I've had very good experiences with the S3 Trio lineup. They seem to be able to provide a very clear and sharp image (that even rivals more modern cards in some ways). Since you are looking for 1995 and earlier, I would also recommend the S3 ViRGE cards. While their 3D capabilities are not that great, their 2D is as good as, or even better than, the Trio64 cards. I've also come across a lot more ViRGE cards than Trio64's, so i don't feel finding one should not be much of an issue.

Either way, drivers for both can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170927051458/ht … re_archive.aspx

1995 2D and FMV/CD-ROM games in pure MS-DOS 6.22

So Pentium ~120MHz. Anything will do, speed differences in 2D are minimal, good brand (Diamond etc) S3, Matrox or ATI will work just fine.

TheMLGladiator wrote:

I've had very good experiences with the S3 Trio lineup. They seem to be able to provide a very clear and sharp image (that even rivals more modern cards in some ways).

S3 didnt make cards, one hung low ROC(Taiwan)/HK/Malaysia/Philippines manufacturers did, and they didnt really care one bit about quality, they cared about precious 0.1 cents saved by omitting filter elements and bypass caps. Picture quality is a crapshoot between off brands.

TheMLGladiator wrote:

I would also recommend the S3 ViRGE cards. While their 3D capabilities are not that great, their 2D is as good as, or even better than, the Trio64 cards.

both use same 2d core, Virge 3D decellerator core is pointless unless you are a fan of 15fps gaming.

The cool thing about MS-DOS is it's nothing to swap graphics cards to benchmark. No driver hell. You can check the link in my signature where I tested many PCI cards in DOS. I agree that the performance differences aren't that great (usually) so go for compatibility. As you can see in my benchmarks, the ARK2000 was probably the fastest DOS card in 1995, but not as compatible as S3. I never liked the Millennium for DOS. Too many quirks.

FWIW, I owned a 968 back in the day, and it wasn't as fast in DOS as the DRAM-based S3's, but it had better Windows GUI acceleration. If you're sticking to a pure DOS system, you're batter off with other S3 options like the Trio64V+.

Thanks all for these replies!

Thanks @TheMLGladiator for the drivers link. Thanks rasz_pl for thoughts - I plan to get a Diamond branded S3 Trio64V+.

@clueless1: really appreciate the callout on 968 vs Trio64V+, it's exactly the decision I was puzzling over. 😎

Will let you guys know how the build turns out.

S3 MASTER RACE

HenWen wrote:

I plan to get a Diamond branded S3 Trio64V+.

Yes, I would definitely go for an on-brand S3 card, as @rasz_pl does have a fair point about the off-brand ones.