I think your CPU is the bigger bottleneck for those games... you'd gain lot more performance moving up to a Pentium and pretty much any PCI video card.

--Zero

Yes, nothing really problematic with CL video chipsets. If you need more power, you're better off moving to a faster platform.

The 968 is probably more 'advanced' in terms of Windows acceleration features.
So despite the lack of a VLB interface, it may be faster in certain situations in Windows.
For games however, the VLB card will likely give better performance, since games don't use any acceleration features, and just need fast access to video memory. CL chips were excellent at that, back in the day, so going to an S3 chip (even on a VLB card) may not actually be an improvement.

silentwulf wrote:

I currently have a 486DX2 DOS tower equipped with a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5424 VESA. I'm looking to upgrade, ideally something that […]
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I currently have a 486DX2 DOS tower equipped with a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5424 VESA.
I'm looking to upgrade, ideally something that could handle "3D" a bit better [Doom, Duke 3D, Blood]

Two cards I have my eye on;
DIAMOND 23030057-224 S3 VISION 968
http://www.ebay.com/itm/252634268970?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Diamond Stealth 24 VLB
http://www.ebay.com/itm/272445322220?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

My current card, and the Stealth 24 are VESA Local Bus, but the "S3 Vision" is ISA. From what I've been able to uncover, the specs for the 968 are higher, but obviously it's ISA 16-Bit.
Has anyone had any experience with the cards listed above? Will moving to a ISA card with more memory and higher clock speeds yield a noticeable difference versus my current VESA card?

S3 Vision is PCI not ISA. You should look for VLB version. It's out there somewhere but cost much more. My tests with 968 show you get around 5-10% increase in DOS over other VLB cards. But in your case it would be wiser to upgrade the CPU. If your motherboard supports only 5V cpus, you can get a voltage regulator adapter and then you can install a 3V DX4-100MHz.

Of the games you mentioned, Doom would be "most playable" on a DX2 system, but it will still be sluggish no matter what graphics card you choose. These games play best on a Pentium platform.

Sure there are faster VLB cards than yours, but most of the potential gains are probably actually in optimizing the bus, RAM and L2 cache wait states. Short of a faster CPU, that is.

The CL-GD5426, CL-GD5428 and CL-GD5429 are easy-to-find direct upgrades. My impression is that past the GD5429 you're not gaining much on the VLB platform, just making compromises one way or another.

clueless1 wrote:

Of the games you mentioned, Doom would be "most playable" on a DX2 system, but it will still be sluggish no matter what graphics card you choose. These games play best on a Pentium platform.

I disagree. On a decent 486DX2-66 VLB system with zero-waitstate, DOOM can play very smoothly, full screen with high detail.
Pentiums didn't become mainstream until years later, around the time when Quake arrived.

Scali wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Of the games you mentioned, Doom would be "most playable" on a DX2 system, but it will still be sluggish no matter what graphics card you choose. These games play best on a Pentium platform.

I disagree. On a decent 486DX2-66 VLB system with zero-waitstate, DOOM can play very smoothly, full screen with high detail.
Pentiums didn't become mainstream until years later, around the time when Quake arrived.

"...but can it run Doom?"

Why are comparsions only ever focused on speed ? 😕

Aren't other things like image quality, RAM DAC types, memory types, maximum memory or
backwards compatibility also interesting ?

For example, which VLB or PCI cards do have mode utilities ?
Do they offer Hercules, Olivetti or CGA emulation ?

Or did some of the older ISA cards have Hercules InColor, SuperEGA or Plantronics modes ?

Which VGA models where available as full-size cards ?

Which VGA cards had S-VIDEO or composite output ?

Which early VGA cards used a 9pin connector (not EGA) ?

Which cards had the ability to display VGA graphics on an EGA monitor ?

Jo22 wrote:

Why are comparsions only ever focused on speed ? 😕

Because that's the only thing that ever mattered for VGA? 😀
Well, in this particular case the question was specifically about running 3d games quickly.

Jo22 wrote:

Aren't other things like image quality, RAM DAC types, memory types, maximum memory or
backwards compatibility also interesting ?

Not really.
PC is a platform of 'lowest common denominator'. So software worked around the limitations of EGA/VGA's backward compatibility.
There's not a whole lot of software available that would specifically require CGA or Hercules emulation, the limited standard VGA backward compatibility does the job 99% of the time.

As for extra features... Not a lot of software supported that either, and when it did, it was generally very picky about which videocards it supported. There's no 'one size fits all' card, sadly.

It generally boils down to: "99% of the time you'll just use standard VGA modes, and 256K of memory is enough". All that matters is how fast it runs in those modes.
If you want special modes, connections or whatever, you'll know, and you won't be asking us about it, I suppose 😀

I had my share of fancy SVGA cards back in the day, but I was rarely able to use much of their functionality.

Scali wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Of the games you mentioned, Doom would be "most playable" on a DX2 system, but it will still be sluggish no matter what graphics card you choose. These games play best on a Pentium platform.

I disagree. On a decent 486DX2-66 VLB system with zero-waitstate, DOOM can play very smoothly, full screen with high detail.
Pentiums didn't become mainstream until years later, around the time when Quake arrived.

The best VLB DX2-66's in Phil's VGA Database average around 25-27fps in the Doom timedemo. To me, that gets a little sluggish in heavy action areas (my DX2-66 is in that 25-27fps group). But I agree that the experience of how that feels is subjective and I respect your point of view.

I like to play Doom on a Pentium 100 or something like that 😀

clueless1 wrote:

The best VLB DX2-66's in Phil's VGA Database average around 25-27fps in the Doom timedemo. To me, that gets a little sluggish in heavy action areas (my DX2-66 is in that 25-27fps group). But I agree that the experience of how that feels is subjective and I respect your point of view.

I've never run the timedemo, nor even seen it, so I have no idea what kind of level and scenario it is testing, but the game was never sluggish for me. I would say that in a lot of places it would run 35+ fps.
It was silky-smooth most of the time.
The timedemo means nothing to me, nor does some random average fps number.
The game was designed for a 486DX2-66, because that was the high-end system at the time.

I don't think I've ever even played it on my Pentium, because I was 'done' with the game by the time the Pentiums came around.

In the game it's capped at 35 FPS, half the refresh rate. The game can slow down during heavy action, it is here that the Pentium keeps the FPS locket at 35 FPS.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

In the game it's capped at 35 FPS, half the refresh rate. The game can slow down during heavy action, it is here that the Pentium keeps the FPS locket at 35 FPS.

Sure, but I'd argue that it's pretty much overkill. A 486 can keep the framerate at 35 fps most of the time, and the few parts with heavy action will drop a bit, but it won't be unpleasant, let alone unplayable.
It never bothered me at any rate (and I grew up with C64 and Amiga, so I know what solid 50 fps smoothness is 😀)

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I like to play Doom on a Pentium 100 or something like that 😀

I like to play it on a 386DX-40. I prefer when hardware do its best! 😁

But from my test a 486DX4-100 is probably the "fastest" time correct cpu I'd choose. 😀

Yea agree to disagree 😀

The benchmarks are more for relative comparison, ranking of machines and to help retro builders check if their system performs well.

As for actual gameplay, I've played Doom on so many configs, impossible to count, a DX2 just doesn't cut it. I don't see it hitting 35 fps at all to be honest. On a 486 I'd insist on a 5x86, but Pentium is my preferred platform. For me it's a case of having it played optimally, and easily noticing if it doesn't.

Oh and there is Doom 2 of course. No point building a second machine for that.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I don't see it hitting 35 fps at all to be honest.

Well, my trusty old 486DX2 can do it just fine... It has a fast ALI chipset, Diamond SpeedStar Pro VLB card (CL5426 if I'm not mistaken), Winbond VLB IDE card, 256k cache, 16 MB of memory, and most importantly, everything 0 ws.
As soon as you go 1 ws, you immediately drop a consistent amount of frames. Friend of mine had the same videocard, and also a DX2-66, but he couldn't run 0 ws, and it hurt.

That's not the top of the hill. Try 1 MB of Cache, PCI graphics and tightest RAM timings. Doesn't change the outcome though.