AlexDroog wrote:

I was wondering what is the best VLB video card for a 486DX2-66 in DOS? The performance of the one I have in SVGA in DOS is terrible. I want to play Wing Commander 3 and 4 in SVGA.

The graphics card isn't the issue, but the processor. Your machine is too slow for Wing Commander 3 and 4 in SVGA.

Here in my video I'm installing the GOG.com version of Wing Commander III on a Pentium MMXwith 233 MHz.

http://youtu.be/t1kD567PuFQ?t=9m45s

Perhaps you will find this interesting:
The ultimate Ultima 7 machine

For the 1st part of the question, I would choose a Tseng ET4000 /w32p VLB card, if that's possible.

Reasons :

1. Good DOS compatibility
2. Many 3rd Party VESA Drivers support it, including Universal VBE.
3. Windows 3.x drivers available
4. It's fast

For my current 486DX2-66 though, I'm using the S3 Virge DX 4MB card since it has PCI slots.

Malik wrote:

For the 1st part of the question, I would choose a Tseng ET4000 /w32p VLB card, if that's possible.

While the Tseng ET4000 is a good choice it is also crazy expensive and hard to find. I would also look for the S3 Vision based cards. They have equal good compatibility (if not better) and are just a tad slower. On the plus side they are much cheaper and easier to find.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The graphics card isn't the issue, but the processor. Your machine is too slow for Wing Commander 3 and 4 in SVGA. […]
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AlexDroog wrote:

I was wondering what is the best VLB video card for a 486DX2-66 in DOS? The performance of the one I have in SVGA in DOS is terrible. I want to play Wing Commander 3 and 4 in SVGA.

The graphics card isn't the issue, but the processor. Your machine is too slow for Wing Commander 3 and 4 in SVGA.

Here in my video I'm installing the GOG.com version of Wing Commander III on a Pentium MMXwith 233 MHz.

http://youtu.be/t1kD567PuFQ?t=9m45s

I'm actually building a Pentium 200 MMX machine. What video card are you using in your Pentium 233 machine?

AlexDroog wrote:

I'm actually building a Pentium 200 MMX machine. What video card are you using in your Pentium 233 machine?

The motherboard is an ATX based Super Socket 7 from DFI and has an AGP slot.

I currently have a GeForce FX5200 in it because it clones the output on VGA and DVI which makes it easy to capture 😀

I had good results with pretty much any Nvidia card. TNT2, MX2, MX 440...

Hmmm, I've got problems with my WC3 CD's (gog version burnt to discs), but according to the in-game speed evaluation my system (Cyrix DX4 100MHz with Matrox Millennium PCI) is plenty fast for SVGA. The "rotating ship" test moves along very smoothly. I guess a DX2-66 is a bit slower, but I thought that was within the SVGA specs?

CDs? The GOG.com version uses a single DVD image 😀

I'm a big fan of the DX2 66 but even DOOM pushes them to their limit - 486's aren't cut out for SVGA IMHO. A Pentium is minimum specs and more often than not I break out my Pentium 3 for all but the earliest SVGA games.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

CDs? The GOG.com version uses a single DVD image 😀

* HITS YOU WITH MY CD-FILLED WC4 CD WALLET

Yes, DOOM is playable in 486DX2-66, but once it'been played on a Pentium 75 or Pentium 133, it becomes "unplayable" in the 486. The jerkiness becomes apparent.

WC3 came with 4CDs. WC4 came in 6CDs. There was another rare DVD version of WC4 that had improved DVD quality FMVs. I think it came on 2 DVDs.

The GOG version of WC3 (and 4) is just a modified and compressed into a single DVD sized file for installation, just like most of it's multi-CD games. But don't think the WC4 from GOG is the DVD version.

DX4 should be ok for WC4. May be slow during intense battles. I never played it on any 486 though.

I remember an ad by Falcon Northwest promoting it's Pentium machines showing the box of WC4 with the recommended system requirement listing a Pentium 75. It was either the president or CEO of Falcon Northwest on the picture of the ad, holding out the box.

AFAIK WC4 release from GOG.com runs under Windows or something like that. I haven't played around with it yet though.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

CDs? The GOG.com version uses a single DVD image 😀

The DVD image just contains all the files off of the original CD's put into one larger image. Burning the correct files to individual CD's will give you copies of the discs like they were with the original game.
I wanted to be able to run the game off of discs on my 486, and not have to worry about spending almost 2GB worth of HD space for the game files, so I burnt them to cd's. It seems it's my CD-Rom drive that's getting on a bit though, as the cd's actually appear to be fine in another PC. Seems like it's becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of brand new IDE CD-ROM/RW or even DVD-ROM/RW drive these days. Buying a used one is always a bit risky.

Yea. Brand new optical IDE drives often don't output analogue audio at the back. All you can do is grab drives when the opportunity present itself.

Hopefully someone will build an IDE optical disc drive emulator similar to floppy drive emulators 😀

Good news is that SATA drives work fine, however no analogue audio at all. Bit for games that don't use it they work great. Either through SATA PCI controllers or IDE <> SATA adapters.

vetz wrote:

Malik wrote:

For the 1st part of the question, I would choose a Tseng ET4000 /w32p VLB card, if that's possible.

While the Tseng ET4000 is a good choice it is also crazy expensive and hard to find. I would also look for the S3 Vision based cards. They have equal good compatibility (if not better) and are just a tad slower. On the plus side they are much cheaper and easier to find.

Got one but sadly dead, crazy rare as much as they are crazy expensive.