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Is a fast 486 (DX4-100) fast enough for OS/2 Warp 4?

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First post, by appiah4

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I used Warp 3 with a DX33 andlater a DX4-100 back in the day. I firmly remember it performing perfectly well on 486 CPUs, but I never used 486 hardware for Warp 4. If I remember correctly, I had moved onto a Pentium by the time I moved on to Warp 4. So my question is, is a fast DX4 fast enough for Warp 4 or is a Pentium particularly recommended?

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 1 of 8, by rmay635703

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It will physically run if you have 16mb

Fast enough is subjective, I say go for it and report back

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Reply 2 of 8, by appiah4

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Those requirements are highly suspect, there is no way a desktop OS in 1996 could require 1GB of hard disk space..

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 4 of 8, by derSammler

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The Warp 4 box says:

486/33 MHz with 12-16 MB RAM
200 MB hard disk space for "Easy" installation (100-300 MB when using custom installation)

As long as you don't install all that Speech stuff Warp 4 comes with, it should work nice and fast on a DX4-100. Like with Windows NT, RAM is more crucial to performance than raw CPU power.

Reply 5 of 8, by Jo22

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derSammler wrote:

RAM is more crucial to performance than raw CPU power.[

I think the same. From a personal point of view, RAM and slow hard disks were often to blame for bad performance.
OSes like Windows 3.x, NT, 9x and OS/2 run best if they haven't to worry about running out of memory.
16MiB or more for OS/2 Warp is fine. 4MiB is the bare minimum for OS/2 (just like Win95 Retail specs said) and absolutely not recommended.
It's even mentioned in that OS2 video: https://youtu.be/-DAojx2Hgec?t=2760
Btw, that "64MiB Option" in some BIOSes is relevant for Pre-Warp cultures only. 😉

Edit: Several edits.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 6 of 8, by appiah4

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To elaborate, I am undecided between an Am486DX4-100 32MB system vs a K5-PR166 64MB system.. I want to build a 486 but I'm not sure I will be comfortable with its Warp 4 performance.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 7 of 8, by Jo22

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appiah4 wrote:

To elaborate, I am undecided between an Am486DX4-100 32MB system vs a K5-PR166 64MB system.. I want to build a 486 but I'm not sure I will be comfortable with its Warp 4 performance.

May I ask if you do have got a powerful main PC ?
If so, you could try to configure PCem with the specs mentioned above and see if it works well enough for you. 😀

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

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