Carlos S. M. wrote:

Well, another use for the ViRGE can be as 2D card to be paried with 3Dfx Voodoos

This. S3 virge (DX/VX) + voodoo 1/2 was a very nice combo. It had some problems with direct3d games though, conflicts about what card to be used. Even "3D Control Center V1.0" doesn't work with some games.

Elia1995 wrote:

I haven't taken a photo of it yet, it's like the one in the middle here […]
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I haven't taken a photo of it yet, it's like the one in the middle here

But I have none of the chips that go in the brown sockets, they're all empty.

Adding extra memory to a Virge would be a waste.

Why ? The more memory, the faster it can perform... no ?

Elia1995 wrote:

Why ? The more memory, the faster it can perform... no ?

The added memory allowed for better settings in windows but wasn't a big help in gaming in this era unlike previous generations.

You normally want to have double buffering so that the video is smooth and not flickery, at least at the Windows desktop. With 2MB RAM this limits you to 1MB used for the video frame. With that budget you can run 800x600 16bpp or 1024x768 8bpp. If you upgrade the card to 4MB then you can double the video RAM usage and still get double buffering, so you'd get a nicer result with 1024x768 16bpp. Not that you'd want to do this in games, it's just a benefit for the Windows desktop.

I had a 4MB Virge in a Cyrix 6x86 back then. Hardly anything ever had acceleration support, but the last 3D game I remember running in an accelerated mode was "Premier League Football Manager 99". I had to turn off the textures on the players but then it would accelerate the game with flat shaded players running around. That was with a 4MB card - not sure if it would work at all with 2MB. But really, that game was too much for the card anyway and with today's prices on old cards you'd run it with something else.

If it is for 2D games then 2 MB is sufficient on a ViRGE as on every other card at this time. This allows for 640x480 at 16 bit double buffered.

More memory is only useful for running higher resolutions/color depths. However the VirGE comes with a 135 MHz RAM DAC where for 4 MB 170 or 220 MHz would be better. So 2D image quality degrades faster than on the e.g. professional S3 Vision series.

Now I wish it was VLB so I could immediately fix what happened today to my 486... 😢

The thing is, though, finding those RAM chips separately. Most likely you'd have to scavenge them from another Virge board.

Overclocking. I use my virge in my slot one bench setup.

You can try Tomb Raider on that card, on 320x240 and 512x384 work good with that card, I have 4 MB S3 Virge and setting up in windows 1024x768x24 gets very blurry screen, that`s normal with that card?

And that`s photo of my card:

Tiger433 wrote:

You can try Tomb Raider on that card, on 320x240 and 512x384 work good with that card, I have 4 MB S3 Virge and setting up in windows 1024x768x24 gets very blurry screen, that`s normal with that card?

I used to run Windows at 1024x768 on my Virge back in the 90s, but based on what elianda posted maybe some blurriness at that resolution might be normal. It was a long time ago for me so I can't really judge it's quality from such a distant memory. I didn't have a good monitor back then either so I may not have even known the difference.

shamino wrote:

Tiger433 wrote:

You can try Tomb Raider on that card, on 320x240 and 512x384 work good with that card, I have 4 MB S3 Virge and setting up in windows 1024x768x24 gets very blurry screen, that`s normal with that card?

I used to run Windows at 1024x768 on my Virge back in the 90s, but based on what elianda posted maybe some blurriness at that resolution might be normal. It was a long time ago for me so I can't really judge it's quality from such a distant memory. I didn't have a good monitor back then either so I may not have even known the difference.

In 16 bits at 1024x768 I saw normal everything without blurring, but at 24 bits It was very blurry at screen, I saw that on CRT monitor and also on LCD.

Still the S3 Virge is the only graphics card that gives me the gradients in the title bars right at the first boot already without any driver 😁

sliderider wrote:

The thing is, though, finding those RAM chips separately. Most likely you'd have to scavenge them from another Virge board.

Chips are not that hard to find, or expensive.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321424283082?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

stamasd wrote:

sliderider wrote:

The thing is, though, finding those RAM chips separately. Most likely you'd have to scavenge them from another Virge board.

Chips are not that hard to find, or expensive.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321424283082?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

ouch, dat 20 $ shipping

Carlos S. M. wrote:

ouch, dat 20 $ shipping

To the Canary Islands, perhaps. To the US it's $3.25

It's saying $22.50 for me 😳

Tiger433 wrote:

shamino wrote:

Tiger433 wrote:

You can try Tomb Raider on that card, on 320x240 and 512x384 work good with that card, I have 4 MB S3 Virge and setting up in windows 1024x768x24 gets very blurry screen, that`s normal with that card?

I used to run Windows at 1024x768 on my Virge back in the 90s, but based on what elianda posted maybe some blurriness at that resolution might be normal. It was a long time ago for me so I can't really judge it's quality from such a distant memory. I didn't have a good monitor back then either so I may not have even known the difference.

In 16 bits at 1024x768 I saw normal everything without blurring, but at 24 bits It was very blurry at screen, I saw that on CRT monitor and also on LCD.

Strange. I'm confused why the color depth made a difference, since the video signal is analog anyway, and it seems like the blurring must be coming from the analog side of the card. Once the colors are converted into analog it seems like the digital color depth would no longer matter and the sharpness of the pixels would just be dictated by how well the circuitry can handle the resolution. I don't really understand analog electronics though, that stuff is voodoo.

Strange. I'm confused why the color depth made a difference, since the video signal is analog anyway, and it seems like the blurring must be coming from the analog side of the card. Once the colors are converted into analog it seems like the digital color depth would no longer matter and the sharpness of the pixels would just be dictated by how well the circuitry can handle the resolution. I don't really understand analog electronics though, that stuff is voodoo.

That setting use more memory than 16 bits in that resolution, added memory can cause that problem? In XP I can only set on that card max 1024x768x16 bits and I don`t see 24 bit setting, card was all time totally stable, in 800x600 in 24 bits also was good sharp image, in 1280x1024x16 bits was even more blurred than in 1024x768x24.

Has anyone tried to connect an hdmi monitor with a vga to hdmi converter ?