Two Performance Q's

cheers_rules · Post by **cheers_rules** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:28 am

I recently acquired two mobos: the first is a late-gen 486 model w/VLB and the second is an older ISA mobo with an on-board AMD 386DX/40 chip. I'm trying to build these into two working computers, and I'm thinking about putting an Intel 486DX4-100 cpu in the 486. My 1st question is: how is performance with the DX4 chip? Is it worth going for instead of a DX2-66? This will likely be a Win 9x/NT system. Secondly, I was wondering whether performance will be adequate AT ALL under win 9x/nt on the 386 with adequate RAM or whether I should just go with DOS/3.x. (The 386 will have 64 megs of RAM). Thanks for the help! I look forward to hearing your responses.

Thanks!

Unknown_K · Post by **Unknown_K** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 2:34 am

cheers_rules wrote:I recently acquired two mobos: the first is a late-gen 486 model w/VLB and the second is an older ISA mobo with an on-board AMD 386DX/40 chip. I'm trying to build these into two working computers, and I'm thinking about putting an Intel 486DX4-100 cpu in the 486. My 1st question is: how is performance with the DX4 chip? Is it worth going for instead of a DX2-66? This will likely be a Win 9x/NT system. Secondly, I was wondering whether performance will be adequate AT ALL under win 9x/nt on the 386 with adequate RAM or whether I should just go with DOS/3.x. (The 386 will have 64 megs of RAM). Thanks for the help! I look forward to hearing your responses.

Thanks!

I never seen a 386 MB that takes 64mb of ram, 4mb simms are about the most they can take.

Win9x runs best on a Pentium or faster motherboard, I have run it on a 486/133 oc to 160 before.

386/40 runs Win 3.1 just fine stick with that.

Make sure your 486 motherboard can run the 100 chip. Anything faster then 66 is usually a 3.45V chip compared to the earlier 5V chips (there is a rare Intel 486/100 that is 5V along with a 486 overdrive).

My 486/66 system runs Win 3.11 (same as my 386/40)

Sasami · Post by **Sasami** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:00 am

The 386 Dx-40 will run Win95 fine. I ran it years ago with 5MB RAM, 120MB HDD with a 512K SVGA graphics card and it performed very well under Windows95 and 3.1 (it actually ran faster on 95 as the DX is a 32 bit chip). The only issues I had were with RAM but I really ran it with the minimum - 5MB! I ran Winword 6.0, Excel, Norton Desktop and Generic Cad without any problems - except for lots of hdd activity (swapping).

Unknown_K · Post by **Unknown_K** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:29 am

Sasami wrote:The 386 Dx-40 will run Win95 fine. I ran it years ago with 5MB RAM, 120MB HDD with a 512K SVGA graphics card and it performed very well under Windows95 and 3.1 (it actually ran faster on 95 as the DX is a 32 bit chip). The only issues I had were with RAM but I really ran it with the minimum - 5MB! I ran Winword 6.0, Excel, Norton Desktop and Generic Cad without any problems - except for lots of hdd activity (swapping).

Running windows 95 with 5mb of memory would make me loose my mind, but if you could deal with it then thats all that matters to you. I would not recommend anybody try serious work in 5mb of memory.

Frenkel · Post by **Frenkel** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 12:08 pm

I had W95 on a 386 with 6 MB of memory and I got on the internet with a 33k6 modem. It's possible, but slow.

Sasami · Post by **Sasami** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:40 pm

Unknown_K wrote:
Running windows 95 with 5mb of memory would make me loose my mind, but if you could deal with it then thats all that matters to you. I would not recommend anybody try serious work in 5mb of memory.

Well that was long ago (1994) before routine internet access in South Africa, and I could do serious work what was serious for me at that time - run Turbo Pascal 7 (DOS) for high school computer science classes and write resumes/letters and print them out on Word for Windows 6. These things ran slugglishly
but I could do what most basic computer users do - ie word processing and Winword looks way better than MS Word for DOS.

I only upgraded to a Pentium II 64MB system + GeForce 256 only in 1998 hehe which only led me to play 3d games like Unreal - most counter-productive

.

Unknown_K · Post by **Unknown_K** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:49 pm

Maybe you are refering to windows 3.1 and not windows 95 (since I dont think it was out in 1994)

Interon · Post by **Interon** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 6:10 pm

The 486DX4/100 is a pretty peppy chip and is only about 50% slower than the Pentium. Caveat: some 486 motherboards do not support the DX4 and therefore I recommend the 486DX2/66 for safety and compatiblity.

Unknown_K · Post by **Unknown_K** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 6:59 pm

JMS wrote:The 486DX4/100 is a pretty peppy chip and is only about 50% slower than the Pentium. Caveat: some 486 motherboards do not support the DX4 and therefore I recommend the 486DX2/66 for safety and compatiblity.

There was a cutoff at DX/2 66 that were 5V and newer chips thats were 3.45V (dx/2 80 and higher). Some boards that did allow for the lower voltage also needed a seperate board plugable module which is next to impossible to find these days if its no already installed.

The nice DX/4-133 boards tend to be PCI only, so you cant use your good old VLB cards. The Dual PCI and VLB boards had speed problems because of the design compromise.

I overlocked a dx/4-133 to 160 and it was faster then the slower pentiums and very stable.

jmmijo · Post by **jmmijo** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 7:39 pm

I remember having a couple of Amptron 486 boards, they would both take DX2/DX4 CPU's and even the Cyrix and AMD CPU's. I really liked the AMD DX4/120 which would overlock to 160 with good cooling

The nice thing on a VLB board was running the CPU and the VLB bus at 40MHz instead of the standard PCI bus speed at 33MHz...

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 6:04 am

You will forgive me, but: running Windows 95 on anything less than a Pentium is sheer idiocy. Yes, it will work, but why? Not that I understand the point of assembling anything less than a Pentium anyway. Maaaaybe a 486 DX4-100 for the oldies, but even then a Pentium will do the job better 99% of the time.

jmmijo · Post by **jmmijo** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 10:54 am

dr_st wrote:You will forgive me, but: running Windows 95 on anything less than a Pentium is sheer idiocy. Yes, it will work, but why? Not that I understand the point of assembling anything less than a Pentium anyway. Maaaaybe a 486 DX4-100 for the oldies, but even then a Pentium will do the job better 99% of the time.

Ah but my young padawan, you're forgetting that some of us like to try things now that we may not have been willing to do back in the day, just to see if it will run, just like the minimum specs state on the package

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:34 pm

jmmijo wrote:Ah but my young padawan, you're forgetting that some of us like to try things now that we may not have been willing to do back in the day, just to see if it will run, just like the minimum specs state on the package

Is that the point of the DOSGames community as you see it? I thought the point was trying to preserve the good old games in playable state.

Interon · Post by **Interon** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:21 pm

Do you expect everyone to throw all their 8088, 286, 386, and 486 computers in the garbage, even if they are in decent condition?

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 12:25 am

Interon wrote:Do you expect everyone to throw all their 8088, 286, 386, and 486 computers in the garbage, even if they are in decent condition?

No, I'd expect them to have done it some 5 years ago. 8088? Jesus.

But I'm being unfair. I bought my first computer in 1996 and it was a Pentium, so it's natural I don't accept anything less than a Pentium as a legitimate PC. Now that Pentium of mine (was a 100MHz) died on me a few years back (mobo), and since it was long due upgrade anyway, I bought a new PC. I daresay that I would have kept it if it didn't die, because later I went and bought a Pentium 200MHz system for my oldies and I have intention to keep it until it dies (hopefully will be a very long time).

A 8088, 8086, 80286? I'm sorry, that IS garbage. Even if it's still in mint condition. It's needed absolutely for nothing, except taking space in your room/basement, being slow beyond your wildest dreams, accepting only 360K diskettes and running old games that you can still run perfectly on a Pentium/486 using a slowdown utility or a XT/AT/whatever simulator.

But who am I to tell anyone to throw their comp into the trash? Like I said, I never thrown anything of mine, unless it died. OK, I suppose there are reasons to keep them, but why would you try to abuse them by trying to make them do things they will barely be able to deal with and by attempting to do so will drive you in-fucking-sane with their slowness?

Post by **Wally** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 12:32 am

actually depends on wheather you can just bung it into another case.

People shouldnt care if they go slow or anything. I dont throw my apples in the trash. I paint them black and put stars all over them

they look sweeet

jmmijo · Post by **jmmijo** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:38 am

dr_st wrote: Is that the point of the DOSGames community as you see it? I thought the point was trying to preserve the good old games in playable state.

Nope, that's just one point I'm trying to make, I have fun trying to get things to run that I didn't have time for back in the day. It's more of a lab for me then anything else.

Strictly speaking on DOS games, I too would go for a P-200/233 as a base DOS gaming rig. However, nothing says you couldn't also put together a Celeron/K6/K6-2 machine running a dual-boot with DOS/Win3.xx and say Win 95/98

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 1:45 pm

jmmijo wrote:Strictly speaking on DOS games, I too would go for a P-200/233 as a base DOS gaming rig. However, nothing says you couldn't also put together a Celeron/K6/K6-2 machine running a dual-boot with DOS/Win3.xx and say Win 95/98

There are issues with the above processors and DOS games. A Celeron is especially problematic (all these "Runtime Error 200" glitches, other games that refuse to run, etc), but even on a K6, there are some game compatibility issues that aren't present on a genuine Pentium. I know, because I run a K6 (K6-2 for that matter). Not to mention that for the games that do need slowdown, it's easier to slow down a 200MHz machine than a 400-500MHz machine.

On another note, you don't really need to dual-boot DOS and Win9x, because you can just use the DOS on Win9x - it's as good as DOS 6.22.

jmmijo · Post by **jmmijo** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 8:20 pm

I guess in some instances is best to keep a few different machines lying around, that is if you have the space

Interon · Post by **Interon** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 8:32 pm

8088 and 8086 are fit for the trash because of lack of 1.44 MB floppy support (unless you already have lots of games on it).

286 and better is OK since many 286s are capable of using 1.44 MB floppies.

My IBM PS/2 Model 56 SX (386 SX/20) is an awesome DOS gaming machine (except for 3-D games).

However, 486DX is the general minimum since some DOS games require a math coprocessor.

486DX/25 is the best of both worlds, slow enough for old games, powerful enough for some newer games.

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Two Performance Q's

Two Performance Q's

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