mr.cat wrote on 2026-09-16, 12:31:

Hmmm, what about Alpha?
Looks like Quake was available in August 1996. Are there any benchmarks for that somewhere?

Quake port for Alpha is from 2010

https://virtuallyfun.com/2010/01/14/well-toda … -alpha-running/

For HP UX the situation is more obscure/complicate.

https://www.openpa.net/hp-ux_games_software.html

Anyway the source was released in 1999 (IIRC), so hardly in 1996 you could have any benchmark for something other than DOS/Win

The Solutor wrote on 2026-09-16, 17:50:

Quake port for Alpha is from 2010 […]
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mr.cat wrote on 2026-09-16, 12:31:

Hmmm, what about Alpha?
Looks like Quake was available in August 1996. Are there any benchmarks for that somewhere?

Quake port for Alpha is from 2010

https://virtuallyfun.com/2010/01/14/well-toda … -alpha-running/

For HP UX the situation is more obscure/complicate.

https://www.openpa.net/hp-ux_games_software.html

Anyway the source was released in 1999 (IIRC), so hardly in 1996 you could have any benchmark for something other than DOS/Win

If you are willing to tolerate beta releases and test versions, ID had versions of SGI Quake from late 1996, with announcement about a full release in Feb of 97, with the public release in May.

A long time before any source release.

https://github.com/Jason2Brownlee/QuakeOffici … ory-sgiquake.md

megatron-uk wrote on 2026-09-16, 19:36:

A long time before any source release.

Oh sure if that was developed internally there was no need to release any source.

I confess my ignorance about the SGI world, for some reason I never had to do with any SGI machine, even when I used to work with engineering studios that used MAIA or medical facilities (which used Sparc Stations)

I remember that I had a Cyrix 6x86 at 133 MHz at the time (in 1997, actually), and even back then I was surprised by the performance of WinQuake. It was much faster than it should have been, especially considering that the 6x86’s FPU performance was very much sub-par. I had a Hercules Dynamite 128/Video and NT4 at the time, and Quake was very playable at 640x480 – I think even 800x600.

Dug up something relevant from my old internet archive: Tom Pabst's "Quake Video Benchmark Survey" (sysdoc.pair.com), a crowdsourced database started 10/27/96, 1490 entries collected up to 7/1/97, all run at 640x480. Attaching the raw HTML (quakeresult.7z) - I actually submitted a result to this survey back in the day, so I can vouch for the resolution firsthand.

My own entry: Pentium 100 (P54C, no MMX) + Tseng Labs ET4000 W32P (2MB DRAM, PCI, Univbe 5.3) = 10 fps at 640x480.

Filtering the file for P166/P200 entries with Matrox Millennium/Mystique (genuine software rendering - the Virge/Verite entries in the same file are flagged "Special 3D enhanced Quake version" and use a different, accelerated render path, so those don't count for this comparison):

- P166 (P54C) + Matrox Mystique: 32.2 fps
- P166 (P54C) + Matrox Millennium: 29.8 fps
- P200 Pro + Matrox Millennium: 27.1 fps
- P166 (P54C) + Matrox Millennium: 23.1 fps
- P200 MMX + Matrox Millennium: 25.0 fps
- P200 Pro + Matrox Mystique: 21.8 fps

So the honest answer to the original question: it depended heavily on the video card, not just the CPU. My own P100 with a mediocre Tseng ET4000 only managed 10fps at 640x480 - well below playable. But a P166/200 paired with a fast WRAM/SGRAM card like the Matrox Millennium or Mystique could clear 25-32fps at the same resolution, genuinely smooth by 1996 standards. Cheap SVGA/VLB cards with slow bank-switching were the real bottleneck for a lot of people, not the CPU.

mr.cat wrote on 2026-09-16, 12:31:

Looks like Quake was available in August 1996. Are there any benchmarks for that somewhere?

I had a 133Mhz Pentium with an S3 Virge 86C325 and EDO Ram on both.

I remember getting about 10 fps when running at 640 x 480 and 20-25 when running at 360x480, both with audio.

We considered 360x480 playable, but 10 fps was just a cool tech demo of what was coming, but still more of the curiosity than something I'd play.

How about an overclocked Pentium MMX 200Mhz. Up to 300Mhz possible with an exceptionally good sample.

douglar wrote on Yesterday, 20:30:

I had a 133Mhz Pentium with an S3 Virge 86C325 and EDO Ram on both. […]
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mr.cat wrote on 2026-09-16, 12:31:

Looks like Quake was available in August 1996. Are there any benchmarks for that somewhere?

I had a 133Mhz Pentium with an S3 Virge 86C325 and EDO Ram on both.

I remember getting about 10 fps when running at 640 x 480 and 20-25 when running at 360x480, both with audio.

We considered 360x480 playable, but 10 fps was just a cool tech demo of what was coming, but still more of the curiosity than something I'd play.

The question was specifically about the DEC Alpha port rather than x86... but thanks, this gives some perspective.
Standards of what's "playable" were a bit different back then for sure.

The Alpha port is described as playable even with large resolutions, of course "large" meant something else back then too 😁
Here's a list of ports along with some nice email archeology:
https://github.com/Jason2Brownlee/QuakeOfficialArchive

I've only heard of the alphas being used to compile maps. QBSP/VIS/LIGHT was a time sucker

Nineties as a whole was such a frantic time in terms of hardware. There were so many alternatives!
The Alpha was enterprise kit with appropriately eye-watering price tag, so probably not that popular among the gaming population.
More like Quake was a nice perk for the lucky few that had access.

But my impression is that Quake was designed with the PC in mind anyway.
So even though some of these other platforms had the advantage of more CPU power, they weren't necessarily better off in terms of fps.

Hello,
I did some tests yesterday.

I had a HP Vectra 562 with Pentium 166Mhz on Intel Triton Chipset with 112Mb EDO RAM, 256Ko L2 cache.
Matrox G2 8Mb PCI
Benchmark : with sound 11025Khz, Demo 1
360x240 - 28.4 FPS
320x350 - 23.3 FPS
350x360 - 20.7 FPS
640x480 - 13 FPS