You were right, I found a problem for some of my troubles, looks like I didn´t notice a sticker on my ram module🤦‍♂️. Smartdrive and Wolf3d now run perfectly 😊 I´ve attached some pictures and benchmarks! There is still a bios error that bothers me and this board has HT12A chipset that should support EMS memory, but there isn´t such an option in bios 😢 and no software except emm286 (which takes too much TSR) can find or make any! Also if I use a chipset detection software it just crashes 🤔

There are several different bios floating around for HT12A boards. I tried several and they all worked and gave different options.

My board was a clone of the Octek Fox II, but the other HT12A boards all worked with the same bios files I tried.

https://www.target-earth.net/wiki/doku.php?id … erence_material

I found 4 versions. One had wait state settings, ISA bus overclocking . The other had Ems partitioning but no wait state/bus settings. Swings and roundabouts!

I also have a copy of the ht12mm.sys which enables Ems even without the bios option! So that means you can use the bios with the fancy speed options but no Ems, and STILL get Ems support by loading the driver!

Finally you can instead use the last byte memory manager and use the Ems 64kb page frame as umb and load drivers high instead of as an EMS window.

It's a very capable, speedy and solid chip set, if not quite as fast as the VLSI 82c201.

Thank You for the useful information! I have the bios with 0 wait and speedy bus option, but no Ems! I tried the ht12mm.sys briefly, but couldn’t get it to function today, I’ll try again tomorrow. I tried Lastbyte.sys as well, it gave me umb’s but ht12mm crashed after loading lastbyte and without it ht12mm didn’t load at all. Maybe I entered something wrong so I’ll try again, hopefully get it to work!

You can't have EMS and UMB at the same time with the HT12A chipset unfortunately; it's an either/or choice, as the UMB option uses the EMS page frame to make the 64kb UMB available. I think that's just a limitation of the design. I never found a way to alter the page frame to use both at the same time successfully.

In most cases, I found having UMB to use the last byte hightsr utility to load drivers out of base memory was more useful than having EMS. And once I got hold of a hardware EMS card (an 8MB Everex 16bit ISA card), it was a total no-brainer to then stick with UMB all of the time.

Definitely sounds as though you still have some gremlins with your board!

Hope you get it resolved, as it is one of the best 286 chipsets (since it is such a late design) in my opinion.

Today was a much better day! I entered everything from scratch all over again and it worked like a charm😊 I actually only needed EMS to get Monster Bash to function with sound (it wants a lot of Conventional memory and also 200k EMS) and also for some benchmarks! As it turned out, it didn´t improve any of the test results, but I like that I got all the software side to work almost perfectly! Only Windows 3.11 doesn´t like EMS, so if I load the HT12MM.SYS it doesn´t start! I can skip this driver if I want to use Windows. So now everything works great - there is still some error in Bios, but I think I can´t do anything about it and it doesn´t bother me that much! Maybe someday I´ll try programming eproms and different bioses, but for now I´m satisfied with the results! Thank You again for Your help 👌
PS! Sorry Kixs for dissecting this out of context subject under your thread, hope to see more great benchmarks from You!

kixs wrote on 2023-07-10, 23:17:

A little update 2023-08-24: […]
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A little update 2023-08-24:

Changed the oscillator to 60Mhz (= 286@30MHz).

After a min or two it hangs. It seems the memory it at fault. 1WS solves this. But negates any speed advantages as it acts slower then 25MHz with 0WS.

Does anyone have faster SIMMs - like 45 or 50ns?

Photos:

Super nice build! If you're still searching for faster 30 pins SIMMs: Atheatos/MiGron makes awesome 45ns kits from EDO RAM chips (4x1mb, one chip per SIMM). I think he just finished building a batch. I just ordered a kit for my SuperSX build (a 0ws heavily overclocked 486SXLC2 build I'm currently working on).

Thanks to kixs's help I can now provide results with same clockgen from a 386SX perspective. Very disappointing and I'd really be keen to understand why a 286 is clockwise faster than the 386... 😀

Norton System Information: 23.0 (Version 😎
Landmark System Speed Test 6.00: CPU: 39.32 | FPU: 82,13
Checkit 3.0: Dhrystones: 6254 | Whetstones: 1927.1K
NSSI: not run
Comptest 2.60: Max MEM: 13967 KB/s | Drys. 6519.8 | Whetstones: 1625.1K
PMIPS: 3.6
Celem Cache Test: 977 (lower is better)
Dr. Hardware 3.7: Hardstones: 5726 | Softstones: 2120 | RAM: 11.06MB/s | Bus: 5.52MB/s
3DBENCH 1.0: 10.6
WOLF3D Bench: 18.3

Summary:
Game Benchmarks: -10%
CPU: -17%
FPU: not compareable
Bus: +7% (only one benchmark)
Cache: -28%

That all makes me wonder why is that?! I found indeed some hints:

1. A 286er, optimized for 16bit, can rund 16-bit apps up to 25% faster than a 386SX:
https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/images/amd28 … ews_dec1988.png

It is like it is 😒 😉

I vaguely recall that whilst the 386 can indeed run 32bit code, has the larger address space, wider memory bus (dx) and has all of the necessary enhancements to do so, I have a recollection that said something like the instruction decode or execute times were slightly worse compared to the same instructions on the 286.

Of course the 386 went on to be clocked far higher, so the only apples to apples comparison would have been early 386 designs to late 286.

I may be misremembering that, it has been a long time since I read anything at that level (some 28ish years ago when doing my CS degree and comparing fetch/execute behaviour differences with the 68000 to x86.

Anyone else read something along those lines? Or have I just made it up from all the crud floating around in my head? 🤣

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-03-21, 21:16:

I vaguely recall that whilst the 386 can indeed run 32bit code, has the larger address space, wider memory bus, and has all of t […]
Show full quote

I vaguely recall that whilst the 386 can indeed run 32bit code, has the larger address space, wider memory bus, and has all of the necessary enhancements to do so, I have a recollection that said something like the instruction decode or execute times were slightly worse compared to the same instructions on the 286.

Of course the 386 went on to be clocked far higher, so the only apples to apples comparison would have been early 386 designs to late 286.

I may be misremembering that, it has been a long time since I read anything at that level (some 28ish years ago when doing my CS degree and comparing fetch/execute behaviour differences with the 68000 to x86.

Anyone else read something along those lines? Or have I just made it up from all the crud floating around in my head? 🤣

I think you're right. I have a Cumulus 386 processor module designed to convert a 286 into a 386 but at the same clock speed.

I tested it on a 12MHz 286 and discovered that performance as a 386 was slightly worse than the stock 286 processor.

On the upside it could execute protected mode code, so I was able to run Doom on it, albeit at only 0.5 FPS. 😁

After all this I make my personal conclusion:

- 386sx is in real usable scenarios just a higher clocked variant of the 286 (which was as mainstream mainly sold up to 16Mhz)
- the 32bit advantages of the 386sx is mainly on paper: no one really productively ran w95 on it, advantages of extended win31 mode is unclear and all Dos4gw games ran just catastrophically on the SX. All apps/games using w32s/extended mode of win31 as woodruff were also just picture-shows
- EMS was also possible on the 286
- when I was young I didn’t care about these „facts“ and played-through doom, doom2, syndicate and most Sierra games using extender. 😀 I can’t really understand nowadays how I could do it but i did it
- all above don’t necessarily apply to the quite non common 386sx/40

Any other views?

I agree - I also lived through the 386 era with an SX-40, and at the time I didn't consider it a lame-duck. Wing Commander was great on it, for example.

I also was one of the people who played Doom on such a specification, and enjoyed it. I think we are all probably spoiled by the availability of much higher end equipment now than we could have reasonably afforded at the time! 😁

386SX16 feels like you are driving a subcompact econobox with the base engine, flat tires and the parking brake stuck on, SX20 feels like the parking brake is off, SX25 feels like you got air in the tires too, and you can start to appreciate that it can be "nippy" on tight city streets, SX33 is the deluxe trim with the larger engine, and SX40 is the hot hatch version with tuned engine. </bad and limited cars to computers analogy>

But yeah you don't really feel like you've gone up a CPU class until you're on a 386SX25 that's reasonably well sorted, and you can grind 32bit stuff on it, but 33 and 40 are far more pleasant.

Marco wrote on 2024-03-23, 12:47:

After all this I make my personal conclusion: […]
Show full quote

After all this I make my personal conclusion:

- 386sx is in real usable scenarios just a higher clocked variant of the 286 (which was as mainstream mainly sold up to 16Mhz)
- the 32bit advantages of the 386sx is mainly on paper: no one really productively ran w95 on it, advantages of extended win31 mode is unclear and all Dos4gw games ran just catastrophically on the SX. All apps/games using w32s/extended mode of win31 as woodruff were also just picture-shows
- EMS was also possible on the 286
- when I was young I didn’t care about these „facts“ and played-through doom, doom2, syndicate and most Sierra games using extender. 😀 I can’t really understand nowadays how I could do it but i did it
- all above don’t necessarily apply to the quite non common 386sx/40

Any other views?

I disagree. EMM386 and the ability to easily use UMB as well as up 4MB Extended/Expanded memory makes 386SX a much better processor for both Wİndows 3.1x and gaming.

Focusing on easily i agree of course. Umb & EMS etc are much easier.
With regards to 4mb dos gaming I am adhoc not aware of Games using this except for Dos4gw which anyway ran too slow.

Marco wrote on 2024-03-25, 08:00:

Focusing on easily i agree of course. Umb & EMS etc are much easier.
With regards to 4mb dos gaming I am adhoc not aware of Games using this except for Dos4gw which anyway ran too slow.

Games like Dune 2 that utilize a good deal of EMS for audio options spring to mind..

1. agree. There were a lot of games that could access / use more ext. / exp. memory
2. dune2 used xms only iirc
3. the question is really if there was any improvement towards eG 2mb Ram. I don’t remember. The only benefit w/ 4mb I remember was the better possibility to use smartdrv.
4. maybe I’m going too offtopic now 😀

Marco wrote on 2024-03-25, 09:30:

1. agree. There were a lot of games that could access / use more ext. / exp. memory 2. dune2 used xms only iirc 3. the question […]
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1. agree. There were a lot of games that could access / use more ext. / exp. memory
2. dune2 used xms only iirc
3. the question is really if there was any improvement towards eG 2mb Ram. I don’t remember. The only benefit w/ 4mb I remember was the better possibility to use smartdrv.
4. maybe I’m going too offtopic now 😀

Re: Is there any reason to install more than 1 MB RAM on a 286 PC?

1830: Robbers and Railroad Barons, Master of Magic and Lode Runner: The Legend Returns explicitly require 4MB of total memory to run on a 286. I've also learned since that post that Dune II 1.0 will run on a 8088, but 1.07 requires a 286.

Curiously, the Win 3.1 version of LR2 requires a 386.