of course we can only look into pci cards, but there are a few more things to be concerned with:
1.some graphics driver may require p5/p6/mmx cores and simple won't run on 486 systems.
2.even if it would run, the driver itself may draw too much fpu power, and make a newer card run even slower than older cards.
3.pci slots on 486 boards may not be able to provide enough currency.
now, has anyone tried this yet?
wrote:of course we can only look into pci cards, but there are a few more things to be concerned with: 1.some graphics driver may requ […]
of course we can only look into pci cards, but there are a few more things to be concerned with:
1.some graphics driver may require p5/p6/mmx cores and simple won't run on 486 systems.
2.even if it would run, the driver itself may draw too much fpu power, and make a newer card run even slower than older cards.
3.pci slots on 486 boards may not be able to provide enough currency.now, has anyone tried this yet?
For all practical purposes, an S3 Virge is probably as fast as you're going to go with a 486. Anything above that would be overkill. That said, you can put a Pentium Overdrive into a 486 motherboard and maybe drive something a tad faster like an early Savage or maybe even a Voodoo 1. Oh, and there was one non PCI 3D board to my knowledge and that was a Creative 3DBlaster on VL-Bus with a GLINT chip.
i am talking about, more modern d3d and opengl benchmarks, like 3dmark and quake.
s3virge hardly supports either d3d or opengl, so i really don't want to mention it when it comes to 3d cards. well, according to my tests it does 4~4.5fps in glquake/quake2(with third party wrapper) and ~200pts in 3dmark99/2000 on a pentium3-s platform, with terribly glitched graphics.
i believe this is too slow even for an amd486-180, with an appropriate 3d card it should go a lot faster.
3dfx Voodoo2 can work.
3DMark will not function as it'll complain "wah, this isn't a pentium, screw you!!!" and it'll crash on system check because it tries to TSC the cpu.
I've successfully run 3D Mark 99 on a 486. I got a score of 21 3D marks. That was using an AMD 5x86 (133 MHz) chip overclocked to 200 MHz, with a PCI Matrox G200.
wrote:3dfx Voodoo2 can work.
3DMark will not function as it'll complain "wah, this isn't a pentium, screw you!!!" and it'll crash on system check because it tries to TSC the cpu.
Anything with a compatible driver could work in theory, but almost any decent card is going to be severely CPU bound with a 486 behind it. On a 486 motherboard a V2 might work, but would it really be worth it? That would be like putting a GTX590 or HD6990 in a single core Celeron or Sempron machine. You'd have lots of GPU power, but without the CPU muscle to keep it fed you'd be much better off with a lower spec card.
If the game doesn't use a lot of floating (skeletal animation comes to mind as a 486 killer), it'll be fine. I had no problem playing Battlezone and I76 on a 486 once I had a 3D card. You could ALMOST run Unreal, even.
Gameplayingwise, it's not that different from playing games on a non-MMX Pentium 100MHz with the same video cards.
Some motherboards may not like it. From my experience, our favorite board M919 Rev 3.4 works with Voodoo2
A better question is, what 3D game are you trying to play that won't work on a >Pentium?
I ran Jedi Knight on my 486. I'd say that if you want to do that you at least want a 3D card that has good image quality. I had a Voodoo3 working with the oldest drivers (newer drivers BSOD).
But 3D games really ask too much of any 486. A Pentium Overdrive at 100 makes things a lot faster but you might as well use a real Socket 7 mobo at that point.
wrote:A better question is, what 3D game are you trying to play that won't work on a >Pentium?
Look, do you like TURBO buttons or not?
wrote:I ran Jedi Knight on my 486.
Jedi Knight 2 on a 486 on the other hand is also possible :}
q3 engine games go 3-5fps usually on those. Believe it or not, the sound mixing is the 486 killing part of the engine there.
Heh well Jedi Knight 1 is generally playable on a Am5x86 160 if you're ok with 15-20fps. That was one starved Voodoo3. 😁
20fps is actually quite ideal for JK because the game logic doesn't go more than that. Try JK on 150fps and you will seizure when you walk choppily along.
On topic, it's possible to install Windows 2000 and run CINEBENCH R10 on the 486. Prepare to wait 24 hours for the raytracing results, though, but the GL testing will zoom by quick (and the Voodoo2 can work with it as well)
wrote:20fps is actually quite ideal for JK because the game logic doesn't go more than that. Try JK on 150fps and you will seizure when you walk choppily along.
On topic, it's possible to install Windows 2000 and run CINEBENCH R10 on the 486. Prepare to wait 24 hours for the raytracing results, though, but the GL testing will zoom by quick (and the Voodoo2 can work with it as well)
How do you install 2K on a 486? I thought it required Pentium instructions the same as XP. Those guys from Germany couldn't get XP to install on a 486, they had to use a POD. The 486 would probably be running at 100% all the time just keep a desktop displayed. It would probably burn out if you actually tried to run a program on it.
You know which old and popular api went easy on CPUs, I would try some 3dfx with complete triangle setup like Banshee or even later Voodoos. If not then Vérité should do.
Oh, and the 3DO Blaster will have smooth framerates for sure 😁
Did few dos tests on 486 with Voodoo 3 2000 PCI, so it will work, but dunno about win drivers support, tried only dos.
Not only mine graphics cards collection at http://www.vgamuseum.info
It would help finding a fast 486 CPU though, preferably one of the 5x86's or a POD83
wrote:You know which old and popular api went easy on CPUs, I would try some 3dfx with complete triangle setup like Banshee or even later Voodoos. If not then Vérité should do.
Oh, and the 3DO Blaster will have smooth framerates for sure 😁
Is the triangle setup on a Verite faster than a 486? If it's not, then letting the video card handle it would actually cause your games to slow down rather than speed up. And how compatible is it with games that don't use their own API's?
486 is definitely slower. Pentium passes V1000 by at some clock though. The problem with Verite on a 486 however is that Verite needs good PCI DMA transfer support to perform well and most 486s definitely do not have that. Some Pentium boards didn't either.
BTW, Voodoo1 only has partial triangle setup so bad choice for 486. I forgot about that.
I have a few questions myself along this line.
1. Would a 5x86 have a noticable advantage running a 3d card vs any 486?
2. If yes, then wouldn't a Cyrix 5x86 have a better run than an AMD 5x86? (Iirc, Cyrix was closer to a pentium 1 than AMD).
3. Are you including POD in the list for 486?
I guess I'm asking if the motherboard has more impact than the CPU for 3D cards.
Faster CPU is better. Check out the Ultimate 486 Comparison. FPU performance is important with 3D games.
