Well, to get decent frame rates at higher resolutions which you can choose in some of the late DOS demos get a fast CPU like Thunderbird 1400C. The board should have at least one ISA slot, better two.
GUS (or GUS PnP) was still used a lot, but some engines also wanted a SB16 compatible card. I just found one demo yet with direct support for AWE, though it probably makes no difference compared to stereo mixing with oversampling. For the graphics card I recommend a S3 Virge/DX or GX with S3VBE20. This is because you get high compatibility, support for most low res/high color modes as well as the high res modes. If you can live with a bit less compatibility you can go for S3 Trio3D, Voodoo3,4,5, Geforce2 etc. These may be a bit faster in high res modes due to AGP.
Having something with PCI-X would probably be even a bit faster, but thats quite special to get in a compareable setup.

Some of the later better DOS demos have Win32 ports that run well on modern hardware. (pulse, sleepless etc.)

The switchover from DOS to Windows was rather late compared to games; the first good Windows demos started to appear around 1997, while there still were excellent DOS productions until around 2000. 3D acceleration took some time to catch on (amidst huge discussions whether accelerated demos should still be considered "true" scene demos, etc...).

Beside my 486, I have two more retro computers which I use to watch scene content:

K6-3+ 500 / Voodoo5 AGP + S3 Virge PCI / AWE32 + GUS PnP (for DOS and early Win9x demos)
Athlon 1400 / GeForce Ti4600 + Voodoo5 PCI / Vortex2 + GUS PnP (for late DOS and Win9x demos)

If you want to build a machine covering late DOS demos you'll need
- a fairly fast CPU (about 500 MHz minimum, because unaccelerated graphics are very demanding on the CPU)
- a very compatible VBE 2 compliant video card (ideally it should be supported by UniVBE, because some demos rely on the way UniVBE organizes mode numbers).
- GUS is still useful until the end of the DOS era, because size-restricted entries often rely on tiny GUS players.
- AWE32/64 is supported natively by demos using the Indoor Music system (basically the Cubic Player engine), there are quite a few good ones.

Thanks for the info. Very helpful.

5u3 wrote:

(amidst huge discussions whether accelerated demos should still be considered "true" scene demos, etc...).

Indeed. I mentioned I was not interested in 3D accel demos. In my mind, these are less impressive than non-hw accel demos. When a demo goes 3D, it lands in the world of commercial game 3D engines IMHO, and there are many more impressive than what demo coders put out -- which is the opposite of the situation with non-3D accel demos, IMHO.

Athlon Thunderbird 1400C is not "too fast" for demos just beyond what my 5x86 DOS machine can handle?

As for "modern" (3D...) demos, I have a Athlon II X4 630 4-core 2.8GHz CPU w/ GeForce 8800 GT. How able is that for "modern" demos?

bp

Now days it is all about how much resources that can be wasted by the application and os to force people into buying to prop up the market. I always worry a little when there is another round of updates for windows that is going to hurt performance as well stability when not using the latest os. It is no great wonder that people are spending so much on high end rigs and replacing their laptops as quickly as they do their phones. In the long run more people will lose interest and start looking to the past for gaming.

blakespot wrote:

As for "modern" (3D...) demos, I have a Athlon II X4 630 4-core 2.8GHz CPU w/ GeForce 8800 GT. How able is that for "modern" demos?

From my experience modern demos can rely heavily on graphics cards performance and need at least a better mid-range CPU, like some quad core i5s.
e.g. 5 faces by fairlight from the last year requires at least a GTX680 for 720p resolution.
ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/DVI_Capture/FLT_Cl … cker_5faces.mkv
As a crude desciption, the raw performance is required for a shader program that traces the whole scene with refraction/transmission/reflection per pixel. Check out the video to see what I mean.
So expect that your system has insufficient performance for most modern demos.

Sounds like the Thunderbird 1400 C is the sweet spot for the demo scene era I am targeting. Any recommended motherboards? I am using an ASUS PVI-486SP3 for my 5x86, not that it is of any related significance.

elianda wrote:

I recommend a S3 Virge/DX or GX with S3VBE20.

So this is one of the best solutions? Whas is S3VBE20 - a BIOS set or a TSR BIOS to be loaded to DOS? Surely I'd be able to get VESA 2.0 in BIOS on a card of this gen, right?

For SB do I want a PCI SB of some sort or an ISA SB16 / AWE32/64 (which I assume is SB16 compat). Sounds like a GUS would be good for certain demos.

Win98SE or XP for the Windows demos? 64MB RAM fine?

Tnx

bp

Demosthenes lived during the Classical era of Greek history. Wait, what?

elianda wrote:

For the graphics card I recommend a S3 Virge/DX or GX with S3VBE20.)

I just discovered your YT channel. Very nice. I see you use an Intel i740 for a number of the videos. Looking into it, is this now a low-performance gfx card? It seems to have been outclassed quickly and saw a short production run. Here's one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wsr_oCzlZA

That demo, is it utilizing 3D features of the board, or 2D VESA? AGP would make it faster than a PCI card, but surely there were faster AGP cards.

The S3 Virge you recommend to me -- are you picturing PCI or AGP? Still wondering what a good board would be for a Tbird 1400C.

Thanks.

bp

You are interpreting too much. Sometimes it was just a test system i had put up and I used it also to capture the DOS demo. I did not indicate when the graphics card was a special choice, all you can get from this is that this specific demo works e.g. with a i740.
About AGP: From DOS AGP is nothing more than PCI at 66 MHz for the upstream. So if there are faster cards with full AGP chipset drivers in windows does not matter for DOS. If a i740 can reach this transfer speed then a newer card wont be faster, even if it is in windows. So you talk about Windows 3D performance whereas you need DOS 2D VESA performance. This is completely different and can not be reasoned. Check Phils Google Docs Benchmark results (PCPBench).
About VESA: The VIRGE was just a suggestion because with the TSR it is able to set nearly all VBE2 modes, low res high color as well as high res modes. You can choose of course some newer card if it can set the required mode. VBE2 BIOS does not mean a card supports all modes. If a specific card doesn't you can start playing with additional TSRs like UniVBE. There is no ultimate solution with optimum speed and mode support, so try yourself what fits your needs.

The demo you linked is 100% software rendering to a VESA framebuffer.

Elianda, thanks for the further clarification.

I understand what you are saying for DOS vs. Windows 3D. The former is my interest. Still, given that, an AGP card would be preferred, given the double clock upstream over PCI, correct?

I am excited to get in position to be able to experience this era of demos on real hardware - I definitely missed out on this period, way back when.

bp

Been searching... Does there exist a Socket A motherboard that can take an Athlon Thunderbird 1400C that has _two_ ISA slots? I see a few with one. But, two?

Thanks.

bp

Interesting that you mention the Thunderbird 1400 C as bought one yesterday for $5 and change after shipping. Need to find just the right board for it though but loathe the idea of using SDR with it.

nforce4max wrote:

...but loathe the idea of using SDR with it.

SDR?

bp

blakespot wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

...but loathe the idea of using SDR with it.

SDR?

bp

PC-133 SDRAM.

Tetrium wrote:

PC-133 SDRAM.

What do you want to use with it instead?

bp

blakespot wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

PC-133 SDRAM.

What do you want to use with it instead?

bp

He probably meant DDR memory

The SoundBlaster Live! - the first PCI SB - came out in '98. Would DOS demos from '97 - 2002 or so --- the window I am targeting with this Athlon build --- work with that card as far as a SB16 compatible? (Assuming it is SB16 compatible).

The reason I wanted two ISA slots on the motherboard is so that I could use both a GUS and a SB16 to cover all bases for demos.

Will a PCI SB of some sort fill the bill for those old demos? Thanks.

bp

Concerning the 1.4 GHz Thunderbird: This is actually a bit overkill. There are only a few demos which let you choose higher resolutions than 640x480, most of them run at lower resolutions or employ big fat "widescreen bars" to keep the amount of pixels down. I've run a few tests with my Thunderbird machine downclocked to 600 MHz and in the majority of late DOS demos I couldn't notice a difference compared to 1400 MHz. Also, some demos develop timing glitches on very fast machines, but it's not a big problem compared to typical 386/486 demos.

I've no experience with SB Live PCI, but my Vortex 2 PCI card doesn't get along well with demo sound libraries. I wouldn't expect much from a SB Live either, even if it has SB16 emulation.

@elianda: Do you remember any examples for late DOS demos which work on a SB but not on a GUS (PnP)?

If you really need 2 ISA slots, then try something like a 800 MHz P3 which runs on a BX board and there are boards that have 2 slots.

I had one demo that that offered GUS and SB, but crashed with GUS. It could be that it was Event Horizon / Smash Designs, but memory is vague.
The later demos usually use some sort of sound system (e.g. MIDAS) which supports a variety of card. GUS works usually.