If you want to mess around with browsing the web, 128 MB is the way to go. Of course, you will need to stick to the websites which will still load in a reasonable amount of time. Vogons and Google are a few such sites.

I remember upgrading from 8 MB to 32 MB on my Am5x86-133 back in early 1997 - the speed gained blew me away. 6 months later I upgraded it to 96 MB and did not notice any speed benefit.

How much RAM does GLQuake need at 1280x1024? What about other more modern games which run well with a good 3D card - Outlaws, MDK, Tomb Raider II, etc? 3D games and the Internet are probably swaaye is referring to by "desires to do things beyond what a 486/5x86 can really do well anyway."

Since most 486 boards come with 256 KB of cache, it seems natural to at least max out the cacheable limit of this cache, which is 64 MB in WT mode. The speed difference between L2 in WT vs. WB mode is negligible.

Why should GLQuake's memory usage depend on the resolution? For software Quake I'd agree, but with OpenGL nearly everything should reside in the video card's RAM.

idspispopd wrote:

Why should GLQuake's memory usage depend on the resolution? For software Quake I'd agree, but with OpenGL nearly everything should reside in the video card's RAM.

OK. How much memory does GLQuake use (irregardless of the resolution)?

The only more memory it would take for a higher resolution would be of the VRAM necessary for the framebuffer. It doesn't load anymore data than playing it in 640x480 does.

I vaguely recollect having 24mb in my 486-80 at it's peak and it worked fine.

I'm not saying you NEED this much RAM, but my Gateway 2000 P4D-66 with a 66Mhz 486 is running great with 128 MB RAM, and 256k of L2 cache. That is the way the Anigma Board is fully populated. With Windows 95b it isn't such a bad idea either. My Windows 3.11 system running an Acer board with an AMD 386 @ 40 Mhz is running 32 MB and 256k of L2 cache. My philosophy is to max out the board. 😵 These boards could be maxed out when they were new, so no reason not to do so now. The Gateway manual says it can be loaded up with 128 MB of RAM. It was built in January 1995 (before Windows 95 came out.) My Windows 98 SE system which has an Intel SE440-BX2 running a 450 Mhz Pentium III has 768 MB of RAM. That one was built in January of 1999. (My latest build -an Asus Maximus V Extreme board is maxed out with 32 GB of RAM) Right now I'm building an HTPC with an ASUS H97M-Plus can handle 32 GB, but for ONCE, I am only going with 16 GB. But who knows? Maybe someday I'll up that too! 😎

Billyray520 wrote:

I'm not saying you NEED this much RAM, but my Gateway 2000 P4D-66 with a 66Mhz 486 is running great with 128 MB RAM, and 256k of L2 cache. That is the way the Anigma Board is fully populated. With Windows 95b it isn't such a bad idea either. My Windows 3.11 system running an Acer board with an AMD 386 @ 40 Mhz is running 32 MB and 256k of L2 cache. My philosophy is to max out the board. 😵 These boards could be maxed out when they were new, so no reason not to do so now. The Gateway manual says it can be loaded up with 128 MB of RAM. It was built in January 1995 (before Windows 95 came out.) My Windows 98 SE system which has an Intel SE440-BX2 running a 450 Mhz Pentium III has 768 MB of RAM. That one was built in January of 1999. (My latest build -an Asus Maximus V Extreme board is maxed out with 32 GB of RAM) Right now I'm building an HTPC with an ASUS H97M-Plus can handle 32 GB, but for ONCE, I am only going with 16 GB. But who knows? Maybe someday I'll up that too! 😎

I agree that you might as well add RAM. Its not expensive anymore.
But do mind the cacheable limit.

Those that are saying you only need 32MB/16MB/8MB(!) are in the same category as
"640K ought to be enough for anybody"

I actually took out 16mb of ram out of my 486 because I was having compatibility issues with a few games (Cant think of the names off the top of my head, I play a lot of different games 🤣).

like Anonymous Coward said, IF you use DOS games 8mb if enough for 99% of the games that can run in a 486

Living wrote:

like Anonymous Coward said, IF you use DOS games 8mb if enough for 99% of the games that can run in a 486

Honestly 8MB is on the low end even for 486 games. 16MB is good because it is the maximum 64K can cache.

If you plan to run 9x 32 or 64 would be better. But I don't know why you would run 8 MB in a 486 considering
the only reason they were shipped with that little is cost

I remember 2MB 386s and 4MB 486s. I remember working on lots of 4MB 486s. Even 8MB was luxury back then before Win95. I think when RAM prices dropped in 1996 that 16MB finally came in more commonly.

swaaye wrote:

I remember 2MB 386s and 4MB 486s. I remember working on lots of 4MB 486s. Even 8MB was luxury back then before Win95. I think when RAM prices dropped in 1996 that 16MB finally came in more commonly.

Back in those days I went from a 1mb 286 to a 4mb 486 dx33, which I then upgraded with another 4mb of ram and a Cyrix dx2-80, it was glorious but I still had issues having enough ram for some games.

smeezekitty wrote:

Honestly 8MB is on the low end even for 486 games. 16MB is good because it is the maximum 64K can cache. […]
Show full quote

Living wrote:

like Anonymous Coward said, IF you use DOS games 8mb if enough for 99% of the games that can run in a 486

Honestly 8MB is on the low end even for 486 games. 16MB is good because it is the maximum 64K can cache.

If you plan to run 9x 32 or 64 would be better. But I don't know why you would run 8 MB in a 486 considering
the only reason they were shipped with that little is cost

Dark Forces was the first game that I recollect requiring 8MB of RAM. Up until then, I could play all the games on 4MB. So how is 8MB on the low end?

I seem to remember ~2MB expanded/extended being a recommendation during 386/486 days. If you didn't have it a game might turn features off. I can't remember when things moved beyond that. Dark Forces and Wing Commander III maybe started that off.

Half-Saint wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

Honestly 8MB is on the low end even for 486 games. 16MB is good because it is the maximum 64K can cache. […]
Show full quote

Living wrote:

like Anonymous Coward said, IF you use DOS games 8mb if enough for 99% of the games that can run in a 486

Honestly 8MB is on the low end even for 486 games. 16MB is good because it is the maximum 64K can cache.

If you plan to run 9x 32 or 64 would be better. But I don't know why you would run 8 MB in a 486 considering
the only reason they were shipped with that little is cost

Dark Forces was the first game that I recollect requiring 8MB of RAM. Up until then, I could play all the games on 4MB. So how is 8MB on the low end?

I like to reserve a few megabytes to a disk cache for one thing. I sound like a scratched record but again the only reason they didn't ship with 16MB is memory was bloody expensive.
Now its cheap. Unless period correctness is an absolute must, can you give one reason why NOT have more RAM?

Both angles are correct. Is it necessary? No.
Is it easily doable today? Yes.
Is there a scientific reason not to do so? Apart from the cacheable limit, no.

Beyond this, it is personal preference.

smeezekitty wrote:

can you give one reason why NOT have more RAM?

Sometimes when you push your cache and memory timings to the limit, especially with a FSB of 40 MHz or more, using more than 1 stick of RAM, or a greater quantity of RAM, irregardless of number of sticks, could turn a stable system with ultra fast CMOS settings into an unstable one. Alternately, you would need to slow down the CMOS timings to regain stability with greater amounts of RAM. This effect of needing to slow down the CMOS timings with greater RAM amounts is more evident with increasing cache size, going from double-bank to single-bank cache, running the FSB at 40 MHz or more, or even with faster CPUs, like the Cyrix 5x86 vs. the Am5x86. To further complicate matters, these effects are motherboard-, chipset-, and RAM module-dependent, not to mention EDO vs. FPM is another complication, with FPM performing with faster settings compared to EDO. It can be quite the black art to find the most optimal hardware configuration when you are trying to max things out.

I bought a a new P90 with 8 Megs of RAM in early -95 and only upgraded to Cyrix and 12 Megs in -96. That setup ran every game and Win95 Beta just fine until -97.

kixs wrote:

Half-Saint wrote:

I found two more 32MB 72-pin SIMMs in my stash and I'm wondering, what the advantages of having 128MB in a 486 system would be? Back in the day, I only had 8MB in my 486DX-40 and it worked rather well.

Are these FPM or EDO? As not many 486 chipsets would support EDO.

Just checked the modules, there's 4C4M4E8 -6 chips on one module, 4LC4M4E8 -6 on the other and GM71C17403CJ6 on the other two. Hope that helps.

feipoa wrote:

OK. How much memory does GLQuake use (irregardless of the resolution)?

Quoting from the system requirements: "16MB of RAM (+ quite a bit of Virtual Memory)"
Having 32MB should already be quite comfortable.