Someone setup a dos compatibility website/spreadsheet, s3 is more compatible than ati, so I think advantage s3.

I just added some Windows 3.11 benchmark scores, which indicate the S3 Vision968 is pulling way ahead of the ATI Mach64. On the flip-side, the Mach64 has a slightly better display quality. It would be interesting to compare these two high-end VLB graphics cards with an ET4000/w32p. Unfortunately, I do not have one.

Both are great cards. Also quite rare these days and expensive. My first thought when I saw the title was, that S3 should be better in DOS, but Mach64 in Windows. But your tests show S3 being faster overall.

From my test (I also don't have w32p) even S3 864 VLB is faster overall then most of other high end cards (even Tseng w32i). I'm not sure how much faster if at all is w32p over w32i.

968 uses VRAM. For a proper comparison it should be benched against Mach64 with VRAM also.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

968 uses VRAM. For a proper comparison it should be benched against Mach64 with VRAM also.

And ATi just happened to make a Mach64 with 4mb VRAM, the Graphics Pro Turbo. I'm not sure if the Mach64 VLB with 4mb is VRAM or not. Mine is ISA and has VRAM.

Yes, VLB was also available as 4MB. The ISA version with 4MB is really pointless in my opinion. Anything above 1024x768x64 is too slow for ISA bus...even with acceleration.

At first:
64bpp? I'm confused.

A few seconds later:
Ah, page flipping.

Here are some of the results I got on my VL/EISA system. This is with an am5x86-160 in WT mode, SiS411/406 chipset with WB L2 cache, 64MB DRAM, 1024kb cache. Tests were done with a YMF-719 soundcard installed and enabled. Windows tests were done at 1024x768@64k in non interlaced mode.

Number 9 Motion FX 771 (S3 Vision968)

DOS
Doom = 1428 realtics
pcpbench = 11.2fps
pcpbench vga = 25.8fps
3dbench2 = 88.9
mvspeed = 314.9fps
Quake = 16.6fps
Landmark V2.00- 16948
vspeed = 18.43 million bytes/sec

WFWG311
Wintune 2.0 = 12.915kpixels/sec
Windows Speed = 999
Speedy = 55.79
Graphics Winmark = 13.0

ATi Graphics Ultra Pro Turbo VLB(Mach64 VRAM)

DOS
Doom = 1643 realties
pcpbench = 11.4fps
pcpbench vga = 26.0fps
3dbench2 = 80.7
mvspeed = 341.8fps
Quake = 16.6fps
Landmark V2.00= 11045
vspeed = 15.48 million bytes/sec

WFWG311
Wintune 2.0 = 11.077kpixels/sec
Windows Speed = 621
Speedy = 38.23
Graphics Winmark = 8.59

ATi Graphics Xpression VLB (Mach64 DRAM)

DOS
Doom = 1644 realties
pcpbench = 11.4fps
pcpbench vga = 26.0fps
3dbench2 = 80.9
mvspeed = 342.8fps
Quake = 16.5fps
Landmark v2.00 = 11045
vspeed = 15.48 million bytes/sec

WFWG311
Wintune 2.0 = 8303kpexls/sec
windows speed = 579
speedy = 28.55
Graphics Winmark = 7.45

ATi Graphics Ultra Pro Turbo ISA (Mach64 VRAM) 8MHz

DOS
DOOM = 4326 realtics
pcpbench = 6.5fps
pcpbench vga = 18.2fps
3dbench2 = 36.0
mvspeed = 52.8fps
QUAKE = 13.2fps
vspeed = 3.32 million bytes/sec
landmark v2.00 = 2540

WFWG311
Wintune 2.0 = 6285kpixels/sec
Windows Speed = 196
Speedy = 11.46
Graphics Winmark = 3.84

Hercules Terminator 64 DRAM VLB(S3 Trio64)

DOS
DOOM - 1320 realtics
pcpbench - 11.8fps
pcpbench vga - 26.7fps
3dbench2 - 90.3
mvspeed - 476.2fpS
QUAKE - 16.9fps
vspeed - 20.64 million bytes/sec
landmark v2.00 - 20062

WFWG311
Wintune 2.0 - 10049pixels/sec
Windows Speed - 996
Speedy - 30.64
Graphics Winmark - 10.9

OCTEK VL VGA-1000 (Ark logic ARK1000VL) could not run 1024x768x64k in non-interaced mode

DOS
DOOM - 1306 realtics
pcpbench - 11.9fps
pcpbench vga - 26.6fps
3dbench2 - 90.3
mvspeed - 476.2 fps
QUAKE - 16.6fps
vspeed - 19.17 million bytes/sec
landmark v2.00 - 19660

WFWG311
Wintune 2.0 - NA
Windows Speed - NA
Speedy - NA
Graphics Winmark - NA

Hercules Dynamite Power VLB (ET4000W32P)

DOS
DOOM - 1363 realtics
pcpbench - 11.9fps
pcpbench vga - 26.6fps
3dbench2 - 90.3
QUAKE - 16.6fps
mvspeed - 476.2fps
vspeed - 19.17 million bytes/sec
Landmark v2.00 - 19660

WFWG311
Wintune 2.0 - NA (Test could not finish)
Windows Speed - 957
Speedy - 62.31
Graphics Winmark - 7.99

Your Number 9 S3-968 performed worse than my test results in all cases, with the exception of a 3% increase in the Landmark score. The decrease in performance in your system is likely due to the L1 being stuck in WT mode as opposed to WB mode. This makes me wonder the benefits in using an EISA system for consumer use. I guess you can get faster ethernet transfers with the 32-bit EISA bus. To the best of my knowledge, there do not exist VLB ethernet cards. Also, I suppose you can use more than 64 MB of RAM, which it seems these VLB boards are limited to. I'm experimenting with another VLB board, one based on the UMC4980 chipset, and the manual mentions it is also limited to 64 MB of RAM.

Did your S3-968 card pass WinBen96 graphics? Mine would consistently not pass test 12 of 13, so I had to manually take the average of the 13 tests it did pass as my score, which was about 10% less than the score that WinBen provides had it passed. I am also using 3DBench, not 3DBench2.

The results of your Mach64 VRAM VLB vs. Mach64 DRAM VLB indicate no advantage in DOS when using the VRAM-based graphics card. The results are essentially equal. On the other hand, I noticed a consistent increase with all Windows-based benchmarks, more than I expected. However, those improved Windows scores do not even come close to the S3-968 results, so there is little incentive for me to hunt down a VRAM-based Mach64 VLB.

I would really like to see a Mach64 VRAM ISA vs. Mach64 DRAM ISA comparison though. Do you have these cards?

As expected, your Mach64 scores were generally less than mine, likely due to the L1:WT mode limitation of your chipset. I did, however, notice that your scores paralleled my "synchronize" scores. Is there a VLB "transparent" option in your BIOS? I noticed up to a 15% performance increase when using "transparent" over "synchronize".

feipoa wrote:

Your Number 9 S3-968 performed worse than my test results in all cases, with the exception of a 3% increase in the Landmark score. The decrease in performance in your system is likely due to the L1 being stuck in WT mode as opposed to WB mode. This makes me wonder the benefits in using an EISA system for consumer use. I guess you can get faster ethernet transfers with the 32-bit EISA bus. To the best of my knowledge, there do not exist VLB ethernet cards.

They actually do exist.. already had three in my hands 😀 All NE2000 based tho

Interesting. Do you have a photo? What are the sustained transfer speeds over the network compared to PCI 10/100 and ISA 10/100 cards?

feipoa wrote:

Interesting. Do you have a photo? What are the sustained transfer speeds over the network compared to PCI 10/100 and ISA 10/100 cards?

I don't have them anymore, they came from a company bankruptcy where lots of old systems had to be erased and destroyed some years ago.
Iirc they where from BOCA as brand and where called BOCALANcard? Or BOCALANVLCard or something like that.

Few models existed. The BOCALANcard is available new on ebay now and then.
Found a phote here: http://ironalbum.pvk13.org/bocalancard_vl.html

What speed does the PCI fsb run at when overclocked to 160mhz? I assumed that perhaps VLB would be faster than PCI when running a 40mhz fsb.

Those BOCA cards are only 10Base-T, so I don't think they will have much benefit over an ISA 10/100 card.

dirkmirk wrote:

What speed does the PCI fsb run at when overclocked to 160mhz? I assumed that perhaps VLB would be faster than PCI when running a 40mhz fsb.

At either 40, 2/3*40, or 1/2*40 MHz.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Yes, VLB was also available as 4MB. The ISA version with 4MB is really pointless in my opinion. Anything above 1024x768x64 is too slow for ISA bus...even with acceleration.

That's why Mach64 with 4mb uses dithering to achieve 16.7 million colors. You still think you're seeing a true color image, but not all those colors are on screen at the same time, at least that's what it says on the box of my 4mb card.

feipoa wrote:

Those BOCA cards are only 10Base-T, so I don't think they will have much benefit over an ISA 10/100 card.

HighTreason has a video reviewing one of those, and indeed they perform horribly. If memory doesn't fail they performed worse than an ISA NIC he compared it to.

sliderider wrote:

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Yes, VLB was also available as 4MB. The ISA version with 4MB is really pointless in my opinion. Anything above 1024x768x64 is too slow for ISA bus...even with acceleration.

That's why Mach64 with 4mb uses dithering to achieve 16.7 million colors. You still think you're seeing a true color image, but not all those colors are on screen at the same time, at least that's what it says on the box of my 4mb card.

Seriously? Can you provide an image of the box?

If you run Win95 the Mach64 will give you DirectDraw Support.
So a lot more Games will run on 9x. Pitfall, Jazz Jackrabbit II, Sonic..