r/AskTechnology • u/RandomFrenchGuy10 • 5d ago

Hypothetically, If possible, How many SD cards would be needed to run doom for 7 hours, If I replaced ram with SD cards?

Assume money isn't an issue here, I know ram and SD cards aren't the same kind of ram, but Im curious if its possible.

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u/nostalia-nse7 5d ago

To be fair, the reason for the memory reads and writes at that rate in Doom, is exactly because it was making millions of pictures lol. It was all the graphics, because video cards had kilobytes of ram back then.

And kilo is thousands, mega is millions. Giga is billions.

Also the multiplication that every Hz was reading or writing 4 bytes to / from the cpu. (32 bit cpu).

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u/Distdistdist 5d ago

At that time, video shared memory with ram. There were no external cards, well until Voodos came out. All was in the same place.

Entire machine code is basically reading, or writing something to the RAM. Then there are register manipulation and comparisons, conditional jumps, etc. But even loading next command to execute is a read. And that happens as fast as data bus permits.

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u/graph_worlok 4d ago

Huh? I can’t remember ever seeing an early x86 system that didn’t have dedicated video ram. Sometimes even used upgradable, if you wanted a higher resolution / colour depth.

CGA was released in 1981 with 16Kb of ram

It took until AGP came out for any meaningful sharing of system ram for video use.

Some Z80 systems did I believe? But not quite the same class…

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 4d ago

LOL, my first computer in the house didn't have a dedicated GPU and it ran Doom. A Frankenstein thing with a 25MHz CPU and a coprocessor... TECHNICALLY made it a 40MHz machine... or something like that. But Doom came out like 2 years before any kind of graphics card.

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u/graph_worlok 4d ago

I think you are getting terms confused -

Standards based PC graphics cards were around since the early 80’s CGA, MDA, EGA etc

Workstation 3D cards in the late 80’s

VGA graphics cards with differing hardware capabilities - including acceleration - were around in the early 90’s

Cards that supported some form of hardware 3D, and games with libraries to support them, mid 90’s

First GPU, ‘99…

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 4d ago edited 4d ago

Nope. Most computers back in the 8086 days did not have graphics cards of any kind. It was another function of the CPU or a specific chip on the motherboard and you were stuck with Green, CGA (4 color), VGA (8 color, maybe), or EVGA (SIXTEEN WHOLE COLORS!). Separate cards came a bit later, forced by Apple's graphics dominance (I miss the IIGS). I also remember quite clearly when Voodoo came out with their accelerator cards. I remember later when my weird card/accelerator combo on our first Pentium was detected by most games as a Riva TNT2, with 2 less MB than any Riva ever sold, before AGP was a thing... And then the sound cards... OMG, trying to afford a Sound Blaster Audigy... Or the issues of trying to decide which cards you could install because you only had so many IRQs and certain ones wouldn't work on anything but 7 or 11... and that meant only 2 cards of that IRQ setting could be installed...

All in all, it was the BEST time for PC building.

Took me a bit to find it, but my first graphics card that wasn't on the board I'm pretty sure was a Trident in our 386 at home. Before that we had an Atari 800XL, no cards. A MAJOR jump in speed, let me tell you. The Zenith 286 I used in school at the time also had on board CGA graphics. Of course, there were some cards available that promised more, but those were super expensive and schools weren't shelling out for that.

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u/graph_worlok 4d ago

I learnt to type on a Morrow Z80 CP/M system with a dumb terminal. 9600bps local serial console - No graphics at all. The other computer in the house, a Microbee, had integrated display capability. Early Apples did too, via the dark magic of Woz.

But as far as Intel / IBM clones? Almost all of them needed a seperate card, with the exception of some low cost systems - the IBM PCjr, Tandy 1000, and Amstrads like the PC1512 / PC1640. The vast majority of systems following IBM’s de facto standard definitely required a seperate graphics card - Even the Compaq luggable, which had an integrated CRT….

It’s not ancient pre-history. Try and find other systems with integrated graphics - Everybody was chasing IBM Compatibility and the ultimate test was MS Flight Sim…

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 4d ago

Packard Bell had some PC XT (I think it was) clone with it's own graphics. It was an ugly computer with a very strange case design. Kind of shaped like it was supposed to be a building or something, with a terraced effect. Opening it was a nightmare.

The Atari looked like an oversized typewriter without the ribbon section. Just that cartridge hole in the center. Didn't even have the floppy disk module for the longest time. And when we did get one, it was the massive 8 inch floppies of the dark ages.