rmay635703 wrote on 2024-09-14, 04:18:

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-14, 01:36:

rmay635703 wrote on 2024-09-14, 00:55:

False
440BX - BIOS shows 756MB and CPU-Z shows 1 GB: Which is right?

The BX supports 1gb of registered ram at 66 or 100mhz

Yes, but you need registered RAM and motherboard support. The entire TRW database has only 28 motherboards using 440BX chipset that come with RDIMM support (most of them are different revisions of Asus P2B family) so the choice would be extremely limited as RDIMM were not meant for consumer-grade motherboards. Boards like P2B-N or HP NetServer LH 3 can't even use standard ATX chassis or PSU.

I vaguely recall that the BX also supports 1gb 3.3volt EDO dimms, on boards that are unstable above 512mb that is another rather expensive option that removes any bios or compatibility issue.

Many have had this discussion before in the past, I cannot be bothered doing it again if all you can pull out are edge cases using ram no normal consumer had access to back when 440 was being used and required specialised motherboard support then your argument is pretty damn thin.

But if you want a gimme then have it because technically you are not wrong.

But I hate gotchas.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-09-13, 07:56:

Barton has 512kb cache as does the Tualatin S, games that rely on CPU cache are likely to have a better time on these CPUs over the more budget offerings.

There's little clock-to-clock difference between Palomino/Thoroughbred and Barton, at least on appropriate DDR system. While Barton has twice the cache amount, it still operates on a relatively slow internal bus and none of the K7 CPUs had reduced L1 cache, which was massive (128Kb). All while having 512Kb L2 on Pentium III-S is a clear win, because CPU is starved with low memory bandwidth and L2 cache on Pentium 3 L2 cache has much higher bandwidth.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-09-14, 05:24:

Many have had this discussion before in the past, I cannot be bothered doing it again if all you can pull out are edge cases usi […]
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rmay635703 wrote on 2024-09-14, 04:18:

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-14, 01:36:

Yes, but you need registered RAM and motherboard support. The entire TRW database has only 28 motherboards using 440BX chipset that come with RDIMM support (most of them are different revisions of Asus P2B family) so the choice would be extremely limited as RDIMM were not meant for consumer-grade motherboards. Boards like P2B-N or HP NetServer LH 3 can't even use standard ATX chassis or PSU.

I vaguely recall that the BX also supports 1gb 3.3volt EDO dimms, on boards that are unstable above 512mb that is another rather expensive option that removes any bios or compatibility issue.

Many have had this discussion before in the past, I cannot be bothered doing it again if all you can pull out are edge cases using ram no normal consumer had access to back when 440 was being used and required specialised motherboard support then your argument is pretty damn thin.

But if you want a gimme then have it because technically you are not wrong.

But I hate gotchas.

I had 3.3 volt EDO dimms in my old 1997 era ATX HX motherboard because it only had dimm slots and not simms.

Definitely a price premium but certainly not a “no consumer had access situation”.

When I upgraded out of that board I continued using the same ram to save money.

The board at the time was a bargain basement board costing less than a tx but when I went to upgrade the ram at that point was more expensive.

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-13, 18:14:

- Only supports up to 512MB RAM

Realistically speaking, 512 Mb limit on some Pentium 3 chipsets was never an issue for gaming. You won't run Doom 3 or F.E.A.R. on such system comfortably anyway.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-09-14, 05:57:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-09-13, 07:56:

Barton has 512kb cache as does the Tualatin S, games that rely on CPU cache are likely to have a better time on these CPUs over the more budget offerings.

There's little clock-to-clock difference between Palomino/Thoroughbred and Barton, at least on appropriate DDR system. While Barton has twice the cache amount, it still operates on a relatively slow internal bus and none of the K7 CPUs had reduced L1 cache, which was massive (128Kb). All while having 512Kb L2 on Pentium III-S is a clear win, because CPU is starved with low memory bandwidth and L2 cache on Pentium 3 L2 cache has much higher bandwidth.

I do extensive testing of socket 462 with all chipsets and many CPU's in a separate topic and I found there is NO performance difference between Palomino and T-bred ; both 2000+ have the same performance.
AMD created T-bred in order to increase clock speeds not performance.
However Barton with twice the cache has an enormous advantage; at least 15% at the same clock speed on the same board.

I think 512mb ram for Pentium3 is enough. I don't want play games on this system. I wanna the PC I dreamed of as a child. I would like to turn the games on briefly to see how the P3 processor will handle it.

P3 800-866mhz, 512mb ram, Radeon9000

I wonder what settings the following game titles will run smoothly on:

Gta3, MaxPayne 2001, Mdk2, Fifa2002, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles , Wiggles.

Does it make sense to change the graphics card to a more powerful one for this processor? Would these games run better on a Radeon 9700 card?

GreenBook wrote on 2024-09-14, 06:49:

Would these games run better on a Radeon 9700 card?

What's your definition of "better" here? If you performed a controlled benchmark experiment with only the GPU as the variable while everything else stayed the same, then sure, 9700 would give you higher framerates. None of these games required DirectX 9 (from 7 to 8.1) so there would be no difference in features.

OTOH a 9700 would be bottlenecked by a P3-800 and the corresponding motherboard. The "period-correct" CPU of Radeon 9700 were Northwood P4 and Thoroughbred Athlon XP.

"Bottleneck" is a very relative term. You can play games with anti-aliasing and high resolution on such setup, while using more appropriate GeForce 2/3 would just suck.

GreenBook wrote on 2024-09-14, 06:49:

P3 800-866mhz, 512mb ram, Radeon9000

The Radeon 9000 is not period-correct for a PIII; I am trying to remember what the ATI option at the time was. Dell had a super-duper-low-end option that was ATI, below the TNT2 M64 in the lineup. But the high end was a nascent NVIDIA and a struggling 3dfx.

Also, unless you have some crazy love for ATI, I would say go NVIDIA. ATI was known, known, known for their bad drivers in this era, and my view is that the ATI drivers only really started improving when they launched the Catalyst branding, etc in like... 2004.

Otherwise, if you don't care about ISA, this is an easy system to acquire. eBay is full of Dell Dimension 4100s with undescribed video cards meeting those requirements.

I might have missed it, but what motherboard have you choose?
Motherboard choice is very important on socket 370!
Also I would not go with a radeon 9000 unless you absolutely want Ati.
Something like geforce4 ti 4200 would be a great choice and would run any game up to 2000 at max details.

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-14, 12:14:

GreenBook wrote on 2024-09-14, 06:49:

P3 800-866mhz, 512mb ram, Radeon9000

The Radeon 9000 is not period-correct for a PIII; I am trying to remember what the ATI option at the time was. Dell had a super-duper-low-end option that was ATI, below the TNT2 M64 in the lineup. But the high end was a nascent NVIDIA and a struggling 3dfx.

9000 (RV250) was a minor update a year after 7500 (RV200); the latter was contemporary of Tualatin P3. As for P3-800, ATI was at the transitioning stage between Rage 128 and Radeon.

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-14, 12:14:

Also, unless you have some crazy love for ATI, I would say go NVIDIA. ATI was known, known, known for their bad drivers in this era, and my view is that the ATI drivers only really started improving when they launched the Catalyst branding, etc in like... 2004.

The Nvidia counterparts of Radeon 9000, Radeon 7500, and Rage 128 were GF4Ti, GF3, and GF256, respectively. Clearly the Nvidia had the leading edge back then.

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-14, 18:00:

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-14, 12:14:

GreenBook wrote on 2024-09-14, 06:49:

P3 800-866mhz, 512mb ram, Radeon9000

The Radeon 9000 is not period-correct for a PIII; I am trying to remember what the ATI option at the time was. Dell had a super-duper-low-end option that was ATI, below the TNT2 M64 in the lineup. But the high end was a nascent NVIDIA and a struggling 3dfx.

9000 (RV250) was a minor update a year after 7500 (RV200); the latter was contemporary of Tualatin P3. As for P3-800, ATI was at the transitioning stage between Rage 128 and Radeon.

Rage 128, that's what the super-duper-low-end option Dell had was, I think. Then TNT2 M64, maybe a full TNT2, and GeForce 256 were the optional upgrades.

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-14, 18:00:

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-14, 12:14:

Also, unless you have some crazy love for ATI, I would say go NVIDIA. ATI was known, known, known for their bad drivers in this era, and my view is that the ATI drivers only really started improving when they launched the Catalyst branding, etc in like... 2004.

The Nvidia counterparts of Radeon 9000, Radeon 7500, and Rage 128 were GF4Ti, GF3, and GF256, respectively. Clearly the Nvidia had the leading edge back then.

You're making me perhaps feel a teeny bit better for VisionTek having given me a 9100 ATI card as an RMA for a dead GF3 Ti500 which never struck me as a fair trade.

But... yeah, that proves the point that ATI prior to the 9700 (and maybe a little the 8500?) was completely in the wilderness. Of course the 9700 was helped by the mess known as the FX5xxx lineup...

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-14, 18:14:

But... yeah, that proves the point that ATI prior to the 9700 (and maybe a little the 8500?) was completely in the wilderness. Of course the 9700 was helped by the mess known as the FX5xxx lineup...

8500 was a terrific card, it just had absolutely awful drivers at launch which didn't help sales against GF3 series. I considered 8500 in late 2001, but because of the issues at launch I decided to go with GF3 ti200. I replaced that GF3 with R9700 non-pro quite soon after it was released. It was amazing, one of the best graphics cards I have ever had. With unlocked bios and water it overclocked really well which improved the already great performance even more.

My current Win98SE box with high end late 2001 parts has 8500 and I have zero complaints when using matured drivers. Performance is great and IQ is okay, although it is not as good as it was with many later Radeons.

Hey there! I have a P3 running DOS, XP and AMITHLON. It runs great with no lags at all, if you provide enough ram.
Therefore, don't worry about the performance. For most of the Win95/Win98 or DOS games, you're fine with that CPU...

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-14, 18:14:

You're making me perhaps feel a teeny bit better for VisionTek having given me a 9100 ATI card as an RMA for a dead GF3 Ti500 which never struck me as a fair trade.

But... yeah, that proves the point that ATI prior to the 9700 (and maybe a little the 8500?) was completely in the wilderness. Of course the 9700 was helped by the mess known as the FX5xxx lineup...

To be fair, 8500 and 9100 were not bad at all; their R200 made them the high-end counterpart of 7500. Nvidia had MX cards to counter RV at low-end markets; they were even weaker but became a huge commercial success.

Mr_Magoo wrote on 2024-09-14, 20:59:

Hey there! I have a P3 running DOS, XP and AMITHLON. It runs great with no lags at all, if you provide enough ram.
Therefore, don't worry about the performance. For most of the Win95/Win98 or DOS games, you're fine with that CPU...

Nice! i've got an amithlon disc i've been meaning to try out for years, i watched a video walkthru of the setup and it seems like a fairly involved job getting everything working and upgrading to the latest os, i think it was 4.1, what chipset/gpu/sound device are you using?, in the video i think the guy was using an older via chipset, also someone one here mentioned an nvidia fx5200 is compatible, not sure about sound tho, i expect AC97, im hoping for soundblaster.

Good evening!
There is a guy on youtube called Chris Edwards (Channel: Chris Edwards Restoration). He did a few great videos about Amithlon. Also, there is a good how to from a guy called SNKBITTEN (http://amithlon.snkbitten.com/Docs/ModKS.html) - I hope it's ok to post this link...
On my setup, I'm using an ATI Radeon 9250 256mb (supports hardware-accelleration) and for sound, I have a soundblaster live!
So far, the fastest Amiga by far in the house... 😁
I'm in my hobby-room tomorrow evening and will write down my setup to post it here.

Mr_Magoo wrote on 2024-09-15, 19:54:

Good evening! There is a guy on youtube called Chris Edwards (Channel: Chris Edwards Restoration). He did a few great videos abo […]
Show full quote

Good evening!
There is a guy on youtube called Chris Edwards (Channel: Chris Edwards Restoration). He did a few great videos about Amithlon. Also, there is a good how to from a guy called SNKBITTEN (http://amithlon.snkbitten.com/Docs/ModKS.html) - I hope it's ok to post this link...
On my setup, I'm using an ATI Radeon 9250 256mb (supports hardware-accelleration) and for sound, I have a soundblaster live!
So far, the fastest Amiga by far in the house... 😁
I'm in my hobby-room tomorrow evening and will write down my setup to post it here.

thanks for your reply, i downloaded a video on an install some years ago off a site called the oasis bbs which was from youtube, i just checked it and its this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZkoJknp0JE
which is chris edwards 😀 looks like it wasnt actually a via chipset but a via sata card so ill have to see what i have thats compatible, thats good news on the soundblaster live tho, and i also happen to have radeon 9250 256mb, its agp not pci so hopefully that works, if so looks like im pretty much there in terms of parts, ill check out the other site, and maybe now after 4 years i'll finally get it set up. 😀

Sure! Give it a go! The first setup will be a bit of "finding the right way", but if you follow SNKBittens tips and doku (his website also has a page for Amithlon-Hardware-Compatibility), you can't really go wrong. On my setup, even USB works like a charm, but I didn't followed the instructions the first time, so I had to tinker around a while... But hey, that's a part of the definition on our hobby... 😁

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-14, 21:01:

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-14, 18:14:

You're making me perhaps feel a teeny bit better for VisionTek having given me a 9100 ATI card as an RMA for a dead GF3 Ti500 which never struck me as a fair trade.

But... yeah, that proves the point that ATI prior to the 9700 (and maybe a little the 8500?) was completely in the wilderness. Of course the 9700 was helped by the mess known as the FX5xxx lineup...

To be fair, 8500 and 9100 were not bad at all; their R200 made them the high-end counterpart of 7500. Nvidia had MX cards to counter RV at low-end markets; they were even weaker but became a huge commercial success.

They were good, sadly their drivers were . .questionable, especially the earlier ones .. it took far too many driver updates before they got to the point they allowed the R200 hardware to show just how good it was. But hey ATI was famous for shitty drivers which AMD carried forward and even today AMD GPU drivers still use the "age like fine wine" philosophy.

I have an full 8500 and with modern drivers it holds its own against nVidia counterparts.