Even with a recognized brand, S3 chips can be hit-or-miss. I've had the best luck with LeadTek/WinFast (should be on the cheaper side), AOpen, and STB. Diamond has been some good, some bad. I define bad as suffering from the black level bug, which there are workarounds documented here. Otherwise, any s3 should just work - they are reliable workhorses. Since they are all basically fine, I start looking at how much onboard VRAM is present and how fast is it rated.

Hello.

One brand worth looking is Cardex, which was from Gainward. No-name cards usually tend to have lower memory clock speed and/or mediocre image quality.

Also worth looking are the S3 ViRGE cards, having good DOS compatibility like the Trio64 line. The best one I have used is the Compaq ViRGE/GX which has high quality components and doesn't have the brightness bug, see if you can find it at a lower price.

ASUS had decent S3 cards.

Meatball wrote on 2023-01-14, 01:02:

Even with a recognized brand, S3 chips can be hit-or-miss. I've had the best luck with LeadTek/WinFast (should be on the cheaper side), AOpen, and STB. Diamond has been some good, some bad. I define bad as suffering from the black level bug, which there are workarounds documented here. Otherwise, any s3 should just work - they are reliable workhorses. Since they are all basically fine, I start looking at how much onboard VRAM is present and how fast is it rated.

I've been trying to look at ones with the socketed memory already filled, although I have found an odd one which has all the memory socketed, seemingly you can just change it all to the same type. None are soldered.

Thanks again, maybe I'll make a gamble and see what happens if even the recognised are hit and miss. I'll keep a look out for the ones you've mentioned though.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-14, 01:13:

Hello.

One brand worth looking is Cardex, which was from Gainward. No-name cards usually tend to have lower memory clock speed and/or mediocre image quality.

Also worth looking are the S3 ViRGE cards, having good DOS compatibility like the Trio64 line. The best one I have used is the Compaq ViRGE/GX which has high quality components and doesn't have the brightness bug, see if you can find it at a lower price.

I have looked at Virge cards but most are DX, there was one GX but was in rather poor condition (corrosion). The Trio's tend to cost less here, but I'll keep them in mind if I don't find a sufficient one. Thanks ^^

If you'd like more s3 information, you'll find the reviews by Putas (seen floating around this forum from time to time) particularly helpful and an enjoyable read:

https://vintage3d.org/

And here's some valuable work for the 2D side of things by arncht:

Fastest video card for DOS, Socket 3 VLB / Socket 5 / Socket 7 / Slot 1 FPS comparison