I'm building a machine which will be dedicated to running old DOS and early windows stuff. PCem is of course ideal for this.
I love the idea of having several machines in one, and carefully building an AT, a 386SX, 486DX, K6 machines and being able to run what won't run on PCem outside of it.
It'll be used with a CRT with up to QXGA resolution through a 15 pin "VGA" cable.
The machine needs to be able to write 5.25" and 3.5" floppies for other old computers I have, as well as have serial and parallel ports. As a result I've settled on an AM3 board with a 6 core 1100t AMD Thuban and 16GB (I have it lying around and I know it's too much) memory.
I have a spare graphics card an Asus 1GB GT 170. I'm thinking this should be perfectly sufficient for anything I do - but I'm not sure if PCem uses the GPU for anything, and if it's going to cause any problems.
GPU requirements?
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Velociraptor
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Thu 16 Apr, 2020 9:37 pm
Re: GPU requirements?
As far as I know, every GPU works with PCem as everything is emulated using the CPU
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Velociraptor
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Thu 16 Apr, 2020 9:37 pm
Re: GPU requirements?
That's great news. I was concerned that it wasn't going to cut it if some things were emulated through it.
Looking at rough GPU comparisons just now it turns out that what I thought was a terrible card, the GT 710 is actually broadly in line with 2008 top of the line cards.
That means, I think, that the machine will do everything I need it to.
I think there's no question about it covering the AT era, through the 386 and then 486 and Pentium. The questions would be around the millenium for 3DFX and AMD K6 performance - which aren't actually that big a deal to me.
The CPU I'm using is fairly dated as far as things go and I've not come across any kind of performance expectations/requirements for PCem yet - although I'm sure they'll be in the forums somewhere and once I spend a bit of time searching and browsing I'll pick up more.
Thanks again for replying!
Looking at rough GPU comparisons just now it turns out that what I thought was a terrible card, the GT 710 is actually broadly in line with 2008 top of the line cards.
That means, I think, that the machine will do everything I need it to.
I think there's no question about it covering the AT era, through the 386 and then 486 and Pentium. The questions would be around the millenium for 3DFX and AMD K6 performance - which aren't actually that big a deal to me.
The CPU I'm using is fairly dated as far as things go and I've not come across any kind of performance expectations/requirements for PCem yet - although I'm sure they'll be in the forums somewhere and once I spend a bit of time searching and browsing I'll pick up more.
Thanks again for replying!
Re: GPU requirements?
There's one place where the host GPU acceleration could help, which is if you use the opengl3 render driver (under video menu) and use some shaders (configurable on the opengl 3.0 renderer sub menu ).
But since you plan to use a CRT display, it might or might not be usefull.
As for the CPU, I have a Core i7 6700 ( comparison with your AMD: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/383/AMD_Phenom_II_X6_1100T_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-6700.html )
I can use Pentium MMX 166 without issues and sometimes Pentium 200 or 233 (but depends). I haven't tested the K6 II emulation on this computer, but I assume it will be a bit too much.
But since you plan to use a CRT display, it might or might not be usefull.
As for the CPU, I have a Core i7 6700 ( comparison with your AMD: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/383/AMD_Phenom_II_X6_1100T_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-6700.html )
I can use Pentium MMX 166 without issues and sometimes Pentium 200 or 233 (but depends). I haven't tested the K6 II emulation on this computer, but I assume it will be a bit too much.
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Velociraptor
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Thu 16 Apr, 2020 9:37 pm
Re: GPU requirements?
Your CPU is a fair bit more powerful than mine. However as I said I'm not too bothered with the later side of things.
Something that I have forgotten and I can't really remember is what kind of PC is needed to run Win98SE stuff.
My thinking is that this 1100t PC will be able to do through PcEM anything up to mid/late 90s by emulating a pentium or lower. And that it should be able to do anything from Windows XP onwards because I can install Windows XP on it.
That leaves a gap of the Win98SE stuff, and that's really where I don't know two things
1) What's kind of machine is needed to have a positive experience running games from back then
2) Can my machine emulate that in PcEM?
Something that I have forgotten and I can't really remember is what kind of PC is needed to run Win98SE stuff.
My thinking is that this 1100t PC will be able to do through PcEM anything up to mid/late 90s by emulating a pentium or lower. And that it should be able to do anything from Windows XP onwards because I can install Windows XP on it.
That leaves a gap of the Win98SE stuff, and that's really where I don't know two things
1) What's kind of machine is needed to have a positive experience running games from back then
2) Can my machine emulate that in PcEM?
Re: GPU requirements?
You would want a CPU exceeding 4 Ghz to run a Pentium MMX in PCem at top performance. For the DOS and early Pentium I tasks you have described above I think your AMD Phenom II X6 will do a fine job. You would certainly get a Pentium 100 working without performance problems.