Hi there!
I just scored a Cx486SRx2 chip that I'm going to install inside a 386SX machine with a fresh windows 95 install too. My question is, is windows 95 going to recognize the chip from the get go or is there anything else that needs to be done?
Thanks in advance for your replies.
I think it should be more a matter of your motherboard recognizing the CPU than the OS. I just wonder though, why are you running Windows 95 on a 386SX system?
Windows 95 would probably recognise the chip as either a Cyrix SLC or SRx2. Your motherboard BIOS will likely still report it as a 386SX or possibly a 486SX (which is incorrect). That doesn't really matter for the most part though. The bigger question is, why would you want to run Windows 95 on a system with the SRx2. It's still going to be slow as molasses.
"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium
Thanks for the replies. I just want to run some old win95 game software that uses the parallel and com ports without much of a hassle more than anything really. Excuse my ignorance but what's the big deal? 😮
Windows 95 (being a 32-bit operating system) is a bit more resource intensive than Windows 3.x.
For satisfactory performance, you need a fast 486 CPU (486DX2 66 MHz or higher) with 8MB of RAM.
The Cx486SRx2 is actually nothing more than a 386SX on steroids. Internally, it did have the 486 instruction set with 1 KB of L1 cache, but your main limiting factor is going to be your 16-bit external data bus. At best, you will probably get similar performance to that of a 386DX 33 MHz (just check whether your L1 cache is enabled - there are utilities available for this).
The Cx486DRx2 is a different story and will yield much better performance, but that is an upgrade path for a 386DX based system.
You will most likely find that your overall performance with Windows 95 based games will not be satisfactory with this CPU, but give it a go and let us know what your findings are.
The onboard L1 cache and more onboard RAM (the theoretical maximum is 16 MB, but my 386SX based motherboard only supports up to 8 MB) should help to maximise performance.
wrote:Windows 95 (being a 32-bit operating system) is a bit more resource intensive than Windows 3.x. For satisfactory performance, yo […]
Windows 95 (being a 32-bit operating system) is a bit more resource intensive than Windows 3.x.
For satisfactory performance, you need a fast 486 CPU (486DX2 66 MHz or higher) with 8MB of RAM.The Cx486SRx2 is actually nothing more than a 386SX on steroids. Internally, it did have the 486 instruction set with 1 KB of L1 cache, but your main limiting factor is going to be your 16-bit external data bus. At best, you will probably get similar performance to that of a 386DX 33 MHz (just check whether your L1 cache is enabled - there are utilities available for this).
The Cx486DRx2 is a different story and will yield much better performance, but that is an upgrade path for a 386DX based system.
You will most likely find that your overall performance with Windows 95 based games will not be satisfactory with this CPU, but give it a go and let us know what your findings are.
The onboard L1 cache and more onboard RAM (the theoretical maximum is 16 MB, but my 386SX based motherboard only supports up to 8 MB) should help to maximise performance.
Makes perfect sense. What an Awesome informative reply thanks!
