That's a very impressive machine. I didn't think a 286 could do that.

nice vid!

Very nice system, and very cool video.

But why the surprise a 286 16MHz could do this? It's accompanied by a relatively fast VGA card, which is something that a 286 of the era wouldn't have under it's chassis. Some games were designed specifically with the 286 in mind, and in others it is quite noticeable the low frame rates. Some of those games would run playable as well in a 8086 Tandy.

That said, it's a very nice vid and a very cool 286 build. But there's really nothing to be surprised at.

This isn't just any 286, but a Highscreen from Vobis!

They would win a lot of awards and reviews for their excellent performance. I remember their 386SX-16 doing the same thing.

I would have liked to see Wing Commander!

I had a 286 that could bust out some serious Wolf 3d and also Dragonstrike, Wing Commander and I'm pretty sure I played Dune on it, although I may have moved onto a 486sx33 by that point. Had some good times with that box. I don't think I had VGA for it until my Jr. or Sr. year of HS, though.

Didn't Wing Commander require expanded memory?

Jorpho wrote:

Didn't Wing Commander require expanded memory?

Nope!

I played it on a 286 with 10 or 12 MHz, EGA graphics, PC Speaker and mouse when I was a little kid.

I do believe that without EMS it would offer limited animations, sound and that. But it did run 😀

Besides, EMS != EMM386... expanded memory was definitely an option on 286 machines, and the first time I saw WC it was running on one of those (though I don't recall whether or not it even had EMS available).

Just to clarify, it is not my system 😀 I just found it on Youtube and I'm very impressed by it.

What an amazing video! Truly impressive, although since we now have the option, I doubt I would sit and play those 3D games on the 286. You can see for example in Wolf3D that the motion isn't entirely smooth.

Wing Commander is missing from this video, what a shame!

I definitely would. The slight choppyness is a part of the experience for me. Honestly, I hate this obsession with "smoothness". Wanting 60 fps in a vintage flat shaded game is like wanting caviar in a village goulash. Perhaps it is because I always found "powerful" computers boring, I was relatively spoiled considering computers as a kid so I found friend's less powerful computers more interesting and always found tweaking games to gain that little extra speed far more fun. For me, slight choppiness is a sign that the computer is really working to its fullest and not just sitting idly running a game that consumes 1 percent of its capacity. Maybe it is a more extreme example of uncanny valley to me, I want my old games to look and play like videogames not "reality".

In modern games on my i7 rig, bring the high framerate on! On an ancient game whose gameplay mechanics and movement speed was tailored to give good gameplay even at 15 fps? I don't care about the fps in those cases, and 80 fps in such a game would look like beer with gold or diamonds in it, it just doesn't belong. Doom for example, plays awful in source ports that remove the 35 fps cap, kinda like a shooting gallery.

carlostex wrote:

Very nice system, and very cool video.

But why the surprise a 286 16MHz could do this? It's accompanied by a relatively fast VGA card, which is something that a 286 of the era wouldn't have under it's chassis. Some games were designed specifically with the 286 in mind, and in others it is quite noticeable the low frame rates. Some of those games would run playable as well in a 8086 Tandy.

That said, it's a very nice vid and a very cool 286 build. But there's really nothing to be surprised at.

Except that there were many people who used a 286 long after the "era" of it, and AFAIK this particular card is from 1993, which is not really so far fetched that someone would use a 286 in 1993 and perhaps upgrade it.

Also, videocards before 3D acceleration were pretty much just conduits to the CPU (except for GUI acceleration). This is what many people forget. It is the 286 that is doing the work here, not the card. The only reason why some cards of this era were considered better than others is that some cards were better at being able to move data quick enough to not bottleneck the CPU. A PC with an Oak or Trident 8800/8900 card would be severely bottlenecked, even a 286, because the CPU could never actually be used to make graphics to its fullest potential. So all this card is doing is unlocking the full potential of the 286, it is not a "GPU", it is not actually offloading graphics rendering away from the CPU like modern cards do. An analogy, imagine 3 runners. One of them has lead weights and shackles on him, representing a PC with an Oak card. The second one has no shackles or weights, and can use his body to its full potential, but he does not have any help either, that would be a PC with a fast 2D card. The third one has rocket shoes, that would be a PC with a graphics accelerator.

To me it makes no sense to play 3D games on such a slow computer. I played Wing Commander on a 286 with EGA and PC speaker. While it was good at the time I vividly remember imagining, even dreaming, about what the Game would be like in shiny VGA on a 386 with extra memory and Sound Blaster or Roland sound.

I also always had an eye for frame rate and slow downs. Even on my 486DX4-100 system, which was my first custom built PC, there were sections when Doomthevwould slow down because of too much action. These games are meant to be played brutally fast and are most fun on a Pentium.

Now I can fulfil all these imaginations, picking the best for whatever game and for very little money in comparison.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

To me it makes no sense to play 3D games on such a slow computer. I played Wing Commander on a 286 with EGA and PC speaker. While it was good at the time I vividly remember imagining, even dreaming, about what the Game would be like in shiny VGA on a 386 with extra memory and Sound Blaster or Roland sound.

I also always had an eye for frame rate and slow downs. Even on my 486DX4-100 system, which was my first custom built PC, there were sections when Doomthevwould slow down because of too much action. These games are meant to be played brutally fast and are most fun on a Pentium.

Now I can fulfil all these imaginations, picking the best for whatever game and for very little money in comparison.

Exactly.

m1so wrote:

Except that there were many people who used a 286 long after the "era" of it, and AFAIK this particular card is from 1993, which is not really so far fetched that someone would use a 286 in 1993 and perhaps upgrade it.

Also, videocards before 3D acceleration were pretty much just conduits to the CPU (except for GUI acceleration). This is what many people forget. It is the 286 that is doing the work here, not the card. The only reason why some cards of this era were considered better than others is that some cards were better at being able to move data quick enough to not bottleneck the CPU. A PC with an Oak or Trident 8800/8900 card would be severely bottlenecked, even a 286, because the CPU could never actually be used to make graphics to its fullest potential. So all this card is doing is unlocking the full potential of the 286, it is not a "GPU", it is not actually offloading graphics rendering away from the CPU like modern cards do. An analogy, imagine 3 runners. One of them has lead weights and shackles on him, representing a PC with an Oak card. The second one has no shackles or weights, and can use his body to its full potential, but he does not have any help either, that would be a PC with a fast 2D card. The third one has rocket shoes, that would be a PC with a graphics accelerator.

The point i tried to make is that the performance of this 286 system is not impressive by any means. Even though some of those games are playable the result is pretty much on par with what other 286's 16MHz could do. The computer is very nice as is the video production. Other than that you can do some things to make a game playable, like for instance in Formula One Grand Prix where i bet he locked the frame rate to something between 5 to 10 FPS, so that the gameplay does not experiences any slowdowns, but the jerkyness is very visible. In other games you can notice skipping frames, while in others even a Tandy 1000 would play nice.

Again, i agree it's a kickass 286, but it does not get that title because of performance. Just my two cents.

Like other opinions here, i see no point in building a kickass 286 system to play games that will run much better in a 386DX40, unless it is something unique, like a 25MHz Harris 286 or for nostalgia or even with the goal to preserve old hardware.

m1so wrote:

Except that there were many people who used a 286 long after the "era" of it, and AFAIK this particular card is from 1993, which is not really so far fetched that someone would use a 286 in 1993 and perhaps upgrade it.

On the 286 16MHz I refurbished recently (built mid '91), there were Word Perfect (DOS) documents dated from as late '99. It would have been a pretty budget machine in '91, so that's pretty good value for money!

Its fun to tinker with old systems to see what they're capable of doing but NOT to comprimise the gaming experience, I remember playing Aces of the Pacific and Secret weapons of the luftwaffe on my old 386 sx-33, revisiting these two games on my DX40 does not provide the best performance so theirs no point playing them on that system IMO, really needs a 486 to play at the highest detail levels.

Im more interested to see a 25mhz 286 in action as I have this thing with fastest cpus in sockets.

carlostex wrote:

m1so wrote:

Like other opinions here, i see no point in building a kickass 286 system to play games that will run much better in a 386DX40, unless it is something unique, like a 25MHz Harris 286 or for nostalgia or even with the goal to preserve old hardware.

Because it's fun and fulfilling to others. Similarly, I would rather build a Toyota Crown with a tweaked N/A engine with mildly custom parts to make it a tad more fast and efficient than be one of those guys that just buys another Cobra or GTR, Vette, what-have-you. Or rather, I would rather take something basic and tweak it than buy the factory-fast product.