well i currently have my time machine(to play 386,486 and pentium) era games, everything working flawlessly, when both caches are disabled wing commander 1 run perfectly fine, do you guys think that 386 speed sensitive games would run too fast with a 200 MMX, cause i was thinking of also getting a voodoo 2.
And in that case which games you guys recommend that would benefit for the 200 MMX ?
wrote:well i currently have my time machine(to play 386,486 and pentium) era games, everything working flawlessly, when both caches are disabled wing commander 1 run perfectly fine, do you guys think that 386 speed sensitive games would run too fast with a 200 MMX, cause i was thinking of also getting a voodoo 2.
And in that case which games you guys recommend that would benefit for the 200 MMX ?
The pentium MMX can be configured with SETMUL and caches disabled to run at about a 386DX25 speeds, but no slower than that without tools like mo'slow. It has probably the most speed gradients of any DOS era CPU because of the options to set bus speed, caches, and to disable instructions (including MMX). It should be able to get slow enough to run wing commander, and fast enough to run high resolution DOS games at 640x480 at decent speeds.
wrote:wrote:well i currently have my time machine(to play 386,486 and pentium) era games, everything working flawlessly, when both caches are disabled wing commander 1 run perfectly fine, do you guys think that 386 speed sensitive games would run too fast with a 200 MMX, cause i was thinking of also getting a voodoo 2.
And in that case which games you guys recommend that would benefit for the 200 MMX ?The pentium MMX can be configured with SETMUL and caches disabled to run at about a 386DX25 speeds, but no slower than that without tools like mo'slow. It has probably the most speed gradients of any DOS era CPU because of the options to set bus speed, caches, and to disable instructions (including MMX). It should be able to get slow enough to run wing commander, and fast enough to run high resolution DOS games at 640x480 at decent speeds.
I thought that only K6-2+ or K6-3+ were able to change L2 cache on the fly, but for caches(because they have l2 cache built in) but i really don't see the point of using setmul on cpus that don't allow l2 and multiplier changes on the go, i always set the cache to make the appropriate speed for the game that i want to play before booting.
I could just try it, but my board require voltage,bus frequency(in this case the bus frequency wont need to be changed) and multiplier to be set by jumpers so its quite annoying to set jumpers specially with the board inside the case, hence why i'm asking here before.
Maybe tomorrow i'll give it a try.
Rebooting to set bus speed, multi, and cache isn't a big deal in my opinion.
I'd recommend configuring your jumpers with toggle switches that can be mounted for exterior access. My ASUS TX97 board is the same way.
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wrote:Rebooting to set bus speed, multi, and cache isn't a big deal in my opinion.
I'd recommend configuring your jumpers with toggle switches that can be mounted for exterior access. My ASUS TX97 board is the same way.
Mine is Asus SP97-XV.
i thought of going the extra mile and creating an arduino based jumper configurator, but i guess with a simple toggle switch i could configure the multiplier, cause the voltage and bus speed i would keep the same.
wrote:well i currently have my time machine(to play 386,486 and pentium) era games, everything working flawlessly, when both caches are disabled wing commander 1 run perfectly fine, do you guys think that 386 speed sensitive games would run too fast with a 200 MMX, cause i was thinking of also getting a voodoo 2.
And in that case which games you guys recommend that would benefit for the 200 MMX ?
You'd gain a bit more speed on the top-end if you need it (really, only SVGA gaming needs more than 133Mhz). You'd also gain some speed options in the 486 25-33Mhz range. But you'd lose a little on the low end (so for example, Wing Commander could go from perfect to slightly too fast). If you're not missing the extra horsepower on the top-end, then it might not be worth it. There are some games that benefit from having some 486 speed options, like Ultima VII, Might and Magic 4, and Realms of Arkania Star Trail, so those are good reasons to go with the MMX. It just depends on what type of games you're going to want to spend more time with on this system and whether you want to mess with external multiplier switches.
The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks
wrote:wrote:well i currently have my time machine(to play 386,486 and pentium) era games, everything working flawlessly, when both caches are disabled wing commander 1 run perfectly fine, do you guys think that 386 speed sensitive games would run too fast with a 200 MMX, cause i was thinking of also getting a voodoo 2.
And in that case which games you guys recommend that would benefit for the 200 MMX ?You'd gain a bit more speed on the top-end if you need it (really, only SVGA gaming needs more than 133Mhz). You'd also gain some speed options in the 486 25-33Mhz range. But you'd lose a little on the low end (so for example, Wing Commander could go from perfect to slightly too fast). If you're not missing the extra horsepower on the top-end, then it might not be worth it. There are some games that benefit from having some 486 speed options, like Ultima VII, Might and Magic 4, and Realms of Arkania Star Trail, so those are good reasons to go with the MMX. It just depends on what type of games you're going to want to spend more time with on this system and whether you want to mess with external multiplier switches.
Well i think ill stay with my 133 for this build.
I may build a socket 370 with a via C3 CPU for those.
I just need to recap the board.
To be clear, I find MMX chips to be better than non MMX as more of the cache flags have an effect on performance, so you have more tuning options and smoother scaling. I'd suggest using a downclocked MMX chip rather than a P54 core. You gain a lot of flexibility for a minor increase in bottom end performance (like 386DX20 vs 386DX25).
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
wrote:I thought that only K6-2+ or K6-3+ were able to change L2 cache on the fly, but for caches(because they have l2 cache built in) […]
wrote:wrote:well i currently have my time machine(to play 386,486 and pentium) era games, everything working flawlessly, when both caches are disabled wing commander 1 run perfectly fine, do you guys think that 386 speed sensitive games would run too fast with a 200 MMX, cause i was thinking of also getting a voodoo 2.
And in that case which games you guys recommend that would benefit for the 200 MMX ?The pentium MMX can be configured with SETMUL and caches disabled to run at about a 386DX25 speeds, but no slower than that without tools like mo'slow. It has probably the most speed gradients of any DOS era CPU because of the options to set bus speed, caches, and to disable instructions (including MMX). It should be able to get slow enough to run wing commander, and fast enough to run high resolution DOS games at 640x480 at decent speeds.
I thought that only K6-2+ or K6-3+ were able to change L2 cache on the fly, but for caches(because they have l2 cache built in) but i really don't see the point of using setmul on cpus that don't allow l2 and multiplier changes on the go, i always set the cache to make the appropriate speed for the game that i want to play before booting.
I could just try it, but my board require voltage,bus frequency(in this case the bus frequency wont need to be changed) and multiplier to be set by jumpers so its quite annoying to set jumpers specially with the board inside the case, hence why i'm asking here before.
Maybe tomorrow i'll give it a try.
You still have to disable L2 cache in the bios for K6+ processor as well in order to get down to 386 speeds. At 133mhz with caches on you can hit just a touch above 486 66, a few steps between 486 33 and 486 66 and of course pentium pro 133. Witch caches disabled, you can get down to right on a 386 33 with some intermittent steps between a fast 386 and slow 486. You then have the option to go down to 120 mhz for a slower 386, or up to 233mhz for more performance.
You can also leave it at 233mhz and caches on, and then configure instructions to get down to 486 speeds and pentium 133mhz speeds, and then only change the multiplier when you need to play older games at 386 speeds. It just gives you the most options.
wrote:To be clear, I find MMX chips to be better than non MMX as more of the cache flags have an effect on performance, so you have more tuning options and smoother scaling. I'd suggest using a downclocked MMX chip rather than a P54 core. You gain a lot of flexibility for a minor increase in bottom end performance (like 386DX20 vs 386DX25).
In what ways does a downclocked MMX chip perform differently than a p54 chip set to the same multiplier? I would think they would be the same?
wrote:Mine is Asus SP97-XV.
i thought of going the extra mile and creating an arduino based jumper configurator, but i guess with a simple toggle switch i could configure the multiplier, cause the voltage and bus speed i would keep the same.
SP97XV? That has a SiS 5598 chipset and gives you an extra option to halve performance: back in 1997 integrated VGA was pretty primitive - if it's enabled, half the memory bandwidth is allocated to it, regardless of whether it's being stressed or not. Even a DOS CLI bencmark will see a ~45% drop in performance with onboard VGA enabled vs with it disabled. You don't even have to use it, you can keep your PCI VGA set as primary, but still incur the performance hit due to enabling it 😉
wrote:In what ways does a downclocked MMX chip perform differently than a p54 chip set to the same multiplier? I would think they would be the same?
The response to the TR12 registers is quite different.
Let's benchmark our systems with caches disabled
Re: SetMul - Multiplier control for VIA C3 / AMD K6 Mobile / Cyrix 5x86
Conversely, P54 cores support a 1.5x multiplier where that's remapped on a P55 core (PMMX). The lowest multiplier on a PMMX chip is 2x.
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
wrote:The response to the TR12 registers is quite different. Let's benchmark our systems with caches disabled Re: SetMul - Multiplier […]
wrote:In what ways does a downclocked MMX chip perform differently than a p54 chip set to the same multiplier? I would think they would be the same?
The response to the TR12 registers is quite different.
Let's benchmark our systems with caches disabled
Re: SetMul - Multiplier control for VIA C3 / AMD K6 Mobile / Cyrix 5x86Conversely, P54 cores support a 1.5x multiplier where that's remapped on a P55 core (PMMX). The lowest multiplier on a PMMX chip is 2x.
Oh interesting. So you could get down to to as low as 75mhz or 90mhz clock speed on a p54c core. That is really interesting. The p54c cores top out at 120mhz don't they?
What about the p54CS and p54CTB cores? Some of those models can do 200mhz, can they also hit a 1.5x multiplier?
To the best of my knowledge, yes, the multiplier was only remapped starting with the P55 core.
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
