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Nominations for the best all-rounder graphics card for a 486

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First post, by Malik

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Hi, I'm building a 486 based system. Have been shopping around in ebay for a while now. Now if anyone can share their personal experience with regard to a VLB or an ISA based card. My targets are 1) Best compatibility with all Dos classics. 2) Won't be playing much of FPS that much since I have 2 other dedicated machines. Anyway, The most graphics demanding games I'll be playing in this 486 are Terminator Future Shock, Eradicator, Skynet, and of course, the classics Doom 1,2, Heretic 1 etc.
Thanks!

Reply 1 of 7, by Malik

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Oh, and I managed to get a Tseng ET4000/32WP VLB card and an Orchid Fahrenheit ISA 16-bit card. Any idea about these cards? After my 286, my next machine was my Pentium 133. And I have completely missed the 386 and 486 era during my studies. Hence not very familiar with the VLB era cards.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 2 of 7, by Amigaz

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That Tseng card you've got will be perfect..it's very compatble and fast as hell in DOS...does it have 1mb or 2mb gfx mem?
I believe the Orchid has some S3 based chipset which is good too...it's ultra compatible

Had only had one problem with my Tseng ET4000w32p rev. D, in the game Raiden I get slowdowns when there's lots of enemies on the screen..when there's not the game runs fast as hell...

Here's a page I've found so you can see what video chipset your card(s)
has

http://www.computercraft.com/docs/videochipsets.shtml

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 3 of 7, by Malik

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Thanks for the links, Amigaz!

I think my Tseng card is a 1MB card. I'm waiting for my 486 motherboard to arrive.

I've attached some pics.

I think I'll stick to ET4000/w32p as you have mentioned! 😀
img_0277_resize.jpg

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Last edited by Malik on 2008-08-21, 16:16. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 4 of 7, by Anonymous Coward

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Shit, that's a big picture.

Anyway, that Hercules card is great. I have a slightly updated version (The Dynamite Power) and it's fast as hell. Just make sure you full those empty slots with memory to take advantage of the interleaving.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 5 of 7, by Amigaz

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Anonymous Coward wrote:

Shit, that's a big picture.

Anyway, that Hercules card is great. I have a slightly updated version (The Dynamite Power) and it's fast as hell. Just make sure you full those empty slots with memory to take advantage of the interleaving.

🤣, the thread should be renamed "nominations for the biggest forum posted pic on Vogons so far" 😁

that's the same Hercules card I have in one of my 486 systems...mine has soldered 2mb memory though

1954-v1870.jpg

My retro computer stuff: https://lychee.jjserver.net/#16136303902327

Reply 6 of 7, by Malik

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Woops! Sorry,...forgot to resize it....

Wow! the ET4000 seems to be a favourite here.

Ok, just one more question : What is the exact name of the memory chips that I should be getting for this card? Like, under what name should I search at eBay?

Thanks!

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 7 of 7, by swaaye

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I used to have a Herc Dynamite Power VLB. Excellent card. Was superior for DOS compared to a more expensive #9 Motion 771 (S3 968) I got later on. I was hunting for VLB vid cards in 1996 cuz I was a poor kid. Ebay got me these things for ~$40. 😀

I had a friend with a crap Trident 9400CXi VLB that couldn't run Diablo remotely smooth. So I gave him the Hercules card and upgraded to that #9 Motion. The S3 968 may be a wicked Windows chip, but it wasn't quite as quick as the ET4000/W32p in DOS and the card was somewhat flaky.

If you don't have 2MB, performance suffers cuz the memory interleaving isn't functional with 1MB.