Quake responsive and playable at 4fps on a 486DX-33? 🤣
At what resolution are you playing Duke Nukem 3D? Anything above 320x200 will be stuttering on all low to mid range 486 PC's.
Minimum requirements for Duke Nukem 3D is a 486DX2-66.
Don't expect stellar performance on a 486DX-33.

21603 wrote:

Quake runs at about 4 fps, but is perfectly playable and very responsive

do what now

Quake really struggles on a 486, even a fast one.

jesolo wrote:

Quake responsive and playable at 4fps on a 486DX-33? At what resolution are you playing Duke Nukem 3D? Anything above 320x240 wi […]
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Quake responsive and playable at 4fps on a 486DX-33?
At what resolution are you playing Duke Nukem 3D? Anything above 320x240 will be stuttering on all low to mid range 486 PC's.
Minimum requirements for Duke Nukem 3D is a 486DX2-66.
Dont expect stellar performance on a 486DX-33.

It's perfectly playable for me, minus sound because that comes out of the speakers like something is being destroyed inside my PC. I think everyone should try Quake on a 486 for the experience.

Duke is running at the minimum 320x200. With even low details in game it's still not playable.

Bottom of the box says 100% IBM or compatible 486 PC with 8MB RAM. It probably should say DX2/66 as a minimum.

Quake runs at about 4 fps, but is perfectly playable and very responsive

Authentic low-end PC experience has gone too far!

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Authentic low-end PC experience has gone too far!

Aye. Not all of childhood is worth revisiting.

That said... I admit i don't mind how my P4 sags when UT2K4 gets busy. That falling framerate fitting with the adrenaline surge just feels like the game did - all warm memories.

Other than even attempting Quake, your DX-33 experience matches my memory. I recall Duke3D studdering occasionally on a DX2-66. I tried Quake on my DX4-100 but I couldnt handle the 9 fps. It really wasn’t until I had a Cyrix P200 w/ Rendition Verite 2100 that I finally played thru GLQuake.

Don't forget Duke3D also has a screen size setting (as well as resolution selection) which makes a significant difference.

Quake on 486 is not playable. Not even on DX4 100 and not even on AMD 133. You really need Pentium for Quake.
Duke3D is ok on DX4 100, but on DX2 66 is not a great experience, it runs, but everytime there's a few monsters and you start shooting it will slow down too much. And on DX33 its not playable.

eh, quake on a high-end 486 was fine. that's how I beat it (and even played online). 11-20fps was perfectly acceptable in the day.

DX33 on the other hand i won't even think about it. Descent should be enough of a wake-up call.

Duke3D IIRC was much about the sudden on-demand disk access getting in the way for low specs. Quake precached all necessary assets on load.

Even if something is possible it doesn't mean - it's right thing to do.

Both Quake and Duke3d are very late 486 and Pentium games. Almost everybody had like 486DX4-100 or Pentium 133 when these titles were released. Some guys had Voodoo cards just few months after (for glQuake). There's absolutely no point in trying to play Quake on something as slow as 486DX33 - it's early 90s machine for 2D games (Doom) and early 3D games (like X-Wing). Same applies to Duke3D.

I recall that my friends at highschool who had DX4-100 CPUs complained constantly about low FPS in Quake and Duke3D, and they played it in reduced resolution (or in high res, but reduced window/viewport size) as these were pretty much reserved for Pentium machines. At the time I had 286 (and switched to K5-PR133 in the early 1997) so it didn't really bothered me much. ;D

pewpewpew wrote:

Aye. Not all of childhood is worth revisiting.

Agree. I recently tried to play Their Finest Hour on a stock A500 (like I did back in -92) and it was just abysmal, like 3 fps max. I can't believe I spent hours and hours playing it back then. 😵

I even beat Wing Commander on a stock A500 back then. 😁

If you want a good experience, get a pentium and not a 486. You'll never regret it (though you can keep for sure the 486 for older stuff)

21603 wrote:

Quake runs at about 4 fps, but is perfectly playable and very responsive

Stop posting drunk.

Not playable it seems to many of your standards, but 25 years ago that was all I had and I wasn't going to let anything like borderline negative fps get in the way of me playing a game 😎

Doom is another one that I remember running much faster, but I think I've proven that my memories of such events have been altered by time to appear much better than the reality showed.

I was worried that my machine might be lacking in some way to my original despite better hardware.

A CF card wouldn't be hurting performance in any way would it?

Also back in the day I was stupid enough to install Windows 95 on my machine and play the demo for Jedi Knight. Quake runs better.

21603 wrote:

A CF card wouldn't be hurting performance in any way would it?

Not if you've got 16MB of RAM... assuming you do have smartdrv running?

BTW I've read somewhere that scientist have a theory why people complain about the time going faster with age. The article said it's because when we are younger we process images faster (our brains have higher frame rate ;D ) so in the same unit of time we gather more information (and adults gather less information so the time appears to move faster). Same process is responsible for having a vivid childhood memories.
If it's true then as a child lower fps in game should be perceived as less smooth then 😉 but I guess that amusement and excitement of playing these games as kids was more important back then than high fps 😀

Still it's just a theory... a GAME THEORY 😉

So strange to think i played all full Quake in 1996 from start to end with software rendering 320x200 and with a 486 DX-2/66 god, back in the day we were true masochists. 😵 I got a Pentium 133 in 1998... everything flied in there, but another sadistic period started, Half-Life with a Pentium 133, thank god i had a Voodoo to help me a little, but the in game loading times were miserable.