kixs wrote:

On general they are around 20-50% slower then the fastest ISA cards (depends on the model as some can be as fast as good ISA card). But work good anyhow. Even on a 286-16 there is a noticeable speed difference between 8900 and ET4000. But there are even slower cards on ISA then Trident. Back in the days when I swapped some C&T VGA 256KB card for 8900 I was amazed how fast can 486slc-33 be (ISA bus only) 🤣

yeah, there are even slower isa video cards than the 8900, but they are older aswell, and probably limited to standard vga mode only.
i wonder whats the slowest svga cards with 512k dram or more.

Carlos S. M. wrote:

I have two Trident 8900D (based on the 8900CL i think) and i tried to get it working on a Pentium II, the card worked fine in Win 98 SE, but the 2D perfomance was poor and some old Directdraw games like Starcraft was running with stuttering. Also only 256 color mode worked

8900 didn't have internal ramdac, so color depth depends on the ramdac chip used on the card.
according to what i have seen, 8900d cards were equipped with either 8bit or 16bit ramdacs, but older 8900b/c/cl cards had only 8bit ramdacs, and newer 8900dr(seems to be 8900d with integrated bios) cards were all 16bit ramdacs.
9000 has integrated ramdac with 16bit support, but they only support 512k ram, so they can only support up to 640*400 with 16bit colors.
i wonder whats the slowest isa video card with 1mb ram and 16bit/24bit support. 🤣

brostenen wrote:

They have all these kind of issues between the Ukrainian state, nationalists and Russia.

They've got serious robbing and sabotage by USA and EU corporations, and from their agents in the government after the overturn in 2014. Hence incomes have droped, people sell anything they can and are adopted to low prices. Also many firms are closed because of the situation and sell their outdated machines.
It's sad, but is common, - in places with economical decline prices drop on anything and are lower, including for industrial objects, immovable property, etc. I suppose similar situation is in any country with strong economical issues and general low level of economics. If such country has good international market and acceptable shipping prices, - it's good place to look for retro hardware.

noshutdown wrote:

kixs wrote:

On general they are around 20-50% slower then the fastest ISA cards (depends on the model as some can be as fast as good ISA card). But work good anyhow. Even on a 286-16 there is a noticeable speed difference between 8900 and ET4000. But there are even slower cards on ISA then Trident. Back in the days when I swapped some C&T VGA 256KB card for 8900 I was amazed how fast can 486slc-33 be (ISA bus only) 🤣

yeah, there are even slower isa video cards than the 8900, but they are older aswell, and probably limited to standard vga mode only.
i wonder whats the slowest svga cards with 512k dram or more.

I think the slowest ISA VGA card with 512K is the Realtek RTG3105iEH, it managed to drag my a socket 7 Winchip 200Mhz system down to 486DX/2 66Mhz levels in Phil's benchmark suite.

This one does only have 256K but I doubt the extra would make a difference for speed. This must be the simplest and one of the very last ISA VGA cards.

noshutdown wrote:

8900 didn't have internal ramdac, so color depth depends on the ramdac chip used on the card. according to what i have seen, 890 […]
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Carlos S. M. wrote:

I have two Trident 8900D (based on the 8900CL i think) and i tried to get it working on a Pentium II, the card worked fine in Win 98 SE, but the 2D perfomance was poor and some old Directdraw games like Starcraft was running with stuttering. Also only 256 color mode worked

8900 didn't have internal ramdac, so color depth depends on the ramdac chip used on the card.
according to what i have seen, 8900d cards were equipped with either 8bit or 16bit ramdacs, but older 8900b/c/cl cards had only 8bit ramdacs, and newer 8900dr(seems to be 8900d with integrated bios) cards were all 16bit ramdacs.
9000 has integrated ramdac with 16bit support, but they only support 512k ram, so they can only support up to 640*400 with 16bit colors.
i wonder whats the slowest isa video card with 1mb ram and 16bit/24bit support. 🤣

Well, that was just an experiment, also my 8900Ds are 1 MB, i tried 16 bit color mode, but didn't work (black screen), it only worked with 256 colors under Win 98

Carlos S. M. wrote:

noshutdown wrote:

8900 didn't have internal ramdac, so color depth depends on the ramdac chip used on the card. according to what i have seen, 890 […]
Show full quote

8900 didn't have internal ramdac, so color depth depends on the ramdac chip used on the card.
according to what i have seen, 8900d cards were equipped with either 8bit or 16bit ramdacs, but older 8900b/c/cl cards had only 8bit ramdacs, and newer 8900dr(seems to be 8900d with integrated bios) cards were all 16bit ramdacs.
9000 has integrated ramdac with 16bit support, but they only support 512k ram, so they can only support up to 640*400 with 16bit colors.
i wonder whats the slowest isa video card with 1mb ram and 16bit/24bit support. 🤣

Well, that was just an experiment, also my 8900Ds are 1 MB, i tried 16 bit color mode, but didn't work (black screen), it only worked with 256 colors under Win 98

to display 16bit color mode, the card needs not only sufficient ram, but also a 16bit/24bit ramdac. from what you said i guess its safe to say that your card has 8bit ramdac.

BSA Starfire wrote:

I think the slowest ISA VGA card with 512K is the Realtek RTG3105iEH, it managed to drag my a socket 7 Winchip 200Mhz system dow […]
Show full quote

noshutdown wrote:

yeah, there are even slower isa video cards than the 8900, but they are older aswell, and probably limited to standard vga mode only.
i wonder whats the slowest svga cards with 512k dram or more.

I think the slowest ISA VGA card with 512K is the Realtek RTG3105iEH, it managed to drag my a socket 7 Winchip 200Mhz system down to 486DX/2 66Mhz levels in Phil's benchmark suite.

Realtek RTG3105iEH 256K.JPG

This one does only have 256K but I doubt the extra would make a difference for speed. This must be the simplest and one of the very last ISA VGA cards.

yeah i knew about this infamous realtek3105 thing. from some benchmark reports its indeed even slower than the trident ones, and from the model "PT" on the card it seems to be made by xfx.
the rtg3105 is a low cost solution with integrated ramdac and supports only up to 512k ram just like the trident9000, but i dunno if its internal ramdac supports 16bit mode, which the tvga9000 does.

Ive always been curious, as I had a 8900c in my first pc. As a kid I was on a quest to see if the 8900c can do 15 or 16 or 24 bit color. Mine couldnt back then. Did the 8900c support it if you had the correct ramdac or was it just the 8900d and 9000s?

Sev80 wrote on 2020-01-23, 15:46:

Ive always been curious, as I had a 8900c in my first pc. As a kid I was on a quest to see if the 8900c can do 15 or 16 or 24 bit color. Mine couldnt back then. Did the 8900c support it if you had the correct ramdac or was it just the 8900d and 9000s?

Very likely.
See eg. the SC11483 HiColor RAMDAC - it's pin-compatible with the standard 8-bpp VGA RAMDAC, so its pixel input is 8-bit-wide, and in the 16-bpp mode it simply latches the 16 bits from 2 cycles.
So, the graphics controller doesn't need specific support for >8-bpp, just program it for eg. 1280x480x8bpp, and the RAMDAC turns this into 640x480x16bpp.
Of course, the graphics controller needs to support pixel clock fast enough for 1280x480 at some reasonable refresh rate.

that's super interesting. thank you!