Re: S3 Virge DX and GX memory

Posted on 2020-05-12, 05:44

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There is the Virge technical documents dated from 1996 august and it includes the GX in the copyright. http://www.bitsavers.org/components/s3/DB019-B_ViRGE_Integrated_3D_Accelerator_Aug1996.pdf https://github.com/bitrig/bitrig-xenocara/blob/master/driver/xf86-video-s3virge/src/s3v_driver.c Seems to …

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Re: S3D GLQuake - any real value in it?

Posted on 2020-01-13, 20:24

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Think of it as a slower Matrox Mystique. For earlier Directx 5 and earlier games, and 1994/5 games. I wouldn't call the Virge a slower Mystique because 3D on the Virge actually looked good. That is true. I do recall in a few games that programmed around the Virge limitations, it was pretty. True …

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Re: S3D GLQuake - any real value in it?

Posted on 2019-10-12, 02:15

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

There were multiple driver versions, some drivers are much *MUCH* faster than others. There were also a whole bag of tweaks. They worked a lot better on faster S3 versions. The very last S3 cards would play older games quite well. There are 3 directx to opengl wrappers. DX5 had no filtering, DX6 had …

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Re: 486 with EGA? (and other EGA related questions)

Posted on 2019-06-10, 04:47

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sim city definitely uses the 640x350x16 color mode. EGA modes were a pain in the arse to program with.. VGA became popular because it was easier to program.

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Re: 486 with EGA? (and other EGA related questions)

Posted on 2019-06-08, 07:00

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The win95 logo is 256 colour and I think uses palette cycling.. So only works on VGA and higher. You can hack some drivers to add CGA and EGA modes in the inf so you can have your desktop in 640x200 b&W if you really want. Win 3.x can use cga/ega as well There were some high res EGA cards and modes. …

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2019-03-25, 08:01

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

THese used I believe a custom asic, but they could be had with a cirrus logic VGA daughter board (because these don't do VGA otherwise). The MAC versions were highly desirable, and used to cost $1000+ (could be as much as $4000) when new.

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Re: A brief comparison of 386 FPUs

Posted on 2019-03-24, 05:24

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I wrote some quick basic code that benchmarked some FPU instructions, depending on the FPU make, some were twice as fast as others. Even though basic is quite a high level language and each math operation would be padded with a dozen other instructions, and NOP's as the whole compiler X87/X87 …

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Re: A brief comparison of 386 FPUs

Posted on 2019-03-22, 21:38

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 486 FPU isn't really anything magical, if Intel just disabled the entire interger core of a 486 and made it pin compatible with the 387, it would only be as fast as a Cyrix Fasmath. Perhaps not magical but the design did have an interesting feature - the FPU uses the integer ALU to speed up …

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Re: A brief comparison of 386 FPUs

Posted on 2019-03-22, 21:07

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

THere are some transcendental functions that can take hundreds of clock cycles that would be much faster (twice as fast) with a clocked doubled FPU, but most benchmarking software don't even execute those instructions. Before Quake the main uses of math co-processors were: 3D rendering (most …

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Re: A brief comparison of 386 FPUs

Posted on 2019-03-22, 10:00

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Why would they make a clock doubled FPU which isn't much faster than a Cyrix FasMath. What was the target CPU for the ULSI DX2 FPU? Because these clock doubled FPUs were never officially released (at least the ULSI one wasn't), details are pretty much non-existent. These are my three theories on …

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Re: A brief comparison of 386 FPUs

Posted on 2019-03-22, 01:37

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Quake doesnt need fast FPU, Quake needs pipelined one - ability to interleave instructions using zero cycle fxch register swaps. Afaik nothing x86 pre Intel Pentium did that, AMD caught up in late 1998 with CXT revision K6-2. Which is what really caught the clone cpu makers out, FPU's up to that …

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Re: Good place to get computer cases at.

Posted on 2019-03-21, 08:58

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AT or ATX? ATX cases are available everywhere, from your local computer store, to any online computer retailer. Easy. AT cases are now valuable commodities. Of course you could fit an AT motherboard into an ATX case, difficult but doable. Its even possible to fit a regular AT motherboard into a MATX …

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Re: A brief comparison of 386 FPUs

Posted on 2019-03-21, 08:04

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bravo! I love this, Feipoa.. You have a much more comprehensive collection than I have I only have the; Intel FasMath ULSI IIT No Weiteks :( However, I would recommend you look at finding a benchmark that gives you break downs of performance in specific areas, like Sin, Cos, Tan, floating point …

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Re: Something old and Something new (386 build)

Posted on 2018-08-30, 04:26

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Probably. Which means to get 256kb working I will most likely need to modify the board.. But 64kb and 128 kb both work, so maybe not. Maybe some one very clever programs the PAL's and solved this. Which gives me hope that 256kb could work. Not sure at this stage if its software or a hardware issue. …

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Re: Something old and Something new (386 build)

Posted on 2018-08-30, 01:45

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The Cache configuration is not easy, and I guess cache was a fairly new thing in PC's and usually configured at the integrator level. I still don't understand how they built my Peak board with no jumpers. I've learnt a lot about cache since starting this project, and I realized I was so ignorant of …

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Re: Something old and Something new (386 build)

Posted on 2018-08-28, 08:25

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

So just confirming your tags are 64kx4? Do you have a part number? I couldn't find anything in that at 12ns.. Once I write up the motherboard program you will be able to see what exactly the bios has set your timings to and what options are available. I didn't have much like with your bios on my …

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Re: 486 build advice ?

Posted on 2018-08-28, 08:20

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I want to build a 486 computer using only ISA cards. I purchased this NEW old Stock motherboard. I think it only supports 5v CPU's So I can use a 486dx-33 486dx-50 486dx-66 These are the Socket-3 CPU's I have on hand. What ram should I use for best performance and at what speed ? EDO or Fast page ? …

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Re: Something old and Something new (386 build)

Posted on 2018-08-28, 03:48

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Good to here you have the 256kb of cache working! What are your cache settings? How many bits are your tag ram? Yeh don't know what is going on with those crystals, they do get hot. Way hot, hotter than they should even if they are 3.3v ones. I might cut one open and see what is inside. Maybe they …

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Re: Something old and Something new (386 build)

Posted on 2018-08-20, 10:53

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Update.. I can't get the 115Mhz crystals to work either. No boot. Or the 87.5Mhz crystals. No boot. Not even bad booting noise. And I am sure I blew my two epson 110 mhz crystals as well. Which I was having problems with (They aren't in cans so in trying to get them working I think I inserted them …

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Re: Who on vogons has the largesst/most impressive collection?

Posted on 2018-08-14, 13:04

by

by Phido

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Where can I see the Artex collection? Here: https://1drv.ms/f/s!ArbMcC8Eb2J6gtshYn4vgvG29c5lQA & Here: https://1drv.ms/f/s!ArbMcC8Eb2J6hJdnYn4vgvG29c5lQA & Here: https://1drv.ms/f/s!ArbMcC8Eb2J6hJdohyO6SAHgQlkalw I'm like, that isn't that big of a collection. Then I realise I am only in the Packard …

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