I found that with my S3 968 4 MB card that I had to use Synchronise, as opposed to transparent, for Windows 95 to run reliably, however, I think transparent was OK in DOS. I'd have to dig up my old post to be certain of this though. I am also using the Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 rev 2.1, though I am running it with a 40 MHz FSB, Am5x86-160 MHz, L1: Write-back, and 1024K cache. The Mach64, VLB, on the other hand, will run with transparent on the exact same hardware and configuration.

The issue at me: it does not freeze, just lags for a while at the hdd activity, that happens often at the booting. I found, it is a problem with the 2.1 mainboard, intel dx4 and faster vlb card combination when i switch on the transparent mode.

I did a lot of tests with various hws, first i thought the transparent vlb problem is related with the wb cpu, but no issues with the 5x86, and it also wrong with the dx4 in wt mode. it has problem just with the faster video cards, with the slower 805 and cirrus looks ok. if i replace the mainboard (i have the 2.0 and the 1.2) with older bios, it works again with the faster cards too. So for me the bios version is the first suspect.

I did not plan to burn the final bios, i want to keep the original condition of the mainboard.

Lucky Star 486 VL3 CACHE (MV035E) Opti 82C895A added
Trident TGUI9440 2M VLB added

both was a cheap solution in the past, but they performed well.

Looking at the results we can say that there is roughly 10% difference in performance between the low-end (Cirrus) and high-end cards (Ark). If it's true, then I would say that all these "high end" VLB cards are extremely overpriced and Cirrus & Co is the best bang for the buck for someone looking for a decent VLB system. Like me 😀

yes of course... the output quality also matters, but it can be different at every cards. eg the one of the best image quality belongs to a low end s3 805p. the genoa 864 and the hercules et4000 is also very good. the trident is crappy.

irhatod magyarul is 😁

My Diamond-based S3 Vision 968 looks pretty darn good at 1280x1024 in Windows. Its no Matrox G200, but then, no VLB graphics card looks that good.

My first time seeing this thread, great benchmarking comparisons.

I find it a little sad that the clear fastest DOS card is a 1mb card, although I guess 800x600x64k was still acceptable for Win3.11 at the time. I probably still would have went for a 2mb card even if I had been aware of this information in 1993.

BinaryDemon wrote:

My first time seeing this thread, great benchmarking comparisons.

I find it a little sad that the clear fastest DOS card is a 1mb card, although I guess 800x600x64k was still acceptable for Win3.11 at the time. I probably still would have went for a 2mb card even if I had been aware of this information in 1993.

The ARK1000VL is generally the fastest VLB card in DOS and the S3 968 the fastest VLB card in Windows.

the cache size matters 😀

Mainboard speed index:
101,74% Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 rev 2.1 SiS 85C471 (WB mode, fastest BIOS settings but sync VLB mode) => transparent mode freezes with the Intel DX4 (BIOS bug?), AMD 5x86 passed
103,29% MSI MS:4138 rev 1.3 SiS 85C471 (WT mode, fastest BIOS settings)
105,23% Lucky Star 486 VL3 CACHE Opti 82C895A (WT mode, fastest BIOS settings)
105,37% Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 rev 2.0 SiS 85C471 (WT mode, fastest BIOS settings)
106,23% Asus VL/I-486SVGOX4 rev 1.2 SiS 85C471 (WT mode, fastest BIOS settings)
111,21% Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 rev 2.0 SiS 85C471 (WT mode, fastest BIOS settings, 512k 15ns cache)

arncht wrote:

101,74% Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 rev 2.1 SiS 85C471 (WB mode, fastest BIOS settings but sync VLB mode) => transparent mode freezes with the Intel DX4 (BIOS bug?), AMD 5x86 passed

I recall similar issues which I also think was CPU-dependent. w/Am5x86, Mach64 worked with transparent, while S3 968 needed syncyronise.

feipoa wrote:

BinaryDemon wrote:

My first time seeing this thread, great benchmarking comparisons.

I find it a little sad that the clear fastest DOS card is a 1mb card, although I guess 800x600x64k was still acceptable for Win3.11 at the time. I probably still would have went for a 2mb card even if I had been aware of this information in 1993.

The ARK1000VL is generally the fastest VLB card in DOS and the S3 968 the fastest VLB card in Windows.

On the other hand, the ARK1000VL is basically crap in Windows, while the S3 968 still gives 90-95% of the performance of the best VLB DOS card. The 968 is clearly the better choice for mixed platform use.

I believe some of the S3 cards also have jumpers to disabled the VGA core, so in theory you could chain an ARK1000 to a 968 and have the best of both worlds.

The Trio64 VLB is also a nice blend, though limited to 2 MB. The S3 968 goes to 4 MB. This is a non-issue for most users though.

feipoa wrote:

arncht wrote:

101,74% Asus VL/I-486SV2GX4 rev 2.1 SiS 85C471 (WB mode, fastest BIOS settings but sync VLB mode) => transparent mode freezes with the Intel DX4 (BIOS bug?), AMD 5x86 passed

I recall similar issues which I also think was CPU-dependent. w/Am5x86, Mach64 worked with transparent, while S3 968 needed syncyronise.

Read back a little bit, we talked about it 😀 it is an issue of the bios-idx4-fast vlb card combo.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

feipoa wrote:

BinaryDemon wrote:

My first time seeing this thread, great benchmarking comparisons.

I find it a little sad that the clear fastest DOS card is a 1mb card, although I guess 800x600x64k was still acceptable for Win3.11 at the time. I probably still would have went for a 2mb card even if I had been aware of this information in 1993.

The ARK1000VL is generally the fastest VLB card in DOS and the S3 968 the fastest VLB card in Windows.

On the other hand, the ARK1000VL is basically crap in Windows, while the S3 968 still gives 90-95% of the performance of the best VLB DOS card. The 968 is clearly the better choice for mixed platform use.

I believe some of the S3 cards also have jumpers to disabled the VGA core, so in theory you could chain an ARK1000 to a 968 and have the best of both worlds.

If you use win 😀 the 486 is for me until 1994 and a little bit 1995, and i prefer the period correct way. Later it is too slow, and the windows was horrible until win98 - i changed from dos just around 97-98.

The output quality is more important, and this is the reason i prefer the genoa and the hercules.

i started to test cpus:

CPU (default settings):
99,40% Intel OverDrive DX4 100
99,54% Intel DX4 100
100,00% Intel DX4 100 WB
103,23% Cyrix 5x86 100
108,07% Cyrix 5x86 120
112,70% AMD 5x86 133

CPU (fastest settings):
144,36% AMD 5x86 133 @ 160/40

If you use win 😀 the 486 is for me until 1994 and a little bit 1995, and i prefer the period correct way. Later it is too slow, and the windows was horrible until win98 - i changed from dos just around 97-98.

I must have missed the memo that Windows stopped being horrible at some point. Windows 98 is definitely on my list of horrible versions of Windows.
Windows 3.x was far from good, but at least it was somewhat entertaining.

yep, but you dont have an alternative for gaming (directx), working, media. before that the dos was a better alternative for a multimedia computer, the win3 never was a gaming platform.

I find Windows 98SE a lot more stable and reliable on my 486 hardware compared to Win95b/c. Using Windows 3.11 and 3.5 has the look which brings back that pre-1995 nostalgia. I think gaming on Windows 3.1 was mostly DOS-based.

new cpus added:

CPU ranking (default settings):
40,77% Intel 486DX 33
57,84% Intel 486DX 50
99,40% Intel OverDrive DX4 100
99,54% Intel DX4 100
100,00% Intel DX4 100 WB
103,23% Cyrix 5x86 100
108,07% Cyrix 5x86 120
112,70% AMD 5x86 133

CPU ranking (fastest settings, overclock):
130,37% Cyrix 5x86 120
144,36% AMD 5x86 133 @ 160/40

Are you using the optimal register settings for the Cyrix 5x86?