, performance was always equally slow, regardless of CPU speed (with Barton at least).

Granted, it's been a while since I last tested this, so it's entirely possible that I could be wrong. But I do seem to recall there being a difference in 3DBench 1.0c between the highest and lowest speeds of my Thoroughbred B 1700+ if L1 cache was disabled in both cases.

Between Throttle and SetMul, I was able to achieve 386, 486 and Pentium MMX speeds on that rig. What discouraged me from delving deeper into that were some issues that I experienced with my CH Flightstick while Throttle was running. In contrast, I have had zero problems with that joystick on my Pentium MMX machine, even when it was slowed down using the test registers.

For Athlon XP, performance with L1 disabled depends heavily on FSB and memory speed/timings/bios tuning. Here's what I have in my notes for 3Dbench1.0c scores with a Mobile Athlon XP and setmul L1D:

200 x 11, L1d, CL2 RAM, MSI KT6 Delta, high performance bios defaults = 43.5 fps (~486dx2-66)
166 x 11, L1d, CL2.5 RAM, Asus A7V333 = 29.2 fps (~486dx-33)
100 x 5, L1d, CL2.5 RAM, Asus A7V333 = 16.5, fps (~ 386dx-40)

And for Via C3 Ezra with CL3 RAM, I got these slow down results in 3dBench1.0c:
66 x 3 = 128.4
66 x 3, L2D, BPD = 98.5
133 x 6.5, ICD = 53.7
133 x 3, L1D, BPD = 23.3
66 x 3, L1D, BPD = 13.8

So the Ezra gives you more bottom range flexibility, but the Athlon XP also has decent flexibility with with cache disabled.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2022-09-05, 16:32:

For Athlon XP, performance with L1 disabled depends heavily on FSB and memory speed/timings/bios tuning. Here's what I have in my notes for 3Dbench1.0c scores with a Mobile Athlon XP and setmul L1D:

Excellent, thanks. This is exactly waht I wanted to know. And I can corroborate your 166x11 = 486dx33 by drawing an inference from what @bloodem said, because I ran my Barton at 100x16 with L1D and Titus worked.

Also, nice website and videos... I especially liked your FX8350 + GTX1070 video, because I am building exactly just such a system with parts I paid less than $50 (classifieds motherboard as-is revived with BIOS flash, as-is FX8300 CPU fixed by transplanting missing pin), and I hope to put another maybe another couple of hundred on a 1TB SSD and a GTX1660Ti (when they come down in price), which is about equivalent to the 1070 you used.

mockingbird wrote on 2022-09-05, 17:53:

pixel_workbench wrote on 2022-09-05, 16:32:

For Athlon XP, performance with L1 disabled depends heavily on FSB and memory speed/timings/bios tuning. Here's what I have in my notes for 3Dbench1.0c scores with a Mobile Athlon XP and setmul L1D:

Excellent, thanks. This is exactly waht I wanted to know. And I can corroborate your 166x11 = 486dx33 by drawing an inference from what @bloodem said, because I ran my Barton at 100x16 with L1D and Titus worked.

Also, nice website and videos... I especially liked your FX8350 + GTX1070 video, because I am building exactly just such a system with parts I paid less than $50 (classifieds motherboard as-is revived with BIOS flash, as-is FX8300 CPU fixed by transplanting missing pin), and I hope to put another maybe another couple of hundred on a 1TB SSD and a GTX1660Ti (when they come down in price), which is about equivalent to the 1070 you used.

Thanks. Good luck with the FX build.

mockingbird wrote on 2022-09-05, 14:49:

Windows98 Slow: My P4 SBLink system with the GeForce2 GTS and early detonator drivers. This is for early DirectX games like Turok which break with anything over version 6.0. Dual sound card: 1)Vortex2 for Windows; 2)YMF724 with Wavetable for the odd DOS game

Could you explain that, please? I play Turok 1 and 2 on W98SE with DX8.1b and I don't see any trouble, but I don't know what to notice. Thank you.

Ydee wrote on 2022-09-06, 12:07:

Could you explain that, please? I play Turok 1 and 2 on W98SE with DX8.1b and I don't see any trouble, but I don't know what to notice. Thank you.

I stand corrected then!

Maybe I was using too new of a driver version.

lafoxxx wrote on 2022-08-31, 08:48:

I just don't get it. Can someone shed some light on this issue please? […]
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I just don't get it. Can someone shed some light on this issue please?

My experience with VIA has been negative so far. It just seems bloated and has noticeable performance issues. That's why I sold VIA-based MoBo for Intel 815E-based one, and have absolutely no regrets (rest of specs remained same). But the dude I sold it to said they would use it with Voodoo5 card.
I also know a guy who sold VIA-based PC (with Voodoo also, with top Tully-1400, Aureal Vortex and GUS) for ridiculous price of $1000.

What makes VIA Apollo better choice? Do people choose it because it has ISA+1.5 GB RAM limit (for people who just can't let ISA go, and think RAM is so important, especially in Win9x) ? Or is it just cheaper?

I mean really, even 440BX has ISA.

There've been many good replies already.

Intel i815 based boards are great for building Win9x rigs around and especially if you don't care about ISA.
Overall great stability, very good generic hardware compatibility (minus the usual lack of ISA slots of course), good performance for the era and last but not least i815 based systems are relatively easy to set up making them rather newbie-friendly imo. CPUs, memory, compatible CPU coolers, AGP graphics and PCI sound are all very easy to find with a LOT of options usually. Provided the hardware isn't defective in some way, it should just work 😋
And if you don't care about Tualatin then Coppermine 1000 is also a great CPU for the time.

However, despite me being something of a fan of i815 chipset, i815 does come with some flaws like some people have already elaborated upon.
The biggest issue is lack of ISA which is something of an essential component when wanting to run DOS. Sure, it's possible to just build more computers to be able to cover more software but many people want to actually have to build fewer computers, be it because of space constraints, because of money issues (building more PCs is usually also more costly in money, time, effort and in space) or perhaps because the person wanting to build a rig based on maximum compatibility is simply not really that much into building retro computers to begin with.

Many people who started the hobby relatively recently (usually because of nostalgia, though this trend had already started before covid) found themselves not knowing what to get and many just went with the cookiecutter stuff (Voodoo, ISA sound, BX or s370+ISA). So demand increases, stocks kinda dried up, prices go up and perhaps a lil bit of FOMO as well here and then comes covid and the lockdowns and having to spend more time at home and prices go up even more.

Many of us started the hobby back when these parts were considered trash (and I mean I found s370 boards literally in the trash, amongst the garbage bags etc) and things were very cheap and very available compared to things now, so it was easy to build a lot of rigs but now things are expensive and people who feel like having to put all eggs into fewer baskets (because higher prices preclude building more rigs for many), people new to the hobby (generally speaking) tend to prefer the more shiney stuff 😜
A bit speculative perhaps, but I'd say this is how things have been going generally speaking.

Back to i815 drawbacks, another one is the (artificially placed) maximum supported total memory size of 512MB. These days this isn't much of an issue but back then it was if you wanted to run XP on your s370 system as for WinXP 512MB is really kinda cramped. Don't get me wrong, it will work especially if you make some thought out choices and tweak it a bit but an A64 3000+ with 2GB DDR-400 will run XP so much better, let alone the maxxxxxed-out WinXP rigs featuring the older i7 CPUs etc.

And also Win9x will run just fine with a maximum of 512MB (heck, 256MB is also almost always enough for 9x).

The hardware itself hasn't changed much except for aging perhaps, but the world around it has changed a lot. i815 used to be almost the default pick for a faster Coppermine (or a Tualatin) and 440BX for the slower P6 architecture chips (P3 and to a lesser degree P2 and Celeron), but where 440BX has retained relevancy (because ISA and good compatibility and great overall stability), i815 has perhaps waned somewhat because demand has become somewhat more specialized, mostly because of all the slowdown projects and with how available P3 hardware is with the huge amount of parts manufactured for these architectures which has helped fortifying P3 becoming more popular overall which in turn helped popularize Voodoo which in its turn feedbacked popularizing retro gaming. And P6 architecture is also something of a crossroads for both DOS and early 3D gaming thanks to, well, many things actually. But the slowdown projects have certainly helped along the way and for that VIA has certainly gained a lot of relevance at the cost of at least some popularity for i815.

Still I think if you are less interested in DOS games that cannot be run in Windows and are mainly someone who just wants to play old Windows-based CDROM based games, then Coppermine 1000 with i815, some generic PC-133, a modern-ish PSU, spare older ATX case and a cheap-ish PCI sound card will go a long way to make for a great retro gaming experience 🙂

Romain wrote on 2022-08-31, 23:32:

That remind an old thing : with my old P3 + VIA , under Windows 2000 (and more).
I had to install the VIA chipset drivers >BEFORE< the AGP graphic card.
Else I had crappy lags on games if I did the opposite...

That's perfectly normal and necessary for every AGP chipset (and generally recommended for PCIe as well). If you want to install a device on a port, you need to have the port initialized first.

Only difference with Intel is that Intel successfully pushed Microsoft to have default drivers in Windows, so you didn't notice them. That's not technical, thats political/commercial.

Oh and yeah, I had a better experience with the 815E (more elegant and faster chip).

Faster: definitely. But elegant? It was intentionally castrated by Intel so as not to threaten i820 and P4 platforms. Downright cynical.

dionb wrote on 2022-09-07, 08:43:

That's perfectly normal and necessary for every AGP chipset (and generally recommended for PCIe as well). If you want to install […]
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Romain wrote on 2022-08-31, 23:32:

That remind an old thing : with my old P3 + VIA , under Windows 2000 (and more).
I had to install the VIA chipset drivers >BEFORE< the AGP graphic card.
Else I had crappy lags on games if I did the opposite...

That's perfectly normal and necessary for every AGP chipset (and generally recommended for PCIe as well). If you want to install a device on a port, you need to have the port initialized first.

Only difference with Intel is that Intel successfully pushed Microsoft to have default drivers in Windows, so you didn't notice them. That's not technical, thats political/commercial.

Oh and yeah, I had a better experience with the 815E (more elegant and faster chip).

Faster: definitely. But elegant? It was intentionally castrated by Intel so as not to threaten i820 and P4 platforms. Downright cynical.

Fully agree with you.
But just in compare, yes I had a so much better experience stability with the 815E (I'm ashamed but yes, used on both of my servers many years).