I don't think using a 486DLC-40 to test VLB cards is a good idea. From my experience with these hybrid boards the VLB implementations are severely flawed. I happened to have the Mach64VRAM in both ISA and VLB form. On the DLC the VLB card was barely faster than the ISA. But on a true 486 the VLB version was much faster (obviously).

I'll retest with a 486DX2-66 when I get to it. But when testing 1MB VS 2MB on the same card, the CPU speed isn't that much important.

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Here are the results from Cyrix 486DX2-66 and Ti486DLC-40 on different VLB motherboards and Tseng ET4000/w32i with 1MB and 2MB memory.

Windows benchmarks are done in Windows 95 OSR2.

In DOS there are no benefits. But in Windows 95 there is a big improvement.

Will do some tests with ISA CL-5429 1MB and 2MB later.

PeterLI wrote:

There are ISA VGA cards with 2D acceleration and 2MB RAM that speed up Windows 3.1(1) and provide higher resolutions. I am not sure about benefits in DOS games though: most are 320*200 or limited color 640*480. Once you get to Duke Nukem 3D and similar games you need a strong VLB / PCI card anyway with a powerful CPU (5x86 / Pentium) and RAM. PCI VGA cards are a completely different discussion because there are really basic PCI cards and very advanced PCI cards. PCI also covered a pretty long period between relatively weak CPUs (486) to very powerful CPUs (P233 MMX).

Right. Well I meant in Windows. Most DOS programs are 640x480 max and don't use the cards acceleration

kixs wrote:

Here are the results from Cyrix 486DX2-66 and Ti486DLC-40 on different VLB motherboards and Tseng ET4000/w32i with 1MB and 2MB memory.

Windows benchmarks are done in Windows 95 OSR2.

Thanks for the benches kixs. Your results back up mine and suniacs, but you elaborated further into WIndows and uncovered were the performance increase actually is 😀 Its good to clear up the misconception that if you run a ET4000/W32P with only 1 MB you're gimping yourself in DOS games. Another Vogons myth busted.

Very interesting. I wonder if memory interleaving is only available to the Windows accellerated drivers.

I've never tested any 2MB cards at 1MB because either my card always came with 2MB or I had the extra chips on hand and upgraded immediately.

I think you will be very disapointed with the 2MB upgrade to the CL GD5429. Even in windows it basically does nothing except for adding a few interlaced modes.

Why would I be disapointed? It already has 2MB on it - 1MB is socketed. I'll test it to see if there is a difference between 1MB and 2MB.

I've already done some tests when I got it. And it's a nice Windows accelerator card and fast in DOS - on par with ET4000.

CL are good value! Fast, compatible and affordable 😀

Another Vogons myth busted.

NOT a VOGONS myth. It predates VOGONs by a decade (or more). Check the newsgroups.

I find this discovery rather interesting, because of all the cards I played with in my VLB system the ET4000W32P always felt like the fastest one to me. I own a CL GD5429 as well, and I do not remember being impressed with that card at all (but yes, they were dirt cheap and good value for the money). I would really like to run all the DOS tests for comparisons on my own machines, but sadly my ET4000W32P cards are not working in my current EISA/VL motherboards.

This is on a 386DX 40.

This graph doesn't have me convinced that "WD90C31 owns ET4000AX". I wish there was an S3 801/805 and an ATi VGA Wonder Plus in there too.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

This graph doesn't have me convinced that "WD90C31 owns ET4000AX". I wish there was an S3 801/805 and an ATi VGA Wonder Plus in there too.

Who says that?

The only difference is that the ET4000 needs a utility for high resolution. The WD just works. But in terms of performance no difference.

The 386DX-40 is limited by the CPU for fast ISA cards. It would be better to plug them to a Pentium class system to get some differences for the faster ISA cards.
As AC already mentioned some more chipsets would give a better overview. For the ET4000AX the chip revision is important. Later ET4000 have VESA 1.x support by BIOS and don't need a TSR. Also a very fast chipset is Acumos AVGA2.

If I find some time I could do a ISA roundup with a few more chipsets.

But nobody is going to run a ISA card in a Pentium. And even if it showed a difference what good is that when you will be using it in a 386 😀

This time it's CL-5429 2MB ISA on the same 486DX2-66 system as above. No difference between 1MB vs 2MB, not even in Windows.

For some reason running Windows 95 benchmarks on 486DLC kept freezing the computer (tried even the slowest BIOS timings).

This CL-5429 is running on AT BUS=clock/3. I tried one of my ET4000, but can do only clock/4, then it runs slower then the CL.

But comparing VLB vs ISA graphic card, there isn't a huge difference.

This is a table from the post above for comparison.

philscomputerlab wrote:

But nobody is going to run a ISA card in a Pentium. And even if it showed a difference what good is that when you will be using it in a 386 😀

Yes probably not, however considering the last ISA only mainboards which were for 486 class CPUs the fastest CPU would be an 486DX2-66 (not considering overdrives). This CPU can already push the fastest ISA cards to it's limits. Of course I can benchmark with a 486DX2-66, but I have currently a P3 800MHz on the benchtable. So it is more convenient to use this one since for ISA it is as limited by the transfer speed as on a 486DX2-66.
Beyond this I get information about how fast the ISA card could perform. When I compare this to scores of slower systems I can see whether the card is CPU or transfer speed limited.

In special cases a 8 bit ISA VGA card can be used in a fast system as very compatible slowdown component for games like wing commander.

True, I guess it' would be nice to know what card is the fastest, just in case.

For ISA only motherboard the CL-5429 is clearly the best overall card (I don't have CL-543X). DOS performance is atleast on the level of ET4000 - depends how far can you optimize BIOS. In Windows it's faster then the VLB ET4000/w32i with only 1MB of ram. I'll try to get Windows 95 running with DLC and CL-5429. If not, then I'll switch to 386DX-40.

My tests (on HOT419-R2) :

Regards;