Wasn't Cirrus Logic the value king? At least some cards had Windows acceleration AND great DOS performance.

I use a TIGA card which is pretty fast as it uses a dedicated DSP to emulate the WinGDI acceleration:
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/n9_gxitc_front.jpg

elianda wrote:

I use a TIGA card which is pretty fast as it uses a dedicated DSP to emulate the WinGDI acceleration:
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/n9_gxitc_front.jpg

oh man, obvious that card has too many chips, and we are talking about the usual single core solutions. 🤣

From Wikipedia:

In the early 1990s, Cirrus Logic was a supplier of low-cost PC graphics chips. Cirrus's Microsoft Windows 2D GUI accelerators (GDI) were among the fastest in the low-end market-segment, outperforming competing VGA-chips from Oak Technologies, Trident Microsystems, and Paradise (Western Digital). For example, the Cirrus GD5422 (1992) supported hardware acceleration for both 8-bit color and 16-bit color. It was one of the lowest-priced SVGA controllers to support both.

By the mid-1990s, when PC's had migrated to the PCI bus, Cirrus had fallen behind S3 and Trident Microsystems. When the announced release date of the GD5470 "Mondello" came and went, Cirrus's reputation in desktop PC-graphics suffered. (Mondello would have been the company's first 3D-accelerator, but instead became vaporware.)

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

From Wikipedia:

In the early 1990s, Cirrus Logic was a supplier of low-cost PC graphics chips. Cirrus's Microsoft Windows 2D GUI accelerators (GDI) were among the fastest in the low-end market-segment, outperforming competing VGA-chips from Oak Technologies, Trident Microsystems, and Paradise (Western Digital). For example, the Cirrus GD5422 (1992) supported hardware acceleration for both 8-bit color and 16-bit color. It was one of the lowest-priced SVGA controllers to support both.

By the mid-1990s, when PC's had migrated to the PCI bus, Cirrus had fallen behind S3 and Trident Microsystems. When the announced release date of the GD5470 "Mondello" came and went, Cirrus's reputation in desktop PC-graphics suffered. (Mondello would have been the company's first 3D-accelerator, but instead became vaporware.)

Yeah, but the fastest of the slowest is still slow. For what you pay for VL and ISA video cards today, Cirrus isn't a good value at all. Faster cards can be had for the same price if you look for deals.

Maybe the Matrox Impression Plus? It even had some 3D features.

I have a Cirrus Logic 5429 2MB on ISA and it performs quite good in W31/W95. Speed also depends on the CPU used. I've done some benchmarks awhile ago with Winbench 3.11. Tseng Labs ET4000/w32 also had Win GUI accelerator, but I only have an VLB board so I can't do a direct comparison. I also have a CL 5422 1MB but haven't benchmarked it yet.

386DX-40, CL5429 2MB ISA, Win 3.11:
VGA driver: 3.833.328
640x480/8bit: 10.663.156
640x480/16bit: 8.010.081

486DX2-66, CL5429 2MB ISA, Win 3.11:
VGA driver: 3.847.625
640x480/8bit: 24.619.976
640x480/16bit: 20.666.488
800x600/8bit: 21.861.948
800x600/16bit: 8.060.700

486DLC-40, ET4000/w32i 1MB VLB, Win 3.11:
VGA driver: 6.001.725
640x480/8bit: 16.794.357
640x480/16bit: 10.676.952

486DLC-40, CL5429 2MB ISA, Win 3.11:
VGA driver: 5.078.321
Missing 8 and 16-bit color mode because of the wrong drivers at the time. Didn't come around to do it again.

Edit:
Changed the Winbench 3.11 mirror to an anonymous FTP.

Do you have some link to Winbench that doesn't require a login? 😜

Googled it high and low... and finally found it here

Usually I also use the WinTach 1.0.

Ti486DLC-40, TigaTC driver Truecolor 2.01, 4+1 MB ISA, WfW 3.11
1280x1024/16Bit
Winbench: 1.379.809 pixels/sec
Wintach: RPM Overall 49.49 / D16
51.33 on a second run

Lowres 800x600/16bit for comparison
Winbench:

Wintach:

This score seems to be much lower compared to the higher resolution, which is a bit odd.

How about a PC Magazine ISA video card roundup from 1993!
http://books.google.com/books?id=eX8w8B-OhIIC … epage&q&f=false

S3 928 looks nice.

Could you guys upload any W3.1 benchmarks you find?

swaaye wrote:

How about a PC Magazine ISA video card roundup from 1993!
http://books.google.com/books?id=eX8w8B-OhIIC … epage&q&f=false

S3 928 looks nice.

the scores look pretty close... can win3.1 stress them to their limits? and what about win95?

You should better ask, what about Win NT or NT4, since 2D is implemented there much faster than in Win9x. Typically a factor of 5 to 10.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Could you guys upload any W3.1 benchmarks you find?

I've added some more to my posts in your benchmark thread (more WinBench versions), also versions of WinTune for 3.x and NT.

vetz wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Could you guys upload any W3.1 benchmarks you find?

I've added some more to my posts in your benchmark thread (more WinBench versions), also versions of WinTune for 3.x and NT.

Cool!

elianda wrote:

You should better ask, what about Win NT or NT4, since 2D is implemented there much faster than in Win9x. Typically a factor of 5 to 10.

This is an important point. Win 9x relies on the CPU more for rendering the UI. Thus, CPU performance is very influential over UI performance, meaning a 486 platform is a significant bottleneck and the graphics card acceleration can only help so much. You can see this even with fast processors like a K6-3 compared to a faster Pentium 3 or Athlon with the same video card.

Of course ISA is a performance problem as well.

I have installed Win95 OSR2.1 on 386DX-40, 32MB ram, 1GB CF and CL-5429 ISA. It actually runs quite smoothly - it loads quite fast and there is no slow window drawing. But this is kinda expected (CF card, 32MB ram and GUI accelerator helps a lot). I was thinking of making a video... but I don't have a dedicated video capture card, would have to use some camera.

elianda wrote on 2014-01-18, 12:15:

You should better ask, what about Win NT or NT4, since 2D is implemented there much faster than in Win9x. Typically a factor of 5 to 10.

Hi,
could someone provide a proof or at least a hint of this thesis ?

I’m really interested.
Thanks