I am going to a DX50-ish build I think, so the ISA card, if it's not terrible, ought to be ok. 20+ fps in Doom would be fine for me, it's how I used to play it when I was a kid, I can live with that again.. That said, my DX33 at the time had a quality CL VLB SVGA card, I had no idea how lucky I was until I saw my friend's SX25 with a Trident card struggling to scroll in Sim City 2000 😒 So yeah, I'm kind of conflicted and scared. I don't want to pay $50 for a decent ISA CL VGA card (452x, 453x) but I can't find one for cheap. These are what I have at hand, so I guess I will try both regardless.
In the meantime, I stumbled across this on Retronn.de: ftp://retronn.de/docs/eliandas_isa_vga_roundup.pdf
It seems to indicate that while the TVGA9000B is a slow ISA card, the CL5401 is not really faster, and lacks the 512K which would allow 800x600 Windows 3.1.. So I'm still leaning towards the TVGA, but I will try both and do system benchmarks before I decide.
I'm planning to build the system tonight, if I can decide on which sound card to use (CT2290 vs ES688/OPL3). I will share my findings here. For the good of all of us. Except the ones who are dead, of course.
Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.