My 386-25 was too slow for Stunts, powerpoint framerate. It ran, but it wasn't fun. Of course a 486-40 or 50 is miles ahead of that.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-12-29, 16:31:

Is PCI important, or is ISA and VLB where it's at?

PCI is less important for 486 era gaming.

The main difference here is how many ISA slots you might want, since boards with PCI slots will have fewer ISA slots. As I like installing many sound cards in my builds, I tend to favor ISA/VLB over PCI for 486 builds.

Is a 1992 486DX Opti motherboard with ISA 8 bit, ISA 16 bit and VLB likely to have jumper settings for downclocking to 33?

If you know the model, you can look it up on Retroweb: https://theretroweb.com/

dukeofurl wrote on 2025-12-29, 16:36:

Not sure how well vlb would do with demanding late dos games like need for speed, quake, Carmageddon, as they don't run on my 486, but I assume pci will be more favorable here too.

I tested Quake on a 486 board with a Pentium overdrive chip and found it capped out at 18.0 FPS for almost all PCI video cards I tested.

Surprisingly the fastest card was my VLB Tseng ET4000/W32P that hit 18.3 FPS.

Concrete pc I'm looking to buy:
486-40 or 50
16mb ram
Opti motherboard isa8/isa16/vlb (7 slots in total)
Isa Sound Blaster 16 multi-CD or very similar
Cirrus VLB gpu

I don't know other details atm.

Suitable for my goal of pre-doom dos machine? Stunts, pinballs, simcity 2000 as edge case...

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-12-29, 18:21:

Concrete pc I'm looking to buy: 486-40 or 50 16mb ram Opti motherboard isa8/isa16/vlb (7 slots in total) Isa Sound Blaster 16 m […]
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Concrete pc I'm looking to buy:
486-40 or 50
16mb ram
Opti motherboard isa8/isa16/vlb (7 slots in total)
Isa Sound Blaster 16 multi-CD or very similar
Cirrus VLB gpu

I don't know other details atm.

Suitable for my goal of pre-doom dos machine? Stunts, pinballs, simcity 2000 as edge case...

That looks solid.

Only thing I would change is the sound card. I'd go with a Yamaha YMF-7xxx based card. Reason being is having clean audio output and a bug-free wavetable header to add a daughter card for MT-32 and/or General MIDI support. That and there aren't really any 486 era games that will take advantage of 16-bit capabilities of an SB16.

But would an SB16 work (8 bit compatibility mode?) for games that are made for a lesser SB?

Yes, an SB16 will be generally backwards compatible.

My caution with Sound Blaster cards is they tend to be a mess of models with bugs and other issues. You can see this thread for details: Sound Blaster: From best to worst

If you do decide to go with an SB16 card, I would do some research beforehand to pick a least-problematic model.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-29, 19:33:

If you do decide to go with an SB16 card, I would do some research beforehand to pick a least-problematic model.

Yeah, I dont think there is a model that's free from issues. If you dont want a wavetable header then SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 seems a good choice. I use CT2230 and CT2290 mostly (I have 4). But I use soundblaster Pro 2.0 for my PC targeting the oldest games.

I think the pc would come with a CT1750. Could be worse. 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-29, 15:56:

We also had a 12 MHz 286 from about 1988/89 to 1993. It wasn't until 1994 we got a 486. […]
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Jo22 wrote on 2025-12-29, 11:17:

I had a rather slow 286 @12 MHz in the 90s, for example. Graphically, I mean.

We also had a 12 MHz 286 from about 1988/89 to 1993. It wasn't until 1994 we got a 486.

The consequence of this was missing out on a lot of early 90s VGA games because they ran too poorly to be playable or fun.

This is why I would not recommend a 286 for anyone wanting to play games from the early 90s. A 286 is more appropriate for mid-to-late 1980s.

I understand, sorry about your bad experience with the platform. 😟

Still, the very 80286 processor itself wasn't at fault, I think.

It was part of the original MPC-1 specification before it was changed (revised) for a 386SX (in favor of being able to run Windows in 386 Enhanced Mode I think).
The Tandy VIS multimedia console (some sort of a Philips CD-i rival) ran on an 80286 and used a custom Windows 3.1x.
Links here: Re: Benefits of building a 386 computer ?

Both use cases prove that it was historically being part of the early multimedia days, I think.
Even if it was merely for a brief moment in time.

I believe that many 286 PCs were unecessarily slow also because they had been built from spare parts of the previous PC/XT generation.
As if it was a motherboard swap, basically. PC/XT board out -> AT clone board in.
The PC/XT expansions cards, slow HDD and chassis had been kept, too.

To make matters worse, baseline 256KB VGA cards were available as 8-Bit "budget" cards.
Such as the Paradise "Basic VGA", which couldn't be expanded to 512 KB or 1 MB without tricks (piggy-back method).
Info: https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturer … rofessional.php

So I assume that many 286 PCs by turn of the decade ('89/'90) had gotten a cheap VGA upgrade, which includes 8-Bit cards.
Also makes sense because the previous graphics cards, such as CGA or Hercules, had occupied an 8-Bit slot before.
The higher end VGA cards were then saved up for 386/486 PCs.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-29, 16:13:

theelf wrote on 2025-12-29, 15:49:

mm... take care, most if not all first 486 boards still relies on a fixed cristal. Is more on boards with DX2+ support that have the jumpers stuff

True, but those early boards are going to be more rare since 486s weren't as highly adopted. Not to mention likely to be ISA only which wouldn't be ideal either.

here in spain they are very common 486, ISA only boards with fixed clock. In fact, if you look for DX33/40 boards most are ISA only, I dont know how much gain will be a VLB/PCI on this slow CPU, in all my test in such slow CPU a ISA cirrus logic in 11mhz give similar results to a CL VLB, Doom, bench etc

But yes, i think like you said, VLB/PCI boards are normally a little more easy to find

I was checking which peripherals I have at home for a possible 486 purchase.
-VGA cable and lcd monitor is no problem
-I happen to have a serial Microsoft ball mouse (the classic one), which I assume will work on a serial port of a 486
-I do not have an AT keyboard (sold it 2 years ago, obviously...). I do have spare PS/2 keyboards from W98/Me era. I do not have a PS2 to DIN adapter (well I do, but it's in use). Do I *need* an AT keybaord (hard to come by around here for fun prices) or will a PS2 with DIN adapter (passive do? Pure PS2 keyboards, not with USB.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-12-29, 22:56:

I was checking which peripherals I have at home for a possible 486 purchase. -VGA cable and lcd monitor is no problem -I happe […]
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I was checking which peripherals I have at home for a possible 486 purchase.
-VGA cable and lcd monitor is no problem
-I happen to have a serial Microsoft ball mouse (the classic one), which I assume will work on a serial port of a 486
-I do not have an AT keyboard (sold it 2 years ago, obviously...). I do have spare PS/2 keyboards from W98/Me era. I do not have a PS2 to DIN adapter (well I do, but it's in use). Do I *need* an AT keybaord (hard to come by around here for fun prices) or will a PS2 with DIN adapter (passive do? Pure PS2 keyboards, not with USB.

PS/2 Keyboards are fine

If you will use a TFT and not CRT, some card are more compatible than others, like Cirrus Logic is some of best

Alright, so if I'm feeling sacrilegious I could just use a way too modern PS2 keyboard with a to-be-bought adapter. Ah well, distracts from the LCD. 😀

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-12-29, 23:17:

Alright, so if I'm feeling sacrilegious I could just use a way too modern PS2 keyboard with a to-be-bought adapter. Ah well, distracts from the LCD. 😀

Like i said when edit my last post, if you will use lcd better a cirrus logic if you can, trident is super good too, but normally are very slow, im talking about ISA card

The PC I'm looking at has a Cirrus VLB card, the CL‑GD5426 with I guess 1MB (half the RAM sockets are empty).

I'm quite ready to bite the bullet, I like that it's not a horizontal desktop but a small vertical tower. My only doubt is whether or not I'd miss the performance of a DX2-66 (assuming this PC is a DX40, could be overclocked to 50 but not sure about that). Then again I think the amount of games that need a 66 and I can't get running on my W98 PC is small.

Jo22 wrote on 2025-12-29, 20:24:

I understand, sorry about your bad experience with the platform. 😟

Still, the very 80286 processor itself wasn't at fault, I think.

To be clear, I don't think it was a bad experience. It was our first family computer and at the time, we didn't know anything about required performance and what was needed for different games.

We played what was playable and had a lot of fun with it until we got a 486 in 1994.

It's only in retrospect that I realize we missed out on a bunch of early 90s VGA games.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-12-29, 20:07:

I think the pc would come with a CT1750. Could be worse. 😀

I've used the same model card. Unfortunately these early SB16 models had noisy DACs, so the audio output isn't very clean. YMMV on how much that might bother you.

Later model SB16s (e.g. CT2290) are a better option in my experience if you want/need SB16 support.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-30, 14:37:

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-12-29, 20:07:

I think the pc would come with a CT1750. Could be worse. 😀

I've used the same model card. Unfortunately these early SB16 models had noisy DACs, so the audio output isn't very clean. YMMV on how much that might bother you.

Later model SB16s (e.g. CT2290) are a better option in my experience if you want/need SB16 support.

I'm a fan of the CT1740 (and CT1750) sort of, because it "just works" and needs no TSR/drivers for initialization (just jumper settings).

So it works directly after PC power-on, on any OS, including early OS/2 with MMPM add-on (pre-dates ISA Plug&Play).

The noisy audio can be reduced by by-passing the on-board amplifier via jumper settings, so the SB16 has line-out.

Another aspect of the "Noise Blaster" is that it has that fat, deep sound.
Comparable to a first generation Sega MegaDtive/Genesis.
Sure, it's a bit muffled. But that's okay for games such as Descent! 😄

I'm saying that as a long-time user of a PAS16, by the way, which had a very clean sound output/input by comparison.
Despite the PAS16 being superior and easier to use (auto-config via software), I still have a soft spot for the "primitive" SB16 of the CT17xx series. 🙂

Edit:

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-12-30, 14:33:

To be clear, I don't think it was a bad experience. It was our first family computer and at the time, we didn't know anything ab […]
Show full quote

Jo22 wrote on 2025-12-29, 20:24:

I understand, sorry about your bad experience with the platform. 😟

Still, the very 80286 processor itself wasn't at fault, I think.

To be clear, I don't think it was a bad experience. It was our first family computer and at the time, we didn't know anything about required performance and what was needed for different games.

We played what was playable and had a lot of fun with it until we got a 486 in 1994.

It's only in retrospect that I realize we missed out on a bunch of early 90s VGA games.

My bad. My 12 MHz 286 was my main PC up until the year 2000.
It sat on my wooden desk in my bedroom, along with a 1987 IBM monitor.
And I've never really felt that I had missed out much.

Most games I've played came from shareware CD-ROMs, including Commander Keen IV.
Multimedia wasn't an issue, either, I played MID, MOD and WAVE files on that PC.
Went online with a Creatix modem a bit.. BBSes, CompuServe, T-Online.
A budget handy scanner and an old HP Laserjet from the early 80s were installed, too.

Of course, this is all about perspective here.
I didn't play the commercial big-box games that much, my 286 PC was never meant to be a gaming PC.
It rather was configured like a humble 386 PC, but equipped with a 286 processor instead.
I had no CD-Writer or ZIP drive installed, either.
Things like this were more in the 386/486 or Pentium domain.

For playing commercial games, I had my Super Nintendo, at the time.
I went online at the internet cafè whenever I had a need for a serious internet experience.
The connection speed was much better there, anyway.

At home, we had my father's 386DX-40 PC running Windows 95 RTM.
It had 16 MB of RAM, 20" CRT, Trident 8900 VGA, two IDE drives of 120 and 250MB I think (OS/data), a 33k6 Trust Communicator modem, an Epson ink printer, MS Mouse etc.
The web browser was Netscape Navigator 2.01, I believe.

On my father's 386 I've also played some games that ran very badly (if at all) on my 286.
Such as that MiG29 flight simulator, for example. Or 32-Bit games written for Windows 95/NT or Win32s. Such as Hyperoid32.
I've also fondly remember plaing EGATrek on that 20" monitor! 🙂

I mean, sure, from a gamer's perspective that must have been very lame. 😅
Players into Doom, Wolf3D and action games as such had higher expectations.
But I liked Jump&Runs or the slower paced desktop games such as WinTrek, EmPipe, Lander 3, Space Exploration Alpha etc.

I've also enjoyed games such as Larry, our obscure German adventure games (advertisement games; such as BiFi adventure), or playing around with demo versions of commercial titles.
Such as Monkey Island, Sam&Max or Universe (famous on Amiga).
Most ran on 286 PCs, still. Merely the updated Talkie versions on CD-ROM began to require a 386 and 32-Bit.

The only 486 we had at home at the time was a notebook, I think.
It had a monochrome VGA screen, 200 MB HDD and 4 MB of RAM, 3,5" floppy drive.
It ran MS-DOS 6.20 and Windows 3.10, if I remember correctly.
My father used it for business stuff. Only game it had on was GnuChess, I think.