First post, by keenmaster486
- Rank
- l33t
I've wondered what it's like to use an actual 386 for quite a while, and my curiosity got the best of me, so here we are.
System specs:
80386DX-33 CPU
80387-33 FPU
8 MB RAM
WD Paradise VGA
Sound Blaster 16
WD Caviar 244 MB HDD
3Com 3C509 Ethernet
Overall I think it's a well balanced machine.
I think I understand why people mostly build 486 and Pentium machines. Having a 386 is cool because it's "32-bit" but really, a lot of 32-bit software doesn't run that fast on it. It runs older 16 bit stuff blazing fast, but you could do that with a fast 286.
In terms of games, most of the games I tried worked fine. A couple brought it to its knees: Jazz Jackrabbit and DOOM, obviously. Jazz really wants a 486. It'll run alright if you crank down the samplerate on the music, but it slows down in certain high activity areas.
It is neat, though, to have the original Intel 32 bit CPU in a build, and I'm looking forward to putting more software on it and maybe writing some programs for it to test what it can really do.
World's foremost 486 enjoyer.