Post B1FkF7I6vVSpVfcP5c by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
(DIR) More posts by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
(DIR) Post #B1FS6P5daDx6vlToQ4 by lunte161@todon.eu
2025-12-14T18:21:04Z
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Any recommendations for interesting software/games/demos running on a 386SX-25 with 10MB RAM? Still have another 60MB free on that giant hard drive :) Soundblaster and GUS can be added.Current favorites already running:- mTCP- Windows 3.11- Norton Commander- Crystal Dream- Links 386- Stunts (barely playable)- Epic Pinball#retrocomputing #doscember #x86
(DIR) Post #B1FS6WrOh3Jb1usYKm by lunte161@todon.eu
2025-12-14T18:22:43Z
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And yes, it does run doom ... at a quarter of the resolution, but at least at 15fps. Not exactly enjoyable tho.
(DIR) Post #B1FTMsEj5Iv7um9GW8 by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-14T19:14:20Z
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@lunte161@todon.euScorched Earth? 🤔I believe that given the huge (for this machine 😏) amount of RAM, you can run original Warcraft and even Rise of the Triad — both would be a pain to though.Also I think I remember original Alone in the Dark being slo-o-ow, but playable on such a machine.
(DIR) Post #B1FfnwvCyKOHiLhDs0 by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T21:19:08Z
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@m0xEE @lunte161 If Rise of the Triad even runs on a 386/25 it wouldn't be playable.Like literally. I remember it being kind of bad on a 486/33 (DX if I recall?) which is at probably least twice as powerful. It's officially listed as requiring a 386DX/40.WarCraft says it will run, but I would expect it to be kind of rough.
(DIR) Post #B1FfnyK3lPrc3iKaFE by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-14T21:33:45Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social @lunte161@todon.euIf Rise of the Triad even runs on a 386/25 it wouldn't be playable.🤣Indeed it is barely playable, but it runs better than say Doom — because it's basically a modified Wolfenstein engine, not only pseudo-3D, but its maps consist of squares/blocks — as opposed to random polygons in Doom.I remember playing it on an 386 SX 16 MHz — it was a real pain, but at least it ran. My friend with a 486 couldn't play it as he had only 4 megabytes of ram, the game required slightly more — and my 386 motherboard in addition to SIMM modules supported DIP chips, so I had whole 5!Again, you're absolutely right — the whole gameplay experience is not for the faint of the heart. But in my case… Hey, when was it stopping a kid from playing a cool new game? 🤩
(DIR) Post #B1Fh0fxXRu6OpDQ0Dw by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T21:36:05Z
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@m0xEE @lunte161 Are we talking about the same game? Rise of the Triad had Doom-level pseudo-3D, aiming, "physics" etc etc. If they got that out of Wolfenstein 3D's engine I sure as heck can't see how...I'd swear it was much much heavier than Doom ever was. I'd swear the same 486/33 computer that ran Doom buttery smooth struggled with RotT.
(DIR) Post #B1Fh0hdPDjBc1M0x7Y by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-14T21:40:24Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social @lunte161@todon.euMy memory of it is sure hazy and I could easily be making this up, but… Wikipedia confirms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Triad#Engine
(DIR) Post #B1FiHKuJ4cLSPUPmme by lunte161@todon.eu
2025-12-14T21:40:06Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou @m0xEE Doom is a lot heavier due to idtech. It literally gets 1.5fps on my machine (fullscreen, full detail)
(DIR) Post #B1FiHMAeNL0qKT4Ltg by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T21:41:38Z
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@lunte161 @m0xEE This really throws me for a loop because I just swear that Doom ran great on my 486/33 and Rise of the Triad struggled on that same computer. (It played, just not buttery smooth.)Doom says it requires a 386DX/33, RotT says it requires a 386DX/40, so I dunno. Maybe it's just the SX limitations striking again? Knowing iD I could absolutely see them actually utilizing the processor in ways that would really suck on a SX. They really meant for Doom to be a major flagship and went all out on it, so I wouldn't put it past them to just burn that bridge. (Plus I think of what they did with Quake, lol.)
(DIR) Post #B1FiHMqpqUkyRIo2eO by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-14T21:51:32Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social @lunte161@todon.euThe only thing that makes me confident in my claim is the fact that I remember the whole DIP thing — my next machine, a 386DX did not have such an option.BTW here is what in-game map looks like — squares! So I'm not making it up — it IS a modified Wolf3D engine.I have to admit, the game indeed felt like it was giving you Duke Nukem 3D level freedom, but no — turns out that technologically it was quite limited. I suppose, good game design matters — and sometimes to the point of being able to overcome technical limitations.
(DIR) Post #B1FjRwPoZcxpacm0I4 by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T21:49:15Z
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@m0xEE @lunte161 That is honestly legitimately amazing.Like they basically took ultra-flat Wolf3D and made it pseudo-3D like Doom. You can look up/down, fly, fall over edges, ride up and down moving blocks, etc etc. Like at that point one has to wonder why even continue to use that engine, lol. But I totally respect them for somehow pulling it off.I still say it ran worse than Doom though! At least on my 486/33 (which I'm 75% sure was a DX.) I'm wondering if SX vs DX makes the difference here... Either way I seriously doubt 25MHz is enough.
(DIR) Post #B1FkF5qmHe0R2bp3qa by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T22:04:03Z
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@m0xEE @lunte161 Oh I'm absolutely not calling you a liar. At this point I'm just saying "wow, that should be impossible."Not sure what you mean about "the whole DIP thing." A DIP switch to control the speed or something?(BTW, Build Engine was also weirdly 2D, lol. Like two points couldn't intersect, so they used weird teleportation trickery when you went under/over something. I forget how that even worked.)All I can tell you is RotT ran worse on a 486/33 than Doom. 🤷 I just can't see it being playable on a 386SX/25.
(DIR) Post #B1FkF7I6vVSpVfcP5c by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-14T22:23:30Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social @lunte161@todon.euOh I'm absolutely not calling you a liar. At this point I'm just saying "wow, that should be impossible."Ha-ha-ha, don't worry! Honestly, I'd be doubting my own words, were it not for that tiny detail 😅DIP RAM… OMG, Wikipedia doesn't have an article on these! 😲They only get briefly mentioned in broader article on RAM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_module#Common_DRAM_modules"DIP 16-pin (DRAM chip, usually pre-fast page mode DRAM (FPRAM))"These! To put it short, these were memory chips not soldered to a small board forming a module — the way they make them now, but you had to insert them into the motherboard individually one-by-one.And yes, the way they made the game feel truly 3D is nothing short of amazing! I think they enhanced the wolf3d engine with height maps — similar to Doom, but it was easier due to the world being more "discrete" unlike random polygons in Doom.Of course even that wasn't easy — they still had to calculate angles when you were raising and lowering your head.And not only this — the pads that allowed to to travel above ground, bullet holes (some sort of wall decals? it's probably due to this and textures being more varied than in Wolfenstein and even Blake Stone — the game required more RAM), destructible objects, destructible WALLS 🤪 Great game!
(DIR) Post #B1FmQdeHA7W0xUbk80 by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T22:26:09Z
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@m0xEE Oooohhhh... DIP sockets. Ok. Wow, I didn't know they did that for memory on anything past like an 8088. (I think I also missed the previous post about it referring to the RAM.)And yeah, RotT was amazing for its time, absolutely.
(DIR) Post #B1FmQhohfIEVszW7w8 by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T22:40:54Z
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@m0xEE @lunte161 Ok, do with this just as you will. I just tested Rise of the Triad in DOSBox[-Staging] set to 4595 cycles which is supposed to be equivalent to a 386/25 DX.The result was very very slow, but you'd theoretically call it a playable FPS except one key problem: there was a notable delay from when I pressed the fire button before it actually fired. That... is a problem.(This was without sound. I didn't get around to fixing an improper sound configuration and it was configured for no sound effects. You'd probably have to configure it for 8-bit audio with the minimum number of channels or it would probably be notably worse.)
(DIR) Post #B1FneRzjO7Kqp4nF5s by argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-12-14T22:41:21Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou If you watch the automap in Duke Nukem 3D, you'll notice that crossing a water line involves teleporting to a different place on the map. You also can't see what's on the other side of the water line.@m0xEE @lunte161
(DIR) Post #B1FneTIuWIGssqm4cy by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-14T22:42:39Z
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@argv_minus_one @m0xEE @lunte161 Yep. I noticed the teleportation and began to figure it out when I started messing with the map editor. The big one that got me was there is this bridge with water going under it in a level where you drop down and when you go under the bridge it seamless teleports you. Like just going under a bridge... That's the thing that most got me to realize it wasn't true 3D.It's crazy how long it took until we had real 3D. The first I remember absolutely for sure was Daggerfall. Darned game left me so turned around and confused in dungeons and its 3D map with all sorts of corridors criss-crossing over and under and through interdimentional portals did not help, lol.
(DIR) Post #B1FneUZbnhDqovavIG by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-14T22:56:16Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social @argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org @lunte161@todon.euI believe Descent was truly 3D: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_(video_game)Not a bad game, but to be honest despite indeed having "six degrees of freedom", in comparison to the first person shooters we're discussing here, moving through the corridors in a spaceship felt bland.
(DIR) Post #B1ITnpJUdxas8r6t6G by lunte161@todon.eu
2025-12-15T21:20:45Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou @m0xEE Just gave it a spin ... ROTT becomes playable at this window size, while Wolf3d plays quite nice 2-3 sizes under fullscreen (like 85% window size). Playable means 10-15fps in my case (that's how I played through Duke3D in the 90s). Doom gets 12fps on the smallest window size and low detail. So I guess Doom and ROTT are roughly on par in performance - even when the doom engine is a lot more complex and capable.
(DIR) Post #B1ITnqgDYxMiNckY9w by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-16T06:03:13Z
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@lunte161@todon.euThen I have no idea why I remember RotT being okay-ish and Doom being unbearable to play, but I can't deny facts at this point 😅Like @nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social , you can further tweak the graphics in settings and I think there was even a command line parameter that would allow to tone the level of detail down even further, although I might be making that up 😏Maybe that would allow to to squeeze a couple more FPS out of this machine, but either way this doesn't make much sense, we are no longer those kids with all the time in the world on our hands — and if it's not a pleasant retro-gaming experience, why bother?
(DIR) Post #B1IUs5SkdttvLB2Hrc by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-15T22:07:54Z
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@lunte161 @m0xEE I'm still suspecting that, more than anything else, it's that SX killing you. You have all that RAM, but accessing it is hobbled so badly... A 386 SX is practically just a fast 286.Probably wouldn't particularly help, but in the in-game menu there are settings to lower detail and to turn off floors and ceiling textures. That might squeeze one or two more out of it. Maybe.BTW, weren't there L2 addons for such computers back then? Not sure if that would help or not though.
(DIR) Post #B1IUs6kVrLhdKYLzBg by lunte161@todon.eu
2025-12-15T22:14:36Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou @m0xEE The 286 I have in fact is slightly faster at the same frequency ^^ The total lack of cache probably has quite an impact indeed.Also don't worry, I have one of the fastest Socket3 systems at hand as well. I'm just surprised how limited 286/386 machines were.There are ways to add level1 cache, clock doubling and even 486 instructions (486SLC2 - basically a 386 optimized as far as possible or a 486DX2 back ported to 386 boards, depending on your point of view) ... but those need specialized mainboards, as they use some pins which are unused on 386SX
(DIR) Post #B1IUs8EKLz95vJJJIW by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-15T22:20:18Z
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@lunte161 @m0xEE I know how that feels. My first computers were all hand-me-downs and I was given a 286 at the time that most of the world had 486es.Could be worse. A lot of stuff requires a 386 even just to run. There were so many things I couldn't run on that 286 it drove me crazy. I was so disappointed all the stuff I most wanted wouldn't even start — let alone run slowly.It's strange for a 286 to go faster though.I thought there was a way to add on L2. I think I had that on a 486/25 once. But I'm not sure if the 16-bit bus limits even that? It really helped a lot on some trickier things for me. (I upgraded to a 486/33, but one day eventually it died and I got downgraded to a 486/25. The L2 got same games like Mortal Kombat playable again.)
(DIR) Post #B1IUs9MW91I7R09Mhc by lunte161@todon.eu
2025-12-15T22:40:19Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou @m0xEE L2 must be done via the mainboard, which in my case isn't possible ... quite frankly I'm glad I could upgrade this one from 16 -> 25MHz by soldering in a faster CPU.On a positive side: Lemmings 2 seems to work quite nice.
(DIR) Post #B1IUsAMuP3CMYVLBx2 by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-15T22:41:45Z
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@lunte161 @m0xEE Maybe it was L3. It was a card — I swear it went into ISA or something. (Geez it has been a long time!) That would definitely be subject to bus limitations I guess though.Lemmings is good.Don't forget those adventure games. Tons of them should run great on a 386/SX.
(DIR) Post #B1IUz5Xik7kdcGhNrc by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-16T06:08:08Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social @lunte161@todon.euDon't forget those adventure games. Tons of them should run great on a 386/SX.Oh my, indeed! Day of the Tentacle would likely run really well and… Zak McKracken of course!I think I should find this game — I still have no idea what it was about, it seemed to bizarre to me when I was a kid 😆Space Quest and King's Quest titles would probably run well. And Loom!!! 🤩
(DIR) Post #B1KSzHn9OHnq0snneq by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2025-12-16T19:53:56Z
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@m0xEE @lunte161 I'm less sure about Day of the Tentacle (and of course late King's Quest games may be problematic - KQ7 is out entirely,) but everything else mentioned should run great.
(DIR) Post #B1KSzIwl635BayIzGy by m0xEE@nosh0b10.m0xee.net
2025-12-17T05:03:45Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social @lunte161@todon.euYes, I mean early instalments of course!less sure about Day of the TentacleI don't see why it shouldn't, the game was buttery smooth on a 40 MHz machine and unlike with FPS, there is no intense computation here and no content big enough for memory bus to matter. The game itself indeed got released a few years later, but it's otherwise exact same engine as Loom, Zak McKracken and other LucasArts games of the era.Given that machine got plenty of RAM for its time, even later titles might work — even Full Throttle.