What is the size of the video RAM ? (Even though having only 256KB of ram on this would be odd)

S3 Trio64v should be fine on am5x86, i'd guess it's more of the classic conflict involved if you can't get anything more than VGA. You should be able to get up to 800x600x16/1024x768x8 on a 1mb Trio

Card is a S3 Trio64V2/DX 2 MB RAM PCI VIDEO CARD
i have 64mb of ram on current PC im using for this.

Go into BIOS and set "Assign IRQ to VGA" and "PCI VGA Palette Snoop" to "Enabled"

It might as well be that the card has a jumper to enable VGA IRQ, which should be set.

kanecvr wrote:

Go into BIOS and set "Assign IRQ to VGA" and "PCI VGA Palette Snoop" to "Enabled"

There's no such option in my bios..does that mean i should figure out a way to update it ?

elianda wrote:

It might as well be that the card has a jumper to enable VGA IRQ, which should be set.

here's the card i got, except for those Vesa feature (i guess?) i dont see any other place where to check for jumpers
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/231775624346?_trksid=p … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Erm, what about J3? Did you tried it?

elianda wrote:

Erm, what about J3? Did you tried it?

nope, didnt find anything related to those.
i will try setting one on j3 tonight and write back about it

Hmm... That's indeed a strange issue you've got. Never had serious problems with a Trio myself so far.
If it is similar to the card in the link, you could try to change the jumper setting (the jumper is "hidden" near the VGA connector).
But if this still doesn't work, you could try to run NSSI and get some information about the card and perhaps even make a BIOS dump.
Another idea is to run a demo with S3 support, like Countdown by Realtech. It claims to have native support for the S3 cards and allows
the selection of different resolutions.

elianda wrote:

Erm, what about J3? Did you tried it?

Ok tryed to put a jumper on J3.
didnt change anything. its still wont even go 640x480 on 256 color...im stuck at 16 colors.

Jo22 wrote:

Hmm... That's indeed a strange issue you've got. Never had serious problems with a Trio myself so far. If it is similar to the c […]
Show full quote

Hmm... That's indeed a strange issue you've got. Never had serious problems with a Trio myself so far.
If it is similar to the card in the link, you could try to change the jumper setting (the jumper is "hidden" near the VGA connector).
But if this still doesn't work, you could try to run NSSI and get some information about the card and perhaps even make a BIOS dump.
Another idea is to run a demo with S3 support, like Countdown by Realtech. It claims to have native support for the S3 cards and allows
the selection of different resolutions.

Ill try to find this program and get some testing done.
but from what i can see that might maybe hint on whats going, my bios says display is Ega/Vga
i cant change this. everything from the few options i got is set to auto-config.
there's nothing i cant change about display options.

power management if set to manual i can disable Vesa or something like that.
what's weird is that duke nukem wont even start if i try 640x480 in dos.

another problem i seem to get is the onboard video. i didnt find anything about disabling it.
i looked everywhere for a jumper. nothing. so i disabled the card in win95
(wich ALWAYS goes detected everytime i booted win95)
but i was wondering, even if disabled...it could conflict with the S3 ?

ok well going to look for that program you shown up there.
thanks 😀

I bet the on-board video card being enabled is the reason for your troubles. BTW, what is the on board video card? If it's a cirrus logic it's just as good as the S3 Trio64 (especially the CL-GD54xx versions).

yes its a cirrus logic....it seem to be able for upgrades...i see two empty slots...
what kind of chips goes in there ?

I wanted to go for a Dos menu system.. i always liked Direct access back when i was a kid.
sadly cirrus logic doesnt like it 😒 (resolution problems..if i try to change screen...everything goes shit)

guess better way would be to stick with the cirrus...and maybe somehow find a way to upgrade the board with better ram
in the two socket.

kanecvr wrote:

I bet the on-board video card being enabled is the reason for your troubles. BTW, what is the on board video card? If it's a cirrus logic it's just as good as the S3 Trio64 (especially the CL-GD54xx versions).

yes its exactly this same version 😁

It takes regular video ram chips - like what's socketed on most PCI cards:

If you have any video card with socketed chips like the ones above, you can remove them and place them in the sockets for the on board cirrus logic. Just make sure not to put them in backwards - the dot on the side of the chip should match the notch on the outside of the socket, like in the picture above. You can also de-solder chips off dead cards.

kanecvr wrote:

It takes regular video ram chips - like what's socketed on most PCI cards:

AT3Ds.JPG

If you have any video card with socketed chips like the ones above, you can remove them and place them in the sockets for the on board cirrus logic. Just make sure not to put them in backwards - the dot on the side of the chip should match the notch on the outside of the socket, like in the picture above. You can also de-solder chips off dead cards.

oooh really ? i do have 2 s3 video cards both with chips in their socket, ill try removing 2 of them 😀

update 😀

My direct access shell for dos now works (installed a previous version and everything works perfectly)
switched to Cirrus Logic (works)
put the extra ram from the S3 card and it upgraded to 2 megs (works)
everything seem to be going right tonight !

A big thank you to you all.
now i only need to find a way to switch the damn motherboard back at 2x so it can get to 133mhz