Minimum requirements are just that.

DosFreak wrote:

Minimum requirements are just that.

In terms of CPU yeah. For graphics it just says "VLB card required for high resolution". I guess I'm asking what will help most, a better gfx card or a higher CPU? Or are both needed?

I'm looking at a Diamond Stealth 64 4MB card - do you think that would make enough of a difference to allow high res?

No, graphics card will make very little difference (there's no acceleration). For TIE Fighter it's just the CPU. I remember it was quite playable on 486 dx4/100, but it slowed down a lot when lot's of action was on the screen. P100 or higher is highly recommendable for SVGA mode. Even dosbox needs a lot of juice to get svga mode moving...

gulikoza wrote:

No, graphics card will make very little difference (there's no acceleration). For TIE Fighter it's just the CPU. I remember it was quite playable on 486 dx4/100, but it slowed down a lot when lot's of action was on the screen. P100 or higher is highly recommendable for SVGA mode. Even dosbox needs a lot of juice to get svga mode moving...

Thanks for that. I don't really want to get another system just yet purely to play Tie Fighter in high res so I may try looking for a DX4 CPU.

Out of interest, what would be the benefit of getting a better video card?

None, unless you have a really crappy ISA card with very slow dram 😀

gulikoza wrote:

None, unless you have a really crappy ISA card with very slow dram 😀

Well, when I asked that question, I didn't mean just for TIE Fighter. I mean there must be some advantage to having a card that originally cost $500 compared to an on board card, surely? 😕

Ram expansion
Driver support
VESA support
Better DAC.

DosFreak wrote:

Ram expansion Driver support VESA support Better DAC. […]
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Ram expansion
Driver support
VESA support
Better DAC.

Sorry for asking so many questions, I'm not really up on all this though. What are the benefits of those things if it's not improved graphic performance in games etc? For what purpose(s) would someone go out and spend $500 on a card instead of using a cheapy on board one?

Not sure if you mean a modern graphics card or one for a 486?

A modern graphics card is vastly different than one from before GPU's.

What is fast enough for one person is not for another. It's hard to judge.

Back in '94, I played TIE CD in SVGA on a 486DX/2 50 with a ISA Cirrus Logic card and enjoyed it. I doubt that I would be happy with that anymore.

At this point I would not even bother with SVGA games on a 486/5x86.

Expensive video cards were for GUI users with 17" screens. Gamers bought an ET4000. 😉

I remember trying out the floppy version of Tie Fighter on my 386sx/25. Boy was that slow, you could see the renderer painting the polygons. 🙄

A DX4 will help, a 40 MHz bus will help even more.

DosFreak:
Yeah I meant old GFX cards for a 486. I just don't understand why there would be cards that were so expensive if they didn't really offer any performance increase for games. I've already ordered a stealth 64 before I read all these posts so I'm feeling like that was a bit of a waste of money now 😢

5u3:
What would be the best card with an ET4000 chipset in? And are you saying getting one of those might make a difference?

swaaye wrote:

What is fast enough for one person is not for another. It's hard to judge.

Back in '94, I played TIE CD in SVGA on a 486DX/2 50 with a ISA Cirrus Logic card and enjoyed it. I doubt that I would be happy with that anymore.

At this point I would not even bother with SVGA games on a 486/5x86.

Yeah, it does play OK in SVGA with all graphics settings turned to low or off, and I can live with it if thats the best I can get. I just figured that at the price I can get high end components for nowadays that I'd be able to beef up the system enough to get better performance out of it. Seems not though 😒

Before 3D Accelerators no one really bought video cards for increased gaming performance (except for edge cases) because the limitation was almost always a CPU issue because that's where all the processing took place.

Only time I remember upgrading the video card in my DX4/100 was to upgrade from a Tseng Video card to a Cirrus Logic because Mechwarrior 2 wouldn't work and I had that computer from late 95 all the way up to 1998.

If it has a dx2/66 in it then you can probably put in a 486dx4/100 or an overdrive in there.

You may want to do some benchmarks with various system memory sizes as well, I seem to remember an issue with older motherboards actually giving lower performance when too much memory was placed in them because it wasn't able to cache.

In my experience, going from a 512KB video card to a S3 Trio 64V+ PCI really helped my 486, it does matter somewhat. Though if you're expecting 640x480 playable i'd forget about using the 486 at all, and jump to a Pentium 166 for it or something like that. My memories of SVGA on 486 50s and 66s were just watching the pageflip for eternity.

What leileilol said.

I don't think even a AMD 5x86 160MHz backed by a VLB ET4000/w32p 2MB will run the game completely fluidly in SVGA mode (640x480).

If you are going to be playing SVGA games, a 486 is not what you want. That's just how it is. Back when SVGA games were picking up, I know that I didn't want my 486 anymore. My friends were getting Pentium Pro or high end Pentiums. A PPro running Quake 1 or US Navy Fighters was a sight to behold in 1996.

Oh and believe it or not some SVGA DOS games need a ~Pentium III to run absolutely smooth. 😀

Well, as I said I've ordered a Stealth 64 GFX card already and am waiting for a DX4/100 chip so I'll let you all know exactly what kind of boost (if any) I get. If it's none then I'll stick to the point n clicks / strategy games on this system and hunt around for a decent pentium in the meantime 😀

You'll have what will essentially be a 1994 Dream Machine. 😁

swaaye wrote:

You'll have what will essentially be a 1994 Dream Machine. 😁

Hehe, yeah I'm only 15 years too late! 😦