I've had similar issues with pentium 1 rigs (underperforming). First off you should check what chipset the machine is running. If it's an intel chipset remove all but 64mb of ram and try running the games again. Uncached memory has been known to slow a machine down. If it's not an intel chipset, check how much cache it has. If I'm not mistaking with 256k you can cache 64mb of ram, so if your board has 256k or less, remove some ram. To make sure, you should try to run the machine with 32 mb of ram.

Another possible reason for the slowdown is the radeon 7000. I've had similar issues with a PCI Geforce 4 card. After replacing that with a PCI voodoo banshee the machine ran fine.

Well I tried 64mb and no improvement.

Keep in mind it also gets worse when I set the machine to 32bit color as opposed to 16. I thought the color depth had everything to do with the gpu?

You know that 3d box screensaver? Works fine in 16 bit color but lags quite a bit in 32.

Same goes for nfs. Despite the card having 64mb of ddr the higher resolution I go the more laggy it gets , like going from 640x480 to 800x600 , and that with no AI drivers or visual enhancments turned on. The gpu is plenty powerful but I think the computers pci bus might just be crap. I mean , it's most likely 1.0 and and the card is made for pentium 4+ systems.

emosun wrote:

PCBONEZ wrote:

You're on a roll!
-- Need for Speed -- Is too slow.

I have a literal need for speed. 🤣

emosun wrote:

Well I tried 64mb and no improvement. […]
Show full quote

Well I tried 64mb and no improvement.

Keep in mind it also gets worse when I set the machine to 32bit color as opposed to 16. I thought the color depth had everything to do with the gpu?

You know that 3d box screensaver? Works fine in 16 bit color but lags quite a bit in 32.

Same goes for nfs. Despite the card having 64mb of ddr the higher resolution I go the more laggy it gets , like going from 640x480 to 800x600 , and that with no AI drivers or visual enhancments turned on. The gpu is plenty powerful but I think the computers pci bus might just be crap. I mean , it's most likely 1.0 and and the card is made for pentium 4+ systems.

Try a more appropriate video card. The radeon 7000 could be causing the slowdown - it really should not be used in a pentium 1 system.

Yup - That Radeon 7000's gonna be pretty bottlenecked by that system. I'd say something like this PCI TNT2 M64 might help you out.

Wow, someone recommending a TNT2 M64? I'm surprised, it's rarely ever recommended around here it seems. I got much better frame rates with a PCI Geforce 2 MX 200 in my P233 MMX Packard Bell then I did with a TNT2 M64. They are about the same price and faster, just make sure you get an older driver, not the newest one. Somewhere in the version 40 range or a detonator driver.

Sutekh94 wrote:

Yup - That Radeon 7000's gonna be pretty bottlenecked by that system. I'd say something like this PCI TNT2 M64 might help you out.

I understand that the card can be bottle necked , but surely a slower card wouldn't somehow improve performance?

I'm honestly just waiting to see if King_Corduroy can get his m415 going to cross reference the machines performance. Because this machine was lagging despite the os in use. Both 98 and xp had almost the same exact fps when testing these games and screen savers. Something tells me that the hardware may be at fault vs the software.

Perhaps if I removed the extra sound card it would free up some resources for the gpu?

650Drew wrote:

Wow, someone recommending a TNT2 M64? I'm surprised, it's rarely ever recommended around here it seems. I got much better frame rates with a PCI Geforce 2 MX 200 in my P233 MMX Packard Bell then I did with a TNT2 M64. They are about the same price and faster, just make sure you get an older driver, not the newest one. Somewhere in the version 40 range or a detonator driver.

The geforece 2 is very similar to the 7000 in terms of speed and age. If I find one for cheap I'll snag it to see what it does.

Yeah, I meant GeForce2 MX. Dunno why I said TNT2 M64.

The suggestions are definitely right about the 430VX chipset and 64MB RAM. Pity that didn't help.
Radeon 7000 is from 2001 so it wasn't exactly meant for a Pentium MMX. It's possible that the drivers were optimized for newer CPUs and AGP.
What resolution are you running glQuake at? (I assume you are running glQuake and not the original Quake in DOS. Otherwise a 3D accelerator won't help.) What's the timedemo result?
The Radeon 7000 is quite slow compared to the "true" Radeons (it doesn't have hardware T&L), but it should be faster than any Rage 128, and it shouldn't have a problem running glQuake in sane resolutions. See http://fromwww.vgamuseum.info/index.php/bench … ks/glquake-1024
It really shouldn't be the bottleneck.

idspispopd wrote:

(I assume you are running glQuake and not the original Quake in DOS. Otherwise a 3D accelerator won't help.)

would dos games have no advantage with the gpu? maybe need for speed is dos based

Sutekh94 wrote:

Yeah, I meant GeForce2 MX. Dunno why I said TNT2 M64.

They aren't that bad actually, though they aren't anything stellar either 😜
But they are cheap, come with up to 32MB memory and actually have some useful 3D capability though I think the MX cards are of more use because compared to TNT2 M64, Voodoo 3 simply is a lot better.

emosun wrote:

would dos games have no advantage with the gpu? maybe need for speed is dos based

While there are some games which can use 3d acceleration with some video cards, the original DOS Quake can't use 3d acceleration, glQuake is a Windows program which can use OpenGL, and a Radeon (doesn't matter which one) offers Direct3D and OpenGL acceleration in Windows. (Exception: There was VQuake, an accelerated Quake port for Rendition cards. IIRC there is also modern Quake port for DOS which can use Glide.)

NFS3 is a Windows game which can use Direct3D and Glide.

Dude, neither a geforce 2 or tnt2 m64 will help performance, but rather hinder it => reason = a modern card will ask your system for resources it can't provide - or can't provide quick enough - causing the slowdowns you are experiencing. Those cards are designed to be use in much newer systems - at least a 440bx chispet or something. If you want speed find a period correct card like an S3 Virge or a Matrox Millennium and add a Voodoo card for 3D acceleration.

If you insist on an all in one solution get a Voodoo Banshee or a Voodoo 3 (although the V3 is wasted on a pentium machine). If you dislike 3dfx cards or think they're not worth the money, get a 1997 3d accelerator card like a Riva 128 PCI / ATi rage PCI / Riva TNT (1) / 3DLabs Permedia etc.

My personal advice is to get period correct hardware - either use the on board graphics your Packard bell came with (if it has on board graphics) + voodoo card or buy a simple 2MB PCI video card and use it in conjuncture with a dedicated 3D Accelerator - that is undoubtedly how you get the best performance out of your system. If you buy a GF2 you will most likely encounter the same problems you are having with the Radeon 7000.

According to the specs sheet linked to in the second post your on-board video is S3 Trio64V+ with 2Mb Video RAM.
That is not a horrible video setup. If you want 3D use the stock video and add a Voodoo.

Your factory sound isn't that bad either.
http://members.tripod.com/yucca_man/pb810ovw.htm

What I would look at is how much cache you have.
That board came with None, 256k or 512k.
A Packard Bell with no cache would not surprise me.
.

In that case... V1 perhaps? That onboard S3 would go well with one, and it's more period correct than a Radeon 7000, TNT2 M64, and GF2MX. If you're not into 3dfx stuff, maybe something like the original Riva 128 would suffice.

Also, I do have a bad habit of really overcomplicating things... Apologies if this has caused anybody any migraines. (especially kanecvr, since I feel his last post in this thread was kinda directed towards me)

It would also be a good idea to check how much L2 cache the board came with. Use CACHECHK.EXE under dos. If it reports no L2 cache, this is causing the poor performance.

I think I'm starting to notice something guys.

The 3d box screen saver most liklely doesn't use direct 3d or open gl , however. The far more complex "euphoria" screen saver does. And actually runs perfectly even at 720p 32bit color.

I'm thinking maybe the machine lags on games that don't support opel gl or 3d. I'll have to find a game that supports opel gl and direct 3d and meets the cpu requirements to test the theory.

Just tried a voodoo 2 in the machine , it actually doesn't seem to be doing anything at all.

I got it connected correctly and the drivers installed perfectly , but it's showing no improvement over the stock onboard graphics

And I just tried quake on the voodoo2 and it's about 1 frame every 10 seconds