Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

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DevanDrake99
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Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by DevanDrake99 »

Several months back, I submitted a topic about compatibility on CPUs. However, I've learned that PCem only supports single threading to emulate the whole CPU. My current CPU is an AMD FX-6300, and the CPU can only support up to Pentium 75 without or a tiny bit stutters. This was because my CPU I'm currently using has a bad single thread architecture (Bulldozer). If I run at Pentium MMX 233, my CPU will slow down below 25% most of the time. There are alternatives to PCem, which are VMware and Oracle VM VirtualBox, but both of the VM emulators don't support genuine hardware. For example, Star Wars Episode I Racer requires an actual genuine GPU to run that game. The game won't launch without a genuine GPU. There is another alternative, buying old PCs from eBay, but they cost around nearly a same price for the brand new cheapest laptop from Best Buy. They sometimes even cost more than that. So pass on with eBay and go to thrift stores. However, thrift stores from the area where I live hasn't been donating PCs pre-Windows XP much for years.

That was my prologue to this topic. Now here's the REAL question. What is the best CPU that is affordable under $300 to emulate a Pentium MMX 233 without stuttering? And I also wonder if there are any CPUs around that could emulate an AMD K6-2+ 550 without stuttering. It might not be possible to any of the CPUs.
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omarsis81
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Re: Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by omarsis81 »

I would take a look at this chart as it shows the best processors by single thread performance
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
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gen_angry
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Re: Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by gen_angry »

If all you want to do is PCem, you should be fine with a 9th or 10th gen Intel. I had no problems doing 233 at full speed with my old 6700K at stock and the newer intels have much higher clockspeed. AMD Ryzen is also a decent option as well but they aren't as fast as PCem due to their lower clock speed, however it still will have no issues doing 233 though (at least mine doesn't). If you're looking to do Voodoo2 at full speed, you can't really do that with PCem as it requires much higher CPUs than what modern hardware can do so your best bet is old stock on ebay. I believe current hardware gets to around 300mhz or so before having slowdowns.

Another extremely cheap option is electronic recycle depots but they're 100% a crapshoot. In my case, they had nothing pre Core2 so ebay was my only option.

I built a P100 for a decent price on ebay (about 250 CAD total for 430vx board, P100 cpu, COAST cache card, 32mb EDO RAM, Trio64, AWE64, CDROM (since mine ended up unable to read disks), 2GB CF card, startech IDE-CF converter, serial mouse (board doesn't have PS/2), and ATX-AT PSU wire harness (that wasn't from China)). Get a case from a local electronics recycler (you can use ATX case on AT boards, can use something like these to cover the back slot) and have to watch for cheap listings, avoid all the big flippers. The shipping cost more than the parts most of the time since I have to get it up to Canada across the border, so if you're in the states it should be less. Since you want 233mhz+, look at Super Socket 7 or Pentium II. Should be a bit cheaper overall since you can aim for AGP video and ATX standard. Athlons and late Pentium III are also decently cheap options for Windows 9x but you start to run into weird issues with DOS up that new.
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leilei
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Re: Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by leilei »

An intel Core something beyond 4.2GHz after 2013 should be enough for the PMMX233 stuff. K6 stuff varies (i've only been able to 100% for some games after turning my cool filter code off :( )

However there'll always be the windows startup stutter with the recompiler. HLT-spam stuff helps that a bit. Some video decoding (Quicktime, Smacker/Bink) will also stutter the recompiler.
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DevanDrake99
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Re: Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by DevanDrake99 »

I think Voodoo2 is possible to emulate without stuttering. My GPU is a XFX AMD Radeon RX 560 2GB. But most likely you're saying that Voodoo2 runs on a host CPU.
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gen_angry
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Re: Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by gen_angry »

DevanDrake99 wrote: Fri 21 Aug, 2020 6:31 pm I think Voodoo2 is possible to emulate without stuttering. My GPU is a XFX AMD Radeon RX 560 2GB. But most likely you're saying that Voodoo2 runs on a host CPU.
The Voodoo2 requires so much CPU muscle within the scope of PCem that you're essentially bandwidth starving it. A 233MMX is way too small for those cards. In today's terms, it's like running a 2080Ti on an Atom-based Celeron. In order for the guest machine to take full advantage of what the voodoo2 SHOULD produce, you need a CPU with the power that PCem's current emulation on current hardware cannot do (yet, anyways).

This should show what I mean, see how low the framerate are for even a 233MMX (and that it's close to each other regardless of what resolution it's set at). It starts to separate around 400mhz and show it's real power past 500. You can't cleanly emulate even a 300mhz CPU at it's full power today, much less anything beyond that. It's certainly a good way to completely eliminate a 'GPU bottleneck' within PCem's guests though.

So if you want to run something expecting to fully use a V2 (especially in SLI), you'll want real hardware.
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leilei
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Re: Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by leilei »

In reality though, about *all* 1997+ 3d cards are "bottlenecked" by the CPUs of their time; the Voodoo2 just gets added mysticism because of certain high benchmark numbers from simpler looking games *cough*forsaken*cough* from certain enthusiasts because it makes the Voodoo2 look like it ages well (when really the poor memory bandwidth and thrashing tanks a lot of it, giving TNT, Banshee, etc. nice edges over V2 in 98+ games - and PCem emulates V2's sufferings properly).

The Voodoo2 emulation has a recompiler helping out here a lot already. Sticking to one thread for SLI (which will use two, fYI) helps make the emulation more feasible. Also a lot of the execution dropping with the Voodoo emulation tend to be about buffer reads/writes than fill-rate (at least for the games i've tried. Most Direct3D games that have 2D art to put on will usually be the culprit, like Thief/Shock2. Buffer reads for pseudo-pixelshader effects will be worse, like Urban Chaos and Metal Gear Solid (which also is even worse with a V2 SLI setup just like IRL))
tk421
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Re: Most affordable CPU to emulate the most powerful CPU without stutter?

Post by tk421 »

I get fairly good PCem performance on my i7 9750H powered lenovo laptop. I much prefer the Pentium MMX over the K6-2, the latter of which is not as smooth or dependable. Pentium MMX performance is top notch, with no sound stuttering in-game. Even video works well.

PCem has evolved to the point I could use it for word processing if I could get my laser printer connected to PCem.

I would certainly support leilei's advice. A new Intel CPU today should work above 4.2 Ghz without difficulty. Anything else would not be a great choice.

When it comes to games, VMWare is only good for a select number of games. Jedi Knight and the X-Wing games work with only minor patches on a WinXP vm, but other games like Episode 1 Racer and Star Trek Armada require PCem to run on a modern system. You really do not need a top of the line Win98 PC to run these games. Even a K6-2 300 running on a Socket 7 motherboard will run Armada 2 in-game without noticeable sound stuttering.

Unless your games require a K6-2 type of CPU, or the Pentium 2 itself, I highly recommend the Pentium MMX. I have yet to test game editing tools or utilities like JED, JKEdit or the Star Trek Armada Editor. Traditionally you want a good CPU for some of these programs, so I am not sure how these would work on PCem.

If you can get a CPU that can easily hold close to 5 Ghz, then the K6-2 and K6-3 should work fine. I noticed that my laptop is not quite good enough for the high end K6-2s, but if I was buying today the i7 10750H would probably be my choice.

Laptops really leapfrogged in performance after July 2018 and they have improved to the point that they are a good option for PCem.

I hope this information is helpful.

tk421
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