You probably won't notice much difference. The 233 is 15% faster, but only in raw computing speed. Since the FSB stays the same, nothing else will get faster.

The 3D games you mentioned are very demanding for a 200/233 MHz system, so you should definitely opt for the 233 MMX to squeeze the last few percents of performance out of your system. Especially Quake III Arena (and the rest of the Q3 engine titles) will be more than thankful for the small perf boost as it uses what it can get even on lower res modes like 320x240.

DOS games and most mid 90's FPS don't care at all about whether your CPU is running at 200 or 233 MHz. If I recall correctly, Turok (a 1997 release) recommended a 120/133 MHz system with 3D acceleration. Add another 50% to compensate for software rendering (no such renderer exists for Turok but you get the idea...) and you are roughly in the 200/233 MHz territory. It really is up to you but Quake III and the likes need every single MHz they can get.

Fantastic! Thanks for clarification! (Amazing command of English on your part my friend, my fellow European folks never cease to amaze me!)

Tbh, the later Pentium MMX CPUs were so overengineered with fantastic yields that binning was pretty arbitrary (all parts could easily do 233MHz or - much - faster). I'd just set the multiplier with the current CPU to 1.5/3.5 and enjoy 233MHz with that.

Agreed that those 3D games are very demanding. You don't say which motherboard you have, but as the P55C CPUs can clock (much) higher than 233MHz, if the board will do higher FSB than 66MHz it could be worth a try if things grind too slowly, particularly as FSB also boosts mem speed. Of course this is overclocking and going out-of-spec always incurs a risk, but up to 262MHz (75x3.5) I wouldn't even bay an eyelid, and if you have a good CPU, 290MHz might be possible. I once had a P233MMX that happily ran at 100x3.5=350MHz with stock voltage and cooling, but that is rather less common and moreover, it's unlikely your motherboard will allow 100MHz speeds.

Well, I am torn between this system, and my other one, which is a PIII 850MHz. That one is WAY too fast (can not use SetMul on it at all, whereas I can, on this MMX machine)

I know for pure DOS gaming I have to use this MMX, and use the PIII-850MHz for mid-late 90s FPS games, but desktop space is an issue, and I would like to have only just one PC at a given time.

C0deHunter wrote:

Well, I am torn between this system, and my other one [...] but desktop space is an issue, and I would like to have only just one PC at a given time.

Ah, yes. A similar issue plagues me -- both Samsur and Al-Jalima share a KVM switch, but I don't have the room for two desktop-style cases on my other desk, so I'm left wondering if I should try to source a decent tower case for Samsur... I prefer the desktop form factor, so I'm reluctant to spend money on a tower when my living situation may very well change. In general I find that Al-Jalima's capable enough that I rarely need to power Samsur up.

As for the topic at hand -- when I upgraded Al-Jalima from its gold-top 180MHz chip at 200, to the blacktop 200 running at 233, I noticed a nice little speed increase in CPU-hungry games like Unreal and Quake III. In a couple cases, most notably Diablo II, it took it from a stuttery unplayable mess to something I could actually sit down and enjoy. How much of that was from the raw clock bump and how much was from the extra 768K of on-package L2 cache, I can't proclaim to know, but I'd say it was worth it enough that if you already have a 233 chip around you may as well chuck it in and use it as an opportunity to pull the heatsink and clean the old compound off and put some fresh on. This is of course assuming you've not already done that.

As for DOS gaming, I don't really play any speed-sensitive games -- I have a copy of Tyrian 2000 instead of the gold release, so I don't have any speed issues there, and my copy of Jazz Jackrabbit is patched (although at only 233MHz it arguably didn't need to be). I saw some success by disabling caches and in some extreme cases popping off the top and setting my jumper block for a slower FSB and lower multiplier.

My situation is a bit different, though: I run my Windows games at 640x480 and have a Glide-capable card in place. Your mileage may very well vary.

C0deHunter wrote:

Well, I am torn between this system, and my other one, which is a PIII 850MHz. That one is WAY too fast (can not use SetMul on it at all, whereas I can, on this MMX machine)

I know for pure DOS gaming I have to use this MMX, and use the PIII-850MHz for mid-late 90s FPS games, but desktop space is an issue, and I would like to have only just one PC at a given time.

You can easily fix this problem by using a software hack that forces the hardware power-saving features of your PIII system and turns it into a formidable slow-down machine:

http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS

For example, running "throttle.exe -C 4" halves the actual duty cycles of your CPU, making it twice as slow (and this is before any Cache manipulation).
And running "Throttle.exe -C 6" makes it a quarter speed.

The "-C" key simply tells it to not disable the L1 Cache, and the numbers correspond to those of the chipset throttling levels: "0" for full speed, "1" for 12.5% slowdown and 87.5% of total speed, "2" for 25% slowdown and 75% total speed... to the maximum of "7" for 87.5% slowdown and 12.5% of total speed. You can use that with L1/L2 Caches disabled etc.

And switching the FSB to 66 Mhz makes it go down even deeper: I've even made a 3-position FSB pin switch for my Coppermine Celly to have the maximum range. With 533 Mhz at 66 FSB, L2 Cache disabled and "throttle.exe -C 7", it can do Ultima 7 and One Must Fall 2097 exactly right. And with L1 also disabled, it can outslow any P1 or K6 machine by a mile, while still retaining control over increments (66/100/133 FSB with steps in between, 7 throttling levels and two caches to play with).

I'm still wondering why nobody uses this method, or at least spreads the word about it. Perhaps people just confuse chipset throttling with crappy software slowdown utils of old?

C0deHunter wrote:

Hello all, […]
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Hello all,

I just bought a vintage system that came with Pentium 200 MMX! The thing is, that I also found two loose Pentium 233 MMX, at a good price!

I am already using PhilsComputerLab SetMul batch files, and have been able to play some CPU sensitive games (Tyrian, Turrican 2, etc.)

1) I am also planning to play some mid 90s FPS games, and based on my research most of them can be run on these CPUs at 320x240 (my favorite resolution! I love chunky pixels, as I am not planning to use my Voodoo cards at the moment), the only demanding ones are Quake III Arena, Soldier of Fortune, and Heavy Metal FAKK2)

2) Do recommend that I upgrade this vintage computer to one of those 233MMX CPUs?

3) Or is the 200MHz already good enough? (slow enough for older DOS games)

Thanks in advance!

You name some games that even struggled on my PIII 450! Not sure why you'd push your system that hard - the P200MMX or P233MMX is an excellent PC for early Windows 95/98 games and if you have a PIII850 you're much better off running a dual system side by side and slowing down the faster one for those few games that fall between the cracks.

Agree with DionB about the overclock, run it at 233mhz, you won't have any problems.
Except for this tiny note: Later versions of the mmx cpu's were locked, only the older versions will you the 1,5x+3,5x multiplier, later ones will just give you the 1,5 instead (or make it 2,5 for 166mmx, don't remember exactly).

meljor wrote:

Agree with DionB about the overclock, run it at 233mhz, you won't have any problems.
Except for this tiny note: Later versions of the mmx cpu's were locked, only the older versions will you the 1,5x+3,5x multiplier, later ones will just give you the 1,5 instead (or make it 2,5 for 166mmx, don't remember exactly).

And of course it depends on the motherboard. Mine only did 233Mhz after I exploited an undocumented (by IBM anyway) trick to use a 3.5 multiplier at 66Mhz.

I am currently using a P200mmx too. Lot's of fantastic Dos/Win95b Games are working on this.
I already installed about 20GB Games/Demos/Emulators for Win95b 😀

red_avatar wrote:

meljor wrote:

Agree with DionB about the overclock, run it at 233mhz, you won't have any problems.
Except for this tiny note: Later versions of the mmx cpu's were locked, only the older versions will you the 1,5x+3,5x multiplier, later ones will just give you the 1,5 instead (or make it 2,5 for 166mmx, don't remember exactly).

And of course it depends on the motherboard. Mine only did 233Mhz after I exploited an undocumented (by IBM anyway) trick to use a 3.5 multiplier at 66Mhz.

I think every mmx supporting mobo will have the 1,5x multiplier setting? That will act as 3,5x with a 233mmx (or unlocked 200mmx).

meljor wrote:

red_avatar wrote:

And of course it depends on the motherboard. Mine only did 233Mhz after I exploited an undocumented (by IBM anyway) trick to use a 3.5 multiplier at 66Mhz.

I think every mmx supporting mobo will have the 1,5x multiplier setting? That will act as 3,5x with a 233mmx (or unlocked 200mmx).

Every single So5 or So7 board will have 1.5x and 2.0x multiplier settings, so if the CPU remaps 1.5x to 3.5x, it can be run on 233MHz on any board supporting P55C.

As for multiplier locks - I'm aware some P55C had them, but in that case it would run at the locked multiplier (i.e. 2.5x or 3x- definitely not 1.5x), and not at 1.5x if jumpered for that. The remapping of 1.5x to 3.5x is pretty hardwired in those CPUs.

C0deHunter wrote:

Hello all, […]
Show full quote

Hello all,

I just bought a vintage system that came with Pentium 200 MMX! The thing is, that I also found two loose Pentium 233 MMX, at a good price!

I am already using PhilsComputerLab SetMul batch files, and have been able to play some CPU sensitive games (Tyrian, Turrican 2, etc.)

1) I am also planning to play some mid 90s FPS games, and based on my research most of them can be run on these CPUs at 320x240 (my favorite resolution! I love chunky pixels, as I am not planning to use my Voodoo cards at the moment), the only demanding ones are Quake III Arena, Soldier of Fortune, and Heavy Metal FAKK2)

2) Do recommend that I upgrade this vintage computer to one of those 233MMX CPUs?

3) Or is the 200MHz already good enough? (slow enough for older DOS games)

Thanks in advance!

I strongly disrecommend getting any Pentium above 200MHz. That's the Intel cap before you'll start encountering the RTE200 (divide by zero) bug in games like Cyberdogs and Drugworm, rendering those less-demanding games unlaunchable. If you don't want simpler games, the 233 might boost the games a bit - mostly mentally, as you'll know you have the fastest Pentium. On the other hand, you can extract equal compatibility out of an astronomically faster Pentium 4, which should be more or less free these days. Or even better, a socket 7 K6; which will not only fit up to 550MHz on your current board (if compatible), but be RTE200-free as well.

SOF, FAKK2, Q3 are Pentium3 games with a fast AGP (32/64MB) gfx-card like GF2 and above.
Thy are not the ones to play on a Pentium200mmx, as I mentioned above a found LOTS of games
that just ran fine on my p200mmx with my 2MB Matrox Mystique and a 4MB Voodoo1.

What type of genres do you want to play on that 200mmx?

let's look at this the other way.

System requirements for Heavy Metal FAKK2
P2 300, 64MB Ram, 16MB Video

Quake 3 and Soldier of Fortune both want.
P233Mhz, 64MB Ram, 8MB Video

So you'll HAVE to run with everything turned off and it'll still lag at times. If you cant slow the P3 down enough for your dos games can you run the above games on something newer? Casue I dont think you can get what you want out of the P200.
is it a slot P3? maybe you can downgrade that to a P2 and have better luck in dos?

Revolter wrote:

You can easily fix this problem by using a software hack that forces the hardware power-saving features of your PIII system and […]
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C0deHunter wrote:

Well, I am torn between this system, and my other one, which is a PIII 850MHz. That one is WAY too fast (can not use SetMul on it at all, whereas I can, on this MMX machine)

I know for pure DOS gaming I have to use this MMX, and use the PIII-850MHz for mid-late 90s FPS games, but desktop space is an issue, and I would like to have only just one PC at a given time.

You can easily fix this problem by using a software hack that forces the hardware power-saving features of your PIII system and turns it into a formidable slow-down machine:

http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS

For example, running "throttle.exe -C 4" halves the actual duty cycles of your CPU, making it twice as slow (and this is before any Cache manipulation).
And running "Throttle.exe -C 6" makes it a quarter speed.

The "-C" key simply tells it to not disable the L1 Cache, and the numbers correspond to those of the chipset throttling levels: "0" for full speed, "1" for 12.5% slowdown and 87.5% of total speed, "2" for 25% slowdown and 75% total speed... to the maximum of "7" for 87.5% slowdown and 12.5% of total speed. You can use that with L1/L2 Caches disabled etc.

And switching the FSB to 66 Mhz makes it go down even deeper: I've even made a 3-position FSB pin switch for my Coppermine Celly to have the maximum range. With 533 Mhz at 66 FSB, L2 Cache disabled and "throttle.exe -C 7", it can do Ultima 7 and One Must Fall 2097 exactly right. And with L1 also disabled, it can outslow any P1 or K6 machine by a mile, while still retaining control over increments (66/100/133 FSB with steps in between, 7 throttling levels and two caches to play with).

I'm still wondering why nobody uses this method, or at least spreads the word about it. Perhaps people just confuse chipset throttling with crappy software slowdown utils of old?

Thanks for the link, I tried it but my system (ABIT BH6 PIII-800 MHz is not compatible) it just make my system hang.

Try a fx-chipset.

Is there another program that slows down the CPUs? Specifically, for my other system's PIII-800 processor. I have decided to use that PIII system over the Pentium MMX one.

SetMul does not seem to slow my PIII-800 down at all. Is there another program out there?

Thanks!