3DMark99 Performance on 486-class processors \ VOGONS

3DMark99 Performance on 486-class processors

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by chublord

Posted on 2021-09-24, 18:27

chublord Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 109
Joined: 2020-07-01, 00:21
Location: California

From the 686 ultimate benchmark thread (The Ultimate 686 Benchmark Comparison, I noticed that the 586/686 class processors had literally 100x better performance on 3DMark99 compared to 486-class processors, even normalized for the same frequency. The P55c had a score about 250x as high as a DX4 or Am5x86! While obviously 586/686's are a lot faster than 486's, this seems like an excessive difference.

For reference, I tried 3DMark99 on my DX4-100 system and got a score of "12" 3D Marks and "2" CPU Marks. (My Quake1 Timedemo score is 13.6 fps)

Why is the performance so terrible on 3DMark99 on a 486-class machine?

IBM Valuepoint 486 DX4-100, Opti 802G, 50 MHz FSB, Voodoo1+S3 864, Quantum Fireball EX 4.0 GB, Seagate Medalist 1.6 GB, 128 MB FPM, 256k L2

Reply 1 of 2, by bloodem

Posted on 2021-09-24, 19:23

bloodem Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1611
Joined: 2020-01-17, 08:10
Location: Romania

There could be multiple reasons for this.
The biggest one is, clearly, 3DMark99's lack of optimization for older CPUs - it was probably never tested on anything weaker than a Pentium.
Secondly, when it comes to the P55C, 3DMark also uses the MMX instructions to a great extent. Depending on the actual code, non-MMX CPUs could be heavily impacted.
Then there's the vastly superior FPU unit on the Pentiums, the superscalar pipelined architecture, the 2-way/4-way set associative cache and many other advantages that the Pentium has, which combined with the software's optimization for the Pentium architecture... it can leave older CPUs in the dust.

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 2 of 2, by bakemono

Posted on 2021-09-25, 20:19

bakemono Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 693
Joined: 2018-01-15, 06:56

3Dmark99 doesn't calculate the fps or score correctly on a 486. Even with a Cyrix 5x86-120 it'll run the test but come back with a single-digit score. If you put in a Pentium Overdrive then you can get 500+

again another retro game on itch: https://90soft90.itch.io/shmup-salad

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware

Main menu

Common searches