Skyscraper wrote:

Lets play a game! […]
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Lets play a game!

What CPU is this?
Bonus questen No1: At what speed is it running?
Bonus question No2: What motherboard did I use?

Clues:
The L2 cache is activated in WB mode.
The L1 cache is of course active.
The motherboard has full support for the CPU.
All memory is cached.
All memory, cache and other BIOS settings are set to the fastest values.
The memory is 1x64MB 168pin SDRAM.
No slow down utilitys used and the system is not bugged or defect in any way.
Nothing is running in the background.
The PCI bus is running at its nornal speed, 33 MHz.
The only thing done is to set the CPU to the slowest combination of FSB and multiplier.
The OS is a clean install of Windows 98SE.

The picture is only cut so I could fit the BMP on a normal floppy as I diddnt install jpeg support on the very speedy system.

Speedy.jpg

You just need a different / older version of cpu-z to recognize it is all.

kithylin wrote:

You just need a different / older version of cpu-z to recognize it is all.

That would not make the game very fun at all?

Lets try again. Im adding some more performance numbers and clues.

Lets play a game!

What CPU is this?
Bonus questen No1: At what speed is it running?
Bonus question No2: What motherboard did I use?

Clues:
The L2 cache is activated in WB mode.
The L1 cache is of course active.
The motherboard has full support for the CPU.
All memory is cached.
All memory, cache and other BIOS settings are set to the fastest values.
The memory is 1x64MB 168pin SDRAM.
No slow down utilitys used and the system is not bugged or defect in any way.
Nothing is running in the background.
The PCI bus is running at its normal speed, in this case 33 MHz.
The only thing done is to set the CPU to the slowest (and lowest) combination of FSB and multiplier.
The video card is a S3 Trio 64V+ 2MB PCI with ~19000KB/s VESA speed in Speedsys at this exact setting.
The OS is a clean install of Windows 98SE.

The picture is only cut so I could fit the BMP on a normal floppy as I diddnt install jpeg support on the very speedy system.

Quake: 5.8 FPS
Doom: 22.32 FPS (2134 gametics in 3346 realtics)
3dbench2: 48.9 FPS
PCPbench: 11.3 FPS

"MPEG1 DVD" PAL 720*576 MP2: ~1.1 FPS
"MPEG1 DVD" NTSC 720*480 23.976 MP2: ~1.2 FPS
VCD PAL: ~3.5 FPS
VCD NTSC (23.976): ~4 FPS

Some extra hints.

The SuperPi 1M time is still the best clue.
There can only be one answer if Im not mistaken.
Logic should make it possible to make a qualified guess when it comes to the speed.
The motherboard used is the one "others" would choose.

Cyrix 6x86 running at 1x66 MHz? Although it shouldn't be this slow.

Skyscraper wrote:

That would not make the game very fun at all?

Sorry, thought you were trying to get cpu-z working at first.

havli wrote:

Cyrix 6x86 running at 1x66 MHz? Although it shouldn't be this slow.

Yes the CPU is correct, the multiplier aswell and no it would be much faster if it would run at 66 MHz! 😀

A rough estimate should put you in the correct ballpark, think like a clock generator.

It isnt 40 MHz which otherwise would have been somewhat logical if one know that the VIA VPX chipset can run the PCI bus unsynced, this is a double hint.

And what VIA VPX motherboard did some other dudes find suitable for the Cyrix 686 ? 😀

Well, it that case it must be FSB = 33 MHz and CPU as well. 😀

I'll leave the motherboard question for someone else to answer, VIA socket 7 boards really aren't my thing. 😈

havli wrote:

Well, it that case it must be FSB = 33 MHz and CPU as well. 😀

I'll leave the motherboard question for someone else to answer, VIA socket 7 boards really aren't my thing. 😈

Yes! This motherboard lets you run the FSB of the PCI clock which can be independant from the normal FSB clock as it can be locked to 33 MHz.

This isnt exactly documented and eventhough the motherboard was very popular I have not read anything about it online.

The board also has offical support for 75 MHz with PCI=33MHz but I found an undocumented setting for 75 MHz with the PCI = FSB/2 = 37.5 Mhz. The 50, 55 and 60 MHz settings also probably use PCI = FSB/2 but I have not tested those settings yet.

Ignore the "extern. clock 50MHz" in the Speedsys screenshot, it isnt used as the FSB runs of the PCI clock which in this case is locked to 33 MHz.

Basicly the clock generator produces two clocks, one for the FSB, the other is always 33 MHz. The PCI bus can use either FSB/2 or the 33 MHz clock and the FSB can strangely enough also be set to use either clock.

The result is a 486DX2-50 (or a 386 if I turn off the L1 cache).

Tested the CT1950. It was originally attached to a CT4500, but carefully removed and attached to a CT4390. Showing the available RAM. Curious as to if there is a more in-depth test.

Skyscraper wrote:

The memory issues with my Soyo SY-5BT(5) seems solved, with only 2x8MB EDO the board works fine all the time and with 64MB SDRAM everything still seem to work without glitches. I have no idea why the board was acting up when I was using more than 16MB EDO.

There is a good chance it wasnt memory related at all but related to the AT power connectors making bad contect and everytime I switched memory I touched the cables enough for them to make somewhat better contact again.

I am also fighting with SY-5BT, as far as I know MB should works with 256MB RAM but for some reasons when I install 128MB SDRAM PC100, MB detect only 32MB ;/

Do you know how to solve it ?

arteq wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

The memory issues with my Soyo SY-5BT(5) seems solved, with only 2x8MB EDO the board works fine all the time and with 64MB SDRAM everything still seem to work without glitches. I have no idea why the board was acting up when I was using more than 16MB EDO.

There is a good chance it wasnt memory related at all but related to the AT power connectors making bad contect and everytime I switched memory I touched the cables enough for them to make somewhat better contact again.

I am also fighting with SY-5BT, as far as I know MB should works with 256MB RAM but for some reasons when I install 128MB SDRAM PC100, MB detect only 32MB ;/

Do you know how to solve it ?

The cacheable range is only 64MB so I would not use more memory than that.

Otherwise double-sided 256MB modules with 16 chips (2x8) probably could work as my single sided 64 MB module with only 4 chips works just fine.

but is this the reason that 128MB module is recognized as 32MB ?

The bios verison is the latest 5BT-1B7 so it is rather not bios problem ;/

arteq wrote:

but is this the reason that 128MB module is recognized as 32MB ?

The bios verison is the latest 5BT-1B7 so it is rather not bios problem ;/

The cacheable range is not the reason the module dosnt work, using more memory than the motherboard can cache will just make the Windows performance really dodgy.

Few Socket-7 boards work with high density memory chips so if your 256MB module only has 8 memory chips thats the reason it dosnt work. I do not know for sure if 256MB modules with 16 memory chips work, all I know is that my 64MB module with 4 chips do work which is a good indication that a 256MB module with 16 chips could work.

Finally got around to test my IBM ProPrinter II. Works great!

Watching Pixels now. 😀

Swapped out the PCI Geforce 2 MX 32MB with a Geforce FX5200 128MB DDR on my K6-2 system.

Was working great noticeable improvement from the Geforce 2MX, but there seemed to be some graphical corruption when it went into standby, will have to check that out tomorrow.

Got myself another GeForce 6200 AGP graphics card and a 1.2GHz Tualatin Pentium III. This gives me a reason to bust out an ASUS TUV4X motherboard I had laying around that I never tested since the day I got it. The plan now is to build a Pentium III Tualatin machine with 1 to 1.5GB of RAM running both Windows 98 and Windows XP, with the GeForce 6200 AGP as the graphics card and a Diamond Multimedia Monster Sound MX300 as the sound card.

And on the same note of the Aureal Vortex 2 chipset, I got another card based off that chipset (no idea who made it) for use in my AMD K6-III+ build for Windows games (all DOS support has been disabled). This machine now runs on FOUR sound cards (it's ridiculous, I know).

Connected my two DOS machines with a KVM, so now I just need to move the audio and joystick when switching between systems.

Then I beat two more missions on Wing Commander 2, leaving me 7 missions away from winning the game.

Not really PC related but definitely retro!
Installed a 2TB SATA HDD in my original Xbox.
Had a few small crash courses in Xbox modding
Needed newer BIOS, so FINALLY had to find out what mod chip it had. (Xbox was 2nd hand and already been chipped)
Discovered I only had 1 80pin IDE ribbon cable to use, lucky it reached. (P3 I stole it from will be compensated with sexy rounded cable)
Now running the latest version of XBMC4Xbox, much faster then the final XBMC before the split.
Also learnt how to create my own EvoX skin (or modify an existing one)
All my games installed and still loads of space for music/movies which is its main use really.

chinny22 wrote:

All my games installed and still loads of space for music/movies which is its main use really.

My kids use mine for emulation mostly, but being able to run actual xbox games from the hd is an incredible feature of the original xbox. What you can achieve with a simple softmod is incredible really.

For some reason, almost every time I opened an Xbox it died before I even finished taking the screws out. I used to (for a brief time) install modchips and dick around with the hard drive for people, but I had to buy so many Xbox motherboards to replace the ones that died I was making a huge loss and it got to a point where I had to refuse to work on them, turning my attention solely to the PS2 and other consoles - I don't think anyone brought me a Game Cube even once, but I saw a few Dreamcasts.

I remember how I used to try and get out of trouble by getting people to sign a piece of paper stating they would only use their own backup copies of games they legally owned... Of course, I seriously doubt they did this.

I didn't do it for long because I realized how much I didn't like the consoles and I hated working on them. I would still mod Mega Drives, but it has never come up and I doubt it ever will, plus I no longer have some of the equipment to do that kind of thing as elegantly as before.

I tried to bench a K6-2 with my FIC VA-502 board.

I found some German forum post with supposed jumper settings for 2.5V, the board officially only supporets 2.8-3.5V and it turned out that the 2.5V setting wasnt 2.5V but some voltage that made the CPU overheat in 20 seconds or so. Well I dont really need to know how a K6-2 would perform in the FIC VA-502 and if i really wanted to I have one of those nice socket adapters.

The next thing I did was to test a Dataexpert EXP 8551 i430FX Socket-7 board from the lot of 11 "untested" boards I bought some time ago. This motherboard looked like new but it diddnt want to post, it turned out it's one of those boards that wants memory sticks in slot1 and slot3, it came with sticks in slot1 and slot2. The board seems to work just fine but the socketed ODIN RTC has run out of juice.

Now Im going to see if I can get the not all all pristine looking PC Chips "TXpro-II" board from the same lot going.