Diamond Speedstar 24X is what I ended up using in my 286: Re: It's 286 time!

Use a 16bit VGA card. No sense using a 8bit for a 286 and if you don't have an EGA monitor then do not consider a EGA card.
If a 12Mhz or better 286 a good 512k or 1Mb Oak based one would be best.... just my opinion.

Most popular were probably Trident series (TVGA8900 and TVGA9000). If you want powerfull Trident - look for 8900D (8900B and C, 9000B,C,D and "i" are slow).
TVGA8900CL is probably OK.

Back in the 1990s I used an Orchid Kelvin 64 ISA with 2MB, I still have one that I last used to test the SIV ISA GPU reporting.

I also recall there was an Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 and just found some benchmarks

ET4000 cards were quite popular those days. Some of them can be switched in CGA/EGA emulation modes where they are (mostly) register-level compatible to those cards. If there is a chip labeled "SYNC ROM", this is definitely the case - that ROM contains translation table from CGA or EGA values to VGA values for CRTC programming. Also, most ET4000 cards use the 0WS signal on the ISA bus to shorten their bus cycles to the shortest time possible as often as possible, and generally outperform the 286.

On the other hand ET4000 cards do not provide any Windows accelleration (it's the same with the OAK or Trident cards recommended in this thread). Also ET4000 cards are so well known as being "ISA top performers" (which they are) that the current demand for them makes the prices go insane. There are other cards that perform equally well, but are not that well known, and did not rise up in price that much. The Trident 8900D is one example, although it's quite rare. I repeat: the "D" is important, as the other Tridents are meh to bad. They still were OK back in the days on bang for the buck, but only because they were so low on bucks. My experience with Oak-based cards is mixed, and I have yet to see one that rivals an ET4000 based card, although I recently found that "my favorite OTI-077 card" (a quite rare variant that sports a DAC with programmable clock synthesizer instead of the usual 8 fixed clocks) has acceptable ISA performance that's likely indistinguishable from ET4000 performance in an AT-class computer.

Most popular were Tridents, as they were cheap.
Indeed, they aren't great, nevertheless I consider them the perfect match for a 286 - totally period-correct, and very good CGA/Hercules compatibility.

The most powerful would be ATI Mach64 with 4 MB of RAM, or some TIGA graphics coprocessors - but to make full use of them, you would need 386+ software.

Hamby wrote on 2022-11-03, 00:23:

I just got a 286 in an AT-clone case; it doesn't have a vga card, and I was debating between sticking my Oak SVGA card, or my Vega Video 7 8 bit VGA card in it.

Then I thought that maybe I could get a better or more appropriate SVGA card for it.

Unless you have a specific use-case in mind, there isn't much point to putting an SVGA card into a 286 system.

For a 286, I would just go with a 16-bit VGA card with 256kb or maybe 512kb of RAM. Cards based on Cirrus Logic, AVGA or something similar will suffice.

Putting a powerful SVGA card into a 286 will most likely be a waste. To really take advantage of it, you'd need at least a 386 system (or beyond).

Speaking of Tseng ET4000....
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185346517979?hash=it … iUAAOSw8KRiMdV6

Ebay claims this is ISA... but it looks weird to me.

edited never mind

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-04, 21:48:

Pinout looks odd. There is a pin missing compared to normal VGA.

Not odd, just the original VGA pinout where pin 9 is the key = absent.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-04, 21:48:

Hamby wrote on 2022-11-04, 21:16:

Speaking of Tseng ET4000....
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185346517979?hash=it … iUAAOSw8KRiMdV6

Ebay claims this is ISA... but it looks weird to me.

Pinout looks odd. There is a pin missing compared to normal VGA.

Looks fine to me. The unconnected pins don't seem to be important for VGA operation. The pattern of connected and unused bus connecteor pads perfectly matches what I would expect from an ISA card. A tell-tale sign of ISA is GND at B1/B31 with +5V and B3/B29. having fat traces at the first, the third, the third-to-last and the last pin on the soldering side is a good indicator for ISA.

mkarcher wrote on 2022-11-04, 22:41:

Looks fine to me. The unconnected pins don't seem to be important for VGA operation.

True. I was thinking in terms of modern VGA cables which have the extra pin on the connector.

Although I suppose on an older CRT screen that wouldn't be an issue.

mkarcher wrote on 2022-11-04, 22:41:

Looks fine to me. The unconnected pins don't seem to be important for VGA operation. The pattern of connected and unused bus connecteor pads perfectly matches what I would expect from an ISA card. A tell-tale sign of ISA is GND at B1/B31 with +5V and B3/B29. having fat traces at the first, the third, the third-to-last and the last pin on the soldering side is a good indicator for ISA.

That's good to know.

I was thinking in terms of modern VGA cables that have the extra pin as part of the typical connector. But for older CRT screens w/ built-in cables, they do seem to have 1 or more pins absent.

So I guess it all comes down to what sort of screen one is connecting it to.