Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2025-04-15, 01:11

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by zyzzle

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

For FastDoom 1.1.4, I'll be consolidating all these small text snippets into a single file, which currently takes up around 14KB. I'm not using an additional WAD file because I want to avoid increasing RAM usage due to extra file indexing. Combining the small text files into one file is at least a …

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Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2025-04-14, 00:49

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by zyzzle

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

There are also possibly other ways to optimize the .exe files such as different compilation options and optimization levels and / or different compilers (Watcom produces smaller compiled .exes than DJGPP, for example). However, the focus on FastDOOM is *speed* not necessarily optimization, which …

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Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2025-04-13, 00:39

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by zyzzle

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Regarding v. 1.1.2 and 1.1.3, these are definite regressions in my mind. Why clutter up the directory with a /TEXT subdirectory? If these critical files are missing, there is now no way to exit FastDoom. In other words, it's broken now. If "saving 15 kb" is that important so that it breaks the …

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Re: SMR drives

Posted on 2025-04-12, 01:28

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by zyzzle

in Milliways

in Milliways

Well the same thing could be said for rubbish QLC SSD drives. They didn't use to exist. They exist now because companies are cheap and cater to lowest common denominator. Talk about selling a defective product. These drives (and SMR hard drives) are defective products which never should have been …

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Re: SMR drives

Posted on 2025-04-12, 00:30

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by zyzzle

in Milliways

in Milliways

It baffles my mind that people can actually justify SMR on any level. SMR is one of the absolute worst marketing devolutions of all time. It simply shouldn't exist. All spinning rust hard drive should be CMR. The only reason SMR exists is because the companies are cheap asses and foisted SMR upon us …

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Re: Is Windows LTSC a viable option for using Windows 10 safely after Microsoft drop their Windows 10 support?

Posted on 2025-04-07, 01:10

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by zyzzle

in Milliways

in Milliways

May Windows 10 LTSC be installed *over* an existing Windows 10 installation without re-formatting?

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-03-08, 02:43

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

No, it does not. What you described is exactly what NoLFB from Ken Silverman does. Instead MSKVBEF7 still enables LFB but only 1 video page so back buffers cannot be made in video RAM for double/triple buffering, only in system RAM. OK Thanks again for distinguishing. I'll try them all out, …

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-03-08, 02:33

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

As I have written before first you should try vid_nopageflip 1 . Restart is required in order vid_nopageflip changes to take effect. It does not activate VGA "bank switching mode" but disables the usage of multiple video RAM pages in LFB region thus forces usage of system RAM back buffers that can …

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-03-07, 05:31

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

@ zyzzle What types of bench results are you getting with your system and with what video card(s). Also, I have something in the works that may be very useful for VESA stuff. I'll post back here probably tomorrow evening about it if I have time. Sorry for the long delay in replying. All of the …

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Re: DOS on a modern PC

Posted on 2025-03-07, 01:44

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

But question is, is it really wrong? To my observation, C/C++ programmers tend to be ambitious like fighter jet pilots. They want to optimize code, they don't leave notes in their C code etc. Meanwhile, Basic and Pascal programmers are more problem-oriented. They also often use IDEs with on-line …

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Re: DOS on a modern PC

Posted on 2025-03-06, 05:34

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

My Intel 4th gen did a lot of things right. However the Intel iGPU was only suitable for VGA?. On Nvidia + AMD 1st gen Ryzen, things were pretty rough, I don't remember any game that played. Maybe Duke Nukem 3D, but that's it No, the onboard Intel GPU still supports VGA and VESA modes as of the 8th …

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Re: FastDoom. A new Doom port for DOS, optimized to be as fast as possible for 386/486 personal computers!

Posted on 2025-02-28, 05:02

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by zyzzle

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Yep, this release doesn’t add native hicolor or truecolor rendering; it simply converts the original 8bpp backbuffer to whatever bit depth the video card supports. I assume this also applies to newer NVIDIA RTX cards, though I haven’t tested it since I don’t have one. Thanks very much for having …

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-02-22, 22:57

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

Thanks. Going to try that now with the Quadro FX 4500. Was going to do some more testing last night but then the system would not post at all.. or rather, it was giving me weird video BIOS codes, one of which was no video card and the other was something to possibly do with console output. Tried …

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-02-21, 12:12

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

I suspect if you were to connect a 16x9 display, other VESA resolutions like 1920x1080 would magically appear. For 4x3 monitors, those listing of resolutions are impressive. Quadro FX 4500 even supports the vaulted, rarified 4x3 resolution of 2048x1536. Try RayeR's VESATEST, ver. 1.47, which I've …

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Re: Frontend for DOS mame

Posted on 2025-02-20, 13:51

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by zyzzle

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Thanks. 80x25 mode works well for me. No errors yet found. If I find any in future, I'll let you know, but this is outstanding work. Finally DOS MAME is turnkey - easy to just select a game and play.

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-02-20, 13:22

by

by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

Encouraging news. So your motherboard BIOS seems to support MTRRs and proper framebuffer, albeit with a standalone ATI card and not the stock Intel GPU. Quake is probably locking the max fps to your video refresh rate, which appears to be 60 fps. There are DOS programs which may modify refresh rate. …

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-02-20, 02:21

by

by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

Until someone offers a "universal VBE" utility (like the old Univbe) for "modern" GPUs, and, especially the modern borked / broken 16-bit code in the Intel video BIOSes of post-5th gen intel core systems, this is probably the best we'll get. Broadwell / Haswell is it for maximum video compatibility …

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Re: DOS on a modern PC

Posted on 2025-02-20, 02:10

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

You are welcome. I've found 5th Gen. to be best for DOS for many reasons. (See post on Single-threaded DOS performance and SVGA). Especially if you're using the built-in GPU from intel on the chip and its video bios. Until someone offers a "universal VBE" utility (like the old Univbe) for "modern" …

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-02-19, 03:37

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by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

Write combining is a CPU feature so the video card has nothing to do with its enabled/disabled state. Usually most BIOS did not set the proper WC state on MTRRs even when it mattered for DOS graphics performance. On more modern hardware the chances of MTRRs being set properly are even lower. But of …

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Re: Highest single threaded performance for Freedos baremetal with SVGA programming

Posted on 2025-02-19, 03:27

by

by zyzzle

in DOS

in DOS

What do you mean by "lucky" chip? One that overlocks well with little to no vcore increase. (lower temperature increase and less heat production). And incidently, I though when we're dealing with single-core performance, as bare metal DOS uniformly is running under, that raw CPU coreclock speed …

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