3 ms·

I remember being jealous of my friend's Pentium (66? 90?) when mp3 playback slaughtered my 486.

raphman 5y ago
The original Fraunhofer MP3 player, Winplay3, had settings to reduce decoding quality - which helped a lot on my 486. https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110 https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110
IggleSniggle 5y ago
When “Pentium” was the name of the very most precious metal one could obtain
- giarc 5y ago
  That has to be one of the best advertising campaigns in history. I've heard non-technical people in the last few years still say things like "I think our new computer has a Pentium or something". The word Pentium was synonymous with quality and speed.
  - trulyme 5y ago
    They might be right, though I wouldn't say the name is synonymous with speed anymore. Intel is still using this name for entry level cpus [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      They should have left Celeron as the low-end SKU. Then they could use Pentium again nowadays. Core was a sensible branding to emphasize the fact that they were multicore when it was a new feature, but now that's old hat. Now is actually a decent time for a naming scheme change, right? Apparently Golden Cove is supposed to be a bit of a jump.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  It truly was all about the Pentiums. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
I had an AMD DX4-120 that was overclocked to 160 Mhz. Yup, a 160 Mhz 486. Was on par with a 90 Mhz Pentium for integer processing, IIRC, so MP3 playback didn't drag the system to a halt, though it was still a noticeable impact on performance. What really dragged the performance down was when I'd try to run 3D Studio MAX at the same time. I had 24 MB of RAM, and the installer warned that they did not recommend running with less than 48 MB, which was an absurd number for a home user at the time.

The original Fraunhofer MP3 player, Winplay3, had settings to reduce decoding quality - which helped a lot on my 486. https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110 https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110

IggleSniggle 5y ago

When “Pentium” was the name of the very most precious metal one could obtain

giarc 5y ago
That has to be one of the best advertising campaigns in history. I've heard non-technical people in the last few years still say things like "I think our new computer has a Pentium or something". The word Pentium was synonymous with quality and speed.
- trulyme 5y ago
  They might be right, though I wouldn't say the name is synonymous with speed anymore. Intel is still using this name for entry level cpus [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    They should have left Celeron as the low-end SKU. Then they could use Pentium again nowadays. Core was a sensible branding to emphasize the fact that they were multicore when it was a new feature, but now that's old hat. Now is actually a decent time for a naming scheme change, right? Apparently Golden Cove is supposed to be a bit of a jump.
dehrmann 5y ago
It truly was all about the Pentiums. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago

I had an AMD DX4-120 that was overclocked to 160 Mhz. Yup, a 160 Mhz 486. Was on par with a 90 Mhz Pentium for integer processing, IIRC, so MP3 playback didn't drag the system to a halt, though it was still a noticeable impact on performance. What really dragged the performance down was when I'd try to run 3D Studio MAX at the same time. I had 24 MB of RAM, and the installer warned that they did not recommend running with less than 48 MB, which was an absurd number for a home user at the time.