Allrighty then.... They are of course bottlenecked by the CPU not being fast enough.
Then again. They are all fast enough for Duke3d and Doom.
So yeah... Numbers are just numbers in that light or context if you like.
I will do a tread whenever I have tested games on each card and say what my
final verdict are. As these cards seem to be mentioned a lot in the "best for dos"
question that keeps popping up from time to time. (Click image for larger one)

brostenen wrote:

Allrighty then.... They are of course bottlenecked by the CPU not being fast enough. Then again. They are all fast enough for Du […]
Show full quote

Allrighty then.... They are of course bottlenecked by the CPU not being fast enough.
Then again. They are all fast enough for Duke3d and Doom.
So yeah... Numbers are just numbers in that light or context if you like.
I will do a tread whenever I have tested games on each card and say what my
final verdict are. As these cards seem to be mentioned a lot in the "best for dos"
question that keeps popping up from time to time. (Click image for larger one)

DosBenchPCI-01.JPG

Thanks, looks good! But I think you duplicated the 320x200 numbers into 640x480 Quake for the CL and S3.

clueless1 wrote:

Thanks, looks good! But I think you duplicated the 320x200 numbers into 640x480 Quake for the CL and S3.

Nope...
They are the exact numbers I got. Have crosschecked my handwritten notes.
Because I ran each test on one card a time, I know these are the right numbers.
I think it is because they can deliver more, if they get more CPU power.

Finally got all I need to start building my mini-monster "mobile" Win98 station.

Selectabase 770 (small package, delivered yesterday, NIB - small box) and Selectadock III (large package, delivered today)

System assembled, Thinkpad 770 docked on top with lid closed

and with lid open

Booting and detecting devices; I had to supply the Video Features IV disk for Win95/98 which wasn't in the package (you are supposed to have it already, it came with the laptop originally)

Everything installed after a few reboots, now it's up and running.

So far all I have installed in the dock is a FDD. Probaly in the 5.25' bay next to it I will install a SCSI HDD. And for the slots in the back of the dock, definitely a video card and an ISA sound card, leaving a slot available for something else.

I wish I had a PCI V5-5500 to go with this system. The only one I have is AGP, and the dock doesn't provide an AGP slot (there are 2 pairs of shared ISA/PCI full-size, and one separate half-size PCI not shared)
Likely candidates for video from the cards I own:
TNT2 PCI
V3-2000 PCI
GF Fx 5200 PCI

Or possible use the on-board video (Trident PCI with 4MB VRAM) with a Voodoo2 in a PCI slot. 😀

As for sound, I'm thinking a Vortex2 and either a YMF718 or an ESS card in the remaining PCI and ISA respectively.

brostenen wrote:

Nope... They are the exact numbers I got. Have crosschecked my handwritten notes. Because I ran each test on one card a time, I […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote:

Thanks, looks good! But I think you duplicated the 320x200 numbers into 640x480 Quake for the CL and S3.

Nope...
They are the exact numbers I got. Have crosschecked my handwritten notes.
Because I ran each test on one card a time, I know these are the right numbers.
I think it is because they can deliver more, if they get more CPU power.

We are both right. 😀

The CL and S3 cards require VESA BIOS extensions for Quake 640x480. When you run Phil's benchmarks for 640x480 without a VESA driver, it fails down to 320x200. So yes, you recorded exactly what was reported. Otherwise, there's no way any a P133 could get 35 fps in 640x480 Quake (probably not even with a Voodoo2 SLI setup).

Well... I did not load the UniVBE that are in Phils suite.
It might load it when I run the test. Not shure.

brostenen wrote:

Well... I did not load the UniVBE that are in Phils suite.
It might load it when I run the test. Not shure.

When I benchmarked my PCI cards a couple weeks ago, I had the same issue. I noticed when I picked the letter in Phil's batch file for 640x480 Quake, it was actually running 320x200. If you then go into the Quake Video options, you will see that VESA resolutions are not available. I then manually installed/ran Univbe (not the one from Phil's batch file), then ran Quake again and saw that VESA resolutions now showed. But Phil's batch file was still not picking 640x480 for Quake. I think because Univbe changes the VESA mode, so whatever he used to map to 640x480 was no longer correct. So I ran the benchmark manually, selecting 640x480 in the Video menu, dropping the console down and typing 'timedemo 1' <enter>. Note this only has to be done if the graphics card does not have VBE 2.0 support built in.

That's a good point. You got to look at the Quake benchmark and see if the higher resolution actually kicks in. It's easy to see the difference. I would just give 0 to those cards. See it more as a compatibility VESA test. Many cards fail it.

The UniVBE options I will remove. Apparently they have to be installed locally to work. The second option for Quake, every card should support I think.

Edit. Looks like TNT2 is the winner here...

Been programming today. The CPU ID code I wrote about 15 years ago is outdated, and didn't include code to detect processors lower than a 386. I've recently been researching CPUID codes for more recent processors, and have been looking into older processors. I have written code to detect 8086, 8088, V20, V30, 80C86, 80C88, 80186, 80188 and 80286. I have yet to write code to test speeds.

The more modern chips will be much easier to code for, with all the info CPUID supplies. The bit that's taking time is creating a database of all x86 CPUs and their CPUID codes then summarising it to be able to identify all chips and variants with the same CPUID code. Doing all this with the NASM assembler.

I might at some stage go a step farther and add code for 8080 and 8085 chips, but that's low on my list of priorities.

I will definitely be learning Windows and Linux 32-bit and possibly 64-bit coding for processors with the CPUID instruction.

Still researching (and trying to better format) my definitive history of PC hardware project and came across this document: a thesis detailing the history of the MIDI format. Thought it merited sharing (though perhaps not its own thread).

So I had to break the front panel of that case of mine since I couldn't unscrew the 4 screws inside the front panel without breaking it altogether. But now I have another issue with two of my recently bought X-Fi soundcards: X-Fi Elite Pro and Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD.
1. Can I somehow connect both of them or at least the Auzentech card to the Elite Pro's external I/O box?
2. When I'm using the Elite Pro card, my PC keeps freezing after a random amount of time whenever I switch modes. Daniel_K's driver pack 3.8 seems to be the most stable - switching modes or playing EAX-compatible games may or may not freeze the PC, while music and video is stable. With the driver pack 3.7 my PC freezes immediately after I open an audio file, same for the latest official Creative drivers. So it's either a driver issue, a Windows issue (Win10 x64) or a hardware issue.

Played XCOM:TFTD for a few hours on the mini-monster above.

stamasd wrote:

Played XCOM:TFTD for a few hours on the mini-monster above.

And when I was done with that I practiced a bit with the spot welder that I got in the mail today. Needed to dial in the voltage, current and pulse duration settings before embarking on a project to repair the batteries of many old laptops I have. Well, I can't really do it at the moment because the replacement cells themselves have yet to show up but it was good practice. And I ended up making a replacement BIOS battery for the Thinkpad R52 - essentially a CR2032 with tabs, wires and a miniature connector. Because Lenovo couldn't be bothered to put a regular CR2032 holder on the motherboard. 😒

Did some more sorting. And I'm contemplating to perhaps inventorise all my stashed motherboards today, since this will probably take many hours (will do some basic checking and perhaps some resorting while I'm at it) and I have spare time today.

Tetrium wrote:

Did some more sorting. And I'm contemplating to perhaps inventorise all my stashed motherboards today, since this will probably take many hours (will do some basic checking and perhaps some resorting while I'm at it) and I have spare time today.

This needs some photos 😀

I'm always eager to learn new organisation tips. It's funny, I'm terrible with names, but I do remember pretty much all the parts I have. I use plastic containers, smaller plastic boxes and various sandwich type bags to organise everything.

Final testing of my Celeron 333 Build mainly for MS-DOS/W95 games/sw.
I'm happy with this setup, but I miss RESET button...

Got enough sound cards in that Vectra? Which ones?

clueless1 wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Nope... They are the exact numbers I got. Have crosschecked my handwritten notes. Because I ran each test on one card a time, I […]
Show full quote

clueless1 wrote:

Thanks, looks good! But I think you duplicated the 320x200 numbers into 640x480 Quake for the CL and S3.

Nope...
They are the exact numbers I got. Have crosschecked my handwritten notes.
Because I ran each test on one card a time, I know these are the right numbers.
I think it is because they can deliver more, if they get more CPU power.

We are both right. 😀

The CL and S3 cards require VESA BIOS extensions for Quake 640x480. When you run Phil's benchmarks for 640x480 without a VESA driver, it fails down to 320x200. So yes, you recorded exactly what was reported. Otherwise, there's no way any a P133 could get 35 fps in 640x480 Quake (probably not even with a Voodoo2 SLI setup).

Ran UniVBE 6.7 and the framerate on the Trio64 gives 32.5 in Quake 640x480. 😀
So I guess, I will be making a new benchmark test on all the cards.

EDIT:
I did make a mistake of only checking what the monitor told me, and not checking the actual settings in Quake.
True enough.... It was running 320x200 all the way, even when the monitor reported 640x480.

Anyway....
Trio64 = 11.7fps and 5446 = 12.9fps (still have to do the Quake 640x480 all over again)

That Vectra has only two souncards , Aopen with Crystal chip and Medion Opti 931 with wave blaster. Other two cards with RCA and headphone jacks , those are TV tuner any video grabber..

Installed and testing this sound card on my Barton/K7Upgrade600 system: