by Angel » Aug 26, 2001 @ 5:01pm
All the Intel processors since the 086 have had the posibility of adding an optional math coprocessor for speeding up the floating point instructions. I installed one for my old 386. All the Intel processors since the 486 had the math coprocessor build-in except the 486SX, still optional. Who says this is not truth better talk about other stuff.<br>My C-Series HPC has a MIPS R3912 at 75Mhz with a math coprocessor build-in. This kind of chip is faster than an equivalent 486 because of its RISC nature. In my opinion, the only reason for which there are not enought 3D games in these platforms is because there's not enought interest by qualified developers and then not enought qualified developers programming them (or qualified developers don't spend their time). The same fact happens with the Mac's and linux compared to the PC's. The PocketPC's and HPC's have more than enought power to play 'good enought' 3D games with textures. 'TombRaider I' ran on a 486 for example (believe me, I tried it), Quake 1 too. And even the resolution is low (it can be just like a MCGA at 320x200). I have even seen 3D games for the 286's, which is a 16bit processor with less than 640kb of RAM and no math coprocessor by default. . .<br>I even made a 3D Engine for my 386 which could handle 14,000 triangles at high resolution with dithered gouraud shading at about 1fps (many more at low resolutions and triangles). It required a math coprocessor.<br><br>That's all I had to say (and I had to say it!!!).<br><br>see you