DEAT wrote on 2026-06-01, 23:42:
You're the one who is dense. You keep mentioning OVERCLOCKING IS BAD!!! 286s NEVER GO ABOVE 16Mhz ...
I'd say you either learn how to read or stop lying!
I said that Intel didn't produce any 286 CPU with more than 16 MHz, and that statement is correct. I didn't talk about other CPU manufacturers here. I never made a statement that there were never 286s faster CPUs, so stop putting words in my mouth and stop lying, which is exactly what you are doing right now.
And my statement also remains correct that overclocking a 286 is not a good idea if a better 386 or 486 is available, because there are games that run too fast on the latter two and perfectly on a correctly clocked 286, and you simply don't seem to grasp this fact.
To explain this to someone who is as slow on the uptake as you and who lies: Some old games use timing loops that don't check the system time (PIT). Instead, they just execute a loop directly on the CPU, and you can't slow them down properly using TSR tools like "slowdown.exe". As a result, animations or, even worse, the actual gameplay utilizing these loops will run way too fast on a 33 MHz 486 CPU. Oil Imperium (Black Gold) is one such game. For instance, you have to drill for oil, which is one of the most important minigames. You must keep the drill bit centered while drilling through different layers of earth, and as a gameplay element, the drill violently jerks up, down, left, and right. All of this is controlled by these timing loops that you can't throttle properly with slowdown & Co. The consequence is that on a CPU that is too fast, the drill bit drifts off target too often and breaks. Your drilling attempt, which costs money in the game, is a total failure. This makes the game unplayable on a CPU that is too fast. A 286 clocked at 16 MHz or less has exactly the right speed for this game. This is a fact.
The same applies to Wing Commander 1. It also features these timing loops that don't query the system clock and simply execute loops instead. I was able to play this game perfectly on my 286. However, on my subsequent 33 MHz 486DX, which, like any 486 of that era, features 8 KiB of L1 cache and a 5-stage pipeline, it ran at an unplayable speed because the Kilrathi fighters dashed across the screen far too fast to handle.
Wing Commander 2 resolved this issue entirely because it finally queried the system timer to dynamically scale its delay loops.
So, I hope that someone like you, who takes a bit longer to understand and who lies, finally gets it. I’ve certainly explained it to you in enough detail now. A normally clocked 286 is best used for games like these, while a 486 or better should be used for games that scream for performance. Thus, you need a 286 that is not overclocked. If you don't have games like that, then of course you can do whatever you want with your 286. But I have already said all of this.
