I played Duke3D on a Pentium 133 and an S3 Trio 64V+ back in '96 and I remember it working reasonably well in 640x480. I don't have that computer anymore so I can't check the exact frame rate, but I wager it was around 20-25 FPS, which felt playable to me at that time.

Nowadays, I'm getting 50-60 FPS on an Athlon XP 1500+ downclocked to 500 MHz and an ATI 9000 Pro so I don't imagine the requirements are that steep. You can use the DNRATE cheat command to see the in-game FPS counter.

I remember playing Duke Nukem 3D and Quake on my DX4/100. Can't remember exact resolutions or FPS. Quake was some resolution below 640x480. Duke3D probably 640x480 or 800x600 in the high teens I think. I don't remember adjusting the view so fullscreen with the HUD at the bottom. VLB video card probably cirrus logic.

My Celeron-1400 can run it at 1280x1024 @ 45 fps. Since the game seems to scale with clock speed and not much else, I'd bet that even a P166 could pull off 30fps at 640x480.

A Cyrix 6x86MX 200 w/ S3 Trio64 and Scitech Display Doctor 6 can easily 40+ in 640x480. The 96-97 era Build games love VESA 2.0 for this reason and the 6x86's strong enough at integer so the budget enthusiast in 97 could really max out their BUILD enjoyment then.

I don't quite remember resolutions either, but I did play Duke3D on our own PC finally when we upgraded to a P90 and a S3 Vision968, need to rebuild that some day and try it out ^^

Here some average fps stats on laptops from first level, on the street (using DNRATE) 640x480 shadows on, full screen (maximum+):

Compaq LTE 5280
Pentium 120, Cirrus Logic 7543 (1Mb)
8 fps

Fujitsu Monte Carlo
Pentium 120, Trident (2Mb)
12 fps

Dell Latitude XPi
Pentium MMX 133, NeoMagic 2070 (896Kb)
12 fps

Fujitsu Stylistic 1200
Pentium 120, NeoMagic 2093 (1Mb)
24 fps

Asus L7300
Celeron 300-A, Silicon Graphics SM910 (4Mb)
29 fps

FMV-Biblo FMV-5133NA6
Pentium MMX 133, Trident Cyber 9397 (4Mb)
32 fps

Micron XKE
Pentium MMX 166, NeoMagic 2160 (2Mb)
45 fps

TwinHead SlimNote P79TE (9TE-200TZ)
Pentium MMX 200, Chips F65554 (2Mb)
46 fps

MAZter wrote on 2020-04-10, 03:47:

Dell Latitude XPi Pentium MMX 133, NeoMagic 2070 (896Kb) 12 fps […]
Show full quote

Dell Latitude XPi
Pentium MMX 133, NeoMagic 2070 (896Kb)
12 fps

FMV-Biblo FMV-5133NA6
Pentium MMX 133, Trident Cyber 9397 (4Mb)
32 fps

There's no such thing as a "Pentium MMX 133". And seeing the fps numbers, there's apparently more wrong than just that.

I had an AMD K5 (PR166 afair) when I played Duke3D back then in 640x480. No idea about the frame rate, but it was playable.

I remember playing it "back then" on AMD K5 PR133 and it was perfectly playable in 640x480. This was a huge surprise because Quake on that machine didn't feel as smooth in 320x240.

derSammler wrote on 2020-04-10, 07:35:

MAZter wrote on 2020-04-10, 03:47:

Dell Latitude XPi Pentium MMX 133, NeoMagic 2070 (896Kb) 12 fps […]
Show full quote

Dell Latitude XPi
Pentium MMX 133, NeoMagic 2070 (896Kb)
12 fps

FMV-Biblo FMV-5133NA6
Pentium MMX 133, Trident Cyber 9397 (4Mb)
32 fps

There's no such thing as a "Pentium MMX 133". And seeing the fps numbers, there's apparently more wrong than just that.

Of course there is. http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium/Intel-M … FV80503133.html

It was mobile only but some of them made their way into retail. My friend used to have one of these chips.

What the...? Never saw these. Is that standard socket 7? I really need to get one of those for my collection.

Still, the fps numbers in his post don't make sense. Or maybe they are just odd because they are laptops.

Yes, it is standard Socket 7. They were just binned to run at lower voltages.

Build games allowed up to 1024x768 (I read somewhere that it allowed up to 1600x1200 via cfg editing, but I never got it working 1024x768). I wonder how would my laptop (P3 600) perform on different VESA resolutions...

Also, I've seen that screenmode parameter... does it affect to FPS? I mean, if I had a S3 card (my laptop has an integrated S3 Savage, but I guess that refers to older chipsets) would it run better using screenmode=5 or screenmode=1?

EDIT:
I've been testing Duke Nukem 3D (demo) on my laptop. It is a Toshiba SP4340 using MS-DOS 6.22. The laptop has a Pentium III @600 Mhz, 320Mb RAM, a S3 Savage derivative SVGA and a Yamaha 7xx sound card.

I've tested all screen modes and resolutions, and I've found that:
- I've been unable to play a demo file.
- The parameters on "screenmode" seems to be compatibilities fixes (except for that ones that uses 3D glasses). Although they DO improve framerate (from 174 on VESA to 284 on modes 3/4/5) they lock the game into 320x200 and flicker badly. But I was using the screen laptop... maybe on a VGA screen they do not flick.
- The exception is parameter 2 (screen buffer)... it bumped from 174 fps (on VESA 2.0) to 207 fps, so I guess that (depending on your card) may be useful.
- It worked at 320x200 (174 fps), 640x480 (60 fps) and 800x600 (55 fps). I was interested in how much resolution affected performance, but the 640x480 figures are strange... maybe it was refresh-locked by the VGA?
- It didn't work at 1024x768 (hanged after the 3D realms movie). But I remember using some build game at 1024x768...

Digital HiNote Ultra II laptop Pentium 150MHz C&T 1MB
DOS 6.22
640x480 is pretty playable
800x600 is choppy

Played it back then on

DX4-100 TVGA9000i 320x200 - smooth-ish.

P2-300 Virge GX2 AGP 1024x768 - smooth - I was very surprised by this.

a p90 is a realistic minimum for 1.5 stock maps in 640x480. VESA 2.0 to get rid of the tearing and to get that slight speed boost.

addons are more demanding as usual, some earlier versions also run quite a bit worse.

Updated stats with additional models:

Toshiba T4850CT
486 DX4 75, Western Digital PVGA1A (1Mb)
5 fps

Samsung Sens 800
Pentium 90, Cirrus Logic GD-754X (1Mb)
8 fps

Samsung Sens 520
Pentium 150, Cirrus Logic 7548 (2Mb)
11 fps

Fujitsu Lifebook 635T
Pentium 133, Chips&Tech 65550 (2Mb)
17 fps

Sager Model 86
Pentium 120, Chips&Tech 65548 (1Mb)
19 fps

Dell Latitude Xpi CD
Pentium 166, NeoMagic 2093 (1Mb)
22 fps

Hitachi Mx133T
Pentium 133, Chips&Tech 65550 (2Mb)
26 fps

Mitsubishi Apricot EL
Pentium 150, Chips&Tech 65550 (1Mb)
30 fps

Sager 8500
Celeron 466, Rage LT Pro AGP 2x (8Mb)
30 fps

Toshiba Libretto FF1100
Pentium MMX 266, NeoMagic 2160 (2Mb)
34 fps

Toshiba Satellite Pro 480CDT
Pentium MMX 233, Chips&Tech 65555 (2Mb)
36 fps

Toshiba Satellite 4030CDT
Celeron 300, Trident Cyber9525DVD (2.5Mb)
38 fps

Hitachi Flora 220CX PC1NP8
Pentium II 300, Chips&Tech F69000 (2Mb)
40 fps

Sanyo Winkey MBC-G2F(S)
Celeron 266, Trident Cyber 9388 (2Mb)
44 fps

Toshiba Tecra 780CDM
Pentium II 266, S3 Virge/MX 3D (4Mb)
48 fps / 30 fps 800x600

ThinkPad 240x
Celeron 450, Silicon Motion SM712 (2Mb)
50 fps

Sony Vaio PCG-505V
Pentium MMX 300, MagicGraph 128ZV+ NM2097B (2Mb)
58 fps