What VGA card should I choose from what I have here ? \ VOGONS

What VGA card should I choose from what I have here ?

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First post, by SimonV

Posted on 2019-09-08, 17:55

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I have a 386 converted to a 486sxlc2/50 and a 286 machine and a collection of ISA vga cards but I am not sure what to use for what machine.

I post some pictures, more in the second post. Not pictured are some Trident cards but I understood they aren't really top of the line ?

I would use it for DOSgaming and a little bit of windows 3.1 for no particular reason.

Last edited by SimonV on 2019-09-08, 17:56. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 11, by SimonV

Posted on 2019-09-08, 17:55

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and the others ...

Reply 2 of 11, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2019-09-08, 18:04

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The top cards in both posts are the best of the bunch.

TSENG 3000AX
ORCHID

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Reply 3 of 11, by SimonV

Posted on 2019-09-08, 18:04

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I might as well post my trident cards while I am at it.

Reply 4 of 11, by SimonV

Posted on 2019-09-08, 18:05

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cyclone3d wrote:
The top cards in both posts are the best of the bunch.

TSENG 3000AX
ORCHID

If I compare both I would say the Orchid is more suited for the 486 ?

Reply 5 of 11, by Grzyb

Posted on 2019-09-08, 18:26

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That 386/486 box deserves an accelerated card, so the Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 - it's based on S3 86C911, the very classics of accelerated SVGA chipsets.

For a 286... ET3000 is a very good match.
WD90C30 is also OK.

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Reply 6 of 11, by Baoran

Posted on 2019-09-09, 00:21

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My Tseng3000 is the slowest vga card I have ever seen. It loses to all trident cards I have too by a lot. Since people here recommend it, it makes me wonder if there is something wrong with mine.

Reply 7 of 11, by Tiido

Posted on 2019-09-09, 00:26

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The WD card is going to be pretty fast, definitely faster than the Tridents, OAK and Realtek cards you have.

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Reply 8 of 11, by precaud

Posted on 2019-09-09, 01:00

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Tiido wrote:
The WD card is going to be pretty fast, definitely faster than the Tridents, OAK and Realtek cards you have.

... and with very nicely saturated colors...

Reply 9 of 11, by maxtherabbit

Posted on 2019-09-09, 02:40

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The DAC on my WD90C31 is god awful

Reply 10 of 11, by Grzyb

Posted on 2019-09-09, 05:14

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Baoran wrote:
My Tseng3000 is the slowest vga card I have ever seen. It loses to all trident cards I have too by a lot. Since people here recommend it, it makes me wonder if there is something wrong with mine.

Indeed, ET3000 isn't fast, so probably nothing wrong with yours.
And I don't recommend it for 386+

For a 286, however...
ET3000 is a clasical product of the 80's, probably 1988, anyway it's one of the first SVGA chipsets.
With translation ROM, it provides good compatibility with CGA and Hercules.
So, a perfect match for an AT clone from late 80's.

Trident chipset from the same era would be TVGA8800, ie. total crap.
More decent Tridents, ie. 8900/9000, are already from the 90's.

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Reply 11 of 11, by SimonV

Posted on 2020-05-01, 20:33

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A little follow up.

I didn’t do more work on the 286 , I reserved the ET3000 for it but I will start working on it one of these. Given the fact it’s mentioned to be quite slow .... will it matter with a 286 - 16mhz and 2D games ? For instance Lotus III The ultimate challenge was quite slow with an OTI card will a faster card fix this or is this just because of the slow cpu ?

The 486 then, I first used the Trident 8900D in it. Fastest of them all in 3Dbench. 24fps against the Orchid Fahrenheit with 15,5 fps. But what a shitty video output on my Dell 2410 LCD . Unbearable vertical banding. Reverted back to the Orchid, close to zero banding and the colors are way better. I hope to pick up an ET4000ax, I hope,that goes fast AND gives a nice picture like the Orchid does.

The realtek ended up in an XT machine. Didn’t expect it to work in an 8bit slot with 16bit part hanging in the air. But it does.

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