I did mention that guest CPU emulation is single core dependent, however if you don't have enough cores or set the affinity too low (and enable, say, voodoo), the emulation speed would still drop because now multiple threads are processed by those few cores and they can't handle that. You need both high single-core performance and enough cores.

- solemgar: When comparing performance when emulating a 686 CPU, bear in mind that PCem's timings are less accurate and therefore, less calculation-intensive than ours. This may explain the discrepancy.

- eddman: That could be the dynarec regression after v15. The new dynarec handles very poorly situations where a lot of very small code-blocks are executed and often flushed en masse. It manifests itself in MAPEDIT 8.x for DOS (Wolf3D map editor), when playing MIDI's through Creative WaveSynth in Windows 9x, and it seems in that game as well. The old dynarec handles these situations much better.

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

and a research conducted by one moderator from 86box discord server (Efflixi):

What is the best system my computer can run? --- This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. Th […]
Show full quote

What is the best system my computer can run?
---
This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. The best we can do is some rough comparisons. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html - Look at that list, while the numbers aren't directly comparable to 86box itself, the higher a cpu is on that list, the faster it will run 86box.

Here's some more comparisons:
~4000 = Pentium II 300
~3400 = Pentium II 233
~2600 = Pentium 200
~1600 = Pentium 75
~700 = 486DX2 66 (assuming the gpu on such a system can keep up)

You're kinda spot on when emulating a PII 350MHz in 86box (unlike PCem where u did a PII 450MHz), because your cpu single thread score is 4,052. Maybe you will be just fine with 300 instead of 350.

I still think a Voodoo 2 is enough rather than using a Voodoo 3 3000, which would improve emulation performance a lot, unless you have any reason to be attached to this card (i.e. "I had this card when I was a kid") which is reasonable; I mounted my 86box machines with the same principle. Again, it is up to you and how you conduct your tests. These are just my two cents based on the data I have here.

And I'll assume Battler is 100% correct in his explanation about the speed discrepancy between PCem and 86box there. I mean, it makes sense.

Bruninho wrote on 2023-11-06, 14:14:

IIRC the 32 bit builds run better on Windows, yes. I just don't remember why. […]
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IIRC the 32 bit builds run better on Windows, yes. I just don't remember why.

I just needed to know which host cpu you had - since the entire emulation runs in a single core of that cpu. Refer to the geekbench's single core score of your CPU:

https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/inte … -core-i7-12700k

You're attempting a P2 450MHz with Voodoo 3000, You can maybe lower the P2 clock a bit to find out a sweet spot by trial and error (I mean, until you achieve a more constant 100% with proper speed for the games). If that is not enough, going from a Voodoo 3 to a Voodoo 2 12MB should be, and also this config should also perform better in PCem v17 for you. Unless you have a game that specifically requires a Voodoo 3 (I don't think any game does, as long as they are 3dfx compatible any voodoo will work).

Yeah, I think I can drive a 233 MHZ p2 but I was just curious about how much performance difference is between 86box and pcem17. Not trying to make a point of anything. For older systems I like all the benefits 86box brings.
Edit: Ops, sorry ! I missed the 2nd page of messages! One thing I noticed, for example, 86box present textures better than pcem in Unreal, and I understand now that with more accurate timings the perceived performance is "worse".

Bruninho wrote on 2023-11-06, 16:43:

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html […]
Show full quote

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

and a research conducted by one moderator from 86box discord server (Efflixi):

What is the best system my computer can run? --- This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. Th […]
Show full quote

What is the best system my computer can run?
---
This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. The best we can do is some rough comparisons. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html - Look at that list, while the numbers aren't directly comparable to 86box itself, the higher a cpu is on that list, the faster it will run 86box.

Here's some more comparisons:
~4000 = Pentium II 300
~3400 = Pentium II 233
~2600 = Pentium 200
~1600 = Pentium 75
~700 = 486DX2 66 (assuming the gpu on such a system can keep up)

You're kinda spot on when emulating a PII 350MHz in 86box (unlike PCem where u did a PII 450MHz), because your cpu single thread score is 4,052. Maybe you will be just fine with 300 instead of 350.

I still think a Voodoo 2 is enough rather than using a Voodoo 3 3000, which would improve emulation performance a lot, unless you have any reason to be attached to this card (i.e. "I had this card when I was a kid") which is reasonable; I mounted my 86box machines with the same principle. Again, it is up to you and how you conduct your tests. These are just my two cents based on the data I have here.

And I'll assume Battler is 100% correct in his explanation about the speed discrepancy between PCem and 86box there. I mean, it makes sense.

I am following a very similar principle 😀 Actually my preferred card was a voodoo 2 😁
I will play a bit more with the settings and move it down to a voodoo 2

Bruninho wrote on 2023-11-06, 16:43:

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html […]
Show full quote

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

and a research conducted by one moderator from 86box discord server (Efflixi):

What is the best system my computer can run? --- This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. Th […]
Show full quote

What is the best system my computer can run?
---
This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. The best we can do is some rough comparisons. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html - Look at that list, while the numbers aren't directly comparable to 86box itself, the higher a cpu is on that list, the faster it will run 86box.

Here's some more comparisons:
~4000 = Pentium II 300
~3400 = Pentium II 233
~2600 = Pentium 200
~1600 = Pentium 75
~700 = 486DX2 66 (assuming the gpu on such a system can keep up)

You're kinda spot on when emulating a PII 350MHz in 86box (unlike PCem where u did a PII 450MHz), because your cpu single thread score is 4,052. Maybe you will be just fine with 300 instead of 350.

I still think a Voodoo 2 is enough rather than using a Voodoo 3 3000, which would improve emulation performance a lot, unless you have any reason to be attached to this card (i.e. "I had this card when I was a kid") which is reasonable; I mounted my 86box machines with the same principle. Again, it is up to you and how you conduct your tests. These are just my two cents based on the data I have here.

And I'll assume Battler is 100% correct in his explanation about the speed discrepancy between PCem and 86box there. I mean, it makes sense.

And one thing more 😀 Any shader recommendation to load on 86box?

solemgar wrote on 2023-11-08, 18:31:

Bruninho wrote on 2023-11-06, 16:43:

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html […]
Show full quote

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

and a research conducted by one moderator from 86box discord server (Efflixi):

What is the best system my computer can run? --- This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. Th […]
Show full quote

What is the best system my computer can run?
---
This is hard to answer with 100% certainty because there's too many factors. The best we can do is some rough comparisons. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html - Look at that list, while the numbers aren't directly comparable to 86box itself, the higher a cpu is on that list, the faster it will run 86box.

Here's some more comparisons:
~4000 = Pentium II 300
~3400 = Pentium II 233
~2600 = Pentium 200
~1600 = Pentium 75
~700 = 486DX2 66 (assuming the gpu on such a system can keep up)

You're kinda spot on when emulating a PII 350MHz in 86box (unlike PCem where u did a PII 450MHz), because your cpu single thread score is 4,052. Maybe you will be just fine with 300 instead of 350.

I still think a Voodoo 2 is enough rather than using a Voodoo 3 3000, which would improve emulation performance a lot, unless you have any reason to be attached to this card (i.e. "I had this card when I was a kid") which is reasonable; I mounted my 86box machines with the same principle. Again, it is up to you and how you conduct your tests. These are just my two cents based on the data I have here.

And I'll assume Battler is 100% correct in his explanation about the speed discrepancy between PCem and 86box there. I mean, it makes sense.

And one thing more 😀 Any shader recommendation to load on 86box?

Oh hi I don't use shaders... at least not yet, but I think CRT Lottes shader is the most popular one.

Bruninho wrote on 2023-11-08, 20:19:

solemgar wrote on 2023-11-08, 18:31:

Bruninho wrote on 2023-11-06, 16:43:

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html […]
Show full quote

@solemgar: according to this page https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

and a research conducted by one moderator from 86box discord server (Efflixi):

You're kinda spot on when emulating a PII 350MHz in 86box (unlike PCem where u did a PII 450MHz), because your cpu single thread score is 4,052. Maybe you will be just fine with 300 instead of 350.

I still think a Voodoo 2 is enough rather than using a Voodoo 3 3000, which would improve emulation performance a lot, unless you have any reason to be attached to this card (i.e. "I had this card when I was a kid") which is reasonable; I mounted my 86box machines with the same principle. Again, it is up to you and how you conduct your tests. These are just my two cents based on the data I have here.

And I'll assume Battler is 100% correct in his explanation about the speed discrepancy between PCem and 86box there. I mean, it makes sense.

And one thing more 😀 Any shader recommendation to load on 86box?

Oh hi I don't use shaders... at least not yet, but I think CRT Lottes shader is the most popular one.

Will give it a spin, thanks a million Bruninho!