I have a Tseng ET6000 PCI video card with 12mb ram. I have read these are one of the best video cards for a dos box, but mind is the PCI version.
I can get a 486 mobo with PCI slots, but wonder about the compatibility versus an ISA or VESA card.
I've got a Fujitsu with PCI bus and a Tseng ET4000 in motherboard. It is compatible with any thing I've thrown at it.
I have traveled across the universe and through the years to find Her.
Sometimes going all the way is just a start...
shouldn't matter. PCI or VESA.
no game uses the bus directly. (mabye something like win95) but no games. (the latest univbe uses the pci bus for detection though)
Water flows down the stream
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The ET6000 in my 486 box performs well with most programs. It is a dream for newer DOS-based games, because it supports VESA 2.0 LFB in BIOS (no UniVBE needed).
Some games and scene demos (usually stuff that tries funny VGA tweaks) display strange artifacts or do not run at all. For those special cases I have to use a standard ET4000 ISA card.
I haven't found out what causes these problems. Maybe it's a PCI timing problem (although other PCI cards work well), or it's because of the special MDRAM on the ET6000.
So, I think a good rule of thumb is if you are building a 386 class machine, look for an ISA Tseng ET4000 and if you are building a 486/early Pentium a Tseng ET6000 would serve you very well.
PCI:
ET6000/6100
Matrox Millenium/Mystique/Mystique220/MilleniumII
3dfx Banshee or Voodoo3 (wicked DOS and Windows speed)
AGP:
Matrox MilleniumII/G200/G400
3dfx Banshee or Voodoo3
maybe NV cards, but stay away from ATI (bad VESA).
Personally I am amazed at how fast 3dfx's 2D core is. When you boot up into 98 without video drivers installed you'd have a hard time telling by speed alone! I'm playing WC3 with a Voodoo3 right now and it's fast and works flawlessly.
So an AGP card should work with fine even with older DOS games like Ultima Underworld 2?
Yes. I played all sorts of DOS games under pure DOS and Win98SE with an AGP TNT1 and Geforce2MX.
