kalloggs40 wrote:

So is cyrix really that bad at gaming? Or something is wrong?

The MII was never a great performer for games due to it's not so great FPU performance. Iirc some games needed to be patched, but I think it was Swaaye who mentioned this to me.

Could you list the hardware used, your motherboard, graphics card, FSB and CPU multiplier settings etc, including the exact model of your Cyrix chip and the voltage it is run with and what you cool it with?
Your Cyrix chip is likely to be one of the 2.9v ones, which had trouble scaling and needed to be kept cool as it ran relatively hot, but there are several variants and some of those even have a lower CPU speed that similarly rated chips (225MHz to 233MHz I think on different FSB's?).

Comparing the system requirements to the actual speed of your chip, you're trying to run games with which your CPU should already have trouble with.
Some boards were better suited for the Cyrix chips btw (linear burst comes to mind, which is unsupported bu Intel chipsets).

I have a PC Chips M571 motherboard, the FSB is 66mhz, 2.9v. The cpu cooler came with the chip, it has a Green Heatsink and fan ontop, I also put Arctic cooler thermal paste for extra protection, its not overclocked.

I have also tried an IBM cyrix PR233 cpu on the same board same issues. Cant play any 3dfx games.

Should I change to a 200mhz Pentium 1 I have? would that make a difference or should I scrap it all and go for a Pentium 2-3? I just wanna play 3dfx mode games, like Tomb raider, Carmageddon 2,Quake 2 etc

Tetrium wrote:

including the exact model of your Cyrix chip

www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/MII/Cyrix-MII-30 ... CPGA).html

A Pentium 2 would be an easy way out, but in your case I'd first try your Pentium 1 chip before building another rig because your Socket 7 rig is already done, except for the CPU which seems to not cooperate with you.

You have the black MII? I thought those were pretty uncommon, or at least much more uncommon than the gold and silver colored ones.
I only have 1 with the black color and it's probably dead because it's missing several pins.

Tetrium wrote:

A Pentium 2 would be an easy way out, but in your case I'd first try your Pentium 1 chip before building another rig because your Socket 7 rig is already done, except for the CPU which seems to not cooperate with you.

You have the black MII? I thought those were pretty uncommon, or at least much more uncommon than the gold and silver colored ones.
I only have 1 with the black color and it's probably dead because it's missing several pins.

Sorry its the gold top
www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/MII/Cyrix-MII-30 ... 2.9V).html

The only problem I have now is I don't the CPU fan cable to MB, the Pentium 1 has integrated heat sink. 🤣 I just can't win.

You should buy more CPU's 🤣
But on a more serious note, do you happen to have another motherboard you could try the Cyrix with?

Tetrium wrote:

You should buy more CPU's 🤣
But on a more serious note, do you happen to have another motherboard you could try the Cyrix with?

Yes a Pc Partner one that originially came with it, hard to find drivers for that one.

I have a feeling I may need to Clear the Cmos and update the bios. I found an old document on webarchive for the m571 saying you need an update on the bios to 3.0-3.2 version to work with Cyrix Mii. Its currently the original bios 1.xx. I will do that first but my issues don't stop.

I need a bootable usb or floppy disk to flash the rom. I don't have a usb drive at the moment just ordered one for $5 and as for the floppy well 3 of them are damaged. So it looks like this may go on for a bit longer than I thought. I will post on here as soon as i update the bios and see. What got me thinking it was the bios was the fact it says PR233 not 300gp. And inn windows it says 200mhz and it should be 231-233mhz.

The only game that's 3D that I got working with no issues has been Panzer Dragoon (Original disk for PC) but that's not 3dfx and it only needs 95mhz cpu

kalloggs40 wrote:

What got me thinking it was the bios was the fact it says PR233 not 300gp. And inn windows it says 200mhz and it should be 231-233mhz.

Perhaps you haven't jumpered it's multiplier correctly?

Tetrium wrote:

kalloggs40 wrote:

What got me thinking it was the bios was the fact it says PR233 not 300gp. And inn windows it says 200mhz and it should be 231-233mhz.

Perhaps you haven't jumpered it's multiplier correctly?

Maybe have a look at this

http://m571.com/m571/jumpers.htm

For JP5 I left them for 66mhz setttings,

But I haven't even checked JP8,JP7 I haven't even checked them 🤣 omg, I will have to do that when I get home.

That could be the issue thanks

I think your right I remember it was set to 2.5 and should be 3.5 oh my so its currently at around 165mhz

Tetrium wrote:

The MII was never a great performer for games due to it's not so great FPU performance. Iirc some games needed to be patched, bu […]
Show full quote

kalloggs40 wrote:

So is cyrix really that bad at gaming? Or something is wrong?

The MII was never a great performer for games due to it's not so great FPU performance. Iirc some games needed to be patched, but I think it was Swaaye who mentioned this to me.

Could you list the hardware used, your motherboard, graphics card, FSB and CPU multiplier settings etc, including the exact model of your Cyrix chip and the voltage it is run with and what you cool it with?
Your Cyrix chip is likely to be one of the 2.9v ones, which had trouble scaling and needed to be kept cool as it ran relatively hot, but there are several variants and some of those even have a lower CPU speed that similarly rated chips (225MHz to 233MHz I think on different FSB's?).

Comparing the system requirements to the actual speed of your chip, you're trying to run games with which your CPU should already have trouble with.
Some boards were better suited for the Cyrix chips btw (linear burst comes to mind, which is unsupported bu Intel chipsets).

... they're actually not that slow. You want slow, try a 200MHz K6(1). A 233MHz Cyrix scores about 53.2fps in GL_Quake with a voodoo 2. It should manage at least a 25-30 fps in the games you mentioned, if not more - especially with the savage 4.

kanecvr wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

The MII was never a great performer for games due to it's not so great FPU performance. Iirc some games needed to be patched, bu […]
Show full quote

kalloggs40 wrote:

So is cyrix really that bad at gaming? Or something is wrong?

The MII was never a great performer for games due to it's not so great FPU performance. Iirc some games needed to be patched, but I think it was Swaaye who mentioned this to me.

Could you list the hardware used, your motherboard, graphics card, FSB and CPU multiplier settings etc, including the exact model of your Cyrix chip and the voltage it is run with and what you cool it with?
Your Cyrix chip is likely to be one of the 2.9v ones, which had trouble scaling and needed to be kept cool as it ran relatively hot, but there are several variants and some of those even have a lower CPU speed that similarly rated chips (225MHz to 233MHz I think on different FSB's?).

Comparing the system requirements to the actual speed of your chip, you're trying to run games with which your CPU should already have trouble with.
Some boards were better suited for the Cyrix chips btw (linear burst comes to mind, which is unsupported bu Intel chipsets).

... they're actually not that slow. You want slow, try a 200MHz K6(1). A 233MHz Cyrix scores about 53.2fps in GL_Quake with a voodoo 2. It should manage at least a 25-30 fps in the games you mentioned, if not more - especially with the savage 4.

I know.
I only once used an MII chip (did kinda the same thing Feipoa did with his MII PR400, slight overclock to 300MHz) and ran SuperPi with it and iirc it was actually reasonably similar to Intel's Pentium.
Besides, I only mentioned it wasn't a great performer, which it isn't when it comes to gaming.

I can't seem to find my actual SuperPi results of that CPU though, I seen it a month ago when I was looking for something else 🤣

Your choice of graphics card is bad for a Cyrix Setup.
A Savage 4 requires CPU Power. A S3 Virge is a Decellerator.

Get a Voodoo if you really plan to play 3D Games on it.

I basically want to play 3dfx games, as I have a Voodoo 1 12mb card on the way from ebay.

Ok you got it.

kanecvr wrote:

... they're actually not that slow. You want slow, try a 200MHz K6(1). A 233MHz Cyrix scores about 53.2fps in GL_Quake with a vo […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote:

The MII was never a great performer for games due to it's not so great FPU performance. Iirc some games needed to be patched, bu […]
Show full quote

kalloggs40 wrote:

So is cyrix really that bad at gaming? Or something is wrong?

The MII was never a great performer for games due to it's not so great FPU performance. Iirc some games needed to be patched, but I think it was Swaaye who mentioned this to me.

Could you list the hardware used, your motherboard, graphics card, FSB and CPU multiplier settings etc, including the exact model of your Cyrix chip and the voltage it is run with and what you cool it with?
Your Cyrix chip is likely to be one of the 2.9v ones, which had trouble scaling and needed to be kept cool as it ran relatively hot, but there are several variants and some of those even have a lower CPU speed that similarly rated chips (225MHz to 233MHz I think on different FSB's?).

Comparing the system requirements to the actual speed of your chip, you're trying to run games with which your CPU should already have trouble with.
Some boards were better suited for the Cyrix chips btw (linear burst comes to mind, which is unsupported bu Intel chipsets).

... they're actually not that slow. You want slow, try a 200MHz K6(1). A 233MHz Cyrix scores about 53.2fps in GL_Quake with a voodoo 2. It should manage at least a 25-30 fps in the games you mentioned, if not more - especially with the savage 4.

I have a feeling it could the Savage 4 drivers, games work fine in Software mode. There are no driver updates for the Savage 4 32mb PCI, the only ones I have found is for AGP. Are they the same?

I put a Pentium 200mhz mmx in today and it was slightly better, but the games freeze or run really slow in Open Gl mode. Could be the motherboard or Pci slot? Not sure I will have a look at it tomorrow 20/12/2015 and post again on here. I will also go and have a look at a Pentium 2 and 3 which are for sale for $50 each.

matze79 wrote:

Your choice of graphics card is bad for a Cyrix Setup. A Savage 4 requires CPU Power. A S3 Virge is a Decellerator. […]
Show full quote

Your choice of graphics card is bad for a Cyrix Setup.
A Savage 4 requires CPU Power. A S3 Virge is a Decellerator.

Get a Voodoo if you really plan to play 3D Games on it.

I basically want to play 3dfx games, as I have a Voodoo 1 12mb card on the way from ebay.

Ok you got it.

I tried on a Pentium 200mhz mmx today, same issue slightly better, but still no Open GL, I don't think its the Savage 4, it was brand new in the box from factory Diamond Stealth III S540. Possibly motherboard? PCI slot faulty? I will look into it and post again.

kalloggs40 wrote:

I put a Pentium 200mhz mmx in today and it was slightly better, but the games freeze or run really slow in Open Gl mode. Could be the motherboard or Pci slot? Not sure I will have a look at it tomorrow 20/12/2015 and post again on here. I will also go and have a look at a Pentium 2 and 3 which are for sale for $50 each.

Perhaps it's the motherboard, but it could also be something related with the driver or the Savage 4 itself (I think it may not be the easiest card to get working when you're working on your first retro rig?) or even the PSU.

kalloggs40 wrote:

matze79 wrote:

Your choice of graphics card is bad for a Cyrix Setup. A Savage 4 requires CPU Power. A S3 Virge is a Decellerator. […]
Show full quote

Your choice of graphics card is bad for a Cyrix Setup.
A Savage 4 requires CPU Power. A S3 Virge is a Decellerator.

Get a Voodoo if you really plan to play 3D Games on it.

I basically want to play 3dfx games, as I have a Voodoo 1 12mb card on the way from ebay.

Ok you got it.

I tried on a Pentium 200mhz mmx today, same issue slightly better, but still no Open GL, I don't think its the Savage 4, it was brand new in the box from factory Diamond Stealth III S540. Possibly motherboard? PCI slot faulty? I will look into it and post again.

Another possibility might be bad RAM? For this, theres a program that can run from a bootable CDROM but there used to be bootable floppies with the same program, Memtest. Basically you leave it running for a few hours perhaps (I never do more than 3 hours or so and usually just a single pass, especially if the single pass reveals lots of errors already).

$50 is quite a lot, but this might be the best deal for you if you need something quick.
Are the computers tested as working?
Personally I prefer the €10 untested ones so that even if many parts turn out to be defective, it'll be hard to make a loss, so to say

It's hard to troubleshoot a hardware problem if you have no extra spares to troubleshoot with, it's one of the reasons why many collectors end up with more parts than they actually use to build systems with.

The S3 Savage had also a lot of driver issues, try a different one 😀

i used a S3 Savage with my K6-2 500 in the past.. and it had a lot of issues.
at least Unreal Tournament in S3 Metal was running very well.
Finding a Driver that was stable was horrible.. OpenGL crashed often..
You could try using glsetup from quake 3 retail cd, it contains a good driver for the savage.