kreats wrote:

I've also got an asus pvi-486sp3. What revision do you have and what revision are you upgrading from? I was under the impression that 1.8 the last (and best) revision - is this so?

The old board was rev. 1.2 (Chipset rev. B2), now I'm also running rev. 1.8 (Chipset rev. B4). Don't know if this is the latest 486SP3 revision, since there were at least one (probably two) chipset revisions afterwards, but I don't know if Asus ever used them.

kreats wrote:

Also, why did you use a trio over a matrox card?

I tried several Matrox cards before: Millenium I/II, G100 and G200, but found out that they're not compatible with many old games. CGA and EGA emulation is a nightmare on these cards, and some VGA games also display corrupted graphics. Native VESA support is poor (missing modes), VESA games crash when UniVBE is loaded, need I say more? Even my not-100%-compatible ET6000 was a lot better in this respect than any Matrox card I've seen. A lot of old computer magazine articles stated that Matrox cards were good for DOS games, but obviously they did not research properly.

Great Hierophant wrote:

For that 486 system, can you get the full range of speeds from a single 486?

Not from a single CPU, because the DX2 and DX4 processors don't have a 1x multiplier, there only is one pin for the multiplier in Socket3, and that one is used to select either x2 or x3 for DX4. If there was a way to disable the multiplier on a DX4, I would like to know 🙄
One of the best features on the 485SP3 board is that it automatically sets the core voltage for 3.3V/5V CPUs, so I can swap between a 486DX and a 486DX4 within seconds, without having to relocate a single jumper 😉. The rest is done by the case switches I have installed, and in most cases the DX4 is slow enough at 50 MHz with caches disabled.

The "PnP Bios" on the 486SP3 is a real joke, it's not possible to run a ISA-PnP soundcard and more than one PCI device at the same time without conflicts, so I had to remove the SB32 and plug my good old SB16 ASP back in until I find an AWE32 without PnP. The issue with IRQ6 also could not be resolved, I'm running the SCC-1 on IRQ3 now (releasing IRQ3 works for some strange reason).

I agree with you about the G100/G200 series of cards (they did not have a VESA compatible bios), but the Millenium II has been going pretty good for me. Granted, I don't use a lot of the CGA/EGA modes (I would probably build an earlier computer for this), but the I have had no problems in other games with this card. The only thing I've noticed is that in a couple of PC demos one effect doesn't work quite right (a scrolling effect that should be smooth, isn't).

The Matrox cards have a ModeX "bug," which manifests as jittery horizontal scrolling. I still prefer them, despite this limitation, and have another PC with a Trio64 chipset set aside for scrolling platformers (Commander Keen and the like).

Now that the low end standards no longer be a problem for me, its really the high end VGA, SVGA, VESA games that may still pose some incompatibilities. I would use a Voodoo 3 or 5 if I could eliminate the need for a Voodoo 1. I can't so I use a Geforce.

@Cloudschatze - cool, glad to know there was a reason behind this!

@Great Hierophant - personally I'd build another computer for newer era games. I think it's best to run whatever was the best hardware for the day to get maximum compatibility. A geforce with a voodoo 1 seems a clear mismatch to me - I really hate having to run SDD to get access to extra modes.

@all - why is the trio64 the card of choice? how about the et6100?

kreats wrote:

why is the trio64 the card of choice? how about the et6100?

The ET6100 is the same as the ET6000, only with a faster internal RAMDAC. Both have a "ModeX bug" similar to the Matrox cards, which is why I exchanged my ET6000 for the Trio64.

That leads me to an interesting thought: It's always the VRAM/WRAM/MDRAM cards having compatibility problems with very old DOS games. Is it because of the different memory interface?

Now I've used the Trio64 for some time and I've found the card to be better than expected. The card has a VESA 1.2 BIOS, but there is a TSR called S3VBE, which enables VBE 2.0 with a lot of LFB videomodes and only uses 4K memory. There even is a tool to speed up banked modes, but this cannot be used with ModeX.
I didn't see any compatibility issues with this card yet (except from some minor glitches that also occurred with my ultra-compatible ET4000 ISA card).

I have an ET4000W32 PCI card with 1MB of VRAM. I wonder if that is as compatible as the ISA version or fast enough for later VESA games.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I have an ET4000W32 PCI card with 1MB of VRAM. I wonder if that is as compatible as the ISA version or fast enough for later VESA games.

Are you sure it has VRAM and not DRAM? Is it a W32p or a W32i?

Older revisions of ET4000W32p chips are known to be buggy on PCI. These cards crash on assigning resources via PCI configuration space and don't decode memory addresses properly if there is another PCI device installed on the bus. Using PCI-bursts often results in pixel errors. Buggy W32p cards can be identified by looking at the chip production number: If it begins with the letters TC, it's most probably the buggy chip revision.
Edit: This is only true for early W32p cards, chip numbering scheme has changed! - see below for more info...

The card is a W32P with 1MB of RAM, whether its DRAM or VRAM is unknown to me, but I strongly suspect its DRAM. It has two 512KB chips and sockets for two more. The chip production number fortunately does not begin with TC, so I may have lucked out there. 9522EAI is the date marking number, and the main number is 70C160EF002.

Maybe I lucked out with the compatibility of the ISA models with the more advanced features and faster speeds of the PCI models. I wonder what version of VBE it has in its V8.00 BIOS.

Thought I'd dig through my box of pci video cards and post a list of the different chipsets. Maybe you guys can give me your thoughts on why these are better/worse than the trio?

ARK2000 chipset (hercules legend64,stingray 64)
S3 Virge DX (diamond stealth 3d 2000)
Tseng ET4000/W32P (A generic card - this one I think is DRAM as it has the exact same memory chips as in the Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM - HY514260B - but with 70ns instead of 60ns ratings. Has tv/s-video out!)
Trident ProVidia9685 (jaton TVGA9685PCI. Has tv/s-video out!)

Also, which is the ideal trio card to be using if this is indeed the best card (I have a Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM here)?

kreats wrote:

Maybe you guys can give me your thoughts on why these are better/worse than the trio?

Well the Trio64 was the best for me, but that's based on the rig I have and the programs I use. For other systems, other cards might work out much better.

ARK2000
This one came close to Tseng's legendary framebuffer performance, but is said to have crappy RAMDACs on the Hercules models.

S3 Virge DX
All later S3 variants (Virge, Trio) are very similar for DOS games, since they have the same 2D core. 3D functions are useless though (Virge cards were soon dubbed "3D decelerators" 🤣).

Tseng ET4000/W32P
If it has the bugfixed W32P revision it might be worth a try.

Trident ProVidia9685
No idea. I once had a Trident PCI card that followed the Trident tradition of being cheap and slow, but this one could be different.

Just got a cheap W32p PCI from ebay and tested it - VGA compatibility seems to be as good as on the old ET4000AX ISA models.

Forget the production numbers I talked about in a previous post - the numbering scheme seems to have changed at least once. The only way to find out for sure is to run the CTPCI utility provided by the german c't magazine. This tool basically reads out PCI device IDs (as many other programs like lspci under linux), but also prints out the Tseng ET4000-W32p chipset revision and determines if it is the old, buggy revision or the newer one.

Turned out I got the old chip 😒
Generally the card works OK, but performance is lousy for a PCI card. Well, back with the S3 Trio64 😉

So, I think that most people would agree that the original ET4000, up to the W32i, would be an superior choice for an older VGA card, assuming that you would go no further than a 640x480x256 resolution. But for a card to combine with a Monster 3D, you may need something more reliable and faster than the W32p to run 16-bit graphics games. Perhaps using a ViRGE or a Trio, depending on what you can find, would be better for the 2D card. I hope that the S3 cards are as compatible with 2D software as they are compatible.

Ran that utility then and mine is a rev c (old revision). I guess that isn't the fixed version then? So - given the trio is the card of choice.. which manufacturer would have the best implementation (fastest ram, best features, etc)?

My goal is to get system shock running smoothly on my AMD 486 133 at one of the higher resolutions - it may not be possible, but I'm curious as to how fast I can get it (thinking of going scsi to see if this helps also). I wish there was a featureful benchmarking utility for video cards under DOS (or even a game with a FPS counter) so I could get some empirical data. I'm trying a Matrox PCI G200 now and it "feels" the fastest of the lot so far (there is a tsr to unlock the extra modes).. can't be sure though.

Great Hierophant: I'm not sure it really matters what card you combine with a monster 3d.. when the 3dfx is active, it alone is generating the graphics.

Great Hierophant: I'm not sure it really matters what card you combine with a monster 3d.. when the 3dfx is active, it alone is generating the graphics.

Why do the Voodoo 1 and 2 cards have the external VGA passthrough connector? Is that to eliminate the need to switch cables when using the 3D accelerated Voodoo modes as opposed to the 2D modes?

kreats wrote:

Ran that utility then and mine is a rev c (old revision). I guess that isn't the fixed version then?

Yeah, rev. C is one of of the buggy versions, but it's still better than rev. A or B, because at least it works stable on PCI buses.
Btw, UniVBE is no good for detecting the ET4000 version, it believes my rev. C card is rev. D and crashes when LFB modes are used.

kreats wrote:

So - given the trio is the card of choice.. which manufacturer would have the best implementation (fastest ram, best features, etc)?

I have no idea, my two S3 Trio cards are generic taiwanese noname cards, which perform identically under DOS. If you care about RAM speed, the later Virge cards probably would be a better choice (same 2D core, faster and usually more RAM).

kreats wrote:

My goal is to get system shock running smoothly on my AMD 486 133 at one of the higher resolutions - it may not be possible, but I'm curious as to how fast I can get it (thinking of going scsi to see if this helps also).

On my rig (i486DX-4, 120 MHz) the maximum bearable resolution is 640x480 with the fullscreen option turned off. System Shock's graphics get very demanding in higher resolutions, for 1024x768 and a smooth framerate you need about 300 MHz.

kreats wrote:

I wish there was a featureful benchmarking utility for video cards under DOS (or even a game with a FPS counter) so I could get some empirical data.

There is such a thing: PC Player benchmark (attached at the end of this post). And I'm sure many 3D shooters (Quake, Duke3D) have built-in FPS counters.

kreats wrote:

I'm trying a Matrox PCI G200 now and it "feels" the fastest of the lot so far (there is a tsr to unlock the extra modes).. can't be sure though.

Is there place where I can download the TSR you mentioned? I scanned the net for something like that, but couldn't find anything useful.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Is that to eliminate the need to switch cables when using the 3D accelerated Voodoo modes as opposed to the 2D modes?

Exactly.
3D-only Voodoo2 cards can be combined with any VGA card, however it is recommended to use one with a good VGA signal output. Looping the signal through the Voodoo card deteriorates picture quality (and the low-cost loop-through cables make things even worse).

I had this weird idea for a while that the 2D elements of the picture were generated on the 2D card while the the 3D portions of the picture were generated on the 3D card and "mixed in" with the pregenerated 2D elements. Makes no sense, but that is what I used to think.

If you had a Voodoo 1 or 2 card, the best picture quality would probably come from a KVM switch because you would not need a passthrough cable.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I had this weird idea for a while that the 2D elements of the picture were generated on the 2D card while the the 3D portions of the picture were generated on the 3D card and "mixed in" with the pregenerated 2D elements. Makes no sense, but that is what I used to think.

Hmmm, the idea is not so bad at all, this would allow very cool effects 😉
An interface mixing the two video sources would have been too expensive or low-quality to be worth bothering, so it's either 2D or 3D mode.
There were some Voodoo1 cards that ditched the loop connection and wrote their output directly into the VGA framebuffer via PCI busmaster transfers (like modern TV cards). The result was a superior picture quality, but it also introduced compatibility problems with many boards and VGA cards. Also a fast VGA was needed for this solution, and the bus transfers took away a big part of available PCI throughput - making the whole system slower. No wonder these cards didn't sell well...

Great Hierophant wrote:

If you had a Voodoo 1 or 2 card, the best picture quality would probably come from a KVM switch because you would not need a passthrough cable.

True, but having to switch between the inputs manually gets tedious soon, especially if games constantly switch between 2D and 3D modes (video sequences, options menu, etc...).
A card with two VGA outputs is the nicest option - leaving one channel for the Voodoo and games, the other for serious work 😉
At the end you can connect either a KVM or two monitors. My girlfriend uses a setup like that.

For me the add-on Voodoo cards turned out to be too much hassle. A Voodoo5 has everything in one card and includes that lovely 3dfx FSAA 😀

Here is the G200 TSR.

http://grafi.ii.pw.edu.pl/gbm/matrox/svbe.html

It's only alpha, but it does appear to work. In System Shock, the highest resolution which is still reasonably fast is 600x400, but I'm not sure I'd like to play the game like this. I suppose I'd be better off playing it under xp, but it gives me something to strive for I guess (carmageddon is another game that doesn't run very well on my dosbox at the moment).

Ta for the benchmark util (and I should have thought of quake - doh!).. I think it might be time for a battle of the benchmarks to see who's 486 dosbox reigns supreme!

With the voodoo1 or 2 card the best picture quality comes from a pure3d I or II and a spectra 2500 (agp) - which has a digital connector from the voodoo card to the main video card. I'm not sure what other canopus cards have this.. maybe the Canopus 128V PCI?

ran that benchmark and got an underwhelming 6.3 Guess I've got a bit of tweaking to do!