I'm about to perform some tests on a hybrid 3/486 motherboard that I recently acquired.
However, my previous board (that sadly died a couple of years ago) didn't want to work with my S3 805 VLB graphics card.

As I recall, some users have reported faster graphics performance, but I think the 386 CPU will likely hamper overall performance.

I'm planning on running a couple of benchmarks with a 486DLC-40 and a 486DX-33 on the same board that I have to see how these two CPU's stack up against each other (both with ISA and VLB graphics cards). A 386, in my opinion, is just too slow and no L1 cache further limits performance.

I'll post my results soon.

Thanks!

You are touching on one of my personal projects.

Currently I have around 18 motherboards that take a 386 and also support VLB. Admittedly some are doubles and not including them it is actually more like 12 different types.

Time is an issue for me, but I have been slowly working my way through them and will soon make a new thread of my findings.

386_junkie wrote:

You are touching on one of my personal projects.
Currently I have around 18 motherboards that take a 386 and also support VLB. Admittedly some are doubles and not including them it is actually more like 12 different types.
Time is an issue for me, but I have been slowly working my way through them and will soon make a new thread of my findings.

I'm looking forward to your findings.
However, the main purpose of my testing is to see how a 486DLC-40 and a 486DX-33 compare to each other, since I'm thinking of using either one of these as an entry level DOS PC (for older MT-32 based games).
I'm using this motherboard since it supports both CPU's and, considering that all the other components are the same, should therefore give me a better comparison between the two CPU's.

386_junkie wrote:

Currently I have around 18 motherboards that take a 386 and also support VLB.

🤣 🤣 🤣

Should be more than a handful of duplicate boards even when you have ALL FIVE different 386 capable boards with VLB slots 😵

@Topic: You get a 386DX40 from 16.6 to 18 fps in 3DBench when you use the fasted VLB card instead of a decennt ISA card. But with a DLC core, you get around 27 fps in 3DBench while 23 with ISA. So anything below a 486DLC40 isn't really worth the effort if you ask me.

I think someone got higher benchmark scores with a 386DX-40 using the EISA bus, from what I recall if you can get VLB working it wont make much if any difference at all.

Well, 2 fps more in 3dbench is not that bad in my opinion. It would be nice to know if the speed from CPU to the VLB graphic card is improved in benchmarks to know if actually the VLB bus is used as it would be with a 486 at its full capability.
I get 15,1 fps with 3dbench and 386DX40 with a CL-GD5429 ISA without bus overclock. Getting 18 fps would be quiet a lot!

Yes, I guess you should try some benchmark that tests raw read and write speed of VRAM. I believe the CGA Compatibility tester can do that. Or was it TOPBENCH? http://www.oldskool.org/pc/benchmark
It will tell you whether the VLB bus helps any or not. It could be that the bus is faster, but the 386 isn't fast enough to generate pixels in actual games at speeds exceeding ISA bus limits.

Yeah but maybe it had a bit more power to release beyond ISA limits, a frame for second is always a frame. 😁

dirkmirk wrote:

I think someone got higher benchmark scores with a 386DX-40 using the EISA bus, from what I recall if you can get VLB working it wont make much if any difference at all.

Yes 18.5 fps, it was with an ATI Mach 32 2MB VRAM EISA card inside the Compaq Systempro. With an ELSA Winner-1000 2MB VRAM EISA card, 3DBench spat out 17.5 fps; - The Systempro Project; The Build

Bear in mind, the Systempro only runs multi-cpu under supporting OS (NT 3.1, not Dos) so the above results are with a single 386DX40 only.

FGB wrote:

:lol: :lol: :lol: […]
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386_junkie wrote:

Currently I have around 18 motherboards that take a 386 and also support VLB.

🤣 🤣 🤣

Should be more than a handful of duplicate boards even when you have ALL FIVE different 386 capable boards with VLB slots 😵

@Topic: You get a 386DX40 from 16.6 to 18 fps in 3DBench when you use the fasted VLB card instead of a decennt ISA card. But with a DLC core, you get around 27 fps in 3DBench while 23 with ISA. So anything below a 486DLC40 isn't really worth the effort if you ask me.

Actually, there are more... and i'll happily share them with you.

The purpose of that project is to compare a spectrum of properties between each board correlate my findings, but with the various 386/VLB chip-sets mainly.

386SX wrote:

Hi,
did anyone tested the VLB mainboards supporting (also) the 386DX-40 with some fast VLB graphic cards? how much did it benefit from it? Wasn't VLB technology fixed for 486 only cpu or the 386 just works without any performance differences?
Thank

I've been playing around with this thing:

It's the board from the 386 build in my sig - I have to say VLB does make a difference overall - some games become very playable (Dune 2) and Windows GUI performance is increased to a level where the machine with a 40Mhz 386 CPU feels like a 486. The biggest performance increase can be seen when using VLB I/O cards. Unfortunately I don't have a 486 DLC yet (but I plan to get one) - using one of those, I'm sure the performance gap between ISA and VLB will be even more apparent.

kanecvr wrote:

I've been playing around with this thing: […]
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386SX wrote:

Hi,
did anyone tested the VLB mainboards supporting (also) the 386DX-40 with some fast VLB graphic cards? how much did it benefit from it? Wasn't VLB technology fixed for 486 only cpu or the 386 just works without any performance differences?
Thank

I've been playing around with this thing:

It's the board from the 386 build in my sig - I have to say VLB does make a difference overall - some games become very playable (Dune 2) and Windows GUI performance is increased to a level where the machine with a 40Mhz 386 CPU feels like a 486. The biggest performance increase can be seen when using VLB I/O cards. Unfortunately I don't have a 486 DLC yet (but I plan to get one) - using one of those, I'm sure the performance gap between ISA and VLB will be even more apparent.

Interesting! And what about Doom game?

When I did my tests on an opti 495SX board, I didn't detect much difference with an am386DX or a cx486DLC (SXL) between an ISA or VLB card of the same class (in my case, ATi Mach64 VRAM). However, with the IBM 486DLC2 and 486SLC2 (Alaris), there was a significant difference, especially in DOOM. Perhaps the "Panda" chipset handles VLB differently?
You said your 386 feels more like a 486 with the VLB card installed...which ISA card were you comparing to? I found the ISA based Mach32/64 cards also made my 386 windows experience a lot snappier.

kanecvr wrote on 2016-09-18, 13:06:

I've been playing around with this thing: […]
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386SX wrote:

Hi,
did anyone tested the VLB mainboards supporting (also) the 386DX-40 with some fast VLB graphic cards? how much did it benefit from it? Wasn't VLB technology fixed for 486 only cpu or the 386 just works without any performance differences?
Thank

I've been playing around with this thing:

It's the board from the 386 build in my sig - I have to say VLB does make a difference overall - some games become very playable (Dune 2) and Windows GUI performance is increased to a level where the machine with a 40Mhz 386 CPU feels like a 486. The biggest performance increase can be seen when using VLB I/O cards. Unfortunately I don't have a 486 DLC yet (but I plan to get one) - using one of those, I'm sure the performance gap between ISA and VLB will be even more apparent.

Sorry for reactivating this thread. I got the same mainboard like this in this post here. Now, i need a BIOS dump from the original Panda BIOS. Maybe someone has store it already and can help me.

Edit: I got the original BIOS dump.

386_junkie wrote on 2016-07-16, 18:18:

You are touching on one of my personal projects.
Currently I have around 18 motherboards that take a 386 and also support VLB. Admittedly some are doubles and not including them it is actually more like 12 different types.

Whoa man! Drooling over my keyboard! And that SystemPro is DREAM!
And so many 386 DX40 VLB motherboards you got!??!?!?! Do you sell one?

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2016-09-19, 05:43:

When I did my tests on an opti 495SX board, I didn't detect much difference with an am386DX or a cx486DLC (SXL) between an ISA or VLB card of the same class (in my case, ATi Mach64 VRAM). However, with the IBM 486DLC2 and 486SLC2 (Alaris), there was a significant difference, especially in DOOM. Perhaps the "Panda" chipset handles VLB differently?
You said your 386 feels more like a 486 with the VLB card installed...which ISA card were you comparing to? I found the ISA based Mach32/64 cards also made my 386 windows experience a lot snappier.

Now I can come together a Panda 386V Rev 1.0; Am386 DX/DXL-40 and Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 both VLB and ISA, so I thought I'd do a quick benchmark. First of all, Panda not uses an OPTi chipset, but uses ALi M1429/M1431 chipset (overpainted). The Panda 386V is the same as the Daewoo AL486V-D motherboard.
I have made benchmarks by Wolfenstein 3D timedemo (wolf3d_286.exe) 712 frames.
Panda 386V/386 DX-40 with ISA CL-GD5428: 20.8 FPS (Ticks: 2388) /there is no "AT BUS Clock" settings in bios
Panda 386V/386 DX-40 with VLB CL-GD5428: 35.0 FPS (Ticks: 1423)
Also I can measure difference on OPTi 495XLC (with the integrated Am386 DX-40) also:
EXP3406/386 DX-40 with ISA CL-GD5428: 27.3 FPS (Ticks: 1820) /AT BUS Clock is 40MHz /3
EXP3406/386 DX-40 with VLB CL-GD5428: 34.8 FPS (Ticks: 1431)

I remember using 40Mhz/3 AT BUS clock in BIOS back in the day when I had 386DX40 upgraded with 8MB RAM. I used to play Settlers 2, Command & Conquer, Lion King on it. It definitely made some games designed for 486 playable. Late 386s could handle faster AT bus fine. I wouldn't use VLB on 386 though as the benefit will be minimal as measured above.

I surely wouldn't call increase of 25+% minimal.