I'm sure you could have some fun with a 386SX. The 386SX to the 386DX is as the 8088 to the 8086.

retro games 100 wrote:

There's also one big empty socket. I don't know how SX machines work, but presumably this idea won't work - put a chip in that empty socket, and the SX changes to a DX machine.

Whatever the socket is intended for (FPU?) - a 386DX most certainly won't fit. The idea of the 386SX was to halve the memory bus, so the CPU could be used on conventional and much cheaper AT board designs.

retro games 100 wrote:

What games can run OK on a 386SX-33? Nothing too demanding, I would think. I expect Wing Commander would struggle a bit. Any comments would be interesting to read.

I once had a 386SX/25, and yes, Wing Commander ran a bit choppy. Unlike the 286, the 386SX could run V86 mode DOS-extender games, but it was too slow to be of much use. SimCity 2000 was a slide show, DOOM was frustrating.

While it can technically run in protected mode, just think of a 386SX as a souped up 286. So basically for *really* old DOS games.

Personally, I would consider a 386DX my cutoff point. Anything less and the hardware is so old that it may not be worth the electricity to run. DOSBox will do a better job.

I have a new in box 386SX-16 board here I'm wondering what to do with. Those surface mount 386-SX motherboards are horrible because they can't even be upgraded unless you can find one of those snap on type upgrades with an IBM Blue Lightning chip on it, and those are nearly impossible to find these days.

Souped up 286 is a very good description.

From my memory the 386SX-16 was very popular. The other frequencies sound rarer, especially the 33 MHz one.

There are some results in our 3dbench database. Amigaz 16MHz machines scores 5 points with a ET4000.

Keropi has a PS1 20MHz and mounted one these Cyrix upgrade chips. Thus gave him a score of 13.3 with a cirrus logic graphics. Amigaz has a slightly faster result with that same chip.

I would get that board but mostly because of the upgrade option with that Cyrix Cx486SRx2 chip and testing if it can be overclocked and things like that.

At least in games it seems that a SX-20 with that Cyrix upgrade chip performs just like a 386DX-40...

Probably it's slower than a DX, especially this board that seems not to have any cache memory. For old dos games it would be ok. The socket is for the fpu. It has only one advantage over the dx. Because of the data bus of the sx, you can fit even two simms, and it will work. As opposed to the dx that you need to fill the entire bank. So for example, if you want 8MB, you can have it using two 4mb simms.

Hmm, I never had much of a problem running games of the time on my AMD 386 SX-40; Doom was fine with the window size a notch or two down. I upgraded to a 486 DX2-50 once I started to enjoy flight sims a bit more, but for games released during the lifespan of the 386 it didn't appear to suffer too badly .

Personally the board seems nice, at least it seems like it's standard AT. But for the the cut-off point was actually the 486.
I only got those 386DX boards as I already had one and decided to be wanting to use it, and if it breaks I've got no other 386 boards to turn to. Those 3 are basically going to be my backup.
They arrived this afternoon but apparently Dutch customs wants money from me so I'll need to pay the mailman an extra €30 tomorrow...oh well, you get some and you loose some. Comes with the territory.

Also the boards i got have a cpu socket, which means I can try out a bunch of different cpu's 😀
I'm kinda allergic to non-upgradeable boards 🤣

Edit:These boards...when I bought 3 he had 7 left, and someone bought ALL SEVEN 2 days after I bought mine!!! 😳
Link: http://offer.ebay.nl/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBid … em=300439712112

Edit2: Seems he has more for sale:
http://cgi.ebay.nl/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& … em=320638393442

retro games 100 wrote:

I'm always browsing ebay looking for junk. I spotted these things, and wondered how useful or useless they are?

Oh, come on RG100... Useful or useless? There is nothing you really need it for! Is there any game you can't play? Any software you can't run?

You do not buy this stuff because it is usefull. You buy it because you have to own it. If you doubt that, tell me what you could do with it, that you can't do now.

My first computer was a 386SX-33. Doom v.1.1 was the only game I had that it had trouble with. Upgrading to v.1.666 made a large difference in the FPS I could get, but my friend's DX-33 was still noticeably better. Mine wasn't that bad though. I played games on it that officially required a 486.

I remember trying to run X-Wing on a 386SX 16 (friend had one) and it was rather disgusting.

I personally went from a 286 to a 486 and never did the 386 era.

ux-3 wrote:

Oh, come on RG100... Useful or useless? There is nothing you really need it for! Is there any game you can't play? Any software you can't run?

Cmon ux-3, you know as good as we do that telling us we don't really 'need' all this hardware is the same as telling a junkie he doesn't really 'need' his heroine 😜
It won't help 🤣, we're hooked 😜

I ran X-Wing on my Packard Bell Legend 316SX, which runs an AMD 386SX-25 and it was just nasty. Even with minimal graphical detail where the game looks REALLY ugly, the framerate was TERRIBLE. It was sluggish when there wasn't much going on, but when many polygons were on the screen and close to you, the game looks like it will crash. Yuck!

I say skip anything with a 386SX. I haven't used a 386DX, but I'm damn sure you'd be MUCH better served with a 386DX than a 386SX.

Is there any compelling reason to fall below a 486-25? Any games that won't work?
I recall that some disk booting games like "Crusade in Europe" would not boot well - BASIC ROM error or some such. But I also recall that I found a fix to it. After finding the fix, I never played it.

ux-3 wrote:

Is there any compelling reason to fall below a 486-25? Any games that won't work.

I think there's barely a reason at best. The only reason I'm even bothering with 386DX is because of curiosity, so I can say that I actually build one.
Curiosity! 😁

There is one 386 I want. And that's one from Highscreen because it was my very first PC and the design of the desktop was very unique. I remember it costing around 20000 Austrian Schillings and came with a monitor, keyboard and DOS and Windows Software.

There was this german computer magazine, CHIP I believe, and it hand a roundup of 386SX machines. And the 386SX-16 from Highscreen won the roundup.

Later I found out that it's a luck of draw what components are actually inside the PC. My 386DX-33 had a AMD 40 MHz CPU but back then I didn't even know that you might be able to take advantage of that...

The Turbo button wasn't connected (we brought it back for that) and later the video card dies (and they put in a really slow OAK card). I later got a Tseng ET4000 and was amazed at the difference compared to the OAK.

I also got a Soundblaster which I financed through 4 weeks of summer work. I was speechless when I heard it in action and had to play every single game again just to hear the music.

That summer with my 386 and Monkey Island 2 and Fate of Atlantis was my best computing summer as a kid...

A friend of mine also had a Highscreen so we could take our harddrives and swap games.

Tetrium wrote:

ux-3 wrote:

Is there any compelling reason to fall below a 486-25? Any games that won't work.

I think there's barely a reason at best. The only reason I'm even bothering with 386DX is because of curiosity, so I can say that I actually build one.
Curiosity! 😁

Oh well, then I am off the hook. I've build everything when it was new. 😊

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

There is one 386 I want. And that's one from Highscreen because it was my very first PC and the design of the desktop was very unique. I remember it costing around 20000 Austrian Schillings and came with a monitor, keyboard and DOS and Windows Software.

Like this one: Insane prices.. ?

Hehe yea exactly like that one! I have that post actually bookmarked 🤣