Version for 486 100?

[grinvader]

I just tried ZSNES on my 486 as per grinvader's advise and it runs like shit! WTF?!

Welcome back dood, and sorry about that. :/

[Cooljerk]

7 years? That's even more than 6!

[Gil_Hamilton]

Also way to go with the necromancy, this thread is over seven years old.

I know. Damn newbs ruin everything.

[blackmyst]

OMG so nostalgic. :D

[kode54]

Holy shit, it's Cooljerk. I see you occasionally in #retro, too.

[Cooljerk]

I wasn't joking about running it on a 486. I've built a retro gaming DOS machine, a 486DX @ 66 mhz. runs like shit. But, funnily enough, my old 486 (133 mhz) was my first machine I ran ZSNES on. I have vivid memories of booting up Mario All-stars on the thing and being amazed. Starfox didn't work back then, I guess SFX emulation hadn't been accomplished.

That's how I found this topic, I was googling zsnes 486 compatibility.

So to sum up: 486DX @ 66 mhz - shit
486 @ 133 mhz - not as shit, and mind blowing to young minds

[grinvader]

Yeah, 66MHz is honestly pushing it. :D

[paulguy]

I don't have that old of a computer for my early zsnes memories. It was a 233Mhz P2. Pretty much everything beside special chip games ran well, but never got 60/60 FPS. That wasn't something i could accomplish until like 2004.

[Cooljerk]

Yeah, 66MHz is honestly pushing it.

Aye, it was an entertaining Mario slide-show, though.

[Agozer]

Man, I had a 200Mhz Pentium with 32MB of RAM. ZSNES ran quite well, with the same results as paulguy. Running SuperFX games was kind of a crapshoot, though.

[Cooljerk]

well while running ZSNES on the 486 is pretty much out of the question, running actual SNES ports is perfect. I was playing Megaman X the other day, and it was flawless.

[odditude]

Man, I had a 200Mhz Pentium with 32MB of RAM. ZSNES ran quite well, with the same results as paulguy. Running SuperFX games was kind of a crapshoot, though.

P133, here - ran games just fine with auto-frameskip. good old gravis gpp with the mediocre d-pad.

[Mark57Raider]

Now is a 486 100 some type of old computer windows 95 machine? Or maybe Linux/Unix if I'm mistaken....

[Cooljerk]

Now is a 486 100 some type of old computer windows 95 machine? Or maybe Linux/Unix if I'm mistaken....

It's a processor. 80486, one of the most popular "early" models of the x86 architecture. 100 is the speed, 100 mhz in that instance. I run a 486DX @ 66 mhz. This is all pre-pentium stuff. Typically, 486s ran either DOS, a windows Shell (like windows 3.1), linux distros, BeOS (lmao who am I kidding?), etc.

Windows 95 came out at the tail end of the 486's life span and just as the new pentium class PCs started appearing. You can run windows 95 on a 486, but it's slow.

Typically, the last batch of PC games that were inherently tied to processor speed came out for the 486. By the time pentiums started arriving, games would run at a rate independent of their processor speed. Try to run an early dos game on a newer PC, and it'll go way too fast, or not at all. 486s also had a turbo mode, which is a misnomer. It's actually half-speed mode, present to increase compatibility with processor-specific timings.

[Gonzo]

Also way to go with the necromancy, this thread is over seven years old.

I know. Damn newbs ruin everything.

Yeah I know Cooljerk has been around forever.

Did I still feel like calling him out on reviving a dead thread?

Yeah.

And chastising him for whinging about the system spec problem, even though it was probably a joke?

Yeah.

Do I care if anyone has a problem with that?

Nope.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Typically, the last batch of PC games that were inherently tied to processor speed came out for the 486. By the time pentiums started arriving, games would run at a rate independent of their processor speed. Try to run an early dos game on a newer PC, and it'll go way too fast, or not at all. 486s also had a turbo mode, which is a misnomer. It's actually half-speed mode, present to increase compatibility with processor-specific timings.

I thought the clockspeed-dependent shit had mostly died when the PC-AT and the idea of a standard IBM PC, did?

Tangentally, the turbo switch was a holdover from the earliest IBM PC clones, where it toggled between the original 5 MHz and the clone's 8 MHz(assuming I have my clock rates correct).
Of course, by the 486, it no longer had meaning. Flipping off turbo wouldn't drop a 486 to 5 MHz for PC-XT compatibility. Besides, doing so would've played hell with any VESA Local Bus cards in the system.

[Cooljerk]

I thought the clockspeed-dependent shit had mostly died when the PC-AT and the idea of a standard IBM PC, did?

The practice might have started to decline, but it definitely persisted until well into the pentium era. Try running Jazz Jackrabbit on a 200 mhz pentium, for example. It'll run far too fast to play.

[Gil_Hamilton]

I thought the clockspeed-dependent shit had mostly died when the PC-AT and the idea of a standard IBM PC, did?

The practice might have started to decline, but it definitely persisted until well into the pentium era. Try running Jazz Jackrabbit on a 200 mhz pentium, for example. It'll run far too fast to play.

That's very interesting. I wish I had a copy to do some testing with.

Still, they couldn't do raw clock speed, since they couldn't know what clock speed they'd be on. I suppose the speed controls could have bracketed a range of acceptable clock speeds, but... it would be dumb.
I'm wondering what went wrong.
...
Ah. Apparently the Turbo Pascal runtimes had... issues... with faster processors.
Though most people seem to have had the game just up and die rather than continue working, but run way too fast. You were... lucky, I guess.




Tangentally, I seem to recall ZSNES once had an option to use an alternate timer behavior because some systems it ran at the wrong speed.

[adventure_of_link]

Windows 95 came out at the tail end of the 486's life span and just as the new pentium class PCs started appearing. You can run windows 95 on a 486, but it's slow.

wasn't the minimum requirement for windows 98se a 486 @ 66mhz? of course it'd be even SLOWER, but figured it was worth mentioning.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Windows 95 came out at the tail end of the 486's life span and just as the new pentium class PCs started appearing. You can run windows 95 on a 486, but it's slow.

wasn't the minimum requirement for windows 98se a 486 @ 66mhz? of course it'd be even SLOWER, but figured it was worth mentioning.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138349

System requirements for installing Windows 95:

Personal computer with a 386DX or higher processor (486 recommended)
4 megabytes (MB) of memory (8 MB recommended)
Typical hard disk space required to install Windows 95 on a clean system: 50-55 MB The actual requirement varies depending on the features you choose to install.
One 3.5-inch high-density floppy disk drive
VGA or higher resolution (256-color SVGA recommended)

[Cooljerk]

Still, they couldn't do raw clock speed, since they couldn't know what clock speed they'd be on. I suppose the speed controls could have bracketed a range of acceptable clock speeds, but... it would be dumb.

There weren't exactly a wide range of clockspeeds available in those days. You typically had 7 mhz, 16 mhz, 33 mhz, and 66 mhz. Most games targeted either 33 mhz or 66 mhz later on.

[paulguy]

By the time they developed the 486, were there any features that would've made predicting the number of clock cycles per instruction impossible (stuff like prediction, pipeline, etc.), or did those things not come until the pentium? Also, I imagine there were certainly differences in clock cycles per instruction between the various 386es and 486es, and other previous processors as well. I imagine past the 4.77Mhz 8086, and CPUs with compatible modes, it'd simply be impractical to depend on instructions taking a predictable number of cycles.

I could see some games maybe kind of tweaked for very specific PC hardware when 386es or 486es were popular, but I would imagine that's limited to really poorly coded crap, and I can't see how one would ever have consistent timing.

However we all do know of the stability problems with programs running too fast. Anyone ever try installing windows XP to a RAM disk in a virtual machine? windows updates make it die. :p

[odditude]

40mhz, here (Am386). Gold Box games ran hilariously fast; you had to have your eyes glued to the screen to track spell effects and whatnot.

even at that time, there were games that ran on their own timer (Lemmings, for one), but there were still tons of games on the market that took off completely.

yay for moslo!

[grinvader]

I remember an arkanoid clone that accepted a speed command line parameter. The default value ran way too fast @12MHz already.

[Cooljerk]

Wing Commander was also tied to processor speed, playing the original on anything past a 486 would yield unplayable results.