Tip: Most classic ATs don't do copy (+map) the VGA BIOS in to RAM (Shadow Memory).
So they have to access/load video routines over ISA bus each time (in addition, there's the comparably high latency of EPROMs: ~60ns RAM vs ~150ns EPROM).
That's why there's historically a RAMBIOS utility supplied with the driver/utility disks that shipped with ISA VGAs.
If you use it, graphics performance might increase a bit.
Running ISA bus at 10 MHz also helps to reduce bottlenecks.
So far, all my old ISA VGAs (Paradise, OAK, Tseng etc) supported that when I tested them in a 10 MHz AT w/ 0 WS.
Edit: I forgot to mention. Wing Commander likes Expanded Memory, apparently.
So it's maybe helpful to enable Chipset EMS, a couple of ATs have that feature mentioned in CMOS Setup.
Edit: Animation is also affected by EMS. More information here:
https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/wc1-e … mparison.27730/
Wing Commander 1 on DOS machine, why does it say 'no expanded memory detected'?
Edit: Oh, and beware, EMM386 users: 386/486 processors are being slowed-down by V86, so you'll loose performance here.
So having Chipset EMS/UMBs is still relevant. To my knowledge, it were the later generation 486 cores which fixed the issue (maybe due to VME).
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