Physical Hardware Requirements

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gaetanzo
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:52 pm

Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by gaetanzo »

I have been experimenting with bringing my old board back online on period correct hardware. From what I can remember this was a 486/66DX2 with 64MB of RAM. Everything seems to work great until I load TeleArena at which point the system utilization on the Sysop page goes to +75% and the entire board with just me on there is horribly laggy. I feel like I was running TA on a 486 back in the day but wanted to ask if anyone knows what the recommended hardware was back in the day. I am trying to introduce my kids to some older hardware and TA but it seems like maybe I went to old of a processor with a 486? If anyone knows or remembers what the requirements were I would appreciate it!

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Duckula
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Re: Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by Duckula »

I would have expected that kind of hardware to be fine. What version on TA are you running? Have you tried any other versions?

Our resident TA expert Dan Spain will likely be able to provide more detailed info.
-- Duckula

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BlaZ
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Location: Peoria, IL
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Re: Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by BlaZ »

Are you running Major BBS 6.25 directly on DOS? Somewhere in the CNF settings there is a "System Polling Rate" option. If you're seeing a slow console login, it might be that option. Make sure it's not set to 2400 or something low like that.

I could run TA on 6.25 in DOSBox emulating a 386, so your hardware should not be the issue.

gaetanzo
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:52 pm

Re: Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by gaetanzo »

Ok, I am glad you think this would be enough of a processor as well. It is 5.6d-Gold and I have yet to try a different version but I will see if I can find one somewhere. It's odd, everything works fine until I enable the TA module and then the system crawls when it finally loads.

Duckula wrote:
> I would have expected that kind of hardware to be fine. What version on TA
> are you running? Have you tried any other versions?
>
> Our resident TA expert Dan Spain will likely be able to provide more
> detailed info.

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by daniel_spain »

gaetanzo wrote:
> I have been experimenting with bringing my old board back online on period
> correct hardware. From what I can remember this was a 486/66DX2 with 64MB
> of RAM. Everything seems to work great until I load TeleArena at which
> point the system utilization on the Sysop page goes to +75% and the entire
> board with just me on there is horribly laggy. I feel like I was running
> TA on a 486 back in the day but wanted to ask if anyone knows what the
> recommended hardware was back in the day. I am trying to introduce my
> kids to some older hardware and TA but it seems like maybe I went to old of
> a processor with a 486? If anyone knows or remembers what the requirements
> were I would appreciate it!

tele-arena does have a delayed init when running on older hardware. this was always there and
could be sped up considerably with a Pentium-class machine. it is just how Sean Ferrell
designed the init sequences. the newer one i did removes that but requires the win32
version of the bbs.

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by daniel_spain »

gaetanzo wrote:
> I have been experimenting with bringing my old board back online on period
> correct hardware. From what I can remember this was a 486/66DX2 with 64MB
> of RAM. Everything seems to work great until I load TeleArena at which
> point the system utilization on the Sysop page goes to +75% and the entire
> board with just me on there is horribly laggy. I feel like I was running
> TA on a 486 back in the day but wanted to ask if anyone knows what the
> recommended hardware was back in the day. I am trying to introduce my
> kids to some older hardware and TA but it seems like maybe I went to old of
> a processor with a 486? If anyone knows or remembers what the requirements
> were I would appreciate it!

tbh if you are trying to keep it "legacy" a p2/500 - p3/877 will run it fine on dos 7
(Bundled with win98) just set the SetGui from a 1 to a 0 and it will boot up in dos mode
have the bbs launch from autoexec and you are off and running with older hardware.
for this setup i highly recommend 3com 3c9 series nic cards for better performance.

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by daniel_spain »

gaetanzo wrote:
> Ok, I am glad you think this would be enough of a processor as well. It is 5.6d-Gold
> and I have yet to try a different version but I will see if I can find one somewhere.
> It's odd, everything works fine until I enable the TA module and then the system
> crawls when it finally loads.
>
> Duckula wrote:
> > I would have expected that kind of hardware to be fine. What version on TA
> > are you running? Have you tried any other versions?
> >
> > Our resident TA expert Dan Spain will likely be able to provide more
> > detailed info.

i never did a true legacy dos remake just because, well v5.6 was already floating around.
i redid 5.6 for win32 which runs awesome, prolly find it somewhere in the Elwynor
downloads, and my Tele-Arena Classic remake requires windows.

the major bbs can run as low as 386 (286 "can" work but it does not perform well)
also remember when utilizing older hardware how many channels you enable matters
as each one allocates so much memory. i actually ran a high capacity multi-line system
back in the day and i did it all on a pentium 90 with like 16mb ram and even though
users ran into no issues boot up and init times were considerably slow.
what are you using for internet connectivity? if it is major tcp/ip disable
a few things that are incompat with major will also free up some resources and if you
are running major mud cancel christmas. that addon did not perform well on slower machines.
tele-arena, swords of chaos, and games like that can fare well . i think i recall tele-arena 5.5i
taking about 57 seconds to init on a 486sx25 which was my test machine way back then.

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: Physical Hardware Requirements

Post by daniel_spain »

BlaZ wrote:
> Are you running Major BBS 6.25 directly on DOS? Somewhere in the CNF
> settings there is a "System Polling Rate" option. If you're
> seeing a slow console login, it might be that option. Make sure it's not
> set to 2400 or something low like that.
>
> I could run TA on 6.25 in DOSBox emulating a 386, so your hardware should
> not be the issue.

major will run fine on 486 tele-arena is his culprit. that delayed init on slower
machines was one of my many reasons for changing some of the handling
processes and rewriting the init sequence altogether. but i have not really
worked on anything major bbs 6.xx using bc3 in forever. i tell everyone
who writes me with issues to upgrade to wg2 because at least bc 4.5
cleaned up some things that caused issues with bc3

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