I think you might have L2 cache as well the one opti chip 82C382 suport 64 or 128 kb.
https://theretroweb.com/expansion-chips/2462

If you look under the upper right of the board (above the cpu and right of the memory) are there 4 identical chips likely in sockets?
Is there any setting in your bios for external cache?

edit : plus your bios has 386 25 / cache multiple places in the bootup
Also one of your earlier bios shots showed system set to fast which is good, but that is your way to 'turbo' the system to be slower 😀

Pickle wrote on 2024-03-08, 03:08:

Also one of your earlier bios shots showed system set to fast which is good, but that is your way to 'turbo' the system to be slower 😀

Wait... you're saying that if I set the system performance in the bios to "slow" it will run faster? 😀

This looks promising

Pickle, you are a genius! L2 is enabled now and there's an appx 4-5 fps boost in 3D bench!

Ignore the clock speed, I had turned off "turbo" for a second in the bios to see what would happen, and the cpu showed up as considerably slower.

Doom is surprisingly playable all of a sudden! Not bad performance for the hardware at all.

yeah that more like it, L2 can really help and your maxed out at 128kb 😀. You could also enable those shadow options, this copys the rom data in ram for faster access, it isnt going to drastic but might help at little bit.
I think the xtbios is mapped at D000, but its on the boot screen you can enable that as well for the same reason.
edit: dont enable all of them, just video, system, and the one that matches the xtbios address

'Shipping wuth cache disabled' was surprisingly common on vintage systems with phoenix bios, iirc.

Usually with packard bell systems, (almost always, with some prod runs!), but with others also.

just turning it on was a huge step an making them useable.

Glad you were able to here.

Congrats.

Pickle wrote on 2024-03-08, 04:20:

edit: dont enable all of them, just video, system, and the one that matches the xtbios address

I did switch these bios settings on today, but ultimately it was the same FPS in 3D bench as without the settings. 15.6FPS looks like the current and probably final max right now, which is certainly a HUGE improvement to where I started from a few days ago with 6.8.

I have noticed a few slight graphical glitches in games when using the L1 and clock doubler options for the cyrix. Commander Keen 4 5 and 6 and Biomenace (same engine) have some issues with transparencies where the transparent background of certain sprites show up as solid white or solid black rather than transparent. Epic Pinball has another unusual graphics issue, when the pinball travels around the table, wherever the ball sprite goes, it makes the background image of the pinball table very blocky and low-res looking. I don't remember either of these glitches from bitd with this hardware, but Its kinda moot to trouble shoot it - each of the games is rudimentary enough to run perfectly, both from a speed and graphic glitch pov when the cyrix high performance settings are disabled.

yeah i didnt expect much from the shadow ram, but its worth trying. Probably had more impact for 8088/286 systems.
the other main set of options that can give the biggest improvements are any memory timing and waitstates, if you have any of those and can set to a lower numerical value it might give a couple more fps.

Added windows 3.1. I figure w95 might run but wouldnt give me much of any advantages here. The PC is likely too slow to play w95 games.

By the way, the PC speaker on this PC is quite loud. I've never heard of such a thing, but I don't suppose there is software that might act to reduce it's volume?

A lot has happened since the last update. The PC is essentially where I want it at this point with its full upgraded hardware configured comparable to how it had been upgraded back in the day. I've also dug out my old monitor and some old speakers to complete the look. Here's what's happened since the last post.

-better learned how to configure the cyrix dlc cpu. My fastest benchmark is 16.1 in 3D bench which is good enough for most games up to 1994. (Along the way, not only did some revised settings for the l1 cache result in my fastest performance, but they also completely cleaned up some glitchy graphics problems I mentioned in a post above that I was having with early ID games and Epic Pinball.)
-installed Gravis Ultrasound PNP
-Installed Opti generic mid 90s soundcard for use with games that will only use adlib synth for sfx/music
-installed a variety of dos games that I ran on the system in the 90s. I went a step further though by recovering some saved games/user content related to games (e.g., Stunts custom tracks, Street Rod custom cars) from old HDDs and floppy disks I found in storage (some of which was data originally created on this pc decades ago) and added them to this machine for personal nostalgia. I also found a disk with some random visual basic "games"/programs my dad wrote on this system 30 years ago, so I added them on here too.
-Installed a mitsumi 2x CDrom drive - this was an interesting endeavor. The PC's brackets to mount the cdrom were long lost and a user here (Pickle) kindly helped recreate them via 3D printing. I am totally indebted to him for this.

I have a few small things to work out eventually. Sound and mouse movement do not work in Windows 3.1. It'll be a matter of finding the right drivers. I'd also like to try out the GUS pro patches. I tried implementing these but it didn't work off the bat, so I'll have to look more closely at things to see where I'm going wrong.

Altogether, I'd say the "attempt to refurbish" that I mentioned in the title of this thread is now a complete success! This was my first serious project to configure a dos pc in several decades. It feels kind of funny that I've designed this as my custom throwback gaming PC, yet it is so slow, but it is what we had at the time so totally worth it to get it going again 🤣 The community here is very helpful and knowledgeable, and getting advice or finding relevant old posts was instrumental in getting me unstuck at times and reminding me how to do certain things. This PC has come a long way in the last 5 months and feels like a real time capsule. Thank you everyone! I have ideas for the next (faster) pc build already!

Pictures

A few pics from before the cdrom drive was installed