VOGONS


First post, by bluejeans

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https://youtu.be/cQRrWMmQkCM

An isa 512kb video card.

Reply 2 of 11, by bluejeans

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derSammler wrote:

Missing 2d hardware acceleration of the video card (no blitter).

This won't matter in vanilla doom, right? How about in dos source ports of doom? Or vanilla doom running in windows, for that matter?

Reply 4 of 11, by bluejeans

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derSammler wrote:

Afaik, no DOS game ever made use of 2d hardware acceleration. This was really a Windows-only thing.

Any vlb card will solve this, right? I'm willing to buy any of these (well apart from the 2mb one):

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Reply 5 of 11, by chinny22

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512 is plenty for dos but isn't much for Windows either especially 9x. depending on what resolution you want.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/1323 … her-resolutions

Just to confirm you do have a VLB slot right? Good ISA card will also work as long as its not biased on a crappy/outdated chip.
VLB was never budget so you its at least decent, however some are better then others especially when it comes to gaming, and may actually be slower then a ISA card.
(we are talking a few fps though, nothing I personally would worry about)

Reply 6 of 11, by bluejeans

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chinny22 wrote:
512 is plenty for dos but isn't much for Windows either especially 9x. depending on what resolution you want. https://support.mi […]
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512 is plenty for dos but isn't much for Windows either especially 9x. depending on what resolution you want.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/1323 … her-resolutions

Just to confirm you do have a VLB slot right? Good ISA card will also work as long as its not biased on a crappy/outdated chip.
VLB was never budget so you its at least decent, however some are better then others especially when it comes to gaming, and may actually be slower then a ISA card.
(we are talking a few fps though, nothing I personally would worry about)

I do have VLB. Just wondering, what would this ISA card be like? The date on it is quite old: http://www.old.vgamuseum.info/component/conte … s-f82c450b.html

Reply 7 of 11, by 8bitbubsy

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That's an old chipset. I'd go for a later Cirrus Logic VLB card (f.ex. GD5428) if you want a good price/performance ratio for GUI acceleration.
The CPU is also utilized in GUI rendering, so upgrading that might help too.

386:
- CPU: 386DX-40 (128kB external L1 cache)
- RAM: 8MB (0 waitstates at 40MHz)
- VGA: Diamond SpeedSTAR VGA (ET4000AX 1MB ISA)
- Audio: SB Pro 2.0 + GUS 1MB
- ISA PS/2 mouse card + ISA USB card
- MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.1
- MR BIOS

Reply 8 of 11, by bluejeans

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8bitbubsy wrote:

That's an old chipset. I'd go for a later Cirrus Logic VLB card (f.ex. GD5428) if you want a good price/performance ratio for GUI acceleration.
The CPU is also utilized in GUI rendering, so upgrading that might help too.

I'm definitely going to the get the cirrus logic one, but it has to come all the way from Ukraine so I was looking for another one that was available locally in the meantime (no vlb ones locally). The cpu it's going into is a 486-100, so not much in the way of upgrade options (I want to keep it as a 100 anyway)

Reply 9 of 11, by 8bitbubsy

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DX4-100 is already pretty good for a 486. I'd go for a GD5429 VLB if you can find one for cheap. Being patient pays off when it comes to getting a nice retro rig.
Finding one that is maxed out at 2MB VRAM (all chips present) is a nice bonus.

386:
- CPU: 386DX-40 (128kB external L1 cache)
- RAM: 8MB (0 waitstates at 40MHz)
- VGA: Diamond SpeedSTAR VGA (ET4000AX 1MB ISA)
- Audio: SB Pro 2.0 + GUS 1MB
- ISA PS/2 mouse card + ISA USB card
- MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.1
- MR BIOS

Reply 10 of 11, by bluejeans

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8bitbubsy wrote:

DX4-100 is already pretty good for a 486. I'd go for a GD5429 VLB if you can find one for cheap. Being patient pays off when it comes to getting a nice retro rig.
Finding one that is maxed out at 2MB VRAM (all chips present) is a nice bonus.

I'm just going to get both since the isa one is cheap and could be used in another system, but how can I tell whether it has blitter?

Reply 11 of 11, by 8bitbubsy

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I don't know of a specific way, but for Cirrus Logic it seems that the hardware BitBLT routine is present in GD5426 and later according to Wikipedia. I'd ultimately go for a VLB (VESA Local Bus), should be much faster.

386:
- CPU: 386DX-40 (128kB external L1 cache)
- RAM: 8MB (0 waitstates at 40MHz)
- VGA: Diamond SpeedSTAR VGA (ET4000AX 1MB ISA)
- Audio: SB Pro 2.0 + GUS 1MB
- ISA PS/2 mouse card + ISA USB card
- MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.1
- MR BIOS