In general windows GDI perf is kind of meaningless because the practical difference between video cards within the same class is imperceivable.
For example:
Ark1000vl is roughly 2-3 times slower on paper (and confirmed by tests) than s3 Trio64 or end of line S3 Vision.
But even with such a large delta you dont get stuttering graphics or anything like that.
If i dont tell you which card is in the box you wont know it.

Differences between same class cards are much more pronounced in DOS interactive graphics. So thats the actual differentiator, for me at least.

These statements are in the context of 2/3/486 class hardware - isa/vlb stuff and excluding some extreme value oriented models from Realtek and OTI that massively underperform across the board.

bloody PM restrictions 😉 I sold one of the STB cards at any rate. I need to test the other one as I hadn't run both of them in a board. was gonna get around to comparing the STB card to a Diamond Stealth 64 VLB which uses a plain Trio64 and 60ns samsung DRAM. The STB cards have 1MB of mosfel vitalic 45ns DRAM onboard and 1MB of mosfel vitalic 50ns DRAMs in the expansion sockets; guess would be running them with 1MB might net very slightly elevated performance as a result if memory bandwidth is a limiting factor somewhere.

The S3 Vision and Trio64 needs full amount of RAM (2MB) to suffer from 64bit wide access to RAM. With 1MB there are only 32bit RAM access and the Trio64 performs equal to a Trio32.

yes, your notice about 64bit bus is right, but it is not important for performance in DOS-Game (because it use often only 16bit Memory bus ) (except VESA Mode)
Trio64V+ with 0 WS is fast as ARK1000VL in VGA/letter-mode.
By Windows-acceleration is Trio much faster than ARK and Vision96x is superior by windows acceleration. ARK1000VL lose totally by windows acceleration.
Difference between lowperformance card and highEnd VRAM Card grown with resolution and color depth.

Windows acceleration, Vision968 VLB is fastest card. VGA/letter, ARK1000VL / Trio64V+ (765) zero WS is fastest.

probably is S3 Trio64 (764) with modified BIOS (zero waitstate) very fast, same as Trio64V+(765)
I must check my S3 Trio64 from SPEA.

I can tell: STB Powergraph P64V ROM doesn't using advantage of 45ns DRAM. I have check it on my homemade Trio64V+ VLB card. no problem with "too slow" DRAM

regards
matt

Awesome work Mada0, love that black edition!

I hope you are right about modifying an S3 Trio64 bios to speed it up, keep us posted! I have a Spea Trio64 myself.

@Madao
Tried the BIOS you provided with Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM T VLB (S3 Trio64) on two SIS VLB motherboards - no lights.
Is there anything that ties it to Trio64+ specifically ?

Trio64 and 64V+ ROM is not interchangeable.

Makes sense. Thanks.

So did Hercules or Ark know for sure they had the fastest VGA/DOS performance out there at the time?

The marketing stating:

“The worlds fastest dos performance for no-compromise game speed”

I am sure they did.
It is unlikely they spent top $ for R&D, productizing, marketing and so on without surveying what's out there and measuring against the competition.

But that label on the box is just marketing.
Every box has one of these.

No doubt but the marketing seems confident 🤣.

BTW, what does the upgrade from 1MB to 2MB get you on the ARK1000VL? 1280x1024 interlaced? Is that it?

Yes, higher res in Vindoz.

That label is curious, I don't remember seeing marketing information targeted towards DOS gamers on VLB (and older) video cards at all. Most of them seemed to focus on how good the cards were for CAD applications or Windows performance, if they were also good for DOS games it was more of an unintended consequence that they didn't care about.

Only with the advent of 3D cards did PC gamers actually become a marketing target... I think that may be one of the reasons of the success of Creative Labs in those times: despite the dubious quality of their products, they focused on gamers which were kind of "second class citizens" of the PC world and found a niche.

The circular label is actually a sticker so maybe it was a last ditch effort to clear these from inventory?

Or they sent different stickers to different markets.

Well dang, not seeing ARK level dos performance on the Trio64V+, not yet. SDD isn’t working well on it and the screen is rolling in “vid_mode 11” in Quake. Best I can tell I’m hitting 29.0 fps in 1.08. The ARK can hit 30.3. More testing needed.

Also SDD isn’t detecting LFB support. Although no difference when I force it on.

pshipkov wrote on 2021-11-06, 07:09:

But that label on the box is just marketing.

it's not "just" marketing if it's true x3

imi wrote on 2021-11-09, 00:24:

pshipkov wrote on 2021-11-06, 07:09:

But that label on the box is just marketing.

it's not "just" marketing if it's true x3

Indeed 🤣

There were two vlb stingrays. The standard one used ALG chipset. The pro had the ark1000. Is that box for the alg version?

it says "Stingray Pro" on the oval, I'd assume they both had the same box and the ark one got that sticker.

Hercules naming schemes back then were sometimes confusing, there's multiple cards sharing the same names... same for some Diamond and Spea cards too.