I would say Tseng ET4000AX, indeed 😀. Fast and reliable.

vetz wrote:

Hey guys

Currently in the works in building a 1992 specific 486 DX50 system with ISA only.

What would you consider a highend graphics card for this year? ATI Mach32? ET4000AX (even though it came out in 1990)?

Hi vetz! Sounds like a fun project, I hope you create a thread here when you're done.

In my experience, the ET4000AX is the way to go. It's common in ISA form and the image quality - in the 3 or 4 I've tried - has been fantastic.

Yup, a good ET4000 will get you near-VLB performance on a 486.
I played Doom on a 486-system with an ISA ET4000, and I was amazed that it was pretty much as smooth as my VLB system with SpeedStar PRO (CL5426).
I think ET4000 is the fastest and most compatible option for ISA.

Other decent alternatives would be late WD Paradise, or ISA-based CL542x cards.
Possibly others as well.

Yeah well, he asked for 1992 graphics cards.
So all later CL-GD54xx are out, Acumos AVGA2 (aka CL-GD5402) is 1992.
Also for the ET4000AX the early versions weren't as fast as advertised here.

How about the Number Nine GXiTC ?
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/n9_gxitc_front.jpg
It is from 1992, has a 135 MHz DAC and supports in Win 3.11 1024x768 TrueColor or 1280x1024 at 64K 60 Hz.

Paradise WD90C31 should be 1992. Limited to 1MB, but so is ET4000AX.

Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, I'm aware the Et4000AX had some revisions during its life time. Will need to research on it. I'm also thinking about reading up on some PC Magazines issues from 1992 to get an idea what was popular 😀

According to Wikipedia ATI Mach32 was released in 1992 (supports 2MB). Should be quick in DOS and Windows. How is the compatibility?

Badmojo: Will definitively post a thread here on Vogons with pictures when its ready, but it can take some time. Need to gather everything I want for this build 😀