eightbit Posted March 16, 2022 Author Share Posted March 16, 2022 Nice, thanks! This certainly helps a lot! Why do I have this feeling I am going to become some sort of VLB video card collector? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 1 hour ago, eightbit said: Why do I have this feeling I am going to become some sort of VLB video card collector? I have a bunch of VLB cards, but I am reluctant to get rid of them just-in-case I get the urge to put a system together. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GameGirl420 Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 What games do you have for this 486? looks rad! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 8 hours ago, eightbit said: I have always been an Intel guy. But, I didn't want an overdrive processor anyway. It wasn't in the spirit of what I wanted this machine to be. I wanted it to be a true blue DX-4. This is the chip that is inside of this beast now: ..And what a beaut it is! Always fun to build a vintage dream machine. 7 hours ago, eightbit said: I have a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 in the machine now (which is awesomely fast by the way!) and I was wondering about the CL-GD5429 which is supposed to be a hair faster. I found this one from a seller in the Ukraine no less. I asked him if he's OK and if he can ship stuff, but he said he's good and gave me tracking. Pretty sure the main differences between the 28 and 29 are memory-mapped IO, slightly better overlay support and a few MHz faster clock. That's about it. Reference Page 21 CL-GD542x_CirrusLogic.pdf CirrusLogic CL-GD54xx datasheets.zip And don't forget to upgrade to 2MB, looks like the board supports it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 I didn't have much of an interest or nostalgia for my original 486, but seeing someone actually build one ... I want one now. The prices of PCs in the late 80s/early 90s was bonkers. I remember working for a local builders merchant and seeing a brochure for PCs. £5,000+ in 1989/90. Got my 486DX-33 in '94. Think it cost about £600 all together for the parts. The 486 was probably the first affordable PC. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 16, 2022 Author Share Posted March 16, 2022 5 hours ago, lushgirl_80 said: What games do you have for this 486? looks rad! I don't own any boxed retail games (yet) but I am always on the hunt. In the meantime there are floppy disk image collections on archive.org. Let's just say I have thousands of games at my disposal So far I have installed a few games. Epic Pinball, Doom 1/2, ROTT, Hexen, Heretic, Duke 3D, Tyrian and a few others. I just pick a random game here and there and give it a whirl. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 13 hours ago, eightbit said: I am not sure really. The Cirrus Logic I believe outpaces it but I would have to run some benches to confirm. The Orchid card is quite nice so I should revisit it now that the computer is running properly. Phils Computer Lab ran some benches on the cards he had on hand and as you can see from the VLB cards at least he had the Cirrus Logic boards are on top. Of course he did not have every VLB card to test, but regardless of how common the CL cards are there is no doubt they perform really really well....at least the VLB versions. I am sure there are many more that way outperform these, but for what the CL cards offer and their affordability I can certainly recommend them. I was also told S3 VLB cards were the fastest BITD, so that's what I kept in my rig. Somewhere along the line I inherited a Cirrus Logic 5428 card, but it stayed in my stash because I believed they were crap. Only when I tested it out a year or so back did I discover that it performed significantly better than my old S3 card :( 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 (edited) 17 hours ago, eightbit said: It's funny how today you can upgrade from one CPU to another and have a hard time seeing much of a performance difference. But here, moving from the 66 to this was like "OMG!". They say a PC is good for 8 years today. Barring any breakthrough in software that requires the latest hardware. PCs, today, become obsolete not because of MHz, but because of instruction sets. Use case of PC hasn't changed much in 15 years. And advancements in hardware are consumed by bloat in software. Lazy ass developers AND unnecessary layers of programming languages. Then there's all the e-commerce fluff. None of which is all that time-critical. 14 hours ago, eightbit said: Didn't anybody bench these or review their game performance back in those days? Well back then I was just happy to see all this new stuff, games, astronomy programs, simulations, beginnings of emulation, practical business applications. Seeing it and having it work was miraculous in and of itself. No time to worry about 1 FPS here and 3 FPS there. For a while I got obsessed with 3D performance, no small thanks to the popular media culture that began permeating the landscape. This from about 1999 to 2006. Chasing benchmarks was everything for a while. A matter of 5 or 6 FPS was enough make my hardware 2nd-rate or worthless. Never mind that there was always someone somewhere with something faster. And spending on hardware to do that was bank-breaking. Thankfully today I'll just get low or mid-range hardware if new. And high-end hardware if used. Since I don't hyperfocus on AAA gaming or fall into mainstream traps anymore - the savings is enormous and the fun comes back! Edited March 16, 2022 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 16, 2022 Author Share Posted March 16, 2022 (edited) Maybe someone here can help identifying which Western Digital Paradise VLB card this is? It does not help that the processor is obstructed with the WD sticker either. I have this card coming and I had purchased it for cheap as the seller again has no way to test and has no idea about the model, drivers, what type of RAM, etc. I see the VBIOS is from 1994 so I guess it can't be that bad? I checked the FCC ID and it does not provide much information other than the applicant was Trident MicroSystems (oddly?) and the product description is simply "VESA Local Bus VGA Card Maximum resolution: 1280 X 1024, interlaced." Edited March 16, 2022 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 (edited) Looks like a Trident TGUI9400CX, based on the fccid? Very similar to this card: https://www.ebay.com/itm/124438616934 Preliminary research suggests it does not have/has shitty VESA bios. Will need the free Scitech Display Doctor to do vesa mode games. Edited March 16, 2022 by wierd_w 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 16, 2022 Share Posted March 16, 2022 (edited) Vga museum shows a nearly identical card with a 9440-AGi QFP... When it shows up, see what SDD says it is. You might get lucky? The 9440 was much better than the 9400. I DO note that the opposite ram bank is populate in the vga museum image. Reading the chip markings could give an idea of what ram it expects there, if you do the 2mb upgrade. Edited March 16, 2022 by wierd_w 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 17, 2022 Author Share Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) I think it will be a 9400 to be honest. I appreciate the help! And, I take everything about the Orchid Fahrenheit back. It is indeed a better/faster card in most respects against the 5428. I ran some benchmarks tonight and it scores about 4 or so points higher in 3D scape and about the same in other benchmarks. BUT, the picture quality on this is FAR superior. It is just so crisp. And, I found a much better driver for it that really performs awesomely in Windows too: https://www.mpoli.fi/files/hardware/DISPLAY/S3/index.html It is the "80X241.ZIP" which is v2.41 of the S3 driver for the 86C805 (which is this chip). These drivers feel a load faster than the official Fahrenheit drivers by a long shot. Forgetting benchmarks and going by "real world" performance (that is, how it just looks and feels in games) you can tell it is clearly smoother and faster. To be honest I started the build testing with this card before I really had the system fully configured properly so I really spoke out of tune when I said it was performing poorly. Fact of the matter is that the whole computer was performing poorly because I had no idea it was running in slow mode with the turbo switch unjumpered...haha. All of that said, this card is staying in this machine. The performance is quite jaw dropping! Thanks to TempterOfFate who is the reason that I gave this one another try! Here is the board BTW. I should try upgrading to more RAM one day. It is 1MB now...which is fine for what I do (don't worry about the pins on top, I bent them back...lol. This was the ebay auction picture before it arrived): Edited March 17, 2022 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 17, 2022 Author Share Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, eightbit said: I think it will be a 9400 to be honest. I appreciate the help! And, I take everything about the Orchid Fahrenheit back. It is indeed a better/faster card in most respects against the 5428. I ran some benchmarks tonight and it scores about 4 or so points higher in 3D scape and about the same in other benchmarks. BUT, the picture quality on this is FAR superior. It is just so crisp. And, I found a much better driver for it that really performs awesomely in Windows too: https://www.mpoli.fi/files/hardware/DISPLAY/S3/index.html It is the "80X241.ZIP" which is v2.41 of the S3 driver for the 86C805 (which is this chip). These drivers feel a load faster than the official Fahrenheit drivers by a long shot. Forgetting benchmarks and going by "real world" performance (that is, how it just looks and feels in games) you can tell it is clearly smoother and faster. To be honest I started the build testing with this card before I really had the system fully configured properly so I really spoke out of tune when I said it was performing poorly. Fact of the matter is that the whole computer was performing poorly because I had no idea it was running in slow mode with the turbo switch unjumpered...haha. All of that said, this card is staying in this machine. The performance is quite jaw dropping! Thanks to TempterOfFate who is the reason that I gave this one another try! Here is the board BTW. I should try upgrading to more RAM one day. It is 1MB now...which is fine for what I do (don't worry about the pins on top, I bent them back...lol. This was the ebay auction picture before it arrived): When I ran the benchmarks in Phil's suit I noticed most of the other benchmarks were exactly the same except for the SuperScape mark. With the CL card in I was getting 61.5. With the Orchid I get 66.7. Edited March 17, 2022 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 17, 2022 Share Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) '5pts better' seems to be the margin for a lot of things from that era, yeah. One of the reasons I was fine with my old 9440. Edited March 17, 2022 by wierd_w Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 17, 2022 Author Share Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) 5 minutes ago, wierd_w said: '5pts better' seems to be the margin for a lot of things from that era, yeah. One of the reasons I was fine with my old 9440. Yeah, its not leaps and bounds but I tend not to get too tied up in benchmarks. I think a lot of people do that and live my just those scores. Its really about how it feels and looks to me. I can certainly tell if something is running better than something else just by playing some games that I know really well. Doom, Heretic and Hexen are definitely running faster and smoother. Well, Doom was running fast and smooth before, but the latter two you can just tell. ROTT feels and looks a lot smoother and faster as well. Certainly enough of a difference that if pitted side by side you would know which had the CL card and which has the Orchid. So, Orchid is not leaving this machine. I have had fun benching and playing with VLB cards. I think this machine is exactly where I wanted it to be now. The next machine I build (I have everything I need except a case!) will be my play tester. I'll use that to test various cards and see how they perform. I just need to find another AT case. And yeah, I am waiting for another true AT case to build this one into Edited March 17, 2022 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 17, 2022 Share Posted March 17, 2022 (edited) I recall my old boss (who ran the mom&pop I worked for back then) was obsessed with benchmark scores. (the vast sums of money he spent on hardware to 'have the best' was sickening.) I was more interested in 'best for best price'. Its not like I got paid a lot back then. The 9440 was decent enough, with a built-in blitter. A proper vesa driver that leveraged the blitter took a lot of strain off the CPU, even if the raw pixel pushing power was lower. It was enough for the games of the era, and did not break the bank. For me at least, its the more nostalgic experience; you dont do a retro build for raw power. (and with the current pricing, its the same price|performance trade all over again!) Edited March 17, 2022 by wierd_w Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 17, 2022 Author Share Posted March 17, 2022 1 minute ago, wierd_w said: I recall my old boss (who ran the mom&pop I worked for back then) was obsessed with benchmark scores. I was more interested in 'best for best price'. Its not like I got paid a lot back then. The 9440 was decent enough, with a built-in blitter. A proper vesa driver that leveraged the blitter took a lot of strain off the CPU, even if the raw pixel pushing power was lower. It was enough for the games of the era, and did not break the bank. For me at least, its the more nostalgic experience; you dont do a retro build for raw power. (and with the current pricing, its the same price|performance trade all over again!) I think nowadays you do a retro build (or at least I do) with whatever I can get for cheap It's basically where I went with this whole build. Get the best of what I can get for the cheapest price. The only thing I did purchase that was not necessary was the DX-4 100. But that was because that processor has been on my mind for the past 25 or so years. And I wanted to play some Fleetwood Mac MP3's on a 486...lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 17, 2022 Share Posted March 17, 2022 A DX50 (with the 50mhz bus) could do mp3 with a good soundcard. Winamp would do it on such a system if you turned off the visualizer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 17, 2022 Author Share Posted March 17, 2022 Well, the Paradise card arrived and it is a 9400. At first I thought it was defective as it was only outputting in monochrome. But I found my VGA cable was missing pin 5 (which is just ground) but apparently this card requires it for some reason. Swapped the cable and glorious color. The picture is crisp but the benchmarks fall a few points short of even the Cirrus Logic card. But, it feels the same in games as the Cirrus Logic card regardless. Welp, another spare working VLB card to add to the collection at least Still sticking with the Orchid however. I found the correct DRAM for the Orchid as well so I have that on order to upgrade it to 2MB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 18, 2022 Author Share Posted March 18, 2022 (edited) 21 hours ago, wierd_w said: A DX50 (with the 50mhz bus) could do mp3 with a good soundcard. Winamp would do it on such a system if you turned off the visualizer. Is there a version of Winamp for Windows 3.1? I am using DOS MPXPlay (which is awesome by the way) and it is touted as a lightweight DOS MP3 player. The documentation for it says that you need a DX-4 100 in order to play back MP3. The documentation is absolutely correct as I tried playing MP3's play using the DX-2 66 previously and it was not pretty I have the DX-4 100 clocked using 33Mhz bus with a 3x multiplier in order to keep the VLB cards happy on the bus. I have had zero issues with them so I am not going to try a 2x multiplier on a 50mhz bus although this board does support it. I hear problems arise with VLB cards with the higher than 33mhz bus and I'd rather not rock the boat so to speak. Edited March 18, 2022 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 18, 2022 Share Posted March 18, 2022 (edited) memory is fuzzy. been a very long time--- I think early versions will run in 3x with the win32s pack installed. I could test to see... the tool for 3x is winplay3. https://www.rarewares.org/rrw/winplay3.php Edited March 18, 2022 by wierd_w Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 18, 2022 Author Share Posted March 18, 2022 1 minute ago, wierd_w said: memory is fuzzy. been a very long time--- I think early versions will run in 3x with the win32s pack installed. I could test to see. I appreciate it! That would be seriously cool. If not, I wonder if any other Win 3.1 MP3 player(s) exist. I'm always looking for neat apps for both DOS and Win 3.1 environments. I have found a lot of cool DOS stuff so far like Cubic Player: ftp://ftp.cubic.org/pub/player/ocp260pre6.zip Plays a bunch of file formats, but particular of interest to me SID and MOD. I played some Tempest 2K mods using it the other day and it sounded great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 18, 2022 Share Posted March 18, 2022 As pointed to-- winplay3 is a very lightweight MP3 player for win3x, that was designed with 486 in mind. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 18, 2022 Author Share Posted March 18, 2022 (edited) 3 minutes ago, wierd_w said: As pointed to-- winplay3 is a very lightweight MP3 player for win3x, that was designed with 486 in mind. Must have missed that. I will give it a whirl tomorrow. Thanks! Here's the link for freeware versions BTW: https://www.rarewares.org/rrw/winplay3.php Edited March 18, 2022 by eightbit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted March 18, 2022 Share Posted March 18, 2022 (edited) I have done some initial testing with win32s on win3.11 as concerns WinAmp. While older versions "start", they cannot actually PLAY my test MP3. It could be that my MP3 is too modern though. (too hgh bitrate) I will try a lower bitrate one, and see if it still balks. Edit: Nope. Fairly sure it is trying to call directsound libraries, and cant actually find/use them in 3.x. Just use winplay3. Edited March 18, 2022 by wierd_w 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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