H3nrik V! wrote:

Yeah, what I was actually curious of is whether the drastically higher Integer performance of the CPU affected the benefit of using the FPU

According to Landmark v2 benchmark, the Cyrix FasMath FPU performance increased by 28% when a faster CPU (SXL) was used with the same FPU. The FPU performance increased further by 42% when an even faster CPU (SXL2) was used. So perhaps some aspect of the CPU or bus interface is limiting the full potential of the FPU; from slowest to fastest CPU, we observe an 82% increase in FPU performance of the same FasMath running at 33 MHz in all cases.

I have run some additional tests using my AMI Mark V Baby Screamer motherboard. With a 33 MHz FSB the:

SXL2-66 + Cyrix FasMath-33 (black-top)
Landmark ALU: 215
LandMark FPU: 225
CABT: 0.88 seconds
Quake: 3.0 fps

SXL2-66 + ULSI DX2-66
Landmark ALU: 215
LandMark FPU: 226
CABT: 0.88 seconds
Quake: 3.4 fps (drops to 3.3 fps if I do not cache 1 MB boundaries)

I ran all tests twice and Quake consistently gives an extra 0.4 fps to the system with the ULSI DX2-66.

What is "CABT"?
Coalition Against Bigger Trucks?

It is an electronic circuit analysis program which somebody wrote a [fpu] benchmark for.

Very interesting thread. Thank you Feipoa for the time spent on this.

Couple of notes for what they are worth:
I think the best way to test 387 class FPUs is to run as heavy as possible (based on one's patience) 3d renders with software that was available at the time. If we limit the choices to DOS only, then the best candidates will be (without particular order) 3D Studio R3 (especially with the RayMan third party renderer), LightWave3D 4/5, Topas Pro, POV Ray, etc.
Syntetic tests like lm, nssi, etc., give broad approximation only.
Autocad's renderer at the time was very basic and just not a good test bed.
Autocad's interactive viewport was more dependent on CPU/VGA than FPU, so redraw tests will be hit or miss for measuring FPU performance.

Thanks.

I downloaded 3D Studio 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 4.1. Which of these should I install and exactly what steps do I need to follow to create an appropriate FPU-heavy benchmark?

feipoa wrote:

I downloaded 3D Studio 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 4.1. Which of these should I install and exactly what steps do I need to follow to create an appropriate FPU-heavy benchmark?

any version will do, although i recommend the newest r4.1. also remember to grab the corresponding cracker or it would demand the dongle key which plugs into the parallel port.
after you install it, enter it and load a scene(i suggest the chevy which is the most complicated), and choose render->render view, set resolution to 800*600, this shall take a few minutes to render an image.
when finished, the message window will show how much time is used in rendering.

Alright, I'll look into it after a) tax season and b) I finish up with this thread, Internet Explorer 5 + Windows 3.11 + 386

Well, lets see how the IE5 thing turns out. Make sure to report when you get hit with exploit for a first time as well 😁

Btw, i just checked some results i posted a while ago on the "systems specs" forum and my FasMath (on a clean oc'ed 386dx) churns cool 145 fpu scores.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as if 3D Studio 4.1 contains VIBRANT drivers for my Speedstar 64 (Cirrus Logic GD-5434), so I am limited to what looks like VESA 640x480. The chevy file loads in 10 seconds, which is probably too fast to get any decent resolution in comparing with other FPUs.

feipoa wrote:

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as if 3D Studio 4.1 contains VIBRANT drivers for my Speedstar 64 (Cirrus Logic GD-5434), so I am limited to what looks like VESA 640x480. The chevy file loads in 10 seconds, which is probably too fast to get any decent resolution in comparing with other FPUs.

yes, the cirrus5434 is a bit too new for 3ds4.1 to contain driver for it. you can use external rcpadi drivers of the card to get higher resolution and color depth, but its a bit of work and probably not worthy. the built-in vesa driver is sufficient for most cases but i suggest using 800*600*256.
loading the scene is just the start, rendering image is what takes minutes and evaluates the fpu performance.

It usually breaks down to which instructions are used and if there is special support for instructions lke F4X4 (IIT CoPros).

I think a good starting point would be to use the 87TIMES program and try to reproduce the instruction cycles as listed in ftp://retronn.de/docs/FPU/coproc.txt in chapter 'Clock-cycle timings for coprocessor instructions on various coprocessor chips'.
with the table starting at line 2362.

For actual applications that are used for benchmarks it also matters a lot which FPU instructions are used then. Depending on this relations between FPUs vary.

For me interesting points are also:
- the huge difference between Intel 80387 and Intel 387DX.
- The fact that quote: 'due to the improved coprocessor interface of the Cyrix 486DLC the execution time of most coprocessor instructions drops by 2-3 clock cycles when used with this CPU'.

noshutdown wrote:

yes, the cirrus5434 is a bit too new for 3ds4.1 to contain driver for it. you can use external rcpadi drivers of the card to get higher resolution and color depth, but its a bit of work and probably not worthy. the built-in vesa driver is sufficient for most cases but i suggest using 800*600*256. loading the scene is just the start, rendering image is what takes minutes and evaluates the fpu performance.

I loaded the chevy image, but how to I 'render' it?

Attached is an image of the program itself and of the VIBCFG utility to set the display.

Main-Display is set to VESA
Materials-Display is set to VESA
Render-Display is set to VESA800x600
Flic Playing is set to ADESK-FLCLIB

The VESA Compatibles section, Fong, and Screen Mode are only applicable if using the VIBRANT driver. So how do I set the colour depth?

feipoa wrote:

I loaded the chevy image, but how to I 'render' it? […]
Show full quote

I loaded the chevy image, but how to I 'render' it?

Attached is an image of the program itself and of the VIBCFG utility to set the display.

Main-Display is set to VESA
Materials-Display is set to VESA
Render-Display is set to VESA800x600
Flic Playing is set to ADESK-FLCLIB

The VESA Compatibles section, Fong, and Screen Mode are only applicable if using the VIBRANT driver. So how do I set the colour depth?

3DS4_program.jpg

3DS4_VIBCFG.jpg

for the display mode, first choose vibrant for every display, which refers to the drivers included in 3ds. next you can choose video card model, there are many cards supported but not the cirrus5434 which is a bit too new, so choose vesa compatible and 800*600*256.

after you load a scene, choose renderer->render view from the menu on the right, and click a viewport to render. another menu of rendering options will show up, set resolution to 800*600, press enter and take some minutes.

For selecting a VIBRANT display, I had tried what you suggested previously, but I think only 640x480x16c would work. The others returned an error.

The best resolution I can find with the VIBRANT driver is VESA Super VGA (mode 6A). I tried all the options and only 640x480.16x and 800x600x16c work. Unfortunately, for Materials-Display, it would not let me select VESA Super VGA mode 6A.

Looking down at the config page, 640x480 is the highest resolution available to save. Possibly because Materials-Display is stuck on VESA?

Here's is the programme running through some sequence prior to Rendering. Should the on-screen clock be running?

It took 12 minutes to bring up this rather unremarkable image. I'm guessing it was so fast because its only 16-colour at 640x480?

Attached you the latest VIBRANT driver. It should take care of your video card.

Representation is decoupled from data - meaning - the picture is rendered at full bit depth, but shown on screen according to what vga/driver can do.
Full computation is performed, so the render times are valid.

Once the image is displayed fully, press the space or esc key and you will see the overall render time at the bottom of the screen.

Btw, not far ago i made a post where i included bunch of render tests somewhere at the bottom there: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

feipoa wrote:

The best resolution I can find with the VIBRANT driver is VESA Super VGA (mode 6A). I tried all the options and only 640x480.16x and 800x600x16c work. Unfortunately, for Materials-Display, it would not let me select VESA Super VGA mode 6A.

don't choose that vesa mode 6a as its 16 colors only. just choose "vesa compatibles" below it, and then a bunch of resolutions. or return to vesa driver like your material editor.

Looking down at the config page, 640x480 is the highest resolution available to save. Possibly because Materials-Display is stuck on VESA?

the 640*480 button is just a shortcut to set the rendered image size, you can enter any value above.
also click the "disk" button so you can save your rendered image as a file, and watch it with sea in true color mode.
after finish, return to the main display and the message window will display the time used in rendering.

Thanks pshipkov. I'll try this driver. It contains Vibrant for GD-5434?

noshutdown wrote:

don't choose that vesa mode 6a as its 16 colors only. just choose "vesa compatibles" below it, and then a bunch of resolutions. or return to vesa driver like your material editor.

When I select VESA compatibles from the VIBRANT main menu, it asks me to select a resolution. All resolution options result in an error. The only VIBRANT options which work are VESA mode 6a. The only NON-vibrant option which works is VESA and VGA at 640x480.

That latest VIBRANT driver supports pretty much every video card all the way until 1997-ish.
In a way it can be used as a database for what was out there back then. 😁

Your video card is listed there - i checked early.
Let us know if we can help with anything else.

Looking forward for some results !