http://vintage3d.org/rage2.php

Rage II+DVD seems to be able to run more games than Virge DX and perform better in 3D.

Performance in DOS should be quite good for both. S3 has better DOS compatibility, though - see http://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

ViRGE is supported natively by some games, some of them even in DOS.
Rage II+DVD is supported natively by some games, Windows 9x only.
I wouldn't bother to use any of both for Direct3D or OpenGL, see http://www.vintage3d.org/rage2.php
(The performance of the ViRGE depends a lot of the ram chips installed on the card, the Rage cards shouldn't vary as much.)

I don't know if you will have 3D support in Windows NT 4 for any of these. If you want to have OpenGL in NT4 you could look for a Riva 128 or some kind of Permedia, maybe Matrox G200 (not sure if they finished the OpenGL driver for NT4). A Voodoo 1 would give you Glide and a MiniGL. I wouldn't bother to get anything much faster with those CPUs.

It probably does not make much sense for you to get the ATI card, except if you want to play a native game that doesn't support ViRGE, or if it is very cheap and you want to try both. I'd check that it has 4MB RAM.

Well, the ATi card is 5$, so i guessed if its better, why not.
I want to have a card for dos gaming, i want to install DOS 6.22 alongside NT4 (dont know why, experimenting).
So its noting serious, i don't want to play OpenGL / DX Windows games.

Well, you asked for Windows 3D. If you don't need that just stay with the ViRGE (and look for some native ports for DOS games instead).

Just be sure to have a look at S3 VBE/Core 2.0 (S3VBE20), S3SpeedUp (S3SPDUP) and maybe MCLK.

idspispopd & Putas pretty much nailed it.

You can check out the stickied thread in the marvin section for native supported games for both cards.

S3 Virge DX, ATi 3D Rage II+DVD, ATI Rage XL, ATI Rage LT Pro. Which card is fastest?

blacksn wrote:

S3 Virge DX, ATi 3D Rage II+DVD, ATI Rage XL, ATI Rage LT Pro. Which card is fastest?

2D or 3D? PCI or AGP?
For 2D you could look at http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/benchmarks
For S3 Virge there are some things you can do to enhance 2D performance a lot.
Of course the theoretical limit for AGP is higher than for PCI, but not all chips can benefit from that.

For 3D Rage XL and Rage LT Pro are definitely better than the other cards. They should be very close to Rage Pro (Turbo), see https://gona.mactar.hu/ATI_3D_CIF/

For 2D, Virge DX is about twice as fast as Rage II+. Did test that myself about 2 weeks ago. Dunno for 3D, as no one would seriously use a Virge for 3D anyway.

Really? Virge DX is twice as fast as Rage II+ in DOS? I'm surprised that fact wasn't more prominent back in 1996/97. I seem to recall both the Virge series and the Rage II cards getting good reviews in PC Magazine. The thing about the Virge cards is that the memory clock and the core clock can vary considerably from model to model, not to mention the picture quality. The Rage II cards were more consistent because the majority of them were produced by ATi. To be honest, I didn't find my 3D Pro Turbo to have a terribly sharp picture, but was running DOS games at the time and don't recall it being slow or incompatible.
I agree if you already own a Virge DX card, then there isn't much point to get a Rage II unless it's cheap, or you just like to screw around. The reason I choose Rage II over Virge back in the day was because it supported 8MB, whereas the Virge cards typically maxed out at 4MB, unless you're talking about the less common Virge VX, or one of the later models that weren't available in 97. However, I believe it was a mistake, because the extra 4MB can only be used for the crappy 3D engine and not enhanced desktop resolutions. I believe your best bet is to get a Virge DX or GX with exceptional output quality from a company like Number Nine or STB.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Really? Virge DX is twice as fast as Rage II+ in DOS? I'm surprised that fact wasn't more prominent back in 1996/97. I seem to recall both the Virge series and the Rage II cards getting good reviews in PC Magazine.

My fastest Virge DX gives me 51 MB/s, the Rage II+ only hit 27 MB/s. Both PCI and tested with Dr. Hardware. Doesn't mean that the II+ is bad, but the Virge is simply faster. 2D speed was always a selling point for S3 (emphasis on 2D 😉 ). The AGP version is probably faster, no idea.

This honestly depends on what is more important to you. 3D or 2D?

If it's 3D in any slight respect (As in, do you want a 2D card or a 3D card) get the ATI card.

Hands down it is actually USABLE for 3D, where as any Virge is pretty much useless. I think the only people in the modern day who have even used 3D on a Virge have done so as a cruel joke.

The 2D is fine in my experience. I run a Mach64GX 2MB and it is actually slightly faster in average tasks than my 4MB Virge/VX to my eyes, but I haven't run the numbers.

To hold for a second, my STB Virge/VX does not output a 640x480 video signal that is usable by any of my LCD panels for whatever reason. So if you do get a Virge/DX, keep in mind you could run into the same issue I had. It could be just down to my card, down to my panels, or whatever, but I have experienced this. I have a Trio32 (Stealth SE VLB) card in my 486 that doesn't do this, and it's based off a similar core, so who knows.

IMO, spend 40-60 bucks and buy a Voodoo 1 off E-Bay. I actually bought two as I broke the first (which I understand is a crime I will one day burn in hell for), and they were both around 40-60 bucks with free shipping from eastern Europe.

If you do that, and you know that the Virge/DX is compatible with your display hardware, then get the Virge. I personally like the Mach64 series, and I have not had any performance or compatibility issues with mine. If you must get a 2D card, a 4MB Trio64V+ or a 4MB Mach64GX would be my personal picks as I love S3 and ATI near equally.

If it comes to DOS either one is good.
The VirgeDX I have has good (mem-)speed(~27MB/s) but is nowhere near as fast as 'derSammler''s card. Before I bought the card I didn't even know it existed... thanks to "vgamuseum"'s somparisons I got curious and bought one.

The Matrox MilleniumII is faster with the software I use but I'm talking below 5% here.

amadeus777999 wrote:

The VirgeDX I have has good (mem-)speed(~27MB/s) but is nowhere near as fast as 'derSammler''s card.

My slowest one does 42 MB/s, btw. It's important, however, to only compare speed test results using exactly the same tool. Otherwise, the numbers can not be compared. What tool did you use to test? I can re-benchmark my cards.

Im asking about PCI for 5x86 system in 3D in Win9x.
I tried to run Quake 3 with Rage II, but there's no OpenGL drivers for Win9x. In 3DMark 99 this card give 4 points. I have ordered S3 Virge, tomorrow it will be delivered to me, I read it have better driver support, will test it. I also found XL and LT, but dont know which is better.

derSammler wrote:

amadeus777999 wrote:

The VirgeDX I have has good (mem-)speed(~27MB/s) but is nowhere near as fast as 'derSammler''s card.

My slowest one does 42 MB/s, btw. It's important, however, to only compare speed test results using exactly the same tool. Otherwise, the numbers can not be compared. What tool did you use to test? I can re-benchmark my cards.

I thought the ubiquitous speedsys was used, but I see... you took your score from Dr. Hardware, so if the time comes I'll see what it gets there. I remember the VirgeDX being slower than both the Riva128 and the MilleniumII in speedsys.

Is this Dr.Hardware version running on windows or Dos?

Today I have bought ATI Rage XL 8Mb. It gives 11 points / 2 CPU points vs 2/2 with ATI Rage II.

I have the Virge DX in mobile form in two of my laptops (MX then?) and although 3D is pretty much useless (exception being the 12 Virge accelerated games like Descent), the 2D is impaccable. Also no problems in regards to 640x480 on an external display although that, too might be accredited to them being the mobile versions. One has 2, the other 4 MB.

derSammler wrote:

My fastest Virge DX gives me 51 MB/s, the Rage II+ only hit 27 MB/s. Both PCI and tested with Dr. Hardware. Doesn't mean that the II+ is bad, but the Virge is simply faster. 2D speed was always a selling point for S3 (emphasis on 2D 😉 ). The AGP version is probably faster, no idea.

To add to the last sentence of my statement: Got three Rage IIc AGP cards a few days ago so I had the chance to test it. The AGP version gives exactly the same speed. 26 MB/s, that's it. Also tested a ViRGE VX, which was quite slow compared to other ViRGEs - it only reached slightly over 30 MB/s.

On the plus side, the Rage II has superb picture quality. Sharp, vivid colors, and no image artifacts on LCD/TFT. The ViRGE fails in all three of those (blurry, colors washed out, and vertical banding on LCD/TFT).