I'm guessing you will want to look at this thread (VESA Fix Utility Listing (for old video cards)), but it seem like the most popular utility supports nearly every vintage graphics chipset.

Since you have already ruled out 3dfx due to price, I would take a look at this thread (3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)) which shows what games can be patched to support 3d acceleration from other vintage graphics cards.

Also I like to read this site (http://vintage3d.org/index.php) which compares many of the early 3d accelerators.

S3 Virge seems to dominate the cheap pci videocard market, which doesn't make it a bad choice given how universally supported it is. If I were in your shoes I might choose something more unique - like SIS 6326.

S3 Trio64 is a perfect fit. Stay away from the S3 Virge if you already own a Trio64. The Virge uses the same 2d core, but has brightness issues.

Make sure you load S3VBE20 in your autoexec.bat to get full VESA 2.0 support.

This is my goto for dos video cards
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS

Oh wow thanks man to everyone thats great I will be reading and researching for a while with all this and I thought Vesa was just hardware based

Cirrus Logic GD5446 based cards are excellent and quite inexpensive as well.

derSammler wrote:

S3 Trio64 is a perfect fit. Stay away from the S3 Virge if you already own a Trio64. The Virge uses the same 2d core, but has brightness issues.

The brightness issues occur mainly on S3 Virge (and Trio64V+/V2) cards from generic/no-name manufacturers, Virge/Trio cards from known name brand manufacturers (e.g. STB, Diamond, Number Nine) are fine. Of course, if S3D acceleration is of little to no importance to you, there's probably no point in going for a Virge over a Trio.

Should I be guilty for having to replace a dead S3 Trio64V2/DX with a name-brand S3 Virge card? I would've gotten a Trio64 of some sort but they're stupidly expensive on eBay right now and IDK if the Trio64V+ will work with Windows NT 3.51. 😒

I own five S3 Virge cards, all from different brands, and they all have the brightness issue (even the high-quality STB Virge/VX). I think that's by design and it occurs on modern flat-screen displays only. CRTs are not affected due to their analogue nature - but who is using those these days..?

Also, the picture is not as clear as with a Trio32/64, which is caused by interferences from the additional 3d part of the Virge chip. That doesn't mean the Virge is any bad, it's still a very good choice. But if S3d is of no importance and you can use a Trio64 instead, I would always opt for the Trio64.

Wait for the NVIDIA 1100 series. Should come out in a few months.

The Tseng ET6000 should work well.

chinny22 wrote:

This is my goto for dos video cards
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS

I have one of those Macronix MX68200FC cards and can say they are not only very, very compatible but also very fast.

derSammler wrote:

I own five S3 Virge cards, all from different brands, and they all have the brightness issue (even the high-quality STB Virge/VX). I think that's by design and it occurs on modern flat-screen displays only. CRTs are not affected due to their analogue nature - but who is using those these days..?

Also, the picture is not as clear as with a Trio32/64, which is caused by interferences from the additional 3d part of the Virge chip. That doesn't mean the Virge is any bad, it's still a very good choice. But if S3d is of no importance and you can use a Trio64 instead, I would always opt for the Trio64.

My Diamand Multimedia S3 Virge-DX card didn't have brightness problems on my LCD screens.

http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/news/item … pro-s3-virge-dx

However, I own a couple of cheap generic S3 Trio3D AGP cards that do exhibit the brightness problem. They look pretty horrible, and will only be used to remind myself that they are horrible 😀