I had problems with my ARK cards that VSync in VESA modes was not detected and then you get shifted half images when turning in a 3D shooter f.e.
This may also give wrong scores.

A little addendum to this post, I was messing around with my socket 7 machine again - trying a VGA card I found at the tip (Weitek Power 9100, sloooowww) - and I decided to re-try the my G220 Matrox card while I was at it. And although 3dbench2 (1.0c) is telling me that the Matrox card is not as fast as the Ark Logic by about 10 points, the frame rate is noticeably higher in SVGA mode (Duke3D, Shadow Warrior, etc) when using the Matrox.

So I guess this means that my method for testing a 2D card in DOS is flawed. I know that 3dbench2 is just a VGA test, but I'd assumed that a high score in VGA translates to a high score in SVGA too.

What would be a better tool than 3dbench2 to test SVGA capability?

You can not translate the scores for different modes. This depends if some memory access mapping by the graphics chip takes place or not. This means that in some modes the memory map you see from software side is not identical with the real memory map in the graphics cards RAM. This problem was reduced with the VESA 2.0 linear framebuffer feature. The classic SVGA 640x480x256 colors mode f.e. is accessed through 64 kB windows at A000:0000.
So in comparison to 320x200 which fits within the 64 kB you have additional BIOS calls in between to switch the mapped graphics RAM window.

In the other ISA card thread I used vidspeed 4.0 which basically measured CPU<->Graphics card fill rate in different modes. It does not take into account the BIOS calls for window switching in SVGA though.
This tool can also be used for PCI/AGP cards.

I have a Hercules Stingray 64, using this chipset but the image quality is no match to the STB Lightspeed 128 using the ET6000. At least in Lotus 3.

I've wondered this before - is it the chipset alone which determines the actual image quality, or is there some other factor?

I have 2 cards with the same ARK chipset - they get the same score in 3dbench2, but one looks good, the other kinda crappy. Same goes for the various Cirrus Logic VLB cards I have - all the same chipset, but they vary widely in image quality.

Does the DAC have something to do with it?

Of course the DAC is important for the image quality (sharpness), but even more important are capacitors which are there to reduce RF emissions (high frequencies).
Since a sharp image needs high frequencies using capacitors may make the image blurry. Several years ago before DVI was standard I read that people modded their video cards by removing or changing those capacitors to get a sharper image.

A short Google search for this give these pages among the first hits:
http://web.tiscalinet.it/creeping_death/guide/aamodifica.htm
http://home.arcor.de/frogge/pepper/video/vidreport1.html

idspispopd wrote:

Of course the DAC is important for the image quality (sharpness), but even more important are capacitors which are there to redu […]
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Of course the DAC is important for the image quality (sharpness), but even more important are capacitors which are there to reduce RF emissions (high frequencies).
Since a sharp image needs high frequencies using capacitors may make the image blurry. Several years ago before DVI was standard I read that people modded their video cards by removing or changing those capacitors to get a sharper image.

A short Google search for this give these pages among the first hits:
http://web.tiscalinet.it/creeping_death/guide/aamodifica.htm
http://home.arcor.de/frogge/pepper/video/vidreport1.html

I saw a web page once (I can't find the damn link now) where someone cut a section off of a dead Matrox card and wired it to a GeForce 2 to improve the image quality because the parts Matrox used were better than nVidias. He completely bypassed nVidias parts and ran the signal through the piece of the Matrox board and then back to the outputs of the GeForce 2.

just got this card, will be running it through it's paces later today along with a ATi Mach64 Wincharger & Matrox Mystique 220 4MB.

Why is this thread in the Emulation forum?

Marvin'd. 😁

I also have a ark logic 2000 based 2mb videocard. Don't know the brand. Have to look that up.

I also have Legend64 ARK2000MT ICS5342 card. Pretty good one.

Also saw Legend128 Card, which was very fast, but can not find any info about it anymore

The ARK2000PV is a pretty incredible card considering its 1995 release. In my tests, the only PCI card that beats it in DOS speed is the 1999 TNT2 M64, and even then, just barely, and only in some benchmarks. It seems to be a pretty rare card too, based on lack of availability on ebay.

Hey guys a quick google search led me here after finding an Ark Logic 2000MI+ on the floor of my garage tonight. Amazingly it works despite having lost it's eprom sticker who even knows how many years ago.. I couldn't quite remember why I owned this card.. as my card of choice in these times was an ET6000, but I did have one of the fastest PC in the benchmarking/overclocking world during this time so I usually only owned fast cards. The only cards that are in my garage as of now as are an voodoo 1, voodoo 2, voodoo 3, ET4000, ET6000 and this Ark 2000.. I had a Diamond Stealth? at some stage but I loaned it to a friend long ago and never saw that again, I remember that being decent. The main reason I was loving the ET6000 was for the text it gave which was very nice and it was also fast. Anyway, interesting reading and some memories 😀. Was nice to see I still have a gravis ultrasound out there in a box too.

Awesome card for its era but sadly the picture is kinda blurry - at least on the Hercules Stingray 64.

elfoam wrote:

Hey guys a quick google search led me here after finding an Ark Logic 2000MI+ on the floor of my garage tonight. Amazingly it works despite having lost it's eprom sticker who even knows how many years ago.. I couldn't quite remember why I owned this card.. as my card of choice in these times was an ET6000, but I did have one of the fastest PC in the benchmarking/overclocking world during this time so I usually only owned fast cards. The only cards that are in my garage as of now as are an voodoo 1, voodoo 2, voodoo 3, ET4000, ET6000 and this Ark 2000.. I had a Diamond Stealth? at some stage but I loaned it to a friend long ago and never saw that again, I remember that being decent. The main reason I was loving the ET6000 was for the text it gave which was very nice and it was also fast. Anyway, interesting reading and some memories 😀. Was nice to see I still have a gravis ultrasound out there in a box too.

so much blabla 😵

frankmonk wrote:

so much blabla 😵

Wanna take another shot at that reply, chief?