I saw Phil's latest YouTube video, and it was just talking about the latest version of this program, well I have a number of PCs where I can try it, some have K6-2 CXT with multi 6X (i430TX/VX), others instead use FSB 95-100, and they are K6-III and K6-2+, but surely the performance for some is not the best, because for example, I forced a K6-2 CXT at 400 on a MB that sees it as K6-300, probably all the improvements of the CXT are ignored.
Then I read something 😨 in the previous messages, which I didn't quite understand, we're talking about a multi 6.5X, here I know the maximum is 6X, but having a 433 CPU in my collection, I have doubts that it was planned with FSB 66 and multi 6.5X, instead of the strange 96.2 with which it was put on the market.
I'll see if I can do some tests with the latest program, I currently have an M550 with a K6-233 on the bench, I don't know if I would have any improvement with that CPU, but I can easily upgrade with other K6-2, up to 400 - 450 MHz, beyond that I could get to 500 but I would have the PCI over 41 MHz, and I wouldn't want to have problems in the future for this.

PC@LIVE, there's no such thing as x 6.5 multiplier on (s)s.7 platforms. I'm not sure if K6 family CPUs officially support x 6 multiplier (as they use x 2 multiplier motherboard's settings for it). K6-2 at 433 MHz (427.5 MHz ??) seems like weird thing, but can be achieved on some ss.7 chipsets through some weird bus frequencies using x 5 or x 5.5 multipliers. K6INIT actually provides x 2 multiplier for CXT core K6-2 (or newer K6-III, K6-2+/III+) CPUs, but I can't recall now if I successfully tried x 1.5 and x 1 multi through this software tool. If you have an working (s)s.7 system with K6-II CTX or newer K6 family CPU, just test these multipliers and give some feedback 😉

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-01-13, 15:46:

PC@LIVE, there's no such thing as x 6.5 multiplier on (s)s.7 platforms. I'm not sure if K6 family CPUs officially support x 6 multiplier (as they use x 2 multiplier motherboard's settings for it). K6-2 at 433 MHz (427.5 MHz ??) seems like weird thing, but can be achieved on some ss.7 chipsets through some weird bus frequencies using x 5 or x 5.5 multipliers. K6INIT actually provides x 2 multiplier for CXT core K6-2 (or newer K6-III, K6-2+/III+) CPUs, but I can't recall now if I successfully tried x 1.5 and x 1 multi through this software tool. If you have an working (s)s.7 system with K6-II CTX or newer K6 family CPU, just test these multipliers and give some feedback 😉

Yes ok thanks ☺️
As for the multi 6.5X, I thought that AMD had actually designed them, and maybe 🤔 they gave up stopping at 6X, maybe they could be useful on MB with FSB 66 (or 75 83 Max), a bit like the K6-2 333, which can be used with both FSB 95 and 66, so for example the 433, it could ideally work at both 96.2 and 66 (having the multi 6.5X).
Maybe 🤔 they thought it was easier to go up with the FSB, rather than with the multi, but strangely they stopped at 100 MHz, even if the latest motherboards, it seems that there are two or three models (or a little more), did not have L2 cache on the MB, since it had now been inserted in the CPU with the K6+ versions.
I'll try the multi you suggested (1X or 1.5X), I hope 🤞 they work, I could run the CXT from 75 MHz up 🔝, it depends on whether the MB allows FSB from 50 or what would be the minimum, let's say that I converted most of the S.7 cards to AMD, while the older ones with minimum voltages of 3.3V (VCORE), I have them with Intel and Cyrix and AMD K5.
I hope 🤞 to have news by the weekend, and bring you good news 📰

Geoman wrote on 2025-01-13, 10:12:

IBM Aptiva 2168 / AMD K6 III+ ATZ / IBM PC DOS 7.0 gives me, while using DEVICE=K6INIT.EXE /auto in config.sys […]
Show full quote

IBM Aptiva 2168 / AMD K6 III+ ATZ / IBM PC DOS 7.0 gives me, while using DEVICE=K6INIT.EXE /auto in config.sys

Copy code to clipboard

1Keep C fatal error: Unable to fixup segment references

running as an executable works, though I get a partial error:

Copy code to clipboard

1
2ERROR | You are trying to configure too many MTRRs, maximum is 2!
3ERROR | PCI/AGP FB detection failed! Skipping...
4ERROR | Preparing automatic configuration
5
6SUMMARY | some actions failed
7

after that, the computer locks up.

i tried K6INIT for the first time yesterday on a K6-2+ 570 running PC-DOS 7.1 but it just freezes my system without giving any output 🙁

i was able to run K6INIT if i don't load EMM386, so i put it in my CONFIG.SYS before the EMM386 line, and that seems to work and it got me +20 FPS in Quake benchmark.
but still not able to run if from the command line to make cache of multiplier adjustments.

Hello,

with EMM running it is not possible to run a lot of these priviledged CPU instructions, that's why I wrote it in a way that you can load it from CONFIG.SYS... If anyone with low level DOS systems programming knowledge can chip in - it may be possible to thunk those instructions out to some real mode code, much like how BIOS calls are wrapped; otherwise it is not possble and the crash is expected (I could maybe add detection for it to make it more graceful)

It's the same reason the program doesn't run from within Windows...

Best
Eric

SteveC wrote on 2025-01-03, 14:05:

Just tried this on my Aptiva K6-2 450 and it is great - doubles the Quake and PCPlayer 640x480 performance! It gives some errors though so will need to experiment a bit. /auto only worked on a clean DOS mode, with sound drivers etc it crashes for me.
If this is of any interest, this is what I see when I run it...

Ah this is a very tricky case... It detects the voodoo card's LFBs as VRAM that should be accelerated, and that in conjunction with the memory on your TNT1 makes for 3 potential MTRRs needed, so it doesn't know what to do and gives up.

I don't know how to handle this case better, because the tool can't know what you actually want to do. I could convert this error into a warning maybe, or stick to true VGA adapter LFBs only (i think it can be discerned via the PCI subclass code)...

Any input how the logic can be structured better is welcome.

EDIT: wait - you're running a voodoo 3 in parallel with it? Yeah, then that can't be done automatically, you need to set the MTRRs you want by hand, I don't see any way to handle that automatically 🤔

Chain-Q wrote on 2025-01-04, 12:38:

First of all thanks for doing this tool, I'm blown away by the performance increase I'm seeing, from most graphics stuff using […]
Show full quote

First of all thanks for doing this tool, I'm blown away by the performance increase I'm seeing, from most graphics stuff using the LFB. (Demos!)

However, I also have some problems. At least with version 1.1, on my system, I can't seem to be able to load it from CONFIG.SYS. I get a message: "Keep C fatal error: Unable to fixup segment references." (see the attachment; direct capture from the VGA out) and then the system is locked up. Same before/after HIMEM.SYS is loaded. Also when EMM386 is loaded, K6INIT dies immediately after pressing ENTER at the prompt. No messages. Even if I just do K6INIT /?, the executable just stops. Note that the two things are independent from each other. K6INIT dies from CONFIG.SYS, even if EMM386 is not loaded.

I'm using the 1.1 release binary from GitHub. I use PC-DOS 7.01 (a.k.a. PC-DOS 2000). But as far as I know, this should be just MS-DOS with some tweaking/tuning from IBM, so the compatibility should be very high. My system is a K6-III+/400@550, AGP Riva TNT 1, Acorp 5ALI61 mainboard, 512MB RAM.

Do anyone else see similar problems, or it's just my setup, as usual?

It is probably a bug within Geoff Chappell's KEEPC library, a implemention detail discrepancy in PC-DOS that trips it up. I can see if I can fix it manually but there is some wizardry in there that's way over my head....

Also since I rarely check this place for obvious reasons - please feel free to open bug reports on github (https://github.com/oerg866/k6init/issues), so I can respond and fix problems a bit faster, and it also helps me keep track of them 😀