I'm also attaching the w95 driver from the Diamond/SPEA website.

I'd be replacing all 6 tantalum caps for a start, just to remove that possibility .

This kind of ghosting is interesting, because the ghost image appears before the normal image. So any nearly kind of issue that is caused by reflections of the analog video signal can be excluded. The cause of the ghosting needs to be able to "look into the future". The most likely reason is memory fetches! The ET4000 chip loads the image data into a FIFO on that chip some time before the data is sent to the DAC. It seems that loading the color black, that is "all bits zero" causes some drop in the card supply voltage that has an immediate effect on the picture, "bypassing" the FIFO. It is normal that transmitting "low" requires more power than transmitting "high" in TTL circuits.

So I agree that looking into the capacitors is a good idea. Instead of changing the tantalum caps, you can start with trying to add some 1µF multilayer ceramic SMD capacitors on the back side of the card between the pins of the tantalum caps (if you have such capacitors at hand). This is a quick and easy way to provide more capacitance.

I added six, 1 uF caps to the rear, but it didn't help.

I want to pull out one of my LCD's which has a native resolution of 1024x768 to see if my NEC and LG 1280x1024 LCD's are having trouble scaling/fitting non-native resolutions from this graphics card.

Does anyone know a win95 driver for the Stealth 32 which lets me adjust the refresh rates? I need to get the card to stop running interlaced mode at 1024x768.

Did you check on a CRT monitor?

Different refresh rates are likely not going to happen with ET4000 stuff in general, the chip lacks internal pixel clock generation and relies on an external source such as the ICdesigns PLL. The chip is not programmable from what I know and only produces few pixel clocks relevant to standards of the time and it is difficult to achieve variety of refresh rates with a fixed pixel clock while maintaining useful resolutions.

feipoa wrote on 2023-12-07, 10:45:

I added six, 1 uF caps to the rear, but it didn't help.

Too bad, so the issue clearly is not worn tantalum capacitors. Generally, I don't think tantalum wear as much as classic wet electrolytic caps, so I am not very surprised, but as adding these caps is quite easy, I considered it worth a shot. I still maintain the oppinion that these symptoms are somehow caused by current spikes at the white/black border. Looking at the mouse cursor picture in detail, it seems like a sharp black-to-white transition causes darkening of the "ghost" pixels, and a sharp white-to-black transition causes brightening of the "ghost" pixels.

After excluding bad filter caps, another cause for artifacts like this might be ground bounce. This means that the current from the RAM chips or the ET4000 chip to the computer case ground might shift the potential of the card ground referenced to protective earth ground. if the monitor has a three-prong mains cable, it also has its own ground connection. If the card ground level shifts around due to current spikes, the monitor ground might not be able to follow. This can cause misinterpretation of the analog video levels. Try a different (thicker) VGA cable, which might be able to transfer ground from the card to the monitor at less resistance. Also try applying contact cleaner (like DeoxIT) to the ISA & VL slot, as well as the AT power connector pins of your mainboard. Generally reducing ground resistance will lessen the amount of ground bounce.

kixs, I no longer own any CRT monitors.

mkarcher, when I pull my 1024x768 native LCD, I'll use my monster VGA cable.

Another possibility - could this graphics card be having issues with the particular motherboard (M919)? I haven't run into ghosting issues like this on any VLB or PCI graphics cards.

mkarcher, would you have time to see if there is a way to exclude interlaced modes from the VGA BIOS itself, for 1024x768x256c, 1024x768x65k, and 1280x1024x256c?

This is the thick VGA cable I started using for the additional tests:

Tested 1024x768x65k-60Hz on my 17" LCD, which has a native resolution of 1280x1024. However, it only made the ghosting [slightly] more obvious:

Next, I brought out my 15" LCD, which is native at 1024x768. This particular monitor actually can display 87 Hz interlaced mode without flickering, but of course, half the pixel rows are missing. This image is with Windows 95 at 1024x768x65k at 87 Hz interlaced:

Unfortunately, I cannot get my ET4000/w32p card running at 60 Hz at this 1024x768 in Win95. Not sure why. Anyone else have this problem?

However, I can get the card running at 1024x768x65k-60hz in WinNT4:

The dpi on my 15" monitor looks worse than on my 17" monitor, but I think this helps with the ghosting problem. Unless I'm looking really hard, I do not see the ghosting on this 15" LCD. Only a really keen eye can spot it if moving the mouse around on certain backgrounds, but even then, I could barely see it. I suspect running 1024x768 on a monitor with 1024x768 as its native resolution helps the situation. However, on both my LG and NEC 17" monitors, there exists ghosting/shadows when using the Diamond Stealth 32 VLB. I could reduce the severity by changing the phase, essentially blurring it out, but the text won't be as sharp.

Anyone else have an ET4000/w32p VLB card I can try the BIOS from? I'm hoping to run 1024x768x65k at 56 or 60 Hz and figure out why 1280x1024x256c won't display.

I was considering transplanting the RAMDACs with various PLCC68 models to see if it helps at all with the issues of:
a) ghosting
b) inability to run 1024x768x65k non-interlaced in w95

I may also try the RAMDACs on the ATI Mach 64 DRAM VLB.

Why do you think both of these graphics cards didn't use PLCC68 RAMDACs, yet provided the pads?

feipoa wrote on 2023-12-06, 22:11:

Does anyone know what could be causing these ghosting issues on a Diamond Stealth 32 VLB, which is based on the ET4000/W32P chip […]
Show full quote

Does anyone know what could be causing these ghosting issues on a Diamond Stealth 32 VLB, which is based on the ET4000/W32P chip? You will probably need to view the full-size version of the second ghosting images to see the issue.

Ghosting_1.JPG
Ghosting_2.JPG
Diamond_Stealth_32_VLB_1.jpg
Diamond_Stealth_32_VLB_2.jpg

Attached also is the VGA BIOS v1.15.
Diamond_Stealth_32_VLB_ET4000W32P_VGABIOS_v2.15.zip

A secondary problem I am having is that the card is being forced to run in interlaced mode at 1024x768x65k when using Windows 95. I tried the Diamond supplied driver, the drivers from Windows 95, and the DirectX6.1 updated drivers. I have no control over the refresh rate ("Optimal" or "Adaptor Default"). Even at 1024x768x256c, it is wanting to run in interlaced mode. 800x600x65k runs fine at 60 Hz, however.

This card should be able to do 1024x768x65k at 60 Hz. If I boot into Windows NT 4.0 and use the NT supplied ET4000W32P driver, I can run 1024x768x65k 60 Hz without issue. Does anyone know how to get Windows 95 to cooperate at 60 Hz, 1024x768x65k?

Should this card be able to do 1280x1024x256c at 60 Hz? In both, w95 and nt4, if I try to run this resolution, the screen goes blank.

Much appreciated.

I have a VLB STB Lightspeed card with 2MB RAM based on ET4000/W32P.
Under Windows 98SE i had also the problem that higher resolutions were interlaced, so no picture on my TFT.
But on my SV2GX4 board, I have to use Synchronize Mode, Transparent did not work, hanging directly after the post.
The card was clearly slower than the Ark 1000 in all DOS benchmarks. So I lost interest and stopped searching for drivers for the W32p card.

Notice how both your card and my card has the STG1702J-13Z RAMDAC. However, seems odd that NT4 will work with 1024x768x65k at 60 Hz.

Get the Diamond drivers. They should work fine at 1024x768 NI.

I can check my card for BIOS version.

kixs wrote on 2023-12-11, 00:19:

Get the Diamond drivers. They should work fine at 1024x768 NI.

I can check my card for BIOS version.

I supplied the Diamond drivers here: Re: Help needed with ghosting on Diamond Stealth 32 VLB - ET4000/W32P

Maybe you have another Diamond driver version which will work at 1024x768, 60 Hz in w95?

No idea. I had some other card from Diamond (Stealth64?) that would do NI only with Diamond drivers. With Win95 standard drivers it would only do IN at 1024x768.

I tried using a few PLCC68 RAMDACs, the STG1703J-13 and CH8398 on this card, but screen stays blank at power-on.

Anyone have a VGA BIOS which might work with these RAMDAC's and the ET4000/W32P ?

Alternately, anyone know how to modify the existing VGA BIOS to support 16-bit RAMDACs, instead of 8-bit, RAMDACs? The Diamond Stealth 32 VLB BIOS v2.15 was attached previously in the original post.

My goal is to at least get 1024x768x65K or 1280x1024x256c out of this card, at 60 Hz. I know the Chrontel CH8398 can do 60Hz, 1024x768x65k and 1280x1024x256c with Mach64 cards.