Windows acceleration was already in cards from 1990/91 (TIGA, S3 911). In 1994/95 also video acceleration was added.

In 1994/95 S3 968... later Trio64. Matrox Millennium was 1995 card. Also don't forget Tseng Labs ET6000. ATi Mach64.

My best choice are S3 Vision, Matrox Millennium and Tseng ET6000.

The first PCI cards were released in 1993/1994. The best ones overall in both DOS and Windows were S3 Vision864 (DRAM) and S3 Vision964 (VRAM). The cards accelerated Windows 3.1x. For stict Windows usage the Matrox Ultima and Impression cards were the the best cards in terms of performance and drivers utility and support. They were also extremely quick in Autocad. Back then, changing the resolution without restarting was a feature not common on all cards. Color, gamma, horizontal/vertical adjustments in software was also not common.

Other popular chipsets were the Weitek P9000, ATI Mach 32/64 for PCI.

See benchmark in PC Mag, jun 1994
https://books.google.com/books?id=-Qil3sD8bgE … opage&q&f=false

kixs wrote:

Windows acceleration was already in cards from 1990/91 (TIGA, S3 911). In 1994/95 also video acceleration was added.

In 1994/95 S3 968... later Trio64. Matrox Millennium was 1995 card. Also don't forget Tseng Labs ET6000. ATi Mach64.

My best choice are S3 Vision, Matrox Millennium and Tseng ET6000.

Thanks as usual!
That's why I prefer one of the very first native PCI technology chipset when the tech was out there along with the Pentium; time correct config for me is the most important factor even when it means slower results. 😀

386SX wrote:

That's why I prefer one of the very first native PCI technology chipset when the tech was out there along with the Pentium; time correct config for me is the most important factor even when it means slower results. 😀

The first real native PCI chipset was probably the Matrox Millennium in 1995. ET6000 came out later. All the other chipsets mentioned in this thread were also available with VLB.

I never tried the Weitek P9100, seems interesting from that review!

vetz wrote:

386SX wrote:

That's why I prefer one of the very first native PCI technology chipset when the tech was out there along with the Pentium; time correct config for me is the most important factor even when it means slower results. 😀

The first real native PCI chipset was probably the Matrox Millennium in 1995. ET6000 came out later. All the other chipsets mentioned in this thread were also available with VLB.

Well I will look also for previous PCI based chipset as long as they were released in the same time of the early Pentium. I was looking to build a early full W95 high end system on the transition from Dos/W311 to Win95 with all those new technologies (Pentium,PCI,W95).

If you want to go the highend for 1994, then the Number Nine #9GXE64 Pro with 4MB RAM is hard to beat (picture of my card):

vetz wrote:

If you want to go the highend for 1994, then the Number Nine #9GXE64 Pro with 4MB RAM is hard to beat (picture of my card): http […]
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If you want to go the highend for 1994, then the Number Nine #9GXE64 Pro with 4MB RAM is hard to beat (picture of my card):

That looks awesome!!!

The first original Pentium 60 was released in 1993. To my knowledge at that time there were only two chips available for PCI cards, ATI's Mach32 and S3's 928P.
Some manufacturers made cards based on non PCI chipsets like S3 805 or Cirrus Logic 5428 and lots of glue logic.

A few more suggestions for Win:
Weitek P9100: http://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_papilio_ultracad.html
Imagine 128: http://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_number_nin … imagine128.html

elianda wrote:

A few more suggestions for Win:
Weitek P9100: http://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_papilio_ultracad.html
Imagine 128: http://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_number_nin … imagine128.html

Thanks! They both look like high end rare cards! What kind of very early motherboard/chipset can I look for? Only 72pin ram possibly.

vetz wrote:

The best ones overall in both DOS and Windows were S3 Vision864 (DRAM) and S3 Vision964 (VRAM).

The S3 964 (mine is a Diamond Stealth 64 PCI 4mb) produced snowy artifacts in some games under DOS. From the top of my head I can think of One Must Fall, which had an option to fix this. Regardless, it's one of the most compatible cards with proper Windows 3.x acceleration/drivers.

My first PC was a Pentium 75 with Advance Logic 2301 PCI GraphicsChip.

The card was a Spea V7 Vega.

Here are links to comparisons containing PCI cards. If you want more, look in the post linked in my signature (InfoWorld/PC Magazine Indices).

> PCI Comparision (1994)

> 1994-06-28 Graphics Accelerator Boards
> 1994-12-06 Mainstream Graphics Accelerators