Great! Thank you!

I have finished my full test. I need to modify my early results:
On CRT monitor you can use Voodoo chips (with 2d part) without errors also
(Voodoo Banshee; 3; 4 and 5).
Same other chips will also work on CRT without problems:
Cirrus Logic CL-GD5440;S3 Trio32;64;64V+;3D;Trident ProVidia 9685
(These chips have color problems with some games on LCD/TFT monitors)

These chips are work without problem both on CRT and LCD/TFT:
Trident 3Dimage9750 (975)
Trident 3Dimage9850 (985)
S3 Savage4 Pro (86C397)
S3 Savage4 Xtreme (86C398)
S3 Savage2000 (86C410)
ARK Logic ARK2000PV (with UniVBE)

nVIDIA chips between RIVA TNT2 and GeForce3 Ti 500 are also very good (I have found only two game with light problem).

Detailed compatibility table on my page:
http://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS

I'm using my old 64mb Nvidia Ti4200 with 22inch 16x10 LCD, works very well overall, only issues are some minor areas where text is slightly smudged in a vertical plane.
Hi Res mode in Pinball Fantasies doesn't use the full height of the screen, but I am yet to try something like Scitech Display doctor or other Univbe
programs to see if it helps with odd Low res modes (Compared with what monitor is capable of anyway)

nVidia chips (except NV1/STG2000) have good DOS compatibility. Cards from GeForce4 have problems in 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 in Duke Nukem 3D based engine games (from RIVA128 to GeForce3 this problem not exist).
Maybe your problem also exist starting from GeForce4. If you have an older GeForce you should try it.
Univbe and Scitech Display Doctor usually helps only video BIOS based problems like VBE resolutions are missing from video BIOS.
3Dlabs Permedia 2 have a lot video BIOS based problems so Univbe and SDD are more handful on these cards.
And the last Univbe/SDD the Univbe 6.7 support nVidia chips up to RIVA TNT2 (so later chips are not supported).

Very nice useful link there. 😀 From my experience NVIDIA cards work pretty well up until the GeForce3, as well as most S3 cards. Just for fun, I wonder if you can try to see how more modern cards (i.e. GeForce 7 and higher) fare, haha.

Thanks! The test with modern GPU is a good idea but I have no modern video card, the GeForce 6800GS is my latest card. I think the moden nVidia chips still have good DOS compatibility, at least much better than NV1/STG2000. 😀

Zup wrote:

What about a Voodoo Banshee or Voodoo 3? These cards had very good VESA compatibility, but sadly they had no Windows 3.x drivers.

Windows 3.x drivers exists for Voodoo 3 😉

http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo3.htm

😎

Quick tests to see if the modern card has good DOS performance are seeing how it performs the mobo BIOS logo fanfare and the Win7 loading screen. A Geforce up to 7xxx will perform them better than the 8xxx and newer.

Randomly tested a bunch of 'semi-modern' cards in DOS, and they all failed to properly run Alien Trilogy (Acclaim) in hi-colour mode. Most seemed fine in lo-colour mode. Cards tested that had issues:

Kyro II

S3 Savage 4 Pro
S3 Savage 2000

Voodoo Banshee
Voodoo V3000
Voodoo V5500

NV TNT
NV GF4600 TI
NV FX5900 XT

ATI AIW 8500 DV
ATI 9800 Pro

They commonly failed by displaying severely corrupted colours or flattened aspect ratios. Older chipsets from S3, Cirrus Logic and Trident were fine...

EDIT: Used an old Trident chipset (not Paradise).

Thanks for the Alien Trilogy info, I have not tested yet. May "VESAFIX" or "6bitDAC" tools can help on VBE 2.0 and later cards. I will test Alien Trilogy later.

What issues did you have with Duke3D at 1024x768 with 3dfx cards that made you put "CRT only"? I found this configuration to work without issues. It could be specific to the LCD screen you used for testing.

DOS applications that can be picky with LCD screens include pcpbench and Fatal Racing/Whiplash.

Thanks for your test. My Acer V173 LCD monitor has written "input not supported". On my CRT I see that is 60Hz but it is not exactly 60Hz I think. Now I have tested it on an other LCD and it is good. So now I think that some LCD monitor is "fastidious". The Tomb Raider PowerVR on 1024x768 are the same situation.
I have updated my page.

Gona wrote:

Thanks for the Alien Trilogy info, I have not tested yet. May "VESAFIX" or "6bitDAC" tools can help on VBE 2.0 and later cards. I will test Alien Trilogy later.

No probs. I do recall trying the "Vesafix" and "6bitDAC" on some of the cards that faied, but these tests didn't make any difference. However, I didn't try on every card - some may work still.

Also, FYI, installing Alien Trilogy with more than 16MB of system memory might be problematic; I installed with BIOS option of 'Memory Hole at 15-16MB' enabled on a 440BX mobo, otherwise, the installer kept failing.

I found the Rendition GPUs PCI to work well AKA Diamond Stealth 2000/3000 and A220 1-8MB
Works great with games like Descent and more

Xolares wrote:

I found the Rendition GPUs PCI to work well AKA Diamond Stealth 2000/3000 and A220 1-8MB
Works great with games like Descent and more

Rendition GPUs are have good DOS compatibility, furthermore some games are have native 3D API support for Rendition, like Descent II and Quake:
Rendition Verite Thread

j^aws wrote:

Also, FYI, installing Alien Trilogy with more than 16MB of system memory might be problematic; I installed with BIOS option of 'Memory Hole at 15-16MB' enabled on a 440BX mobo, otherwise, the installer kept failing.

Unfortunately I have no this game. I have downloaded an installed game package but it seems it is in lo-color mode.
The installer cannot start with 256MB memory. I have tried with 64MB becaues most DOS memory managers can handle maximum 64MB memory and some versions of the DOS4GW have problem if you have more than 64MB (this installer does not uses DOS4GW), but 64MB is also too much. With 32MB installer starts without problem, but lot files are missing so I cannot test the game with hi-color mode.

When looking at the chart again I noticed that Matrox cards are about the only ones to have "tearing issues" with Duke3D and Quake. I would have thought that a Matrox card would have been part of a typical high end setup for playing these games when they came out. Were they even remotely known to be problematic back in the day? It seems like they got good ratings for their signal quality, while compatibility aspects were a bit ignored in reviews.

I don't remember Matrox cards being around at those days. I remember them coming out later and being recommended for Windows and especially as 2D cards next to a 3DFX.

Then you remember it wrongly, the Millennium came out in 1995 and was regarded as a great card for both Windows and DOS from what I've read...

Yes the Millennium was well regarded by reviewers. I wanted one real bad, and I distinctly remember reading about it's amazing "WRAM" - that just had to be better than VRAM in my mind. I finally managed to buy a Millennium 1 - with 4MB RAM I think - in '98 or so when the price had come down a bit.

I use a Mystique 220 now, which is pretty much just a Millennium 2 with some lame 3D capabilities I think, and I think it's a fantastic card for a P1 era machine, along side a Voodoo. I haven't noticed any tearing in Dike3D, and I've played a lot of it on the Mystique. I just picked up a Millennium 1 - with WRAM! - for 5 bucks. I'll be interested to see how it looks after all these years.