In C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT you should write a REM before the line with SMARTDRV. That should fix your problem with Doom.

And basically old ISA graphics cards from Realtek, Oak and Trident should be avoided as they tend to be slow. 😀

That 386 DX40 quickly became one of my favourite machines. Its not very fancy but it now runs very well and both FDDs work correctly - which is awesome. The only thing I have not found yet is a serial mouse. I tried some PS/2 mice with serial adapters but that never worked. I will probably need to find a real (serial) mouse.

After a long wait, I will also soon attempt to solve the second part of the puzzle which was finding a suitable board for the large AT/XT style case. The case I repurposed for the 386 originally housed a 286 board.

This board has battery damage probably beyond repair. I spend many hours repairing traces and adding new wires but no luck. I still cant get myself to throw it away as it is one of the best 286 boards I have ever seen. Especially the socketed CPU is really cool.

For my new 286 build I found the simpler board but it fits the case! It also has a Dallas RTC which means zero battery damage. If successfull - this will be my first 286 build. Again - not too fancy but if it works Im sure I will use it a lot

Made a small but criticall step today. Dallas RTC is now out. It took more that 2 hours only with flux and solderwick. This board is very thick and the RTC stuck rock solid. I felt like a dentist during a complicated morlar extraction 😀

And basically old ISA graphics cards from Realtek, Oak and Trident should be avoided as they tend to be slow. 😀

Ok - Im back to my 386-DX40 and came up with the idea of a BEMCHMARK (not something I did much in the past).
So what I got for my 386 DX-40 (128K cache and 4MB Ram) was a measly 10.8 in 3DBench 🙁
I was already about to write a big lamento but remembered that I had another old ISA card that I had never used ...
so I replaced THIS card

with that one

And Woah - 16.1 - what a huge difference ! I thought this benchmark mainly depends on the CPU but this is quite an upgrade.
This Realtek card seems to be a real slug.

NSSI tells me that this is a Trident SVGA 2MB (TGUI9680-1). So with respect to the comment above - Realtek avoid - but Trident seems to be ok.

What I dont understand is that NSSI tells be that the card is a 1.2 VESA card - it does not have a Vesa interface so how is that possible ?

Aui wrote on 2024-03-29, 02:46:

NSSI tells me that this is a Trident SVGA 2MB (TGUI9680-1). So with respect to the comment above - Realtek avoid - but Trident seems to be ok.

Keep in mind that Trident chip is like 4 years newer than the Realtek one. Older Tridents were also slow, maybe not as much as Realtek but still slow.

Aui wrote on 2024-03-29, 02:46:

What I dont understand is that NSSI tells be that the card is a 1.2 VESA card - it does not have a Vesa interface so how is that possible ?

It means the VESA BIOS extensions (VBE), which provides an interface to access video modes with higher resolutions/color depths than the standard BIOS INT calls cannot handle. It is not directly related to the VESA Local Bus other than being something defined by the VESA organization.

VESA is a standards group, it had various standards, VESA local bus was the local bus standard, VESA screen mode support is another group of standards... It's like ISO international standards organisation, and it's used as shorthand for a CDROM image that is compliant with a particular ISO standard, but ISO has many many standards in many industries.

Aui wrote on 2024-03-18, 09:49:

That 386 DX40 quickly became one of my favourite machines.

Cool build! 😎👍

Btw, the 386 processor as such is also rather compatible/quick with self-modifying code.

Since it doesn't depend on an internal cache to be running fast, for example.
Because maintaining cache coherency is an issue with such code.

So a fast 386 might be good for demoscene software, maybe.
Demoscene productions which involve such self-modifying code should run smooth on it, at least.

Even if a 486 or Pentium might be quicker, it doesn't necessarily mean it's smoother, as well.
Could also be that certain scenes might be runnung jerky or something.

Anyway, it's night time in my area and these are just some thoughts. 😴

PS: About VBE.. Just think of it as an "plug-in" to the cards VGA BIOS. Like Macromedia Flash for Firefox or Internet Explorer.

It contains newer video modes that software can select. Like new SCREEN modes in GW-BASIC or QBasic.

You can have VBE either directly in your VGA cards's ROM chip(s) were the VGA BIOS is stored or by loading a VBE driver on DOS.

Back in the 90s, these drivers were being spread by CD-ROMs or internet.

Here are some VBE drivers, for various VGA cards:
Re: OAK OTI-037c - 800x600 mode ?

VBE 1.x is usually good enough for ISA VGA cards. It's from the time of 8086 to early 486 PCs.

VBE 1.x uses Real-Mode interface and thus provides an API for normal 16-Bit DOS applications and games.

That means all those applications that don't require an extender like DOS4GW.
But they can still use VBE 1.x nevertheless, of course.

Those DOS extenders can communicate with everything 16-Bit just fine (DOS, BIOSes, mouse and CD-ROM drivers etc).

That's why it was the most important one. It's the basic stuff.

Resolutions like 800x600 in 16c or 640x400 in 256c and 640x480 in 256c work fine with it.

VBE 2.x includes all features of 1.x, but adds support for Protected-Mode and has some cool extra features.
Linear frame buffer, higher colour depths and resolutions etc.
It's thus nice for Super VGA titles and 3D games.

VBE 3.x was late and isn't so important anymore. Except if Linux or OSes like KolibriOS/MenuetOS are being run.
VBE 3.x specs tried to remove old features, but in practice this wasn't done gratefully.

^That's all just a simplification, of course. A little summary, to give an idea. There might be mistakes in detail.

Edit: VBE/AF was an attempt to introduce universal graphics acceleration on DOS, like with those VLB/PCI graphics cards that we called Windows accelerators (aka GDI or GUI accelerators).
Unfortunately, it never really got far, because Windows 95 happened.

So 3dfx Voodoo became the only pseudo graphics standard for 3D in DOS that was widely being used, maybe.
And IBM 8514/A and the S3 Trio for 2D, maybe.

The first one was being supported (Mach8) or emulated (ET-4000AX), while the S3 Trio was extremely popular and had a similar 2D engine to 8514/A (but not compatible).

TIGA with the TMS chips was cool, but really niche in comparison and a tad bit too intelligent (no hardware compatibility as with the others, requires drivers for each TIGA board).
It also wasn't very fast, but rather powerful (=slow, but caused low CPU usage).

Edit: Aw, too much text again. Sorry. I'll go to bed now, hope you don't mind. 😴

Ok, I understand (a little bit) but what are some tangible benefits (for a 386 system) now that I have such an advanced VGA card ?
- Win3.1 perhaps with true color?
- or Settlers 1 (think that had a high res mode)?
- or Links386?
-SC2000?
- I also remember an old program that could render landscapes (not real ones but they looked somewhat real) unfortunately I forgot the name

Or is it just higher resolution for larger monitors running windows and office ?
What about Win95? Would that work? (well I dont have a CD drive and I dont want one. Not for a 386 anyway)

I think the kind of people that would tell you that Win 95 is fun to run on a 386 with only 4MB of RAM are also the kind of people that think putting chewed gum in people's hair is funny. ... it's a painful mess that takes ages to unravel. It will run for values of run between the speed of continental drift and an athletic snail. It's actually not too bad on 8MB, or if you try it on say a DX4 with fast HDD and only 4MB but it's horrible on 386 plus low RAM plus 1990 HDD performance.

If you want to free some base memory, remember to insert dos=high in the config.sys file

A clean dos installation with no TSR programs for mouse, audio or CDRom should have 622Kb of free RAM, provided you inserted that command into config.sys. You can check the free memory by typing, at the DOS prompt, the following command: mem /c