VOGONS


NexGen Nx586-P90

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First post, by elianda

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I finished? my Nx586 sytem and you can read about it here: http://retronn.de/imports/nexgen_nx586.html

Here is a preview pic:
new_case_side.jpg
Now dust off your NexGen systems for some comparison scores 😀.

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Reply 2 of 42, by Robert B

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Nice system, but the original case was nicer and better looking - IMHO 😁

It would mean more work to get the case back in shape but in the end I say it would be worth it.

You could scavenge the insides from better speakers and put them in the original case.

I like the whole configuration. Congrats!

P.S. you have a good webpage there 😁 with lots of info and pictures.

Reply 3 of 42, by oerk

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Very nice! It shows that you have put a lot of thought into this rather special system.

It would mean more work to get the case back in shape but in the end I say it would be worth it.

Too late! 😎

I'm happy to report that the old ASI case is now running a K5, pretty much an exact copy of the system I had in '96/'97 😀. I've rebuilt the missing button from acrylic. Internally it was in pretty nice condition anyway. I'm super happy about it, thanks again Michael!

Reply 4 of 42, by elianda

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Robert B wrote:
Nice system, but the original case was nicer and better looking - IMHO :D It would mean more work to get the case back in shape […]
Show full quote

Nice system, but the original case was nicer and better looking - IMHO 😁
It would mean more work to get the case back in shape but in the end I say it would be worth it.
You could scavenge the insides from better speakers and put them in the original case.
I like the whole configuration. Congrats!

P.S. you have a good webpage there 😁 with lots of info and pictures.

Thanks for the comment. The main problem with internal speakers is that they are useless when the computer is setup at exhibitions. The max. achievable volume of the small speakers is so low, that you basically hear nothing.
Also the threshold of deciding to refurbish an old case when there is a 'good case' available is high. On the other hand the case was not disposed, but oerk used it for a new system.

Yeah into the web page went already quite some work.

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Reply 5 of 42, by Robert B

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oerk wrote:

I'm happy to report that the old ASI case is now running a K5, pretty much an exact copy of the system I had in '96/'97 😀. I've rebuilt the missing button from acrylic. Internally it was in pretty nice condition anyway. I'm super happy about it, thanks again Michael!

FULL REBUILD/BUILD LOG or it didnt happen 😁

Reply 6 of 42, by oerk

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Robert B wrote:
oerk wrote:

I'm happy to report that the old ASI case is now running a K5, pretty much an exact copy of the system I had in '96/'97 😀. I've rebuilt the missing button from acrylic. Internally it was in pretty nice condition anyway. I'm super happy about it, thanks again Michael!

FULL REBUILD/BUILD LOG or it didnt happen 😁

OK, fine, here it is 😁
Oerk's K5 in multimedia case

Been meaning to do that anyway...

Not to hijack this thread any further.

Reply 7 of 42, by feipoa

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Well this is a rare build. Maybe the only NexGen system fully setup on Vogons? I'd really like to see a setup with the Nx586 FPU, which is even rarer.

Did you find that Ensoniq with the daughter card? And why are there so many additional ports on the card? 3x IDE and a floppy?

How did you ensure that the S3 Vision864 2MB runs well with zero wait states? Seems like I always have stability issues on my 486SXL-40 system with ISA graphic cards having 0 WS. I recall only the junky Trident cards working reliably with 0ws.

What would you say this system is equivalent to performance-wise? Intel 486DX4-100?

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 8 of 42, by elianda

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feipoa wrote:

Well this is a rare build. Maybe the only NexGen system fully setup on Vogons? I'd really like to see a setup with the Nx586 FPU, which is even rarer.
Did you find that Ensoniq with the daughter card? And why are there so many additional ports on the card? 3x IDE and a floppy?

Yes it is the Elite, so it has the Effect Processor daughter board. The connectors are IDE/Matsushita/Mitsumi/Sony CD-ROM.

How did you ensure that the S3 Vision864 2MB runs well with zero wait states? Seems like I always have stability issues on my 486SXL-40 system with ISA graphic cards having 0 WS. I recall only the junky Trident cards working reliably with 0ws.

I tried basically all VLB graphics cards I own in this system. Here is an overview of the working ones:

ET4000W32i (VESA 1.0)

3DBench2
1 WS 65.3
2 WS 63.1
3 WS 60.8
4 WS 58.7

1 WS:
PCP VGA 17.5
PCP 101 ? (no VESA 1.2)

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 3719 1810
16 7440 3588
32 14881 7034

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 3719 1809
16 7438 3586
32 14882 7023

2 WS:
PCP VGA 17.4

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 3409 1810
16 6818 3587
32 13641 7031

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 3409 1809
16 6818 3584
32 13636 7020


ALG2228

3DBench2
50 MHz 60.8 -> 3 WS
33/40 MHz 63.1 -> 2 WS

2 WS:

PCP VGA 17.4
PCP 101 6.5

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 3409 1554
16 6818 3108
32 13641 6217

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 3409 1524
Show last 110 lines
16  6818  3049
32 13636 6101


S3 86C805

3DBench2
65.6 -> 1 WS?

PCP VGA 16.6
PCP 101 5.9

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 3719 1364
16 7440 2728
32 8614 3614

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 2044 1406
16 4087 2812
32 8174 5624


SPEA VEGA CL-GD5424

60.8 -> 3 WS
PCP VGA 16.5
PCP 101 5.9

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 3147 1521
16 6294 3043
32 8183 4051

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 3146 1509
16 6293 3018
32 8182 4019

Trident TGUI9400CXI

O/C
?/? NI/I ?/+APS ?/FAST CLK ?/?
J1 J8 J7 J10 JX7
1-2 C O O C

3DBench2 52.8
PCP VGA 15.8
PCP 101 6.1

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 2383 1051
16 4768 2103
32 6059 2797

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 2406 1498
16 4812 2997
32 9628 5994

Stealth 64 VRAM 86C968

3DBench2
65.6 -> 1 WS

PCP VGA 17.5
PCP 101 6.6

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 3719 1308
16 7440 2616
32 14881 3721

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 3719 1406
16 7438 2068
32 14882 2716

DOOM: 2134 Gametics, 2087 Realtics

miro CRYSTAL 20SD 86C864

3DBench2
65.6 -> 1 WS

PCP VGA 17.5
PCP 101 6.6 (banked), with LFB got black screen

VIDSPEED 320x200x256
width write read
8 3719 1272
16 7440 2546
32 14881 3484

VIDSPEED 640x480x256 VESA banked
width write read
8 3719 1288
16 7438 2576
32 14882 5154

DOOM: 2134 Gametics, 2080 Realtics

Numbers are in fps and kB/s respectively.

To be really precise: The numbers indicate that no card runs at 0 WS setting on the card itself. There are cards where you can set 1 WS to 4 WS on the card, like on the ET4000W32i, other cards have no jumper at all. However the benchmark results with e.g. identical numbers over a wide range of cards in 3Dbench 1.1c for a set WS and different cards make it possible to deduce the actual WS of the cards without jumpers. This is marked as "fps -> x WS" at the 3DBench scores.
The 0 WS means that I didn't added more WS using the mainboard BIOS. So the lowest setting means 1 WS card, 0 WS BIOS, 42 MHz VLB bus. I have not a single VLB card that allows to jumper 0 WS explicitly. From the scores you can see that even the S3 86C968 runs with 1 WS.
Cards that did not worked with the 42 MHz are the S3 Trio32 from miro and the S3 Trio64. I have not conducted further testing on a 33 MHz system to find out the actual WS setting of the Trios.

You talk about ISA WS, the S3 Vision in the NexGen system is VLB. (or do you mean VLB?)

Stability testing:
First of all of course the usual DOS games/benchmarks and even high resolutions looking for transfer artefacts in the image. The next stage is Windows 95 where all the 2D GUI acceleration function like BitBlt are used as well. I did various benchmarks, especially to find out the fastest DirectX driver for the S3 card with ZDWinbench. I also took the burden and went down to hell several times to kill Diablo which sums up to a character of level 27 in normal difficulty. I didn't had stability issues.

What would you say this system is equivalent to performance-wise? Intel 486DX4-100?

This is really difficult to answer. It seems to me, that the CPU can be as fast as a POD83 if the core gets optimal sorted code. With non-optimal code the performance can drop below a 486DX2-66 on average. So a 486DX4-100 might be a good approximation on average.
I have not a single program where the code is optimized for Nx586, where I could see the optimal case.

I mean Duke3D was recompiled for 386, maybe the compiler has Nx586 as target as well? Could be worth a try.
Also the Nx586 can be switched to run native RISC86 code.

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Reply 9 of 42, by Anonymous Coward

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Are there any nexgen boards that have FPU sockets? I'm really curious what the FPU performance was like, given that Intel abandoned discrete FPUs in the 486 generation due to bottlenecks.

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Reply 10 of 42, by feipoa

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elianda, interesting means of deducing the wait states.

I was indeed referring to my ISA cards - none of them would work with 0ws except for a crummy Trident ISA card. For faster cards, they would show some instability or artifacts w/ 0ws. If the system is not stable, I don't give much credence to the results.

Sounds like a basic Intel DX4-100 would be the preferred system here because few, if anyone, was optimising code for the Nx586. Without an onboard FPU, having an approximate P83 in ALU performance is not all that desirable.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 11 of 42, by elianda

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Indeed for common use a regular 486 or low end pentium would be preferred. Still the Nx586 is quite interesting.

It's a bit OT, but how do you get the actual ISA WS?
In the BIOSes I have there is generally no option. Sometimes an additional WS can be set and the ISACLK.

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Reply 12 of 42, by Tetrium

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Impressive Elianda, and very nice to see one of these in working condition. I can't remember having seen any NexGen hardware in the flesh, except for someone having a single NexGen CPU with most of its pins bent and he wouldn't part with it while still being alive 🤣
And I certainly never even seen or read about a working NexGen rig afaicr, even that AXPpci was more common.

Very interesting and nicely done 😀.

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Reply 13 of 42, by sliderider

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Anonymous Coward wrote:

Are there any nexgen boards that have FPU sockets? I'm really curious what the FPU performance was like, given that Intel abandoned discrete FPUs in the 486 generation due to bottlenecks.

I've seen press photos of them but I don't think they ever actually saw production before Nexgen was acquired by AMD. I have also never seen a standalone FPU chip, not even on any of the sites devoted to old CPU's. The only Nexgen FPU's I have ever seen were Nx586 chips with the FPU onboard. I have 2 ISA motherboards and 1 PCI motherboard here that I have been holding for a while until I decide to either resell or build them and none of them has an FPU socket on them.

Reply 14 of 42, by ph4nt0m

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Nx587 exists, but it's rather an engineering sample. None of the mainboards produced for Nx586 in large numbers had a coprocessor socket.

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Reply 15 of 42, by Anonymous Coward

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Weird. I ddidn't know that those FPUs were SPGA.

I think I heard the only boards that have the socket are development boards.

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Reply 17 of 42, by feipoa

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I've run a quick test on mine and it also shows some odd timings in Speedsys.

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Reply 18 of 42, by elianda

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You got the PCI board?

Also memory speed is notably faster.

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Reply 19 of 42, by feipoa

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Yea, PCI w/P110 CPU.

Its hard to trust the memory scores with all those peaks and valleys. I should see if other memory graph programs have this problem.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.