Comment by fabiensanglard
1 day ago
The 486 killer app was DOOM. It was butter-smooth at 20 fps if you also had a VLB graphic card.
The 486 DX2 66MHz was the target platform for gaming during almost two years (1992-1994). That was an huge achievement back in the days to be at the top that long.
The DX/2 66 is a true legend of a chip. It was so good. The final nail in the coffin for the Amiga and for 68k. I love the Amiga, but it just didn’t Doom.
Before it, you could claim that a 68040 was kinda-sorta keeping up with the 486 and that the nicer design and better operating systems of other computers made up for the delta in raw performance, but the DX/2 66 running Doom was the final piece of proof that the worse-is-better approach of using raw CPU grunt to blast pixels at screen memory instead of relying on clever custom circuitry was winning.
Faced with overwhelming evidence, everyone sold their Amiga 1200s and jumped ship to that hated Wintel platform.
I remember arguments (and benchmarks) around all the variations of the 486 since the bus speed/clock speed was uncoupled (the /2 is clock doubling). For some applications, a 50Mhz 486 with a 50Mhz bus would beat a DX/2 66Mhz with a 33Mhz bus.
And sometimes the DX/4 100Mhz would be slowest of all those at 25Mhz bus.
Nearly correct. The DX/4 100MHz had a 33MHz bus. The DX/4 75MHz had the 25MHz bus. I remember well because I had both.
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I remember being so excited when I figured out how to jumper my DX/4 100 and operate it with clock doubling and a 50 MHz front side bus speed. Same core speed, faster memory and I/O.
My peripherals seemed to take it. My graphics output showed some slight glitches, which I was OK with for the speed.
However, I think it was a bit unstable and would fail a correctness challenge like compiling XFree86 or the Linux kernel, which were like overnight long runs. Must have been some bit flips in there occasionally. I seem to recall that once that reality settled into my brain, I went back to the clock tripler config.
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As I noted in my other comment (1), in 1985 Amiga OCS bitplane graphics (separate each bits of a pixel index into separate areas) was a huge boon in 2d capability since it lowered bandwidth to 6/8ths but made 3d rendering a major pain in the ass.
The Aga chipset of the 1200/4000 stupidly only added 2 more bitplanes. The CD32 chip actually had byte-per-pixel (chunky) graphics modes but the omission from the 1200 was fatal.
Reading in hindsight there was probably too many structural issues for Commodore to remain competitive anyhow, but an alt-history where they would've seen the needs for 3d rendering is tantalizing.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47717334
> The Aga chipset of the 1200/4000 stupidly only added 2 more bitplanes. The CD32 chip actually had byte-per-pixel (chunky) graphics modes but the omission from the 1200 was fatal.
The intention was good, but the Akiko chip was functionally almost useless. It was soon surpassed by CPU chunky to planar algorithms. I don't think it was ever even used in any serious way by any released games (though it might have been used to help with FMV).
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The CD32 chip actually had byte-per-pixel (chunky) graphics modes but the omission from the 1200 was fatal.
I agree. Unfortunately, even with chunky graphics and/or 3D foresight, 68k would still have been a dead end and Commodore would still have been mismanaged into death. It’s fun to dream though…
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Commodore so slowly and ineffectually improving on the OCS didn't help, but the original sin of the Amiga was committed in the beginning, with planar graphics (i.e., slow and hard to work with, even setting aside HAM) and TV-oriented resolutions/refresh rates (i.e., users needing to buy a "flicker fixer"). It's like they looked at one of the most important reasons for the PC and Mac's success—a gorgeous, rock-solid monochrome display—and said "Let's do exactly the opposite!"
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At that point in time I would not have called it Wintel yet. That started after Windows 95, IIRC.
Yep. 486DX/2 was when I started seriously looking at moving on from the Amiga. I wound up with a DX/4 100 sometime in 1994.
My classmate kept his Amiga 1200 a bit longer! ...eventually he got a PC with Pentium 60 MHz.
Yeah, there were holdouts of course but the DX/2 really seems like the breaking point.
(Also, a Pentium 60 is barely faster than a DX/2 66 at many tasks — it is a Bad Processor — but that’s another conversation ;)
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Slightly before DOOM came out, the killer 486 app for me was Fractint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractint)
I distinctly remember having a Strike Commander poster in my bedroom saying “Strike really flies on a 486 DX/2”. Fond memories indeed.
Doom was released end of '93. In 1992 most of us were in the 286 -> 386 upgrade wave and a 486-33 was easily at $2.5k+ ($5.5k in today's terms). The 486 DX2 66 was a good choice even 1994-1996.
My boss then - who's still a very dear friend - purchased a work computer to play Doom. He was already mentally checked out of that job and was looking for his next opportunity. Spent a lot of time at work playing Doom and got quite good at it.
I think it was 1994. It was a loaded 486 with the best 17" CRT monitor money could buy at the time. I think he spent over $7000.
Yes, the latest chips were very expensive back then, and out of reach for most people who would continue buying new computers with older chips. (As opposed to how most people today buy an iPhone or a Mac or whatever with the latest semiconductor technology.) I got my 25MHz 386 in 1991, over two years after the 486 was announced, and I had one of the fastest computers of anybody in school... for a short time.
I wonder, I wonder where one could find a good book about the software architecture of that game… oh, well
My first Intel based PC was actually a 486DX/2-66 “Houdini” card for my PowerMac 6100/60 in late 1994. It had a SB16 daughtercard and could either share RAM with the host Mac or use a 32MB dedicated SIMM. I added a dedicate SIMM when prices dropped to $300 for it.
They need to bring back the turbo button.
You’re in luck!
https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chas...
How could I possibly forget the lock!
++1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Local_Bus for the younger crowd.
...and with 8 MB (-eight- for the youngsters ;-) RAM you were absolutely the king ruler :-D