TLDR
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Adding more SDRAM to a 1997 Quake PC dropped framerates 25% because the chipset stopped caching RAM beyond a hardware limit.
Key Takeaways
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The XA100 motherboard (1998) advertises 512 MiB cache support, but in practice stops caching beyond roughly 128 MiB of RAM.
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Intel 430FX chipsets cache only up to 64 MiB; Windows 95/NT load from the top of RAM down, so uncached regions hit the OS itself.
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Pentium MMX 233MHz ran Quake demo1 at 44.6 fps with one SDRAM stick; two or more sticks pushed it to 33 fps due to L2 cache bypass.
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Removing RAM restored performance: the fix was not a faster chip or better settings, it was less memory.
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The failure mode is invisible without benchmarking; swapping cards, reinstalling drivers, and checking multipliers all showed no fault.
Hacker News Comment Review
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