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Just how far back in Windows do benchmarks run on? (Like, Windows 3.x, or?)


Cavemanthe0ne

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I am very interested to find out how far back in versions of Windows benchmarks and CPUz will work on. I am doing a test of some ancient hardware come this spring, and it would be nice to be able to know if CPUz (and anything else, like Hwbot Prime, or GPUPI, etc...) would even work on some of the hardware.

 

And when I say ancient, I mean systems from 1990 and up... So, from running Windows 3.x, to Win 95, and onwards. If you were wondering, I am going to be testing if Moore's Law has also had an effect an CPU performance over the years, and not just transistor count.

 

Thanks!

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Ok, that is helpful. Most of the hardware I'll be testing *could* run W2k, even if slowly. Thanks for the info! Now to see where the legacy builds are for Java.

 

YAY for testing old hardware, the stuff will probably take months to run Pifast and/or Wprime lol :P. In the name of research!

 

Other thing- Will I be able to validate the hardware with CPUz or will I have to run an outdated version to get it to work? I see some people are having issues with old hardware (like socket A rigs) ...

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Ok, that is helpful. Most of the hardware I'll be testing *could* run W2k, even if slowly. Thanks for the info! Now to see where the legacy builds are for Java.

 

YAY for testing old hardware, the stuff will probably take months to run Pifast and/or Wprime lol :P. In the name of research!

 

Other thing- Will I be able to validate the hardware with CPUz or will I have to run an outdated version to get it to work? I see some people are having issues with old hardware (like socket A rigs) ...

 

Java builds:

WIN95 www.oldapps.com/java.php?old_java=7

WIN98/ME www.oldapps.com/java.php?old_java=52

WIN2K http://www.oldapps.com/java.php?old_java=6281

 

Java.com also has a downloads archive but requires an account (free?), but it's bloody well hidden.

 

Depends on the hardware tested, but yes, running Spi32/W1024 on Pentium 1 will set you for 30 hours+. Do remember Wprime has an issue when a run takes over 24hrs, make sure you revert the OS time back every 23ish hours.

 

Yes, you can't validate frequencies with CPU-Z on stuff older than XP, but for screenshots only you could use any version. Socket A was particularly buggy with CPU-Z on *some* boards, feel free to browse this forum for solutions, I believe there's even special builds of cpu-z for some older sockets.

Edited by GENiEBEN
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Anything older than W2K is going to be a problem. Pifast and Wprime should run. HWBOT Prime might, since there are java builds for 98/ME. GPUPI is a no go. SPI works, but not the version we're using.

 

About GPUPi, it should be possible to run on W2K with the 12.1 Catalyst driver for cpu suport.

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Thanks for the links! Certainly helps. And I'll be running a couple of 386 and 486 systems (Maybe more than a couple, time will tell on how many I can find), so it might take a while on those rigs to finish the benches.

Ok, will take that into account when running benches(About the CPUz & wprime). Also, on older Windows versions could I use syscheck for validation? I browsed around a bit and some other people with really old hardware used that for submitting to Hwbot.

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OK, thanks! I'll likely run at stock for the most part, but will include Syscheck or an appropriate CPUz tab or three when submitting. This is still a decent amount of time away, but again thanks for the info, and links to old Java versions! Heck, i can probably mention you if the research I have in mind goes well enough. (In other words, if I find enough hardware to make a good comparison & then write up an article or paper). :D

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Windows 2000 run even the latest CPU-Z, so validation should not be a problem. For Win98se you need to dial back to CPU-Z 1.51. For WinNT 4.0 SP1 you need to dial back to CPU-Z 1.30.

Also you can include programs like TSCWin and TestCPU, like I did: http://hwbot.org/submission/2978646_

 

Pifast and Wprime should run

 

PiFast does run on WinNT 4.0 SP1 w/o a glitch, but wPrime does not. It require the msvbvm60.dll library and that library, even in the oldest version, require the WinNT 4.0 SP3. Then it should work, but I did not yet get around to test that, but it is likely. W/O ActiveX (on for example highly optimized WinXP) you cannot install the CPU-Z libraries, but that it is.

 

However, for a i386 / i486 systems I'm affraid I have bad news for wPrime. Current version 1.55 have a nasty bug, that prevent longer that 24h calculations to take place. It check for time and when the time "move back", then it write "Cheat detected" and stop the calculation. There is no known way for me to get around it. I just set the time to 0:01 and run the calculation. Unless it exceeds 24h (1024M on AMD K5 PR75 @ 90 is getting close with 17h 48min: http://hwbot.org/submission/2986787_ ), then all is fine. But it ignore the day, when it check if the time is not dialed back during the run, so unless your tests with wPrime is under 24h - OR - there is a fix for that, you have to strike wPrime from the test list, because I'm affraid that on i386 even 32M run could be over 24h...

 

So, this is just something to be carefull off.

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  • 5 months later...

Well, now I have a Wyse 386/25 PC that is running Dos-Under-Unix. (I think? It uses an obscure VGA connector, one with 9 pins, not 15, so I don't really know... but that is what a lot of the other Wyse multi-user PC's ran on so...) Would it be that hard to run benchmarks on a 25 Mhz CPU? I'm not even sure if the super-stripped-down version of Win XP works on the old thing xD.

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Well, now I have a Wyse 386/25 PC that is running Dos-Under-Unix. (I think? It uses an obscure VGA connector, one with 9 pins, not 15, so I don't really know... but that is what a lot of the other Wyse multi-user PC's ran on so...) Would it be that hard to run benchmarks on a 25 Mhz CPU? I'm not even sure if the super-stripped-down version of Win XP works on the old thing xD.

WinNT. ;)

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