Re: Looking to build high-end 486 - any suggestions?

Posted on 2015-03-13, 13:49

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does it have to be a real 486, or just a 486-motherboard with whatever CPU? Because the Pentium 83 overdrive is by far your fastest option for a 486-board. Also your only chance of playing Quake properly. I've seen on some posts that your Pentium Overdrive CPU's can be a bit troublesome (in terms …

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Re: Looking to build high-end 486 - any suggestions?

Posted on 2015-03-13, 06:55

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I agree, besides that the only thing I wanna build a 486 for is DOS games and Windows 3.x games [and just because I can], i'd like SVGA modes too for some games if at all possible. The Dos Time Machine is nice and all but it just don't "feel" the same, just like how emulation definately IMHO don't …

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Re: Looking to build high-end 486 - any suggestions?

Posted on 2015-03-12, 22:51

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've actually build up 2 high end 486 machines and, believe or not, am still tweaking it (memory, sound card, graphics card and CPU) to find the optimal solution. However, to due to the lesser availibility of some "brand names", it did take me some time to find those components. There are quite a …

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Cyrix DRx² CPU's - how they perform in comparsion to other 486 CPU's

Posted on 2015-03-12, 20:20

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was wondering how either a Cyrix DRx²25/50 or a Cyrix DRx²33/50 CPU performs in comparsion to your Cyrix 486DLC-33 & Cyrix 486DLC-40 CPU's as well as your Intel & AMD DX-33 CPU's? With which competing CPU's would these two CPU's be more or less on par with? Since these two CPU's do not come with …

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Re: Planning a retro PC build

Posted on 2015-03-11, 20:51

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've tried a couple of years back to build just one retro PC that would suit all my needs in terms of games from the late 80's right up to the point when DOS (and to an extend Win9x) games became obsolete. After hours of playing around and testing, I realised that it was becoming quite a challenge …

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Re: What's a good Pentium III Socket 370 Motherboard with 98SE Support?

Posted on 2015-03-09, 20:58

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by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

idspispopd wrote: GA-6VXC7-4X sound similar to GA-6VTXE, mainly the chipset is older, no Tualatin support. True, the GA-6VXC7-4x uses the Via Apollo Pro 133A chipset and the last BIOS update was dated 2002/02/26. GA6VTXE has a later BIOS revision dated 2003/03/12.

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Re: most hardware demanding dos game?

Posted on 2015-03-07, 09:05

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tunnel B1 (not a very well known game) that has 16-bit colours video mode requires quite a fast Pentium based CPU to run smoothly. Problem is that this game doesn't support 3D hardware (all rendering is done in software). Basically, any SVGA (640x480 or higher) based DOS game requires a Pentium CPU …

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Re: What's a good Pentium III Socket 370 Motherboard with 98SE Support?

Posted on 2015-03-07, 08:52

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are VIA Apollo Pro / Apollo Pro 133 boards with ISA as well. Also have a look at the Gigabyte GA-6VXC7-4X. It supports up to 4x AGP and also has one ISA Slot, should you wish to install an ISA sound card. The latter is also a great option for MS-DOS Mode, if you still have a mid 90's DOS …

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Re: Windows 95 full chip requirements?

Posted on 2015-03-07, 08:38

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by jesolo

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Scali wrote: Edit: Come to think of it, it's not THAT theoretical: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Inboard_386 I wonder if anyone ever tried to run Win95 on that 😀 Theoretically, it should be possible but, only if you have the minimum required 4 MB of RAM installed.

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Re: End of the line

Posted on 2015-03-05, 22:43

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by jesolo

in Milliways

in Milliways

I understand why you would want to part with most of these cards. I've also been collecting PC parts (cases, motherboards, sound cards, graphics cards, etc.) to a point where most of these are packed away in boxes. At first I started out just building up one or two nice retro PCs for myself but, …

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Re: Windows 95 full chip requirements?

Posted on 2015-03-04, 20:50

by

by jesolo

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

I would recommend at least a 486DX-33 or higher. Installing on a 386DX, as stated in earlier posts, is going to be very slow and is actually not optimal for any productive use. Also, although 4 MB RAM is the absolute stated minimum, Windows 95 will (in some cases) refuse to boot if you install any …

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Re: Soundblaster 32 PnP (8MB) or Soundblaster AWE64Gold (4MB)

Posted on 2015-02-26, 20:51

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

İf your only problem is having higher memory, you can always use this for AWE64: http://simmconn.tripod.com/ I have one on each of my AWE64s, and it simply works :happy: I actualy bought a Simmconn late last year. Paid for it on Paypal and it was in my mailbox within 2 weeks. Plugged a 16 MB simm …

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Re: 486sx cpus great for dos gaming?

Posted on 2015-02-26, 20:08

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 486slc I had in 1993. Really sucked at games from 1993 and onwards. On the other hand, it was a really shitty repack of the 80386 cpu. It was actully a "shitty" repack of a 486 cpu. Internally 486slc/dlc are 486. The 486SX has the same bus as the DX, unless you are thinking about the 386sx or I …

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Re: 486sx cpus great for dos gaming?

Posted on 2015-02-26, 19:42

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did manage to play the entire first episode of Doom on a 486DLC-40... Though I used it as an upgrade to a 386DX-40 and already had a very fast motherboard and graphics card, my motherboard also supports the Hidden Refresh and such. As a result, I rather like the 486DLC.. The very first PC I …

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Re: 486sx cpus great for dos gaming?

Posted on 2015-02-25, 21:12

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Whether a 486SX 25 is a great DOS game CPU or not depends a lot on the game selection. It isn't going to be much fun with games beyond 1992/1993. This was the 486 budget box favorite. As everyone else said, copros don't matter until ~1996. Games that really need copros don't run very well on any …

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Re: Turbo switch functionality on high end 486 & early Pentium 1 systems

Posted on 2015-02-17, 21:21

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As unstable as that crappy motherboard was, I don't remember the turbo switch ever causing any problems, but I rarely had any reason to use it other than curiosity. I must admit, I also rarely use the turbo switch functionality on my 486 machine. Most of the DOS games I play are from the late 80's …

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Re: Turbo switch functionality on high end 486 & early Pentium 1 systems

Posted on 2015-02-15, 19:13

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Indeed, the classic turbo switch just switches the clockspeed. On early 8088 machines you could generally switch it back to 4.77 MHz, so you'd get more or less the same speed as the original IBM PC/XT. On 286/386/486, it usually switches back to something like 8 MHz, which should make it more …

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Re: Turbo switch functionality on high end 486 & early Pentium 1 systems

Posted on 2015-02-15, 18:50

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep, the Turbo functionality is enhanced by other methods of slowing down, e.g. disabling caches, waitstates, FSB and Multipliers. And with combinations of these, I can take a 200MHz P54C Pentium down to a fast 286, 386, 486 and Pentium - very flexible. That is true but, can sometimes become a …

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Re: Turbo switch functionality on high end 486 & early Pentium 1 systems

Posted on 2015-02-15, 12:01

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've never found turbo mode (or de-turbo I guess) to be useful, particularly for faster CPUs (> 486DX 66). It's just not slow enough, or it's unstable. I must admit, based on benchmark tests with Norton Sysinfo 8.0, Landmark 2.0 and NSSI 0.60 (not real world CPU performance), for those CPU's that …

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Re: Turbo switch functionality on high end 486 & early Pentium 1 systems

Posted on 2015-02-15, 10:58

by

by jesolo

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Jesolo , I also have the sv2gx4 with an amd 5x86. Turbo switch working here. That's good to hear. The conclusion I can therefore draw is that the turbo switch functionality has to do with the motherboard and/or chipset and not the actual CPU. Just as a matter of interest. What CPU speed are you …

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