Looks like 4MB to me....unless there are more chips on the other side.

Xorg reports 8meg and I've got 3 4meg S3Virge/DX cards spare to compare it with.

Caluser2000 wrote:

Don't know if it's much help. I have this EAGLES S3Virge/DX based video card from 1997/98 with 8megs of MS416250-25J.

s3virge.gif

Thanks for the help with that one.
I posted in the wrong thread.
meant to post here Ram chips for S3 virge\trio

You are most welcome.

Any luck finding the datasheet on those chips? It's actually M5416250. Does Virge DX even support more than 4MB? I thought only VX and GX2 could do 8MB.

bytesaber wrote:

Is there such a card that was built with GX (Not GX2), and used more than 2MB of SGRAM memory?

[...]

Does this mean DX actually can support SGRAM memory? Does that then mean the GX and the DX have no difference?

I don't know about differences, but here are S3 ViRGE DX and GX with 4MB SGRAM.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Any luck finding the datasheet on those chips? It's actually M5416250. Does Virge DX even support more than 4MB? I thought only VX and GX2 could do 8MB.

Welll I I just tested another S3Virge/DX with 8megs. Compare it with one with only 4megs, up gradable to 8megs.

those are 2 and 4mb cards...

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Any luck finding the datasheet on those chips? It's actually M5416250. Does Virge DX even support more than 4MB? I thought only VX and GX2 could do 8MB.

Try this datasheet?
http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheet/oki/MSM5416250.pdf

Interesting thread. What's the difference in DOOM when using VirgeGX between SGRAM and EDO RAM?

Should this topic be in the Video sub-thread?

From what I understand there is a pretty huge variation among manufacturers that use those chips in terms of core and memory clock, so it seems that some GX cards with SGRAM and low clock can be outperformed by cheaper DX cards with EDO DRAM that is clocked much higher. I think I remember that the STB Nitro (GX with EDO) has one of the fastest memory clocks for this chipset.

j^aws wrote:

bytesaber wrote:

Is there such a card that was built with GX (Not GX2), and used more than 2MB of SGRAM memory?

[...]

Does this mean DX actually can support SGRAM memory? Does that then mean the GX and the DX have no difference?

20191013_093425_compress53.jpg

I don't know about differences, but here are S3 ViRGE DX and GX with 4MB SGRAM.

Take a closer look at ram modules. Jaton card has 10ns ram = SGRAM, Powercolor card has... 35ns ram = EDO in different package 😀 The only virge that can have 8mb ram is VX. DX can be faster because chip frequency is equal to the memory frequency. GX cards should have 75MHz ram, STB version with EDO is 75/75. Compaq card with SGRAM has slower chip but memory = 75MHz

I'm somewhat confident that the Virge GX2 can support 8MB.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I'm somewhat confident that the Virge GX2 can support 8MB.

There are only 2MB and 4MB versions. Only VX with memory module can have 8MB 😀

BigDaddyM wrote:

j^aws wrote:

bytesaber wrote:

Is there such a card that was built with GX (Not GX2), and used more than 2MB of SGRAM memory?

[...]

Does this mean DX actually can support SGRAM memory? Does that then mean the GX and the DX have no difference?

20191013_093425_compress53.jpg

I don't know about differences, but here are S3 ViRGE DX and GX with 4MB SGRAM.

Take a closer look at ram modules. Jaton card has 10ns ram = SGRAM, Powercolor card has... 35ns ram = EDO in different package 😀 The only virge that can have 8mb ram is VX. DX can be faster because chip frequency is equal to the memory frequency. GX cards should have 75MHz ram, STB version with EDO is 75/75. Compaq card with SGRAM has slower chip but memory = 75MHz

The markings look really faint IRL, but in the picture they are clearer and you are correct, these are speeds for EDO RAM. Which reminds me, I have another GX somewhere with the same RAM packaging and I always thought it was SGRAM, too.

So, I think I have three S3 cards with similar PCB designs as pictured above: Two with EDO RAM, a GX and a DX, and another GX with SGRAM - which is considered better for S3D games?

I think the best will be the dx that overclock best. My DX's rerord is ~90MHz

BigDaddyM wrote:

I think the best will be the dx that overclock best. My DX's rerord is ~90MHz

That's around a 20% overclock, right? What RAM specs does it have?

I also have a GX2 in PCI form as well - wouldn't that run S3D games faster?

Anonymous Coward wrote:

From what I understand there is a pretty huge variation among manufacturers that use those chips in terms of core and memory clock, so it seems that some GX cards with SGRAM and low clock can be outperformed by cheaper DX cards with EDO DRAM that is clocked much higher. I think I remember that the STB Nitro (GX with EDO) has one of the fastest memory clocks for this chipset.

This is correct.

The Virge was used for quite a long time (iirc it was produced new for several years, mostly for OEMs) and it did evolve as things changed. So there's a lot of variety in subvariants and different versions.
It was also build/assembled by lots of different manufacturers, so the build quality will probably differ quite a bit between manufacturers.

One interesting thing is to look up the dates on the PCBs and compare between cards.

Caluser2000 wrote:

Xorg reports 8meg and I've got 3 4meg S3Virge/DX cards spare to compare it with.

I don't know what Xorg is, but as already been pointed out, you listed the part number of the memory chips incorrectly. It should be M5416250-25J.
Your card is most likely a 4MB model (with 8 chips with each 0.5MB of memory) and the 4 chipped cards are usually 2MB.

I think it's very likely your cards are being misidentified in some way.

BigDaddyM wrote:

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I'm somewhat confident that the Virge GX2 can support 8MB.

There are only 2MB and 4MB versions. Only VX with memory module can have 8MB 😀

Do you have the datasheets for the GX2? I looked and couldn't find them. If it's true that 4MB was still the max, then that's pretty sad. In 97/98 when this chip was released it would have needed 8MB to be competitive.