IMO you're better off building a Socket 7 machine. For 3D the 5x86 just doesn't cut it and finding decent motherboards isn't easy.

Unless you're dead set and won't change your mind 😁

Why a GUS? GUS suits a 386 more than anything.

Most SiS471 based boards can handle the 5x86 without a problem. Its their last VLB only chipset and most boards have a 1994 era BIOS with LBA HD support. Just avoid anything that looks like a PC Chips M912 with its fake cache.

Mau1wurf1977,
I am trying to recreate what I had going all those years ago, close to exactly. More about my goal, here:

http://www.bytecellar.com/2013/11/26/setting- … -class-dos-box/

I don't care much about 3D as far as the point of the first 3D accelerators and beyond. I started out with that sort of thing in the upgrade that followed my 5x86 of olde, which was a K6 233 running a Voodoo, then Voodoo 2.

Also, a big part of what I want out of the system is early '90s demoscene productions. There is no audio board better for such demos than the GUS. I may add an SB16 in, as well, in time, for non-demos that might benefit from it.

Thanks.

bp

NJRoadfan wrote:

Most SiS471 based boards can handle the 5x86 without a problem. Its their last VLB only chipset and most boards have a 1994 era BIOS with LBA HD support. Just avoid anything that looks like a PC Chips M912 with its fake cache.

Thanks. Any specific recommendations?

bp

I have a Soyo SY-25N, but it lacks a 3.3v voltage regulator (there is a spot for it, but omitted) despite being a Socket 3 board. The SY-25M and SY-25P have 3.3v support however. It also doesn't have a LBA compatible BIOS, but I have seen the board with later revisions that do support it. Its not a flash BIOS though.

I would say the Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 based on the SIS471 chipset (as mentioned earlier)

-PS2 mouse port.
-AMD 5x86 support and 40mhz FSB
-3.3V support
-1MB cache support
-Coin battery
-Really good performance! (see the 486 w/1mb L2 cache in this thread against Socket 5/7 boards)
-LBA HD support

Drawbacks:
-Only 2 VLB ports
-No flash bios

I might be biased as I own this board myself, but I haven't found any other VLB board I would replace it with yet!

Strange so 486 vlb motherboards can run a great deal faster then a old pentium system or even a great 486 pci board with same fsb and timings.
Is this because of the 1 mb of cache installed? I can imagine a sis471 would not be faster than a board based on the sis496 chipset.?

I know the choice of an particular vga cards affect these figures greatly.
What would be a good card to run quake on?

I was surprised to see the cheapo Chaintech 4SLB I have can support 1MB of cache. It is also SiS471 based, but 5v only and doesn't even have a ZIF socket for the CPU.

JaNoZ wrote:

Strange so 486 vlb motherboards can run a great deal faster then a old pentium system or even a great 486 pci board with same fs […]
Show full quote

Strange so 486 vlb motherboards can run a great deal faster then a old pentium system or even a great 486 pci board with same fsb and timings.
Is this because of the 1 mb of cache installed? I can imagine a sis471 would not be faster than a board based on the sis496 chipset.?

I know the choice of an particular vga cards affect these figures greatly.
What would be a good card to run quake on?

Well, you can usually run VLB at 40MHz, while PCI is locked at 33MHz. And if you just have video (only) going VLB to the 486-class processor, it's a more direct, tight arrangement than a video card going through PCI hardware. Of course, for non-video situations like HD controllers and such, PCI's bus-mastering is a huge win over VLB. VLB seems an excellent 486 "video hack."

bp

Blakespot said it already. On the Socket 5/7 boards the PCI bus is at 33 mhz when running a Pentium at 100mhz, compared to 40mhz VLB bus when overclocking the Pentium Overdrive to 100mhz. Then again, you are supposed to get worse performance with the Pentium Overdrive compared to a real Pentium system, but this loss is actually quite small in practice, especially if you compare to a 40mhz VLB system and an early Socket 5/7 chipset. You also have to remember that PCI were in its infancy and VLB had matured.

The results on my Asus board is with the Number Nine 9GXE64 S3 Vision 864 2MB card. It is a fast card, but it is said that it can't beat the ET4000/W32P (would love to see some benchmarks). The PCI systems used the Matrox G200 (same DOS performance as the Matrox Millennium) for easier comparison with Feipoa's benchmark.

I have 2 et4000w32p's and a w32i i will test again.
Whats the better option opti sis umc or ali on vlb?

JaNoZ wrote:

I have 2 et4000w32p's and a w32i i will test again.
Whats the better option opti sis umc or ali on vlb?

As far as I know there haven't been any big benchmark comparisons on the VLB chipsets nor VLB graphics cards. So this is new territory.

Did some tests of my available cards. As all my VLB cards didnt want to run at 40mhz FSB, I had to go back to 33.

All tests done with Pentium Overdrive 83mhz, 32MB 60ns FPM RAM, Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 (SiS 471)

Number Nine 9GXE64 S3 Vision 864 2MB:
Doom: 48,2 FPS
3DBench 1.0: 83.3
PCPBench 320x200: 22.9 FPS
PCPBench 640x400: 9.6 FPS

ET4000/W32 1MB
Doom: 45 FPS
3DBench 1.0: 76.9
PCPBench 320x200: 22.7 FPS

Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 2MB:
Doom: 43 FPS
3DBench 1.0: 71.4
PCPBench 320x200: 21.2 FPS

The last two cards do not have a VESA BIOS, so I didn't bother testing higher resolutions as it would require UNIVBE

What brand was the Cirrus card? All the 5428s I have encountered have had VBE1.2 support in their ROM.

NJRoadfan wrote:

What brand was the Cirrus card? All the 5428s I have encountered have had VBE1.2 support in their ROM.

No idea, probably an OEM card. Picture of one just like it here: http://images.esellerpro.com/2131/I/599/51/lr … aleDCP_7037.JPG

blakespot wrote:

Mau1wurf1977, I am trying to recreate what I had going all those years ago, close to exactly. More about my goal, here: […]
Show full quote

Mau1wurf1977,
I am trying to recreate what I had going all those years ago, close to exactly. More about my goal, here:

http://www.bytecellar.com/2013/11/26/setting- … -class-dos-box/

I don't care much about 3D as far as the point of the first 3D accelerators and beyond. I started out with that sort of thing in the upgrade that followed my 5x86 of olde, which was a K6 233 running a Voodoo, then Voodoo 2.

Also, a big part of what I want out of the system is early '90s demoscene productions. There is no audio board better for such demos than the GUS. I may add an SB16 in, as well, in time, for non-demos that might benefit from it.

Thanks.

bp

Iam with Mau1wurf1977, its indeed very hard to find a decent good 486 motherboard that regonize 3.3volt processors... And if you find one, then its needs a VRM onboard that handles the 3.3volt or 3.45 volt support..Otherwise you need to find an voltage interposer convertor board that lets you uses 3.3volt 3.45volt processors on a 5volt only board.. Both options are hard to find.. And then again, you also need a bios upgrade to regonize the AMD 5x86 - p75 133mhz processors.. Most boards doesnt have the latest bios rom.. Then its very hard to find a plug and play board that you can use without to much trouble.

So my bet its much easier to deal with a socket 7 board with pentium processor on it.

The AMD 5x86 runs at 3.3v without a problem. There wasn't any 3.45v VRM equipped boards out there. Most motherboards will run it with write back L1 cache enabled even without BIOS support, you just need to jumper the board correctly.

I would use a PCI S3 Trio for graphics... PCI will be more tolerant to the 40MHz than the VLB, but i applaud your effort to achieve your goal.

vetz wrote:

I would say the Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 based on the SIS471 chipset (as mentioned earlier)

+1

I also have this board and consider it the rolls royce of VLB boards, although I did need to upgrade the BIOS to accept the P75 (with help from DonutKing)

vetz wrote:

Drawbacks:
-Only 2 VLB ports

I was under the impression that 2 VLB slots were optimal, and using any more (i.e. having them filled) was detrimental to performance. Some limitation of the VLB architecture? Or am I talking out of my @ss?