Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-12-18, 14:57

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked up the Diamond Viper V330 + original install CD-ROM for $1 (shipping was $13, though). My first 3D accelerator card was the STB Velocity 128, also a Riva 128 card. I finished Quake 2 and FF VII with it, so I have fond memories of it despite its flaws. I was intrigued by the Diamond card …

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Newest games on oldest hardware

Posted on 2016-12-18, 14:54

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, after using an old Barton config for sometime now, I definetely reconsidered these machines as "usable" still today. Obviosuly everything must be pushed to its limits for both hardware choices and with lighter possible software but with a little 'patience reconfiguration' I think they're just ok …

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Re: 486 FPU vs 387 ?

Posted on 2016-12-15, 17:46

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The fastest 387 FPU, the Cyrix FasMath 83C87DX, simply can't hold a candle to even a lower-clocked 486DX FPU. I used to own a FasMath on my Blue Lightning 486BL so I could testify that. A Weitek 3167 might be a bit of a different story, but unfortunately most programs outside of specific CAD …

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Re: 486 FPU vs 387 ?

Posted on 2016-12-15, 14:04

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

kixs wrote: 486 uses next generation FPU. It's only normal to be faster. Like Pentium runs in circles around 486 😉 Even nowdays after 20 years my ultimate 386DX-40 would probably still loose again an old friend's 486SX... 😒 😁 😁

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Re: 486 FPU vs 387 ?

Posted on 2016-12-15, 13:37

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, I'd like to know if the internal 486 FPU at same frequency is much or less good than the various 387 versions that were around back then. And for example in Quake, where I understand the 486 (as I tested on DX4-100) is not bad but far from the Pentium, is the FPU the main limitation of the 486 …

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Re: 486 FPU vs 387 ?

Posted on 2016-12-15, 13:36

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting, thank! Is it a problem of the dual 386 and 387 system or the fpu itself was redisgned to achieve that kind of speed boost?

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486 FPU vs 387 ?

Posted on 2016-12-15, 11:53

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, I'd like to know if the internal 486 FPU at same frequency is much or less good than the various 387 versions that were around back then. And for example in Quake, where I understand the 486 (as I tested on DX4-100) is not bad but far from the Pentium, is the FPU the main limitation of the 486 ( …

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2016-12-14, 22:27

by

by 386SX

in Milliways

in Milliways

Bought a Sempron 2650 AM1 Dual core 1,45Ghz 1MB L2. Lowest cpu to compare to older fast 32bit ones.

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2016-12-14, 22:20

by

by 386SX

in Milliways

in Milliways

Got this for tinkering around a little bit: http://i.imgur.com/IvP3oCfl.jpg Also waiting for an Orange Pi PC, similar device, but from China, cheaper, not as much software available. I have the first two versions. Considering how cheap wireless usb are I'd have liked more ram on board for the last …

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Re: 386DX, 4C387 FPU and Win 9x

Posted on 2016-12-13, 11:41

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

kixs wrote: Remove FPU and try again 😉 Otherwise a proper windows accelerator card makes all the difference. Soon I'm gonna try a web browser with it. 😁

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Re: 386DX, 4C387 FPU and Win 9x

Posted on 2016-12-13, 10:52

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is the FPU someway used by the os to the general tasks? This is perhaps against popular believe, but I think Windows since 3.1 does use the co-pro to speed up GDI drawing. I once saw this mentioned in an old computer magazine, where they explicitly stated that this was a major improvement over Win …

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Re: 386DX, 4C387 FPU and Win 9x

Posted on 2016-12-13, 10:50

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't think you can really do any better for hard disk controller. In the past some people used caching controllers, but since modern hard drives have so much cache of them, and because CF is so fast is seems to make the caching controller unnecessary. What *may* help is a controller that can do …

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Re: 386DX, 4C387 FPU and Win 9x

Posted on 2016-12-12, 23:33

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ah the controller is a Goldstar Prime 2C chipset with 1 IDE and 1 floppy.

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Re: 386DX, 4C387 FPU and Win 9x

Posted on 2016-12-12, 23:19

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

With enough memory, Windows accelerator VGA card and possibly CF card for HDD it will run fast. At least the OS by it self. I see you're using real HDD... so replacing it with CF card it will run way faster - more responsive. Otherwise as the ISA bus is the limit you can't do miracles. HDD transfer …

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Re: 386DX, 4C387 FPU and Win 9x

Posted on 2016-12-12, 22:08

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Now running Quake on the 386/387! 😁

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386DX, 4C387 FPU and Win 9x

Posted on 2016-12-12, 22:03

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, I am testing this config: Am386DX-40 IIT 4C387 40Mhz 256Kb 20ns cache 16Mb 60ns ram Eteq ET82C491 chipset mobo setting 0-2 WS Cirrus Logic CL-GD5429 1mb dram isa 512Mb Seagate Fast Ata ESS1688 isa I am impressed how "fast" the os is running! I am sure the GD5429 with the advanced Bitblt …

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Re: Athlon X4 550 vs 5350 APU

Posted on 2016-12-12, 17:26

by

by 386SX

in Milliways

in Milliways

Are you asking about purely comparing their merit's as CPUs? If you pair a GPU with the X4 550 but use the build in graphics of the 5250 then surely the build with the GPU will have the upper hand. However, if you were to use the same dedicated GPU regardless of the CPU it would be an extremely …

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Athlon X4 550 vs 5350 APU

Posted on 2016-12-12, 14:51

by

by 386SX

in Milliways

in Milliways

Hi, thinking to build something modern and cheap I bought a AM1 motherboard that support these dual and quad core Jaguar processors. Usually the best would be the 5350 or 5370 2,05/2.2ghz 2MB L2 quad core with R3 graphic integrated card, but I've seen there's also compatibility with the Athlon X4 …

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Re: So, like, does the K6 3+ 550mhz really exist?

Posted on 2016-12-11, 13:53

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am not sure. Perhaps an extraordinary cherry pick of the K6-III-450 series, or one of their last production runs with superior wafers and all the production issues worked out? Well, considering how hot the original K6-3 400 ran in my tests at 2,4v to be stable... well.. some really lucky …

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Re: So, like, does the K6 3+ 550mhz really exist?

Posted on 2016-12-11, 13:41

by

by 386SX

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here is a photo of a K6-III+ 550. http://www.chipdb.org/img-amd-amd-k6-3plus-550acr-375.htm For the K6+ series, I have only the K6-III+/450ACZ 2.0V, K6-III+/400ATZ 1.6V, and K6-II+/550ACZ 2.0V. There have been some III+ 500 and 550's for sale, but the seller wanted more than $100. For harder to …

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