ftp://78.46.141.148/dos/sysinfo/SETK6D.EXE

OK, it seems my estimates about doubling the framerates on a K6-3 by enabling the MTRRs was a bit optimistic, but on the Athlon the gain is certainly impressive. Here are some more benches:

1Quake         640x400  640x480  800x600  1024x768
2
3K6-3+ / 500    27.7     23.7     16.2      10.5
4+ MTRRs        37.2     32.2     22.7      15.3
5
6Athlon/1400    45.7     38.5     25.6      16.1
7+ MTRRs       108.0     94.9     68.7      46.4

1PCPBench      640x400  640x480  800x600  1024x768
2
3K6-3+ / 500    53.6     45.8     31.7      20.6
4+ MTRRs        81.1     70.8     52.1      35.8
5
6Athlon/1400    68.7     57,9     38.6      24.2
7+ MTRRs       184.3    162.7    122.0      85.2

From wikipedia;

The AMD K6-2 (stepping 8 and above) and K6-III processors have two MTRRs. The AMD Athlon family provide 8 Intel-style MTRRs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Type_Range_Registers

That might explain why the Athlon does so much better (8 MTRR's vs. 2 MTRR's).

Any way to enable these under Windows? DOS Real-Mode only?

I believe that display drivers typically take advantage of MTRRs in Win9x.

There is a Windows util that can check all of the K6+ features but I can't remember what it's called and K6Plus no longer has its download area.

swaaye wrote:

There is a Windows util that can check all of the K6+ features but I can't remember what it's called and K6Plus no longer has its download area.

So that's what happened with K6Plus. I was too sure they had a download section and that I had downloaded such a utility a few months ago.
If anyone still has it I'd like to try it.

Also, another thing that I have noticed with faster machines and DOS games, there's screen tearing ranging from bareable to quite annoying. An easy game to spot it in is Duke3D I believe.
Also, it was quite visible on Z's main menu. I'm not entirely sure if it affects standard VGA modes or SVGA modes or ModeX VGA modes, but I know I've seen it happen even on my K6-III+ 550 and Voodoo 3 3000 AGP system.
I believe some years ago we talked about it here as a sidenote to another topic and I believe it had something to do with USWC?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncacheable_spec … write_combining
This can be kind of deal breaker if you're thinking of building a blazing fast DOS machine. I think I've managed to prevent it from happening on my K6-III+ by altering some BIOS settings, but I'm not entirely sure.

NitroX infinity wrote:

From wikipedia; […]
Show full quote

From wikipedia;

The AMD K6-2 (stepping 8 and above) and K6-III processors have two MTRRs. The AMD Athlon family provide 8 Intel-style MTRRs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Type_Range_Registers

That might explain why the Athlon does so much better (8 MTRR's vs. 2 MTRR's).

I don't think so. On both machines write combining for the LFB can be enabled. It's just that the Athlon has so much more power (FPU, bandwith - even at the same clock) that it is much more restricted by VGA write speed. As soon as you remove the restriction it can really shine. PPro/PII/PIII react similar, just look for the Quake I scores on the 686 benchmark thread.

You can also see this when you look at the numbers, without MTTRR's the Athlon is not even two times as fast as the K6-3+ although it clocked nearly three times as fast.

F2bnp wrote:

swaaye wrote:

There is a Windows util that can check all of the K6+ features but I can't remember what it's called and K6Plus no longer has its download area.

So that's what happened with K6Plus. I was too sure they had a download section and that I had downloaded such a utility a few months ago.
If anyone still has it I'd like to try it.

The tool is called Central Tweaking Unit.

If one wants to use an ISA slot i'd recommend an Athlon XP against a Pentium III anyday.

How come these ancient DOS SVGA games are such a horrible resource hog? I played Morrowind, Quake III, Warcraft III and even Splinter Cell comfortably on a 1 Ghz Celeron, 320 MB RAM, Geforce 2 MX400 machine. I can't believe games from 1994-96 would ever need a 1 Ghz grade machine, what were the developers thinking? The low speed of software rendering is not really an excuse as games like Duke Nukem 3D or Descent 2 ran quite well on Pentium I machines in SVGA.

Hell, here is a guy running software mode (3dfx flies even on a Pentium I 200 Mhz) NFS 2 on a Dual Pentium II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nLw579nZM0 , it can even run Most Wanted with a 3D card (this one is choppy through) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ib88fz_Vvc . This machine runs GTA:SA too, although really bad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkaGL5tRZQ8 , I guess the framerate would be around 15-20 without FRAPS, which is awesome considering GTA:SA ocassionaly lags severely on my friends laptop which is "modern", but the built-in Intel video brings everything down.

So what the frag do these ancient DOS games need so much CPU power for? Especially NASCAR Racing, which is a shitty 1994 racing game that has severe lag even on 700 Mhz machines as seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bJGnzb0Asw .

CPUs suck at pushing pixels. They are also usually busy with everything else going on as well. This is why we got 3D cards, which could also eventually do better pixels than the CPU could dream of doing.

Of course some old games are more perplexing than others. Carmageddon is extremely demanding. I found that the 3D version needs like a Voodoo3 and PIII 1000 to be fully 60fps! It's only 640x480! But it has huge maps, some physics and lots of AI stuff going on too.

swaaye wrote:

CPUs suck at pushing pixels. They are also usually busy with everything else going on as well. This is why we got 3D cards, which could also eventually do better pixels than the CPU could dream of doing.

Of course some old games are more perplexing than others. Carmageddon is extremely demanding. I found that the 3D version needs like a Voodoo3 and PIII 1000 to be fully 60fps! It's only 640x480! But it has huge maps, some physics and lots of AI stuff going on too.

What about 30 fps? What would Carmaggedon need for that?

I found this Carmageddon 3dfx very slow frame rates, why? . How does the game perform on a Pentium 233 MMX with details turned down to medium or low? Most people don't play games with "everything at max".

There are some Doom source ports with an SSAA option for the software renderer. It's the only way to eliminate the moiré effect and it looks great but it's only playable in like 640x480 even on the newest CPUs.

d1stortion wrote:

There are some Doom source ports with an SSAA option for the software renderer. It's the only way to eliminate the moiré effect and it looks great but it's only playable in like 640x480 even on the newest CPUs.

I'd love to see that. Which source port is it?
Swaaye must be right about Carmageddon. Playable on my K6-3+ 550 with Voodoo 3, but for example first person view is completely unplayable and sometimes the framerate dips on the external camera. Certainly playable though.

I think it was ZDaemon. I never tried that port myself.

m1so wrote:

What about 30 fps? What would Carmaggedon need for that?

I found this Carmageddon 3dfx very slow frame rates, why? . How does the game perform on a Pentium 233 MMX with details turned down to medium or low? Most people don't play games with "everything at max".

The reality is at the time a lot of games ran quite poorly but we weren't complaining because we were accustomed to lower frame rates. Of course in most cases you can run lower settings yes. Not much point in living that way anymore though.

Engoo maybe but I haven't gotten the DOS build to work again, as it's segfaulting on startup now. But in Windows man does this crush a Core i5

especially this effect, it sends those modern cpus to hell!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Can't help but feel that the system should be faster... […]
Show full quote

Can't help but feel that the system should be faster...

I ran FASTVID and that improves things somewhat:

3DBENCH2: 404
PCPBENCH: 148.8

quake timedemo demo 1:
320 x 240: 98.3
640 x 480: 60.3
800 x 600: 48.7
1024 x 768: 26

This has be puzzled a bit.

I just got a Gigabyte GA-6VTXE and testing with a P3 1.4.

I get good scores for VGA:

3DBENCH2: 665.7
Quake timedemo VGA: 214.7

However in 640 x 480 Quake only runs at 49.6.

Quite a bit slower compared to the MSI mainboard with onboard graphics.

Is this what people refer to as "poor AGP performance" of VIA chipsets?

I have used FASTVID for all the tests.

I can test my 440BX with 1.4Ghz Tualatin if you would like? Any preferences for graphics card?

vetz wrote:

I can test my 440BX with 1.4Ghz Tualatin if you would like? Any preferences for graphics card?

Hey that would be awesome 😀

The cards I use are Nvidia TNT2. They benchmark very high. MX440 and similar cards should be just as fast.