Title: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user341 on March 23, 2025, 03:34:05 PM
Post by: user341 on March 23, 2025, 03:34:05 PM
I thought it would be fun to have a thread where people could identify and link to the most modern, fastest hardware that can be setup to run OPENSTEP natively.
Things like:
Manufacturer ProcessorModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Manufacturer MotherboardModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Manufacturer VideocardModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Manufacturer NetworkCardModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Etc.
Maybe we can keep a running list and compete to see who has built the fastest most modern build?
Perhaps the fastest builds will be just making a VM to run on modern hardware. It would be fun to see which is faster.
Things like:
Manufacturer ProcessorModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Manufacturer MotherboardModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Manufacturer VideocardModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Manufacturer NetworkCardModel# ConfigurationSettings Link
Etc.
Maybe we can keep a running list and compete to see who has built the fastest most modern build?
Perhaps the fastest builds will be just making a VM to run on modern hardware. It would be fun to see which is faster.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: itomato on March 24, 2025, 09:45:16 PM
Post by: itomato on March 24, 2025, 09:45:16 PM
Cool. I imagine things have changed a bit since I posted this in...
:o
2006: https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=545.msg2933#msg2933
Drivers haven't changed much though.
:o
2006: https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=545.msg2933#msg2933
Drivers haven't changed much though.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: rjnf on March 26, 2025, 04:50:09 PM
Post by: rjnf on March 26, 2025, 04:50:09 PM
My hardware
P4 3ghz
1gb ram 958mb recognized by nextstep
16gb sdd sliced into several partitions
Sound blaster pci
3com xl Ethernet card
Matrox mga400 driver was binary hacked by me to allow 1920x1200 60hz and 1920x1080 60hz
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5728
P4 3ghz
1gb ram 958mb recognized by nextstep
16gb sdd sliced into several partitions
Sound blaster pci
3com xl Ethernet card
Matrox mga400 driver was binary hacked by me to allow 1920x1200 60hz and 1920x1080 60hz
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5728
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user341 on April 04, 2025, 02:11:29 PM
Post by: user341 on April 04, 2025, 02:11:29 PM
What video card are you using? 3ghz is incredible. That thing must fly!
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user217 on April 04, 2025, 04:03:41 PM
Post by: user217 on April 04, 2025, 04:03:41 PM
Quote from: zombie on March 23, 2025, 03:34:05 PMMaybe we can keep a running list and compete to see who has built the fastest most modern build?
Perhaps the fastest builds will be just making a VM to run on modern hardware. It would be fun to see which is faster.
Well, here's my VM, for a start:
VirtualBox under Windows 10. Host CPU is Intel Core i7-10700. (The Dhrystones and VAX MIPS numbers evidently can't be calculated under NXBench 2.5?)
For reference, kb7sqi's archive has a few NXBench reports:
| Machine | dhrystones/s | VAX MIPS | NXFactor |
| Dell Latitude D610 | 3174603 | 2015.621 | 10.937 |
| Mono Slab | 44424 | 28.206 | 1.106 |
| Parallels (VM) | 0 | 0.000 | 14.870 |
| VMware Fusion (VM) | 0 | 0.000 | 6.749 |
| QEMU on OpenSolaris (VM) | 0 | 0.000 | 8.227 |
| QEMU on OpenSolaris (VM) + OmniFastVideo driver | 0 | 0.000 | 8.196 |
| SPARC 5 | 142806 | 90.670 | 1.907 |
| ThinkPad 560E | 308404 | 195.812 | 1.718 |
| VirtualBox on OS X (VM) | * | * | 2.667 |
| VirtualBox on OpenSolaris (VM) | 0 | 0.000 | 3.638 |
| VirtualBox on Windows (VM) | 0 | 0.000 | 4.880 |
I assume this is not the first collection of machine performance statistics, since NWBench had a button to submit performance info directly to NeXT, and the NXBench-2.5 readme begs the reader not to submit reports...
There's also a Rhapsody (DR1?) screenshot here (https://fsck.technology/software/NeXT/next.68k.org%20Archive/otto/html/openstep.se/graphics/screenshots/rhapsody/nxbench.jpg) reporting 642054 dhrystones, 407 VAX MIPS, and 5 NXFactor, annoyingly rounded to integers.
EDIT: Suspicious that my VirtualBox machine was not exactly blowing these older screenshots out of the water, I went back and tested my VMware image, which I had largely neglected since VBox can do 1920x1080 now.
Worse than kb7sqi's Parallels benchmark! It seems VirtualBox on x64 is the best VM for OPENSTEP performance so far.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Apple2guy on April 04, 2025, 11:35:41 PM
Post by: Apple2guy on April 04, 2025, 11:35:41 PM
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5050.msg29930#msg29930
My Core 2 Duo build....
Only difference is I have a Matrox G400 32Mb Agp card.
My Core 2 Duo build....
Only difference is I have a Matrox G400 32Mb Agp card.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: pTeK on April 05, 2025, 04:52:01 AM
Post by: pTeK on April 05, 2025, 04:52:01 AM
Quote from: zombie on April 04, 2025, 02:11:29 PMWhat video card are you using? 3ghz is incredible. That thing must fly!
My Dell Inspiron 5150 is Pentium IV 3.06GHz, and yes it does fly, the fan is very very loud. But as for doing anything CPU intensive, I don't have any apps installed yet but compiling all the app kit developer examples is very fast.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user217 on April 05, 2025, 01:45:34 PM
Post by: user217 on April 05, 2025, 01:45:34 PM
All of you should go run NXBench and get some numbers! Even if it's just in a VM. No way is my 18.510 VBox metric the best VM performance out there.
There's also a mirror of NXBench 2.5 here at NeXTfiles: https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/OPENSTEP/Apps/Benchmarks/NXBench.2.5.NIS.b.tar.gz
There's also a mirror of NXBench 2.5 here at NeXTfiles: https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Software/OPENSTEP/Apps/Benchmarks/NXBench.2.5.NIS.b.tar.gz
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Apple2guy on April 06, 2025, 12:07:02 AM
Post by: Apple2guy on April 06, 2025, 12:07:02 AM
Here are the Results for my Piii 1.4 Ghz.
And C2Duo QX6800 2.93 Ghz
And C2Duo QX6800 2.93 Ghz
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user341 on April 07, 2025, 03:38:10 PM
Post by: user341 on April 07, 2025, 03:38:10 PM
Wow that core2duo is currently the NXfactor king at 17!
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user217 on May 17, 2025, 03:36:30 PM
Post by: user217 on May 17, 2025, 03:36:30 PM
Just for a lark I ran NXBench under Rhapsody DR2 today. It gave me a new high score:
Same hardware and VM configuration as before (jeffberg's VBoxVideo 1.1, Intel i7-10700, Windows 10) although the VM has 128 MB of RAM rather than 512 MB. Still annoyed that the numbers are truncated, but it seems perhaps that Apple improved the x86 kernel performance between 4.2 and 5.1. (Note that NXBench seems to understand it's running on a 586 now instead of a 486, although the cc that comes with the system is still 2.7.2.1.) When I do my Rhapsody DR1 experiments soon, I'll check performance there, too.
Same hardware and VM configuration as before (jeffberg's VBoxVideo 1.1, Intel i7-10700, Windows 10) although the VM has 128 MB of RAM rather than 512 MB. Still annoyed that the numbers are truncated, but it seems perhaps that Apple improved the x86 kernel performance between 4.2 and 5.1. (Note that NXBench seems to understand it's running on a 586 now instead of a 486, although the cc that comes with the system is still 2.7.2.1.) When I do my Rhapsody DR1 experiments soon, I'll check performance there, too.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: itomato on June 17, 2025, 06:05:58 AM
Post by: itomato on June 17, 2025, 06:05:58 AM
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user341 on June 17, 2025, 12:32:02 PM
Post by: user341 on June 17, 2025, 12:32:02 PM
Wow. Wonder if you OS4.2 would run on it.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Apple2guy on July 12, 2025, 01:32:59 AM
Post by: Apple2guy on July 12, 2025, 01:32:59 AM
Tried to boot Openstep 4.2 on a i5 4670 B85 Chipset 4 GB Ram and PCI 2940UW SCSI. It goes into a boot loop. boot1 causes the computer to reboot. It reboots after displaying "OPENSTEP boot1 v40.13.1" but before it sizes memory.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: pTeK on July 12, 2025, 05:25:34 PM
Post by: pTeK on July 12, 2025, 05:25:34 PM
Quote from: Apple2guy on July 12, 2025, 01:32:59 AMTried to boot Openstep 4.2 on a i5 4670 B85 Chipset 4 GB Ram and PCI 2940UW SCSI. It goes into a boot loop. boot1 causes the computer to reboot. It reboots after displaying "OPENSTEP boot1 v40.13.1" but before it sizes memory.Did you hold the left shift key before the memory test of boot1 to bypass it?
The memory test is what crashed my Dell Inspiron 5150. This is how I bypassed it.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: pTeK on July 29, 2025, 02:31:47 AM
Post by: pTeK on July 29, 2025, 02:31:47 AM
IBM Thinkpad T43 (ICH6) dogfooding with OpenStep 4.2 with VESA patches.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Forsa on July 31, 2025, 07:33:54 AM
Post by: Forsa on July 31, 2025, 07:33:54 AM
This may be one of the fastest laptop builds out there.
I've set up OPENSTEP 4.2 for Mach on my Apple Silicon MacBook Air M2 laptop using 86Box, which is an x86 PC emulator you may configure according to your own hardware preferences. I've set it up to emulate the 440BX chipset, a 533 MHz Celeron processor (fastest CPU option in 86Box for the time being), an S3 graphics card, a SoundBlaster 16 ISA card and 128 MB RAM.
It's ridiculously fast, supports 32-bit colour, audio and networking. Window dragging feels slippery and apps launch instantly. Even OmniWeb feels responsive. Bear in mind this is a fanless thin and light laptop with extremely long battery life, with an ARM processor, running an x86 PC emulation environment.
I've set up OPENSTEP 4.2 for Mach on my Apple Silicon MacBook Air M2 laptop using 86Box, which is an x86 PC emulator you may configure according to your own hardware preferences. I've set it up to emulate the 440BX chipset, a 533 MHz Celeron processor (fastest CPU option in 86Box for the time being), an S3 graphics card, a SoundBlaster 16 ISA card and 128 MB RAM.
It's ridiculously fast, supports 32-bit colour, audio and networking. Window dragging feels slippery and apps launch instantly. Even OmniWeb feels responsive. Bear in mind this is a fanless thin and light laptop with extremely long battery life, with an ARM processor, running an x86 PC emulation environment.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user217 on July 31, 2025, 04:17:26 PM
Post by: user217 on July 31, 2025, 04:17:26 PM
That's definitely pretty fast for a laptop, though on sheer NXFactor, I think @kb7sqi's Dell Latitude and @pTeK's Thinkpad have you beat by a comfortable margin, since they're not emulating the CPU—and they're two decades older than your MacBook!
One thing I will say: Has anyone else noticed that x86 Rhapsody's UI seems much more responsive than OPENSTEP 4.2 when on the same hardware? I'm curious how much of the improvement comes from compiling for Pentium vs. performance improvements in the software. It seems unlikely to me that Apple had the expertise in 1997 to suddenly improve the quality of x86 releases to such a degree that it would make a major impact.
One thing I will say: Has anyone else noticed that x86 Rhapsody's UI seems much more responsive than OPENSTEP 4.2 when on the same hardware? I'm curious how much of the improvement comes from compiling for Pentium vs. performance improvements in the software. It seems unlikely to me that Apple had the expertise in 1997 to suddenly improve the quality of x86 releases to such a degree that it would make a major impact.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Forsa on August 02, 2025, 07:43:45 AM
Post by: Forsa on August 02, 2025, 07:43:45 AM
Rhapsody started adding support for more than just a single CPU and started changing the graphics stack to replace Display PostScript which couldn't take advantage of 2D hardware acceleration features found in PC and Mac graphics cards. Perhaps those are contributing factors as to why the UI feels more responsive, as well as general processor specific optimisations.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: pTeK on August 07, 2025, 03:07:31 AM
Post by: pTeK on August 07, 2025, 03:07:31 AM
Quote from: Forsa on August 02, 2025, 07:43:45 AMRhapsody started adding support for more than just a single CPU and started changing the graphics stack to replace Display PostScript which couldn't take advantage of 2D hardware acceleration features found in PC and Mac graphics cards. Perhaps those are contributing factors as to why the UI feels more responsive, as well as general processor specific optimisations.
I'm kinda going with the optimisations with latest GCC compiler would contribute a fair bit and the change from Display PostScript.
Quote from: itomato on June 17, 2025, 06:05:58 AM3.4 GHz i7 with SSD and IDE emulation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE6qp94InBM
This is a a good video of installing Rhapsody DR2, I also liked how he used maxmem for 192MB. It's a shame he didn't modify /usr/Devices/System.config/Instance0.table and add that to the kernal string so he wouldn't have to type the maxmem string at every boot. Still need to find the source for why it's 192MB max ram for x86 hardware.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user217 on August 07, 2025, 03:59:05 AM
Post by: user217 on August 07, 2025, 03:59:05 AM
It must've been the new GCC, then. Zero work had been done to replace Display PostScript by DR2. I think that happened during Kodiak DP2 or DP3 during the Quartz transition. I was able to get DR2 clients to display on an OPENSTEP host using NSHosting (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5967.msg34088#msg34088), so obviously they need to speak the same language! (The only defect I spotted was that the input method switcher menu didn't move to the right as expected.)
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Apple2guy on August 09, 2025, 06:22:49 AM
Post by: Apple2guy on August 09, 2025, 06:22:49 AM
Ok here we go..
Took a while to find a more recent motherboard with PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse ports.
No floppy but does have working serial and parallel port.
CPU: Core i5 3570 @ 3.4 Ghz
Ram: 16 GB DDR3 1600
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB (VESA driver)
Scsi: Adaptec 2940UW Pro
Motherboard: P8B75-V
Sound: Soundblaster 16 PCI
Ethernet: SMC 9332 10/100
OS: Openstep 4.2
Took a while to find a more recent motherboard with PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse ports.
No floppy but does have working serial and parallel port.
CPU: Core i5 3570 @ 3.4 Ghz
Ram: 16 GB DDR3 1600
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT 512 MB (VESA driver)
Scsi: Adaptec 2940UW Pro
Motherboard: P8B75-V
Sound: Soundblaster 16 PCI
Ethernet: SMC 9332 10/100
OS: Openstep 4.2
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user217 on August 09, 2025, 09:06:36 AM
Post by: user217 on August 09, 2025, 09:06:36 AM
@Apple2guy 20.715 on NXBench! Dang, that's impressive. You should remove your wallpaper before running the NXBench tests though—the window-painting portion will be significantly impacted by it.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Apple2guy on August 10, 2025, 10:05:15 AM
Post by: Apple2guy on August 10, 2025, 10:05:15 AM
No background didn't change score much.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: pTeK on August 11, 2025, 02:24:02 AM
Post by: pTeK on August 11, 2025, 02:24:02 AM
No "maxmem=" string in the config @Apple2guy ?? Nice results. 8)
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: Apple2guy on August 11, 2025, 11:18:39 AM
Post by: Apple2guy on August 11, 2025, 11:18:39 AM
Yeah I removed it for some troubleshooting.
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: pTeK on August 11, 2025, 10:53:55 PM
Post by: pTeK on August 11, 2025, 10:53:55 PM
Quote from: Apple2guy on August 11, 2025, 11:18:39 AMYeah I removed it for some troubleshooting.
What is the result of the memory scan at boot out of interest?
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: user217 on August 12, 2025, 12:49:00 AM
Post by: user217 on August 12, 2025, 12:49:00 AM
Quote from: pTeK on August 11, 2025, 10:53:55 PMWhat is the result of the memory scan at boot out of interest?
I have a VM of OPENSTEP 4.2 for Mach with Patch 4 that boots to a configured 512 MB limit just fine; it counts up normally, just takes four times as long as 128 MB. I'm guessing it's like that!
Title: Re: Worlds Fastest and most current NeXT build
Post by: pTeK on August 12, 2025, 04:56:53 AM
Post by: pTeK on August 12, 2025, 04:56:53 AM
Quote from: Rhetorica on August 12, 2025, 12:49:00 AMI have a VM of OPENSTEP 4.2 for Mach with Patch 4 that boots to a configured 512 MB limit just fine; it counts up normally, just takes four times as long as 128 MB. I'm guessing it's like that!
Even though my system has 1GB RAM and the memory scan only detects 512MB, I am getting annoyed at the time it takes to get up to 512MB. I may have to patch (https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?msg=30540) the binary so maxes as 64MB and then use the maxmem string to get 768MB ram.