VOGONS


Reply 201 of 238, by darry

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dinth wrote on 2021-06-29, 15:50:

How about more modern radeons, like 7500s? I found quite a few posts saying that older Ati cards are crap in DOS, but im wondering if things got any better with newer Radeons?

Can't comment on the 7500, but the 9700 cannot run Second Reality on my setup

Reply 202 of 238, by capitaine

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I could not find a Radeon which can run Shadow Warrior properly. I can play, but with crap colors...
Also The Lost Vikings scrolling is jerky, if I remember well.
Finally, there is no Radeon drivers for Windows 95 (not even for the Rage 128, anyway).

The best card Dos-Win3.1-Win95 I could find is the TnT2.

Reply 203 of 238, by Gmlb256

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capitaine wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:54:
I could not find a Radeon which can run Shadow Warrior properly. I can play, but with crap colors... Also The Lost Vikings scro […]
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I could not find a Radeon which can run Shadow Warrior properly. I can play, but with crap colors...
Also The Lost Vikings scrolling is jerky, if I remember well.
Finally, there is no Radeon drivers for Windows 95 (not even for the Rage 128, anyway).

The best card Dos-Win3.1-Win95 I could find is the TnT2.

For me the best card for DOS and Windows are the S3 ones when it comes to compatibility unless one wants good 3D performance. Especially if it has 4MB RAM for high resolution and comes from a good manufacturer such as STB and Compaq.

Some of the ViRGE cards may come with VBE 2.0 BIOS (there's a lack of awareness on this and supports a large number of VESA resolutions) instead of the usual VBE 1.2 and there's S3VBE20 as an alternative to UniVBE for cards that doesn't support VBE 2.0.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 204 of 238, by drosse1meyer

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Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-09-19, 18:03:
capitaine wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:54:
I could not find a Radeon which can run Shadow Warrior properly. I can play, but with crap colors... Also The Lost Vikings scro […]
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I could not find a Radeon which can run Shadow Warrior properly. I can play, but with crap colors...
Also The Lost Vikings scrolling is jerky, if I remember well.
Finally, there is no Radeon drivers for Windows 95 (not even for the Rage 128, anyway).

The best card Dos-Win3.1-Win95 I could find is the TnT2.

For me the best card for DOS and Windows are the S3 ones when it comes to compatibility unless one wants good 3D performance. Especially if it has 4MB RAM for high resolution and comes from a good manufacturer such as STB and Compaq.

Some of the ViRGE cards may come with VBE 2.0 BIOS (there's a lack of awareness on this and supports a large number of VESA resolutions) instead of the usual VBE 1.2 and there's S3VBE20 as an alternative to UniVBE for cards that doesn't support VBE 2.0.

Agree that S3 Virge are great for DOS, more so with various support utilities, and arent hard to find or too expensive. I was able to get 640x480 and pretty good framerates in build engine games on a plain jane P166

P1: Packard Bell - 233 MMX, Voodoo1, 64 MB, ALS100+
P2-V2: Dell Dimension - 400 Mhz, Voodoo2, 256 MB
P!!! Custom: 1 Ghz, GeForce2 Pro/64MB, 384 MB

Reply 205 of 238, by zapbuzz

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e-man wrote on 2012-03-12, 20:49:
At the moment I have a nice retro pc with an easy to remove CF card as harddisk. This allows me quickly add files with my regula […]
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At the moment I have a nice retro pc with an easy to remove CF card as harddisk. This allows me quickly add files with my regular pc or change the operating system.

My current card, a S3 Virge Stealth 3d 3000 (PCI) works great in Dos, has good drivers for Windows 3.11 (1280x1024!) but in Windows 98 the best I get is 1024x768 at 16 bit color depth.

What I'm searching for is something like this but with higher resolution in Windows 98 (1280x1024) at preferably 24 bit color depth. (It still needs to run virtually every dos game and needs to have drivers for Win 3.11)

I did some research myself and came to the conclusion was a Riva 128 PCI can be an option. What do you think about this or maybe a better suggestion?

If free vram sockets exist a donor card could supply the extra memory for 24 or 32 bit colour and higher res as that chip did do as such

Reply 206 of 238, by gen_angry

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dinth wrote on 2021-06-29, 15:50:

How about more modern radeons, like 7500s? I found quite a few posts saying that older Ati cards are crap in DOS, but im wondering if things got any better with newer Radeons?

Not really. I tried my 9800 Pro for S&G once. I thought to maybe try to integrate late DOS into my P4 Win98/XP rig and tri-boot it. Almost nothing VESA related worked. No TSRs would accept the card and without them, games didn't work at all. Win 3.1 was limited to the basic VGA driver. It was my only hurdle that I couldn't get over.

I've found that picking a good DOS card is like this: High Performance, Low Price, Great Compatibility. <- pick two. The only exception that I know of is being an AGP RIVA 128 but that requires an AGP system and it's not without it's own issues.

6 month later edit: I tried again recently with a x850 Pro. VESA worked this time without the need for a TSR. Not sure why I had issues before with the 9800 as it should still be VESA 3.0 capable but... it just didn't work. However, Win 3.1 was still out of the question (and quite crashy). Everything EGA and older didn't look right and/or just failed to load entirely.

You're really just better off sticking to 3dfx/nvidia or a proper DOS-era card.

Reply 207 of 238, by dr.zeissler

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capitaine wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:54:

The best card Dos-Win3.1-Win95 I could find is the TnT2.

Going back to this post. let's talk about driver-support and features, especially for available PCI variants.

TNT2
Drivers: - Win3x - Win9x - OS/2 ? - Amithlon - Linux - Dos Vesa 3x
Features: D3D5 ? / OGL 1.1 ? / - TnL no - S3TC no - AF no

GF2MX
Drivers: - Win3x no - Win9x - OS/2 ? - Amithlon - Linux - Dos Vesa 3x
Features: - D3D6 ? / OGL 1.x ? - TnL no ?- S3TC yes ? - AF no ?

GF4MX
Drivers: - Win3x no - Win9x - OS/2 ? - Amithlon - Linux - Dos Vesa 3x
Features: - D3D7 ? / OGL 1.5x ? - TnL yes - S3TC yes - AF yes 2x

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 208 of 238, by Dracolich

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capitaine wrote on 2021-09-19, 17:54:

The best card Dos-Win3.1-Win95 I could find is the TnT2.

I agree with this. My DOS/Win3.1/Win95/OS2 machine started with a 4MB S3 Virge/GX. It was decent in DOS and Win, but had mode switching problems in OS2.
Then I tried a 4MB Matrox Millennium II (with 4MB addon!). Very nice card that works on all OS's, nice picture and solid drivers, but there are compatibility issues with some games (as mentioned here many times) and 3D features are very lacking.
I also tried a 16MB Voodoo3 2000. It works in all OS's, but it also has compatibility issues with some games and (for me at least) the Win3.11 driver is not totally stable.
Finally I got the 16MB TNT2 M64 version (Dell OEM?). It has been my best card so far in this system. I don't play many DOS games older than Wolfenstein 3D, but it has not let me down on anything I've thrown at it so far.

All of these were paired with a Voodoo1 card and the computer is a QDI Titanium IB, K6-233, 128MB ram.
All of my OS's run from CF cards, and (IIRC) only the Matrox and TNT provided resolutions above 1024x768 for Win3.11.

Reply 209 of 238, by timsdf

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I have used Asus Riva TNT2 VIVO 32mb and it's been great with DOS / w98SE pairing. Better image quality than 2 cheaper oem tnt2 variants, one stock tnt2 and m64. Lacks in power for anything after 1999 in 3d. Using win xp system for newer games than that.

Reply 213 of 238, by iraito

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I second matrox, it has a better compatibility than the one stated in the wiki, it only requires a really slow CPU (by doing that i solved my issue with jazz jack rabbit)

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If you wanna check a blue ball playing retro PC games
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Reply 214 of 238, by douglar

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iraito wrote on 2023-01-06, 12:23:

I second matrox, it has a better compatibility than the one stated in the wiki, it only requires a really slow CPU (by doing that i solved my issue with jazz jack rabbit)

And all the Matrox cards I've used have had high quality RAMDACs for solid VGA signals compared to the variance that shows up in companies that used 3rd party OEMS.

Reply 215 of 238, by StaffelGuard1917

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Recenltly bought on a local retrocomputer forum that card - ATI Graphics Pro Turbo PCI / Mach 64 GX. IT was described as "excellent gaming card from 1995" there. Installed it in a P1/133 system by DEC. (Digital Venturis 5133). At least it gives a 1024x768xHi_Color option in win95 )

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Reply 216 of 238, by The Serpent Rider

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Early ATi cards had very mediocre DOS performance, both in VGA and VESA modes. Probably, it was never their priority, due to rise of accelerated GUI environments. At least they're faster than budget Cirrus Logic crap or some obscure chips outside of big OEM market, but that's it.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 217 of 238, by douglar

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-03-07, 19:34:

Early ATi cards had very mediocre DOS performance, both in VGA and VESA modes. Probably, it was never their priority, due to rise of accelerated GUI environments. At least they're faster than budget Cirrus Logic crap or some obscure chips outside of big OEM market, but that's it.

Are you talking about the MACH or Wonder series?

Mach 8 was more about IBM 8514 compatibility with VGA , yes? The VGA performance there was the minimum true, but It was worthwhile at the time because you could use the accelerated IBM 8514 drivers for OS2 or autocad and other driver starved products but didnt require micro channel or $1500 in 1987 dollars.
Mach32 dual ported VRAM EXM195a had DOS performance that wasn’t embarrassing, falling between a Trident 9400cxi VLB & CL-GD5429 VLB. You could still use the IBM 8514 drivers and it had unmatched refresh rates at high resolution if you got the upgraded ramdac.
Mach32 DRAM EXM228 had very good DOS performance, coming in within 2% of an S3 Trio VLB even if the 2d performance was not as great.

Reply 218 of 238, by The Serpent Rider

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douglar wrote on 2023-03-07, 20:31:

Are you talking about the MACH or Wonder series?

Mach series mostly.

Mach32 dual ported VRAM EXM195a had DOS performance that wasn’t embarrassing, falling between a Trident 9400cxi VLB & CL-GD5429 VLB.

5429 had embarrassing DOS and GUI performance with poor scaling, which Cirrus Logic shamelessly ported to budget 5430 PCI cards with some tweaks to DAC (goodbye interlaced 1024x768 mode).

Mach32 DRAM EXM228 had very good DOS performance, coming in within 2% of an S3 Trio VLB even if the 2d performance was not as great.

From my testing, Mach64 VT2 (which is late refresh for PCI) trade blows with vanilla S3 Trio32 in DOS tests. So I don't hold any hopes for early Mach series. Destroys it in GUI environment though, as it should.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 219 of 238, by deepthaw

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Are Trio3Ds good alternative to Virge cards? AGP Trio3D cards are pretty darned cheap. Looking for DOS/W3.1/9x. I recall running a Trio3D as my 2D card to go with my Voodoo2 back in the day and finding it worked fine for that.