YES

I'd say the only real difference is the board quality really. I have great trio64 cards with clear crisp output and vibrant colours, and shitty trio64 boards with gray blacks, washed-out colours and fuzzy output at high resolutions. Same thing for CL cards.

Speed-wise the S3 Trio 64 should be 5% faster (only noticeable on fast pentium machines in SVGA).

kanecvr wrote:

I'd say the only real difference is the board quality really. I have great trio64 cards with clear crisp output and vibrant colours, and shitty trio64 boards with gray blacks, washed-out colours and fuzzy output at high resolutions. Same thing for CL cards.

Speed-wise the S3 Trio 64 should be 5% faster (only noticeable on fast pentium machines in SVGA).

Yet on a 5x86-133, 8mb Ram (MS-Dos 6.22), the 5446 is running much faster.
It's not a question on few benchmark point's, it is truely noticeable.

kanecvr wrote:

I have great trio64 cards with clear crisp output and vibrant colours, and shitty trio64 boards with gray blacks, washed-out colours and fuzzy output at high resolutions.

That is actually the VGA BIOS fault.

I have a small DOS software that replaced the cached video bios on some motherboards without the need to reflash the VGA bios chip on the VGA card.
* The whole VGA Bios ROM is cached at POST to the motherboard.
My S3 Virge DX has the same grey-black problem and washed colors, but I found a different bios that don't have these problems but it is VBE V1.2 instead 2.0 that comes with most S3 cards.

Here is the program that replaced the Video Shadow Bios: S3 AGP Cards (and possibly others) Too Bright
Here are some bioses you can try: http://chukaev.ru54.com/video_en.htm
I found a great Virge DX bios here that actually fixed the problem pointed above.

How about some numbers? Like vidspeed transfer rates for 8/16/32 bit writes?

Where is the CL-5446 chipset underrated? source?!?
Did you load S3VBE20 and S3SPDUP?

The higher black level issue of the S3 cards have already been resolved with a tool that switches the DAC on the fly.
No need for custom BIOSes: S3VBEFIX - PC\MS-DOS TSR fix for S3 VESA 2.0 video BIOS

Thanks elianda!

elianda wrote:

How about some numbers? Like vidspeed transfer rates for 8/16/32 bit writes? […]
Show full quote

How about some numbers? Like vidspeed transfer rates for 8/16/32 bit writes?

Where is the CL-5446 chipset underrated? source?!?
Did you load S3VBE20 and S3SPDUP?

The higher black level issue of the S3 cards have already been resolved with a tool that switches the DAC on the fly.
No need for custom BIOSes: S3VBEFIX - PC\MS-DOS TSR fix for S3 VESA 2.0 video BIOS

Don't know about those two being loaded. I have loaded up UniVBE as I have stated in my initial post.
You know... Cannon Fodder crashing with and without UniVBE loaded.

I have done some quick benchmarking now, using Phils newest suite. It is not a complete test.
It clearly shows the S3 being faster in Doom, wich I can not understand why.
It must be, that the benchmark suite is running Doom 1.9 and mine is the first release of Doom.

However. When the S3 is crashing in Cannon Fodder, looking at these numbers and because I personally
like the image of the 5446 better. Then to me at least, the 5446 is a better choice.
Don't know about other people, as we all have our own taste in these matters. 😀

Yet again. This is only a quick benchmark. Nothing in dept and I have not put it into any fancy spreadsheet.
To get a bigger image, click on it..... 😉

EDIT:
My point on the 5446 being underrated, is purely because I do not see many posts about people recommending
the 5446. As compared to everyone talking about S3 being the best for Dos.
Basically an observation that I have made, reading on this forum since 2013. So no proof in terms of numbers.
More like based on what people are saying and recommending, versus what is rarely mentioned.

@elianda and @James-f - thanks for the tips!

A few people on this forum actually state Cirrus Logic cards are bad / slow which they are not. In fact they make great S3 Trio64 alternatives - same for late model PCI Trident cards.

kanecvr wrote:

A few people on this forum actually state Cirrus Logic cards are bad / slow which they are not. In fact they make great S3 Trio64 alternatives - same for late model PCI Trident cards.

True... My numbers might convience some here on Vogons. Anyway....
What model number of Trident PCI cards should I look for?

Back in the day, my first PCI VGA was a Trident 9680. It was not bad at all, I could even play some games in SVGA mode (somewhat) decently on a DX4-100. I have no data to back this up and no longer own that card, so it may have just been the noticeable change of moving from an ISA card to a PCI. I also had a PCI CL at some point (don't remember the model) and performance wasn't much different to the Trident.

Strange. I have always used Canon Fodder with Trio or Virge, and i never have crashed it....

Just reminded me, and finally found the name I was looking for.

ISDCORP - released enhanced Win98 drivers for the CL5446, CL5465 and CL5480
At one time, available to purchase, but released free some time before they packed it in.

I knew it started with I,
just couldn't remember the rest

I've only briefly tried the CL, S3 and ET6000 PCI cards in a fast 486 and they really performed on the same level.

Didn't check Cannon Fodder of course, I'll keep it in mind.

EDIT: Looking at your hand written notes, it seems that in Chris's 3D Benchmark and Doom, you got slightly better results with the CL. But 2481 vs 2499 ticks is nothing, that's 29.888 vs 30.105. So to me these perform pretty much identical, which is what I'm also seeing.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I've only briefly tried the CL, S3 and ET6000 PCI cards in a fast 486 and they really performed on the same level.

Didn't check Cannon Fodder of course, I'll keep it in mind.

EDIT: Looking at your hand written notes, it seems that in Chris's 3D Benchmark and Doom, you got slightly better results with the CL. But 2481 vs 2499 ticks is nothing, that's 29.888 vs 30.105. So to me these perform pretty much identical, which is what I'm also seeing.

Do you think the motherboard is holding something back?

Cyberdyne wrote:

Strange. I have always used Canon Fodder with Trio or Virge, and i never have crashed it....

What exact setup do you usually do, when you have had CF running on a S3?

brostenen wrote:

Do you think the motherboard is holding something back?

Something is. For a 133 MHz 486, the 3DBENCH scores seem a bit on the low side. Do you have L2 cache? Defaults loaded? There are often two options for the defaults, one is slow, the other one optimized.

What board is it?

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

What board is it?

FIC 486 VIP IO

The BIOS is a special modded one, capeable of handeling 5x86-133 cpu's.
I just remember now, that the former owner talking a bit about it not being that fast all in all.
So I might just have asked a stupid question. 🤣

Matth79 wrote:

Just reminded me, and finally found the name I was looking for. […]
Show full quote

Just reminded me, and finally found the name I was looking for.

ISDCORP - released enhanced Win98 drivers for the CL5446, CL5465 and CL5480
At one time, available to purchase, but released free some time before they packed it in.

I knew it started with I,
just couldn't remember the rest

anyone has a link to this driver? one without all the spyware? 🤣

keropi wrote:

Matth79 wrote:

Just reminded me, and finally found the name I was looking for. […]
Show full quote

Just reminded me, and finally found the name I was looking for.

ISDCORP - released enhanced Win98 drivers for the CL5446, CL5465 and CL5480
At one time, available to purchase, but released free some time before they packed it in.

I knew it started with I,
just couldn't remember the rest

anyone has a link to this driver? one without all the spyware? 🤣

This link seems to have the goods, just a mildly annoying captcha
http://www.video-drivers.com/dgdlsm.php?driverid=5336