Tseng ET6000 ?

EDIT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_5suEoXTc8

My Pentium had a CL GD5446 graphics card... that was only 2D + video acceleration

IMO any 486 class cpu is going to be too slow for a real 3d card. A good 2D card makes more sense.

Even a Pentium 133 is on the slow side for a 3d card, although if I was going to try- maybe a voodoo1. Maybe ATI Rage3D/XL.

For 2D -“best” is going to be most compatible with dos and offer windows acceleration, and enough vram for your favorite windows resolution/color depth.

I would think any of the early PCI cards would adequate, s3 Trio /Virge are pretty popular although image quality can be hit or miss.

So, penitum below 133 is P54C the ones for socket 5 (released late 94). Am5x86-P75 was released late 95. So we are looking for a graphics card not later than 1995.
All I mention below refers to DOS games. I don't know how it is in Windows 95. Theese are cards I used myself and I can say something about.

Tseng ET6000 - different sources give different dates, I found that it was annouced in 1995
- This is one of the fastest DOS graphic cards with a good quality. It has some compatibility issues with some games with scrolling screen (like commander keen or jazz jackrabbit)

Ark Logic 2000 (MT / PV) - also 1995.
- Due to my benchmarks it is even faster in Doom than Tseng (both ET6000 and ET6100), AFAIK does not have compatibility issues with mentioned above with Tseng

S3 Virge (just Virge not GX, VX or DX) - 1995 as well.
- Good speed , gread compatibility (i think that the best one possible), and card is quite common and you can have it in reasonable price. So can be considered as a sweet spot.
- Sadly S3 Virge GX and DX are from 1996... theese are super compatible with most of games and very fast (a little slower than Ark and Tseng but this is not the difference you will clearly notice)

From rare and a little more unusual cards from that era there is also Rendition Verite V1000 - definitely interesting. NV1 cards for DOS as a main card is a very bad idea as it's compatibility with dos games might be horrible.
Theoretically Voodoo 1 was announced in 1995 but was available later...

There are also cards from Cirrus Logic, Weitek, SiS, Trident, ATI, Matrox - But I don't have much experience with theese. If you are interested in windows as well you have to dig deeper into theese as well.

byte_76 wrote on 2025-03-16, 16:36:

Which graphics card is “the graphics card” to have for a late 486 to early Pentium machine for the best 3D performance?

486 and early Pentiums is kind of in the pre-3D era (e.g. 1993 to 1995). There were some early graphics cards with 3D capabilities released in 1994-1995 (e.g. Matrox Impression/Millennium, Creative 3D Blaster VLB, S3 Virge...) , but these wouldn't have been terribly useful for things like 3D gaming. Early Matrox 3D cards were more aimed at CAD rendering. And S3 cards had a reputation of being 3D decelerators.

For 3D gaming, you're really looking at 1996 and onward, at which point you're into the late Pentium era.

Batyra wrote on 2025-03-16, 17:32:

From rare and a little more unusual cards from that era there is also Rendition Verite V1000 - definitely interesting. NV1 cards for DOS as a main card is a very bad idea as it's compatibility with dos games might be horrible.
Theoretically Voodoo 1 was announced in 1995 but was available later...

The Rendition and Voodoo cards came out in 1996. This is after OP's described era of 486 and early Pentium.

NV1 cards released in 1995, so that would be an option for that early(ish) Pentium era.

Batyra wrote on 2025-03-16, 17:32:

So, penitum below 133 is P54C the ones for socket 5 (released late 94). Am5x86-P75 was released late 95. So we are looking for a […]
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So, penitum below 133 is P54C the ones for socket 5 (released late 94). Am5x86-P75 was released late 95. So we are looking for a graphics card not later than 1995.
All I mention below refers to DOS games. I don't know how it is in Windows 95. Theese are cards I used myself and I can say something about.

Tseng ET6000 - different sources give different dates, I found that it was annouced in 1995
- This is one of the fastest DOS graphic cards with a good quality. It has some compatibility issues with some games with scrolling screen (like commander keen or jazz jackrabbit)

Ark Logic 2000 (MT / PV) - also 1995.
- Due to my benchmarks it is even faster in Doom than Tseng (both ET6000 and ET6100), AFAIK does not have compatibility issues with mentioned above with Tseng

S3 Virge (just Virge not GX, VX or DX) - 1995 as well.
- Good speed , gread compatibility (i think that the best one possible), and card is quite common and you can have it in reasonable price. So can be considered as a sweet spot.
- Sadly S3 Virge GX and DX are from 1996... theese are super compatible with most of games and very fast (a little slower than Ark and Tseng but this is not the difference you will clearly notice)

From rare and a little more unusual cards from that era there is also Rendition Verite V1000 - definitely interesting. NV1 cards for DOS as a main card is a very bad idea as it's compatibility with dos games might be horrible.
Theoretically Voodoo 1 was announced in 1995 but was available later...

There are also cards from Cirrus Logic, Weitek, SiS, Trident, ATI, Matrox - But I don't have much experience with theese. If you are interested in windows as well you have to dig deeper into theese as well.

This is a good start.
I really meant video accelerator, rather than 3D graphics card. So I'm looking for fast graphics cards for DOS and Win95 games where the graphics card helps the performance of games rather than hindering them.
I'd assume that a decent video accelerator card would not rely as heavily on CPU performance as other cards and results in a performance boost in games.

I'm more interested in cards that support 2D but we cannot entirely forget about 3Dfx.
For this generation of hardware, I would exclude cards above the Voodoo 1 but I'd include a card like the Voodoo Rush.

byte_76 wrote on 2025-03-16, 19:03:

So I'm looking for fast graphics cards for DOS and Win95 games where the graphics card helps the performance of games rather than hindering them.

For 1995 to 1997, cards like the Matrox Millennium or Mystique are fast performers in DOS. Mystique is a bit more supported for 3D gaming under Windows. S3 Virge is also decent. Riva 128 would be a good card from 1997.

For this generation of hardware, I would exclude cards above the Voodoo 1 but I'd include a card like the Voodoo Rush.

The Voodoo Rush came out in the latter half of 1997. It would be a mismatch for 486/early Pentium era hardware. By 1997 you're into Pentium MMX and Pentium II territory.

In you're into 1997 era cards, then something like a Riva 128 would be good choice for 2D and then a Voodoo 1 for 3D. Paired with a Pentium MMX and you've got a good system for both DOS and Win95 gaming.

1997 is a huge difference in technology to 1995 in matter of DOS and early Windows games. Byte_76 mentooned late 486 and early pentium and as you mentioned 1997 is early pentium ii - thats a milestone IMO.

So far as i read virge+voodoo 1 would be an optimal choice -even if only partially period correct.

For clarity, these were the years different CPUs were released:

1994 - 486 DX4-75/100, Pentium 75/90/100 (though the P100 didn't seem readily available until 1995)
1995 - AMD Am5x86-P75, Pentium 120/133
1996 - Pentium 150/166/200
1997 - Pentium MMX 166/200/233, Pentium II 233/266/300

If I were trying to build an era-correct system, I'd try to pair CPU and graphic cards released within no more than 12 months of each other.

Also worth nothing is that the Windows 95 gaming era is about 1996 to 1998. Even though Windows 95 came out in 1995, there weren't many games released for it. DOS games still dominated in 1995 and 1996.

Late 486 / early Pentium is not the right era for 3D acceleration. You can put a Voodoo 1 in there and it will work, but you will not get the most out of it.

Agreed. Late 486 and early Pentium were not ideal for 3D games yet. They really can't push the polygons enough for respectable play, even though Creative Labs did create VLB 3D Blaster cards for 486 machines.

I would say a 3D card works best on Pentium 133 onwards. Say, for example S3 Virge or Trio64V+ with a Voodoo 1. Tseng ET4000 or 6000 with a Voodoo 1 is okay too.

You can try putting a Matrix Mystique or ATI Rage 3D, but still works best on Pentium 133 and above. And they have limited proprietary API supported games.

Late 486s and early Pentium's are good CPUs during the multimedia CD-ROM explosions when pushing rendered textures and playing FMV based games were more important before the arrival of polygon consuming 3D games.

The cards in this list date from around that era and support the early 3D API's of the time.
3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)

None of the games in the list really offer that more the software acceleration but it can be fun to mess around with.
The S3 Virge makes the most sence IMHO

It's certainly the cheapest to get.

Let's simplify the goal here.

What is the best era correct graphics / video accelerator card that you could install into a late 486 and early Pentium PC below 133Mhz?

There can be a gap of 12 - 24 months as we all know that many of us mixed hardware within roughly a 2 year gap back in those days because it wasn't necessarily affordable to upgrade an entire PC all at once. (Personally, I used a 486 DX4 100 until the Perntium 2 was released, but that's a little beyond the goal here.)

byte_76 wrote on 2025-03-17, 07:59:

Let's simplify the goal here.

What is the best era correct graphics / video accelerator card that you could install into a late 486 and early Pentium PC below 133Mhz?

Probably a Creative 3D Blaster VLB (good luck finding one...)

The other accelerators are for later systems and will be completely CPU bottlenecked on old stuff like this. Note that number of MHz isn't everything - a 5x86-133 runs at about the speed of a Pentium 66 or 75 in ALU and much slower in FPU, so if someone says that say a Voodoo 1 makes sense from a P133, you're only at half that performance level.

There can be a gap of 12 - 24 months as we all know that many of us mixed hardware within roughly a 2 year gap back in those days because it wasn't necessarily affordable to upgrade an entire PC all at once. (Personally, I used a 486 DX4 100 until the Perntium 2 was released, but that's a little beyond the goal here.)

It wasn't an option for many to upgrade their entire PC, but - as one of those people who couldn't afford to in this exact time period, stuck with a P60 from 1995 to 1999 - the same people didn't have the money for a 3D accelerator either and would have prioritized other upgrades. In 1996 I spent the money that a Voodoo 1 would have cost on a RAM upgrade (in January of that year 8MB cost the equivalent of EUR 220), in 1997 I spent the money on a CDRW drive, in 1998 I spent it on a larger HDD - and in 1999 I spent it on new system (motherboard, CPU, RAM and TNT2-M64)

It would have been nonsensical to spend the money on a Voodoo for that old system, as it wouldn't be able to run games supporting it well. The upgrade path would have been first CPU (+motherboard and RAM), and only then add a 3D accelerator.

The preferrred options so far for period correct seem to be:

- Tseng ET6000 (Often comes up as the number 1 mention)
- Ark Logic 2000
- S3 Virge

Slightly later but under consideration:

- Rendition Verite V1000
- Voodoo 1 / Voodoo Rush

So are you after a VGA card or an accelerator? In your post of 8h59 you said accelerator, now you're talking about (mainly) VGA cards. Which is it?

There were no accelerators for 486 DX4, 5x86 or early Pentiums. Software rendering.