Well for Doom I would actually recommend a 486DX2-66 as minimum. It really starts to fly on a 486DX4-100 and runs perfect on a Pentium.

MK I have no idea.

A tune 386DX40 performs ~ on the level of a 486DX-25. So that SX33 would be slightly faster.

IMO if you go for a 486 I wouldn't get anything but a DX2 or DX4. IMO not worth swapping the board and all of that if your 386 is working just fine 😀

Thank you for reply. I really like to have a 486DX2 but i don´t find a motherboard of the size i need for my PC case

The big size i can have is this

You said that a 386Dx40 is in similar level of a DX25, but in my 386 Mortal Kombat 2 is so slow, unplayable, but in youtube video fo a 486SX25 is very fast!!

Someone with a 386 to test MK2? maybe my 386 is bad ?

I don't have this game. But could you run this benchmark 3DBENCH.

Here is a link with the download and results to compare.

3DBENCH CPU Benchmark Database

You should get ~ 15 fps.

Does your 386 have any cache? Are the memory timings set correctly? Do you have a decent graphics adapter? Not all 386s are built equally.

I never had a problem playing Doom 1 on my 40mhz 386 back when it had first came out. You certainly shouldn't need a 486 to play it at reasonable speeds.

Does your 386 have any cache? Are the memory timings set correctly? Do you have a decent graphics adapter? Not all 386s are built eq

You should get ~ 15 fps.

128kb cache
ISA ET4000AX

I get 16.1 in 3DBENCH

Maybe the ET4000AX is too slow ?¿ i find that slower 486 in the benchmarks have this graphics card.....

megatron-uk wrote:

I never had a problem playing Doom 1 on my 40mhz 386 back when it had first came out. You certainly shouldn't need a 486 to play it at reasonable speeds.

I think this is one of those case were our memories trick us a little.

I remember playing Wing Commander on a 286 with EGA and I have "it was just fine" memories. But it really lagged.

16.1 is a good score. And the ET4000 is a very very good card for 386 and DOS games.

I remember that Doom would still struggle on a 486DX4-100 on certain parts when using certain weapons. Especially some of the more intense levels from the community.

Found this Video playing Doom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mLFSsXF2TQ

How does this compared to yours?

Found this Video playing Doom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mLFSsXF2TQ

How does this compared to yours?

A little faster than my 386 for sure!! is still slow of curse, but at least in the video seems playable!
in my 386 is playable, but not so much like in the video

OK, i do somthing. I remember a friend have a old Contura Aero 486 with a 486SL 25mhz

OK, the tests:

Doom 386= slow like hell
Doom Contura = playable, some fun

Mortal Kombat 1 386 = slow..not funny
Mortal Kombat 1 Contura = near perfect

Super Street Fighter 2 386 = slow difficult to play
Super Street Fighter 2 Contura = great!! haduken!

Nesticle 386 = sorry, no Contra at all... 😀
Nesticle contura = yeea!! contra at playable speed!!

ohh.... the funny thing... the Contura get 15.6 in 3dbench jajaja, ok i win here... not in real world, but at least in the benchmark....

I bought the 386 because in all reviews everybody says that the speed is similar or best than a 486SX25mhz.....

Or everyoneis mistaked, or my 386 is very very bad?¿ aaaaarrgghhh

Have you got Wing Commander?

It should be almost a little bit too fast on a 40MHz 386.

But yea quite odd because 3DBENCH is very reliable in terms of gauging DOS gaming performance.

I think the only way to know if a 486SX33 kill my 386, is that spend money in a 486 motherboard.... ahh too bad, is very expensive! with shipping cost is more than US 70...

If someone have a 386 please test Mortal Kombat 1 or 2 for me, because i really have the doubt about this....

$70 is way too much to spend on a 486 unless you can afford to just blow money on pointles crapola.

If you want a 486, try to find cheaper (seriously, I doubt that board you found iss the only one for sale on the internet) or maybe even scout flea markets and thrift stores. It also couldn't hurt to ask around on Craigslist or similar websites. Until then, see what DOS box can do for you if a game won't run nicely on the 386.

As for speed, the 486SX-33 will be a little faster than the 386DX-40. The 486 is a newer, more advanced design that benefits further from the addition of an integrated L1 cache.

I agree $70 is a lot. Do you actually need a 486 or would a socket 7 do just and well? A socket 7 board might be much easier to find and cheaper.

Disabling the cache and fiddling with multipliers is possible with some socket 7 cpus and boards, and makes them very flexible if you need to slow them down. A k6/3+ with a gigabyte ga5ax is a nice combo 😉.

This is totally anecdotal, and it has been ~17 years, but I used to play Doom 1 & 2 and Mortal Kombat on my 486SX-25 (it was an IBM PS/1 Consultant; sorry, that's about all the detail I can provide). It wasn't until I stuck a 486DX2-50 Overdrive in there that Doom was really smooth. Before that it was pretty choppy, but it was all that I had, so I didn't care. I can't remember what MK was like at 25, but it was great with the DX2-50..

I know US70 is too much for a 486, but here in spain is near impossible to find old motherboars

I have socket 7, 486 with PCI..etc but all are bigger than the size of my 386 motherboard, and this is the most important for me, because i made a custom case

And is very difficult to find 486 in this size

For play old games, i always use a nice libretto 50CT, perfect for retro

I think before buy a 486 i will change the video first, today i change the ET4000AX with a cheap trident, and the speed was the same......... maybe a cirrus logic or ATI will help?¿

The Doom "starts to fly on a 486DX4-100 and runs perfect on a Pentium"? Oh, come on. On my 486 DX4/100 I've finished games such as Diablo and Starcraft (yup, the final missions were extremely laggy but the rest at 100% speed).

I know it's hard to recall gaming experience for older hardware sometimes but DX4 is definitely worth remembering as a powerful pre-Pentium era cpu and the Doom is meant to be played on 386/486.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I think this is one of those case were our memories trick us a little. […]
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megatron-uk wrote:

I never had a problem playing Doom 1 on my 40mhz 386 back when it had first came out. You certainly shouldn't need a 486 to play it at reasonable speeds.

I think this is one of those case were our memories trick us a little.

I remember playing Wing Commander on a 286 with EGA and I have "it was just fine" memories. But it really lagged.

16.1 is a good score. And the ET4000 is a very very good card for 386 and DOS games.

I remember that Doom would still struggle on a 486DX4-100 on certain parts when using certain weapons. Especially some of the more intense levels from the community.

Actually that demo doesn't look too great - in fact the speed of wolfenstein is barely faster than my recent 286 footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lBHxfsCqWw
In terms of the Doom footage, it's slower than I played on my 386.

I definitely played and completed Doom on a sx40 back in the mid 90's. Yes, the bfg animation in a room full of enemies would chug, but it was perfectly playable. I think we've become more spoilt by modern high fps games than we are looking back with rose tinted glasses.

Check the cache and DRAM timings in the BIOS setup.

megatron-uk wrote:

I think we've become more spoilt by modern high fps games than we are looking back with rose tinted glasses.

I was always a FPS whore when it came to shooters it seems 😀

The DOS refresh rate at 320 x 200 is 70, 72 or 75 Hz I believe.

I skipped the DX2 and went from a Cyrix 486DLC-40 (boy was I glad when I moved on from that one) to an AMD 486DX4-100 and I clearly remember the feeling of "WOW finally Doom is running smooth".

Doom did allow you to lower details and the screen. So I guess that helps.

I don't have a 386, so can't do any Doom recordings. I'll ask DonutKing though, maybe he can upload one.

yes I'll try to do a crappy iphone recording tonight 😀

I did think it was fairly choppy though, although you could definitely play it if you had nothing better.
Even a DX2/66 runs it a lot better though.

I did a timedemo a while back on the 386, running Ultimate DOOM 1.9 demo 3, low detail was 12.9 FPS
High detail was 7.6