VOGONS


First post, by Intel486dx33

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What are the benefits of building a 386 computer for playing DOS games if you already have a 486 computer ?
Is there any reason to build a 386 computer over a 486 computer ?

I would like to build a 386 computer just because, But are there really any benefits to it for playing DOS games ?

If so what is a good motherboard with modern bios ?

Reply 1 of 50, by GigAHerZ

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Assuming you have a proper (in my opinion) 486 with as many VLB cards as possible, then 386 is your ISA based computer. Different architecture, different experience...

486 with only ISA buses is, in my opinion, glorified 386...

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Reply 2 of 50, by jesolo

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Personally, I like to have a 386 PC around for nostalgic reasons. My personal favourite remains the AMD 386DX-40 but, I've also acquired some 386SX PC's for fun projects.

However, depending on the games you wish to play, a 486DX-33 is a very nice DOS based system for playing most games up to around 1993.
With most of these systems there is a turbo function on the motherboard, which allows you to slow down a 486DX-33 to the equivalent speed of a 386DX-33 (meaning you don't need a 386 as well). By disabling the L1 & L2 cache, you can slow it down even further.

Despite the above, if you want to play really old DOS games, that are speed sensitive, then you might want to also invest in an XT PC (this is now if you don't wish to go the emulator route). I don't think one also needs to have a 286, since most 286 games can be played well on a slowed down 486 as well.

It's only when you start to play games like Doom that you need something with a bit more CPU power.

Reply 3 of 50, by weldum

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it all depends on what computers do you already have, and what are you planning to do with it

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 4 of 50, by BinaryDemon

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Everyone's going to have a different answer depending on what you are trying to achieve. Personally I think a fast 486 can pretty much cover the entire DOS era (minus a rare few games it can't handle like Quake), that the actual number of games that are speed sensitive is fairly low and there are a number of utilities available to slow your machine thru various means. Of course if one of those speed sensitive games is your favorite game, it's going to be a major issue.

Reply 5 of 50, by weldum

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me personally had 2 386 (a 386dx 40 and a 386sx 33 in a beautifully small motherboard) and i sold both because i couldn't find an use for those machines.
on the other hand, i have a 386 laptop that, to me is wonderful and, while i can't find an usage, it is very interesting to me

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 6 of 50, by SirNickity

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Sometimes you just have to build a computer because you want to build a computer.

If your concern is utility (and by that, I mean "what games does this enable me to play"), every generation has its strengths:

A 386 can do AT and lots of DOS adventure games. A 486 can do them a little better, but struggles with later FPSes. A Pentium does FPSes nicely, but falls short of early Windows 9x games. A PII does early 3D OK, but will run out of oomph for CD/DVD games with higher-res video and fancier 3D stuff. A Pentium 3 takes care of post-Voodoo 3D but you're still at fairly low poly count and XGA resolution. A Pentium 4 will cover XP era games, but can't touch modern stuff. A Core 2 can play a LOT of games but if you want high framerate 1080p, then you need to move into the Core i-Series.

You can pretty much skip any generation and cover the lower and higher end with the ones to either side. However, the early days are a bit more critical because of how quickly the hardware changed, and how the developers of the time catered to that hardware. So, a 486 is too fast for some games with "count to 1000 then go" style timing loops, and too slow for others that are doing software 3D. Some 386/486 transitionals will fall over on a Pentium because (e.g.) they don't wait long enough for audio hardware to respond to init commands or don't use big enough integers to track >32MB of RAM. (Sometimes patchable.)

But, if you're just fascinated by the hardware, like me, you'll want one of each generation just for the fun of exploring its contributions to PC history -- and you spread your game library across them partly to justify keeping them up and running. That's the thing about hobbies -- they don't have to make sense.

Reply 7 of 50, by HanJammer

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There are many interesting 486 CPUs. There are 486 CPUs faster than pentiums for example AMD 5x86 - but those will require good motherboards to run.

Generally - a rule of thumb is to stay away from boring as hell intel stuff and you will find that every platform has it's unique feel.

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Reply 9 of 50, by appiah4

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Depends on what kind of a 486 you already have; if you have a DX4 with PCI, then yeah there is merit in having a 386 system. But if you have a more modest ISA/VLB 486 SX/DX/DX2 then the Turbo button makes having the 386 kind of pointless. IMO the ease of building and maintaining a P54C Pentium makes having 486 PCs with DX4 and beyond pointless as well, so my sweet spot is a VLB 486 DX2 and a PCI Socket 5 P54C to cover 1990-1992 and 1993-1995 respectively.

Reply 10 of 50, by voidstar

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Sorry to bring back an ancient thread, but I wanted to note something that I don't think was mentioned: a 386 can still run silent, not requiring a fan. There are some exceptions, some of the initial/lower-end 486's maybe didn't need a fan. I've not come across any 386's with fans, but I suspect there were exceptions to that also - or at least, it doesn't hurt to put a heatsink+fan on a 386. I've cautiously put my knuckle on a running 386DX, and yes it was hot, but not excessively burning (and perhaps a heatsink might extend its lifespan). I've read about Pentiums getting molten hot and essentially melting themselves when ran without a fan. I wonder if its why you don't see too many 386 laptops- they do exist, but it just seems to me they aren't as plentiful as 486 laptops (but I could be wrong, I haven't thoroughly dig into the sales data on all that).

Fan's and heatsinks are (to me) like a radiator in a car - they are methods that let us use a machine beyond "normal" thermal limits. The whole 'evolution of thermal management" is an interesting thing to ponder about - because adding a fan to the system now has big implications to the noise and portability (i.e. laptops). Even at "near silent db", a rotating fan brings other hassles - a moving part to wear out, and in very quiet spaces you're still going hear them. Some think fans also are the cause of certain headaches (Steve Jobs was fairly opposed to them, but probably for other aesthetic reasons).

The other "interesting thing" about the 386 - which was mentioned - is exploring the "last of the ISA era" (and eat slot is same speed, though I'm not sure why nearly all those boards had a set of 16-bit ISA then at least 1 8-bit ISA, maybe just a space savings thing to provision for other components).

I happened to recently put together a 386DX-20 and a 386DX-33. Here are my notes about the 386DX-20:
https://voidstar.blog/setting-up-a-physical-x … hardware-80386/

The main motivation (along the lines of what the original post here was asking), I wanted to verify how well Second Reality would run on a 386. We hear the speculation that it requires a 486, which by '93 was fairly reasonable requirement. But despite 386 emulators, how well did that demo actually run for someone who didn't have the latest and greatest x86 hardware of 1994? And the answer is, indeed, it didn't run that well at all on a 386DX-20 (you can cheat and get some later model 1995+ fast video cards, but I mean to verify a period-correct equipment -- and doing that helps keep emulators honest, especially when you step out of turbo).

For my 2nd and faster 386DX-33, it plays Second Reality noticeably better (even with the same video card). Maybe it's difference in cache. I haven't found a case yet for this 386DX, I may built something out of acrylic. But seeing the difference in Flight Simulator between the 4.7MHz 8088 and a 33MHz 386 is very neat. I do have a '387 and so far only found Falcon 3.0 that makes use of it (aside from AutoCad). Then DesqVIEW is more interesting on a 386.

Another subtle difference is the 286/386 evolution to SIMM chips rather than DIP (but before the larger DIMM modules).

I think the "value" of a 386 is showing more of what it can't-yet-do (the 89-92 era titles), while being noticeable more capable than the 8088 (like SimCity struggles on the stock 8088).

Reply 11 of 50, by Jo22

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+1

The 386DX-40 was what my father had used in the 90s.
It was rock-solid and trouble-free. The 40 MHz FSB caused quite some fine performance, chipset wise.

Also there are both DX and DXL types of am386DX.
The DXL needs even less power (Low-Power version).

There's a fine review at redhill site. I do fully agree with it. 😃
https://www.redhill.net.au/c/c-4.php

The 80386 might be interesting to those who want to see the original i386 at work, like it used to be.
There's this moment when you go into Control Panel of Windows 3.x and see the 386 Enhanced Mode icon..
You may get that fuzzy feeling in your stomach that this isn't running on emulation or an succesor CPU, but just the humble old 386 itself.

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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 12 of 50, by kixs

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About the silent thing... there were (are) at least two noise generators in every PC back then. PSU and HDD.

This reminds me... a few weeks ago I tested my Atari 800XE, it's been awhile since... and after I turned the power button, I needed a few seconds to realize what is wrong... it was the dead silence 🤣

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Reply 13 of 50, by Unknown_K

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There are a bunch of 386 systems by IBM with MCA bus that are interesting from the 65sx tower with the slowest 386sx/16 to the model 70 386dx/25.

I like 386 systems because a 386 was the first computer I built for myself (386DX/40), and it was smoking fast compared to my 286-12 Packard Bell I had before. Still keep a few generic 386DX/40's around plus a 386 motherboard with a 486dlc chip and the IBM PS/2 I mention along with ZEOS 386DX/33 with matching keyboard I got at the recycler for $5 back in the day (unfortunately the matching monitor was dead, so I left it instead of checking for a blown fuse and having to haul it back).

I only like the 486 series more because of all the chip makers and bus styles of the era.

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 14 of 50, by Jo22

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Unknown_K wrote on 2024-12-09, 08:11:

I like 386 systems because a 386 was the first computer I built for myself (386DX/40), and it was smoking fast compared to my 286-12 Packard Bell I had before.

I second that. My first 286 was a 286-12 and it was dog slow!
If you've filled forms on Paintbrush with the filler tool, you could watch the VGA card filling every spot.
It was an on-board ATI VGA Wonder. Probably an low-end 8-Bit bus version!

That's why I could not run that MIG-29 flight sim on my 286. Too slow.
I had to ask my father to play on his 386DX-40! good times! I miss that 20" CRT! 😆

Interestingly, my Schneider Tower AT 286 runs at 10 MHz and is quite quick!
It has a 16-Bit OAK VGA card installed at moment and it's not as slow as my old 286 from the 90s.

Unless I try to use OAK's Super VGA drivers on Windows 3.1.. But I guess I should be glad they're working in Standard-Mode, at all.

Most Super VGA drivers were highly optimized back then in order to beat the competition and thus had required 386 Enhanced Mode (use of VXD drivers).

Unknown_K wrote on 2024-12-09, 08:11:

Still keep a few generic 386DX/40's around plus a 386 motherboard with a 486dlc chip and the IBM PS/2 I mention along with ZEOS 386DX/33 with matching keyboard I got at the recycler for $5 back in the day (unfortunately the matching monitor was dead, so I left it instead of checking for a blown fuse and having to haul it back).

I love the 486DLC-40! Even though I think it could have use for a little heathsink.
It's a nice little upgrade that increases compatible and performance a bit.
Back then, it had extended life of these cute little BabyAT boards, too!

Unknown_K wrote on 2024-12-09, 08:11:

I only like the 486 series more because of all the chip makers and bus styles of the era.

The cool thing about the 386 motherboards was the enhanced FPU socket.

You could add your favorite i387 compatible or Weitek chip.
Sometimes both of them by using an adapter.

Older 80386 boards had an 80286 socket, even!

The 486 did do away with it. You could nolonger use external FPUs with their own little goodies (4x4 mode etc).
Except for Weitek, if a Weitek socket was on the board (higher end models).

Some i387 math co-processors had MMX or SSE like features or an optional memory-mapped mode.

These things were irrelant to most users, except to fans of Autodesk software.
A good i387 NPU or Weitek could outperform the standard FPU of an 486.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 15 of 50, by MikeSG

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The later i387's from Cyrix, and maybe Ulsi were hardware implemented, and claimed performance (for primitives) similar to integer instructions on the CPU. The problem was still the 6 mandatory Wait cycles, and for longer FDIV instructions the CPU waited for a weakly pulled up BUSY pin to return high.

I believe 486's had that more optimised because they didn't need to account for every kind of FPU.

Reply 16 of 50, by Jo22

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MikeSG wrote on 2024-12-09, 09:45:

The later i387's from Cyrix, and maybe Ulsi were hardware implemented, and claimed performance (for primitives) similar to integer instructions on the CPU. The problem was still the 6 mandatory Wait cycles, and for longer FDIV instructions the CPU waited for a weakly pulled up BUSY pin to return high.

I believe 486's had that more optimised because they didn't need to account for every kind of FPU.

Yes, the x87 i/o interface and the stack design weren't the most best performing thing.

Interesting were the matrix operations of certain non-intel FPUs, though.

Like a spritual pre-cursor to MMX, which also used x87 registers (to avoid-context switching issues in multitasking environment).

MMX's alternative description as Matrix Math Extension always made more sense to me than MultiMedia Extension.

These matrix operations wouldn't have been affected so much by wait cycles, either, because they'd affect a set of numbers.
The greater their use, the bigger would have been the performance increase over the CPU/ALU doing it.

Edit: I'm just a layman here, but I think that one of the FPUs (IIT 3C87 ?) did support 4x4 Matrix Multiply Transformation. It had extra registers for this.

So that might be related to this:
https://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/geometry … ix4x4/index.htm

The i387 FPU left a lot of this to be desired, still. It never got an optional memory-mapped mode, for example.

The only bright side was that as an integrated component it did have been supported by the on-chip cache of the 486.

In the end, it was the 486DX which ended the evolution of the traditional FPU.
The Weitek was promising, but it had no time to recover because the 486 itself was such a big rival.

Edit: I forgot, the x87 FPUs could do integer math, too, not just floating point.
And they had various resolution/accuracy modes.

Edited. I'm writing this on a monile device, it's difficult to not make mistakes.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 17 of 50, by voidstar

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Regarding the CPU and HDD noises.... For my 2nd 386DX build, I verified that I can use an PicoITX 160W PSU with ATX/AT adapter (to replace the entire stock PSU). I did notice it does lack the -5VDC but so far I've not noticed any ill effects (but wiring in a -5VCD wouldn't be too hard - done it on other systems). Then XT-IDE (8-bit ISA) to replace the mechanical HDD. So a completely silent 386.

Reply 18 of 50, by Intel486dx33

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My 386 computer just sits on the Shelf.
I never use it.
Last time I used it I noticed the plastic around the hard drive started to melt.
That old hard drive hardly works any more.

For playing DOS games a 486dx-66 or higher is Best.
Or a 1st gen Pentium or AMD K6
You can always SLOW DOWN a CPU by Disabling Cache in bios
I can Slow down my CPUs to 286@20mhz

I would Say building a 386 is Better than buying an IBM AT computer for Versatility and repairability

If you want to go SLOW then build the 386 computer

It was a challenge for me finding good motherboards.

Parts I chose:
AMD 386dx40 Motherboard
8mb RAM FPM
ET 4000 Video card.
Media Vision PAS 16 sound card
ISA IDE controller
512mb IDE Hard drive
3com 3c509b Network card
Fast IDE CDROM ( I think its a 32x )
Floppy drives ( 3.5 and 5.25 )
Dos 6.22
Win 3.11

Everything works out of the Box
All drivers included in installation disks

Reply 19 of 50, by voidstar

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Here's a video I did showing a 386DX-20 trying to handle Second Reality (and with a decent Diamond Stealth VGA).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq8vB0I10Z0

The video is intended to have Caption On, since there is kind of a dialog-story between the systems. Also intended to use "real speakers", most phone-speakers won't capture some subtle aspects of the audio (like the X16 "booting up", which has a simulated-fan effect).

If you watch the later half ("dark mode" version), you see the 386DX-20 does (visually) run it OK - but in that playing, it has the audio processing turned off (details of Settings in Video Description). Then, even the Pentium pauses here and there - and I think it isn't just because of OS/2 being used, but I suspect also because of a memory-limited internal video card on that ThinkPad's (because I later booted from an MS-DOS disk and ran SR on that Pentium systems, and it still had some unexpected pauses in between scenes - I don't think it was HDD speed related, since it had one of those mSATA to IDE adapters).

By all reports (including a deep dive into the available code), SR is not '387 optimized.

I've also been messing with Print Shop Pro on that 386DX-20, and it's painfully slow at rendering the print jobs on the screen. Good times, can catch up on some book reading or sip some tea in between operations.