How does it look in BIOS and other GUI's?

edit: It has socketed RAM chips (only 2 of the 4 though), you 'could' opt to remove the 2 socketed ones and see how things look?

This is very strange. Has it got something to do with this ? Does it need a special monitor... ?

Rocco's ebay ad:

Photon Torpedo 564-64
Video Graphics Card
16-bit ISA Card
Based on the Cirrus CL-GD5434-QC-D chip

2048K 2MB Video RAM
(four Toshiba TC514260BJ-70 256x16chips, two of which are in sockets)

This is a very special low-frequency card,
do not buy this unless you know what it is.
Single-Frequency, running off of a 14.31818 crystal
Supports Fixed Frequency monitors from 60-65 KHz

also:

http://www.devo.com/video/manufacturers.html
("sync on green" feature)

By the looks of it, it does seem like something is hacked on the green channel.

I assume it adds "sync-on-green" feature to drive some special sync-on-green only monitors that have no separate HSync/VSync pins like normal VGA monitors have.
It adds DC offset to green channel so it can be taken to 0V during sync, but the DC offset is seen as green with a monitor that does not support it.

Or actually, since your monitor sees the real HSYNC and VSYNC signals, it will most likely just use them and assume there is no Sync-On-Green (SOG) added to green so it does not remove the green offset.
Your monitor may or may not support sync-on-green but you would have to disconnect the HSYNC and VSYNC pins to find out.

If I were to remove those 5 extra soldered-on components and use the Diamond Speedstar64 BIOS that this card will work like a normal Cirrus Logic GD-5434-based card? What else might I need to modify on the card?

The Photon Torpedo card works beautifully after removing the extra components from the PCB and using the Diamond Speedstar64 BIOS. The Photon Torpedo card is, infact, clearer than the Diamond card. I tested both cards using the Win3.11 drivers up to 1280x1024x256c.

Attached is an image from 3dbench with the Torpedo vs. Speedstar card. Why does the Speedstar card have these faint shadow-like lines whereas the Torpedo card is blemish free? Is there any way to make the Speedstar card as clear as the Torpedo? Please click image for larger view to see what I am refering to.

Note that the Photon Torpedo uses Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434-QC-D, whereas the Diamond Speedstar64 uses CL-GD5434-J-QC-F.

The green color is almost certainly from the added "sync-on-green" circuit and using a standard monitor. The card was likely modified to use an old Sun/HP/etc. workstation monitor, many of which only take the sync signal from the green channel. Early Macintosh monitors (mostly made by Sony) used sync-on-green as well.

Good job de-modifying it, feipoa. 😀

Stiletto wrote:

Good job de-modifying it, feipoa. 😀

Only problem now is that it made my Diamond Speedstar64 look like junk in comparison.