Re: VLB IDE cache controllers, benchmark

Posted on 2016-02-11, 20:17

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am looking forward to your results with a modern SCSI drive on VLB vs. modern IDE on VLB. I have been wondering if using an Ultra160 SCSI drive on my AHA-2842A would have any benefit over a generic IDE VLB controller with modern ATA-133 drive.

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Re: Top 5 hardest retro builds

Posted on 2016-02-11, 02:06

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

1. PGA-132 386 system wih a Ti486SXL - L1 properly enabled, DMA SCSI, and Windows 3.11. 2. Stable IBM 5x86-133/2x with 128 MB RAM. 3. Macintosh SE/30. Those damn integrated CRT's always have problems with their analogue board. 4. VLB 486 with SCSI. I do not have problems with Adaptec VLB SCSI with …

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Re: The Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison

Posted on 2016-02-08, 04:44

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try a Biostar MB-8433UUD or Luckystar LS-486E.

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Re: The Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison

Posted on 2016-02-07, 19:03

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I do not know of any 486 motherboard which was designed to work with a 60-66 MHz FSB. My Shuttle HOT-433 boards also are unable to run reliably with a 66 MHz FSB. Initial tests indicated that 60 MHz seemed OK. Of the two examples with reliable 66 MHz FSB operation, the board designs did not …

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Re: What is memory interleaving?

Posted on 2016-02-05, 18:12

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

alexanrs, thank you for sharing this. I am looking forward to testing it. I was unable to locate the downloadable file from that website, but located it here, http://www.georgebreese.com/net/dl0/venabler_v015.zip

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Re: What is memory interleaving?

Posted on 2016-02-04, 07:46

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by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I do not beleive SiS 496 or UMC 8881 PCI-based chipsets use DRAM interleaving; they use cache interleaving though. Some 386 chipsets use DRAM interleaving, but I forget exactly which. I want to say VLSI Topcat and maybe the SiS Rabbit, but I do not feel like digging through the datasheets.

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Re: The Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison

Posted on 2016-02-01, 22:43

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You have a few options, however I do not know exactly what speed equivalent they are. 1) Turbo button 2) L2 disable 3) L1 disable

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Re: The Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison

Posted on 2016-02-01, 19:18

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If the Intel DX2 is using write-back cache, I would guess the Intel DX2 is the faster configuration.

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Re: Cyrix 5x86 120(FSB40,60) 150MHz(FSB50) Speedsys result

Posted on 2016-01-30, 20:54

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It ran DOS well, not Windows. After a few hours of abuse, that particular chip died. I had chips to burn, so it was not much of a loss. That screenshot is from several years ago.

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Re: Cyrix 5x86 120(FSB40,60) 150MHz(FSB50) Speedsys result

Posted on 2016-01-30, 11:47

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Attached are my IBM 5x86c-150 results. Were you able to load Windows? What about run the Quake timedemo? What motherboard are you using? Filename IBM-5x86c-150-Speedsys_1.png File size 12.44 KiB Views 900 views Filename IBM-5x86c-150-Speedsys_2.png File size 9.92 KiB Views 900 views

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Re: LuckyStar LS486E rev.C2 and Cyrix 5x86@133

Posted on 2016-01-30, 09:53

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Actually, you can use CCR0, bit 6 to alter the caching scheme of the Cyrix/Ti 486DLC between direct-mapped and 2-way set-associative.

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Re: LuckyStar LS486E rev.C2 and Cyrix 5x86@133

Posted on 2016-01-30, 06:57

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Which PCI-based 486 boards use set-associative L2 cache? I have only seen this on some 386 boards - CHIPS Peak/DM 82C311 uses 2-way set associative and the SiS Rabbit (85C310) only uses 2-way set associative when the on-chipset 128 bytes of SRAM is used. If external cache is installed, then direct- …

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Re: Humour Thread: Outrageously priced retro gear for sale online

Posted on 2016-01-30, 01:53

by

by feipoa

in Milliways

in Milliways

Sutekh94 wrote: Meanwhile, in the land of overpriced floppy disks... Probably not even the latest version.

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Re: Humour Thread: Outrageously priced retro gear for sale online

Posted on 2016-01-29, 01:48

by

by feipoa

in Milliways

in Milliways

The selling point for me was the fat woman in the background of the second photo.

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Re: LuckyStar LS486E rev.C2 and Cyrix 5x86@133

Posted on 2016-01-27, 12:04

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is only a working hypothesis and I will not be offended if it turns out false, however, I would like to know the physical understanding behind the truth regardless. There is an overwhelming quantity of online literature concerning caching schemes and I believe what I said should theoretically …

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Re: LuckyStar LS486E rev.C2 and Cyrix 5x86@133

Posted on 2016-01-27, 10:44

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The TAG RAM stores the addresses of discrete address blocks in system memory and in the examples provided with the SiS 496 and UMC 8881, the TAG size is sufficient for the size of RAM installed. It is not an issue for these tests. We are dealing with the UMC 8881 and SiS 496 chipsets, both of which …

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Re: This is a bad idea right?

Posted on 2016-01-27, 06:15

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, that sounds familiar now. I remember I replied, "I don't even know what meth is. So can I buy the ISO?"

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Re: LuckyStar LS486E rev.C2 and Cyrix 5x86@133

Posted on 2016-01-27, 05:19

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I also have 128 MB of RAM. It takes 1024 KB to cache all that RAM in write-back mode. So are you saying that, 1024 KB WB cache + 128 MB RAM is faster than, say, 256 KB WB cache + 32 MB RAM? Does that make sense? In both cases, the entire quantity cache is needed to cache the stated quantity of RAM. …

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Re: Phil's Ultimate VGA Benchmark Database Project

Posted on 2016-01-27, 05:02

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd say it's more unusual the performance wouldn't at least somewhat increase with more cache as more code fits in a very fast L2. But it also depends on applications how large is the essential code and 256KB might be enough already. 3DBench is interesting in this case. About the installed memory …

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Re: This is a bad idea right?

Posted on 2016-01-27, 04:58

by

by feipoa

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Isopropanol, isopropyl, IPA, ISO (all the same) can be purchased at your pharmacy on the shelves. I get it in a jumbo pack from Costco Canada. When I used to live closer to downtown, I couldn't find IPA anywhere on the selves. I went to ask the pharmacist where it was and he said that they keep it …

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