rmay635703 wrote on 2026-05-28, 23:55:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auVLqRJCOJ4&ra=m

😀 same way it "runs" Doom https://github.com/sqpat/RealDOOM

rmay635703 wrote on 2026-05-28, 23:55:

Doesn’t is a bit harsh […]
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rasz_pl wrote on 2026-05-28, 21:23:

ArbysTPossum wrote on 2026-05-28, 14:26:

Having a turbo XT-class computer, I can think of a few games I'd like to run better. Wolfenstien 3D

Wolf doesnt run on XT, and is merely playable on high end 286. We are talking 6fps on 10MHz 286.

Doesn’t is a bit harsh

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auVLqRJCOJ4&ra=m

Playability is another matter

A NEC V20 with FastV20 utility might make a difference! 😁

To be honest, early FPS games don't need 60+ FPS like modern ones. In Wolfenstein 3d you get good playing experience from like 15 fps. That PC XT with CGA rendered like 3 fps. I doubt a high end 286 would do 15 fps on EGA. Here is 286 12Mhz VGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUK9vTCaibo . Average 5.7 fps.

Doom should also be playable at 15 fps.

Early FPS games are domain of 386DX40.

rasz_pl wrote on Yesterday, 01:00:

rmay635703 wrote on 2026-05-28, 23:55:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auVLqRJCOJ4&ra=m

😀 same way it "runs" Doom https://github.com/sqpat/RealDOOM

In fact in my harris 286 25mhz doom run very well!

AlexZ wrote on Yesterday, 06:15:

Doom should also be playable at 15 fps.

Early FPS games are domain of 386DX40.

And a little less too, recently i finish doom 1 and 2 in a 486dlc33 and inmost heavy parts lower to 8-10fps and i did not feel was a bad experience, in fact played very well

I have to disagree on playing Doom or Doom 2 on lower end systems, especially a 386.

If the intent is to experience a period correct low level of performance, then go for it.

But if the intent is to have an enjoyable smooth gameplay experience, then you really want to play these games on a Pentium.

I tried playing Doom 2 on ultra violence on a 486 DX2-66. But it got so chunky in parts with lots of enemies, I switched to a Pentium which was much better.

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 09:41:

But if the intent is to have an enjoyable smooth gameplay experience, then you really want to play these games on a Pentium.

Back when I was in College (1994-95), we had Doom/Doom2 tournaments and had a motely collection of 486's and early pentiums. 486sx-33 with VLB, 486DX2-66, 486DX4-100, Pentium 60, and later a Pentium 75. All of us were similar skill level and to be fair we rotated computers.

But we quickly noticed a correlation that the winners were usually on the better hardware.

Jo22 wrote on Yesterday, 06:05:

rmay635703 wrote on 2026-05-28, 23:55:

Doesn’t is a bit harsh […]
Show full quote

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-05-28, 21:23:

Wolf doesnt run on XT, and is merely playable on high end 286. We are talking 6fps on 10MHz 286.

Doesn’t is a bit harsh

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auVLqRJCOJ4&ra=m

Playability is another matter

A NEC V20 with FastV20 utility might make a difference! 😁

I have had it on a 10mhz V20 clamshell machine, with unfortunately no external monitor hookup. The game runs at a reasonable speed, but of course the LCD is really laggy and blurry. I think I said before, that you have to imagine BJ Blackowitz is wearing 1940s gen 0.5 Alpha night vision 🤣

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 09:41:

I have to disagree on playing Doom or Doom 2 on lower end systems, especially a 386. […]
Show full quote

I have to disagree on playing Doom or Doom 2 on lower end systems, especially a 386.

If the intent is to experience a period correct low level of performance, then go for it.

But if the intent is to have an enjoyable smooth gameplay experience, then you really want to play these games on a Pentium.

I tried playing Doom 2 on ultra violence on a 486 DX2-66. But it got so chunky in parts with lots of enemies, I switched to a Pentium which was much better.

man... we are talking here about doom on 286... and you say smooth?

If i want smooth i can play in my c2d in 640x400 and 60fps too

theelf wrote on Yesterday, 12:24:

man... we are talking here about doom on 286... and you say smooth?

I was responding to the comments about playing Doom at about 15 fps or lower on older systems. Doom came out at the start of the 486 era and even then its performance ceiling demanded a Pentium.

Doom 1 does about 9 fps on 386dx40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfKQ-uREnsI with high details. You would have to reduce details to get more pleasant experience. We played it like that because we had nothing better, but yeah you wouldn't play it on 386 nowadays as you want to enjoy the game on max details. Even with low details it was still better than Wolfenstein 3d.

Many quality games from that era ran on 386, like Transport Tycoon, Settlers 2, Command and Conquer but the speed was sluggish, just like Doom.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-05-27, 19:50:

Right, but it's not at all rocket science. It's right there in the documentation, presumably the same documentation where they found out about display start.

It strikes me as lazy. Devs who aren't very passionate about the PC platform just throwing something together for the port so they can get paid.

That being said I don't know why no one did it before 1990. The capability was fully available since 1985 with EGA, and 1987 with VGA, was not "hidden", an "undocumented feature" (it was just as documented as everything else), nor were even the slowest PCs too slow to make use of it, as the game engine you referenced above demonstrates.

IBM documented this very poorly in its EGA manual. In IBM's EGA manual, the Horizontal Pel Panning register is briefly mentioned, but the necessary details are completely missing. Furthermore, the Pel Pan register could not be used meaningfully in VGA's mode 13h. To utilize it in VGA, the then-undocumented Mode X or Mode Y was required. The developers who used it discovered how it worked through trial and error. The fact that the PC was capable of smooth scrolling only became known to the wider public with John Carmack's Commander Keen, and it wasn’t until Michael Abrash introduced Mode X in Dr. Dobb's Journal in July 1991 that this knowledge was finally made accessible to the wider public, with a subsequent article in the fall of 1991 explaining exactly how to use the Pel Panning register in combination with it.

Consequently, this was barely known before 1990. Therefore, it wasn't a matter of laziness. Prior to that, it was simply barely documented, if at all.

AlexZ wrote on Yesterday, 06:15:

To be honest, early FPS games don't need 60+ FPS like modern ones. In Wolfenstein 3d you get good playing experience from like 15 fps. That PC XT with CGA rendered like 3 fps. I doubt a high end 286 would do 15 fps on EGA. Here is 286 12Mhz VGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUK9vTCaibo . Average 5.7 fps.

Thanks for the link to the video. I’ve always wondered what the clock speed of our old family 286, a Vobis model "HighScreen Kompakt Serie II 286", back from December 1989 actually was. The video strongly suggests that my system must have had a 16 MHz CPU, or it was due to the faster RAM, because I was able to play Wolfenstein 3D noticeably smoother and in fullscreen. Wing Commander and Gunship 2000 were also very playable. However, I didn't have a sound card back then and played using only the PC speaker.

I no longer have the 286, as its components were sold in September 1992 during an upgrade to a 486DX 33 MHz. Therefore, I do not remember the exact CPU, motherboard, or chipset. According to my invoice, the "HighScreen Kompakt Serie II 286" had the article number 23544. I’m mentioning this because perhaps someone here bought a comparable machine during that time period and still owns it and the invoice and knows the exact internals. The clock display on the case showed "16" though you couldn't completely rely on those displays back then. Unfortunately, there are no further exact details on the invoice, except that the RAM upgrade from 512 KiB to 1 MiB consisted of 4x 414256 RAM chips at 80 ns. The BIOS was definitely from AMI. As for the VGA card, I know it featured a Trident 8900 chipset with 256 KB VRAM because we kept it after the upgrade, and as I grew older and learned more about hardware, I was able to check the chip myself later on.

However, according to my own subsequent research months ago, I found a brochure from that era listing a similar Highscreen model as a 12 MHz system with a Landmark benchmark rating of 15 or 16 MHz. Based on a visual reverse search by comparing photos of identical Highscreen models, including photos of their motherboards, I suspect the motherboard might have been an Octek Fox II 286 featuring a Headland HT101/HT102 chipset, though I cannot say for certain. I suspect it might have been a 16 MHz AMD CPU.

286 at 16Mhz still wouldn't deliver smooth experience in Wolfenstein 3d. Probably about 7.5 fps, not a slideshow, but still annoying. 20-25Mhz version would be needed. You were probably excited and ignored this annoyance. AMD was releasing those fast 286 mostly because they couldn't sell 386 due to arbitration with Intel before 1991. AMD was literally one CPU generation behind.

In 1995 when I got my AMD 386SX33, 286 was no longer practical, basically relegated to schools. I remember they still had them. Government used 486 and business even Pentium. My 386 got upgraded to AMD 386DX40 and 4MB RAM basically next year as it was simply too slow. I skipped 486 generation entirely as it was used mostly to run Windows 3.1 or play FPS games which I didn't need. 386, just like 286 few years earlier served as a good education platform.

86Box has quite a few 286 machines, I have "[SCAT] Hyundai Super-286TR" configured with 16Mhz CPU, 1 wait state, 2 MB RAM and Trident 8900. It gives quite realistic performance for that CPU. You can try Wolfenstein 3d on that.

"[SCAT] Senor Science Co. SCAT-286-003" comes with AMI Bios, you can check whether it is what you had.

In 286 era it seems many PC manufacturers used their own BIOSes, unlike in 386 era.

As a side note, it seems microcode of Intel 386 was reverse engineered recently and all instructions were implemented using that. https://nand2mario.github.io/posts/2026/z386/

AlexZ wrote on Yesterday, 18:23:

286 at 16Mhz still wouldn't deliver smooth experience in Wolfenstein 3d. Probably about 7.5 fps, not a slideshow, but still annoying. 20-25Mhz version would be needed. You were probably excited and ignored this annoyance. AMD was releasing those fast 286 mostly because they couldn't sell 386 due to arbitration with Intel before 1991. AMD was literally one CPU generation behind.

It felt like around 18 fps. I was able to play through the entire shareware version until the very end. Noticeable stuttering, like 7.5 fps, definitely would have caught my attention, even as a complete beginner back then.

The AMD CPU is just a guess of mine, because Intel never manufactured a 286 CPU with a 16 MHz clock speed. The CPU could also have been from another manufacturer under license. Technically speaking, they were completely identical apart from the clock speed. However, my PC definitely didn't have 20 MHz or more, as such a machine would have cost significantly more money. By the way, if the 286 in the video above had slow RAM installed, running it with wait states could heavily slow down the system as well.

I played wolfenstein 3d back in the day on my 286. I don't remember how well it performed now, but I was was just amazed and happy that I was playing a "3D" game. I dont even remember the clock speed of my 286, but I doubt it was one of the fancy faster variants.

It's probably old news and I'm perhaps repeating myself, but the 80286 was part of the original Multimedia PC specification (original MPC Level 1)! 😁
The CPU itself was not so much the bottleneck as the 8 MHz ISA bus was, I think.
The 386/486 often had cache (motherboard/on-chip) and could compensate for it to some extent.
I guess the IBM PS/2 PCs with 16-Bit Microchannel slots were the only 286 PCs that didn't were slowed down here (excluding PC98 C-Bus and overclocked ISA).

On 386 you could OC the ISA bus via AMI BIOS setup. I ran it at 12Mhz instead of 8Mhz and thus got a 50% boost. It provided a noticeable boost in games like Transport Tycoon. Doom of course still required low details. I didn't find ISA bus speed setting in 286 BIOSes, they were usually basic - floppy drives, HDDs, date/time. OCed 386 performed better than what timedemos suggest.

I don't think my 386SX/33 had cache, those who had it with cache reported huge boost A beginner with a 386SX , even if the cache is tiny 8kb. That would explain why it was so slow. It was really just a slightly faster 286 as performance benefits diminished without cache. With 16b bus and no cache, it was probably negligibly faster than 25Mhz 286.

Jo22 wrote on Yesterday, 19:55:

It's probably old news and I'm perhaps repeating myself, but the 80286 was part of the original Multimedia PC specification (ori […]
Show full quote

It's probably old news and I'm perhaps repeating myself, but the 80286 was part of the original Multimedia PC specification (original MPC Level 1)! 😁
The CPU itself was not so much the bottleneck as the 8 MHz ISA bus was, I think.
The 386/486 often had cache (motherboard/on-chip) and could compensate for it to some extent.
I guess the IBM PS/2 PCs with 16-Bit Microchannel slots were the only 286 PCs that didn't were slowed down here (excluding PC98 C-Bus and overclocked ISA).

With the 286, the only disadvantage of the ISA bus was that its clock speed was stuck at 8 MHz unless you overclocked it, and any installed card had to share the bus with all the other cards. The ISA bus actually became 16-bit with the AT design, which was also when it was first defined as such. You also had to be careful not to install pure 8-bit cards, as they could slow down the system. In my case, I had an 8-bit game port card, which I didn't replace until I got my 486. However, the ISA bus became truly problematic with the 386DX because it was limited to 16 bits, whereas the 386DX could have utilized a 32-bit wide data bus. On the 486, the 32-bit Vesa Local Bus was introduced as a stopgap solution until PCI was finally established with the Pentium.

Perhaps the 286 in the video had one of those 8-bit cards installed? Along with slow RAM of more than 100 ns, that could easily explain its poor performance.

If you really want to "try" how things will work on older systems, many virtual machines let you select which CPU/speed they emulate - and some seem pretty accurate - If you just want to try different speeds not matching specific hardware .. DosBox works well ... It can directly interface to the host filesystem easier than most, and the "cycles" option give you pretty wide/flexible control of how fast/slow things run.

I sometimes fire up DOOM under DosBox and have pretty good results.

---

Regarding "what to do with a 286" - There's lots I still do with older systems.

I know.... this is the wrong forum to be saying stuff like this ... computers can do a lot more than play games!

Things I use older systems for (most of these are using my own software - cuz I've written almost all the tools I use) mostly within DOS:

If it has a good FDC (or you can put one in): ImageDisk system. IMD has to run under DOS - making many newer systems tougher (the reason I offer a version which runs stand-alone on a bootable floppy. If you want to archive/restore classic floppy disks, or just want some of the best options when recovering one, this can be very useful.

DDLINK server - If you want to be able to move data between multiple systems which might not have networking software setup - this can work well. Also, DOS has the advantage that you can set it up so you can remotely power it ON/OFF and not trsash it. I have one setup with a couple wireless remote controls - I can remotely fire it up - transfer "stuff" to it, then grab that stuff from another locsation (saves a lot of going up/down stairs just to poewr-ON normally OFF systems)

Independant second screen - I often DDLINK source and related files to one of my DOS systems just so I can get them up on it's monitor while I work on them at and adjecent system - don't have to worry about focus or "popping" up something like TFB (TsrFileBrowser).

Debugging aid - you can use thing like:
SNIFF, SDT, PPDEBUG, PCLA, LOADGEN etc. to monitor/debug communications lines.
digital signalsetc.

Any time I want to run/test something under a "a real DOS system" instead of an emulator (this is most often to interface with some specific hardware)

Simple/classic development environment for retro PC and/or embeddedsystems.