In DOS only there is no difference between 1 or 2MB on w32i. In Windows with proper drivers difference is almost double in favour of 2MB.

Would I be better off with a similarly priced S3 805 with 2MB?

Honestly, the Cirrus Logic VLB cards that are all over ebay are just as fast and a lot less expensive. I've got a Genoa 8500VL myself.

I loved the 8500VL I had as well.

I might just do that then 😀 I guess the video quality is good on those cards? Do these CL chips support interleaving if I upgrade the card to 2MB?

Only the latest have memory interleaving - like GD-5434. S3 also later models.

To expand on kixs -- no. The VLB models are going to be a 5424, 5426 or 5428 more than likely. You can still upgrade to 2MB just for fun though. I did. Mine had the two memory sockets and I bought a bag of memory chips for cheap just to fill in the sockets on all my cards. 😀 Absolutely no difference in performance, but you do get extra resolutions/color depths.

I will be publishing soon a thread comparing VLB card performance.

Of the cards in the study, there is: -

CL 5434 - 4 MB
CL 5428 - 2 MB
Genoa 8900VL Tseng W32i - 2 MB
Hercules Tseng W32p -2 MB

There are another dozen or so cards tested... the thread will not be long now.

... and btw, the W32i in DOS is marginally slower than the W32p, both cards have 45ns DRAM.

386_junkie wrote:

I will be publishing soon a thread comparing VLB card performance. […]
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I will be publishing soon a thread comparing VLB card performance.

Of the cards in the study, there is: -

CL 5434 - 4 MB
CL 5428 - 2 MB
Genoa 8900VL Tseng W32i - 2 MB
Hercules Tseng W32p -2 MB

There are another dozen or so cards tested... the thread will not be long now.

... and btw, the W32i in DOS is marginally slower than the W32p, both cards have 45ns DRAM.

Now THAT sounds like something to look forward to. 😀

I'm also excited, as I'm just finishing my first VLB build and have a few to choose from.

Please announce the new post in this thread, 386_junkie, so I can follow it.

fitzpatr wrote:

Please announce the new post in this thread, 386_junkie, so I can follow it.

Ditto.

fitzpatr wrote:

Please announce the new post in this thread, 386_junkie, so I can follow it.

Sure, will do.

I hope this is not too much a spoiler... and I suppose this will be well known in anycase... but the three best performers out of every VLB card/chipset I've tried... and i've just about tried them all... would be a combination of: -

1) STB's lightspeed - Tseng W32p
2) Diamond Stealth - S3 968
3) Spider 64 - CL5434

I noted that there was small performance difference in Tseng W32p cards depending on how many memory chips were present... both have 2MB, though the Hercules card had 16 memory chips, the STB only had 8... and was slightly faster, definitely the best Tseng based card out there... and probably the best VLB card in DOS.

The Spider 64 was a notable surprise, I had no idea there even was a CL5434 VLB based card... unsurprisingly this was the best Cirrus Logic card I tried.

@386_junkie

Which benchmarks are you basing this on? Hopefully some combination of synthetics and game benches. If you're interested, the PCI DOS benchmarks link in my signature has some suggestions. I focus my results on actual games rather than synthetics. But I could see for a VLB test, some of these games might not be practical, even in VGA resolutions, due to being too demanding for a VLB-based system. Thanks again, looking forward to seeing your thread 😀

I've relied on PCPbench for many of them, all resolutions and up to 32bpp for those that can... DOOM in both Full View as well as with screen -1.

Still collecting Windows data... it's very time consuming.

I've benchmarked many top ISA and VLB cards in DOS and Windows with different resolutions and colour depth. Results are in Excel table. If there is interest I'll upload them. I'd upload them myself but I'm not completely satisfied. Would have to redo everything with all the cards I have - something I've planed on doing for a year or two now 🤣

kixs wrote:

I've benchmarked many top ISA and VLB cards in DOS and Windows with different resolutions and colour depth. Results are in Excel table. If there is interest I'll upload them. I'd upload them myself but I'm not completely satisfied. Would have to redo everything with all the cards I have - something I've planed on doing for a year or two now 🤣

Out of curiosity... could you PM me a copy?

Thanks