are there any games that are fpu-intensive, yet would run with 486dx or 387? i know quake is one of them, but its released in 1996 are are there earlier ones? well we know doom and build engines don't use much fpu, if any.
Sim City 2000 uses the FPU, not sure how much though.
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I'd look into simulation games. I think that Falcon 3.0 and TFX could use FPU, but it was not required.
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Yes, Falcon 3.0 is the only game I can remember, before Quake, which could use an FPU, as an option.
It sped up quite a bit on my 386SX-16 with an IIT387.
It also had support for EMS, which sped up the in-game videos a lot (if you had REAL EMS that is, like my 386SX-16 did, with a NEAT chipset. Using EMM386 was very slow).
i am talking about those that demands the presence of a fpu, just like autodesk 3ds(not a game though).
wrote:i am talking about those that demands the presence of a fpu, just like autodesk 3ds(not a game though).
Don't know of any. Didn't make sense, because FPUs were very expensive, and hardly anyone had an FPU, especially not people who were mainly interested in gaming.
Quake is one of the first, since by that time, 486DX or better was commonplace, and FPU was quite standard.
There are 2 reasons why 486-oriented games such as Doom and Descent don't use the FPU:
1) When not requiring an FPU, the game can still run on a fast 386 as well, so larger market.
2) The FPU in the 486 is very slow. Most calculations, even complex 3d rendering, is simply faster when done with fixedpoint math on the CPU rather than using the FPU.
It just wasn't very interesting for gaming in general.
wrote:i am talking about those that demands the presence of a fpu, just like autodesk 3ds(not a game though).
Actually early programs that use floating point calculations embed an software emulation layer for the case that that there is no FPU present. So the programs works even if you don't have an FPU. It is also possible to load TSRs that do this emulation or use Windows 3.x which brings it's own FPU emulation DLL (win87em.dll).
So there is no actual demand for an FPU, it just runs faster if you have a real one.
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wrote:It is also possible to load TSRs that do this emulation or use Windows 3.x which brings it's own FPU emulation DLL (win87em.dll).
Yes, this is possible on 286 and newer FPUs.
x87 instructions will generate a software interrupt, which will trigger the emulator.
On 8088/8086 this is not possible, so software for FPU is compiled with the interrupt instructions as a prefix for the x87 instruction.
This means the emulator is always called. If an FPU is detected, the emulator will patch out the interrupt instructions when they are called, so the x87 instructions will run directly on the FPU.
wrote:Actually early programs that use floating point calculations embed an software emulation layer for the case that that there is no FPU present. So the programs works even if you don't have an FPU. It is also possible to load TSRs that do this emulation or use Windows 3.x which brings it's own FPU emulation DLL (win87em.dll).
So there is no actual demand for an FPU, it just runs faster if you have a real one.
yeah whatever, some developers may purposefully detect the presence of fpu, and refuse to run if its absent. i think thats what 3ds did.
