S3 Trio or Virge

I'm running a ViRGE/DX on my Pentium MMX 166. Haven't had issues so far.

Note that this forum is for DOS games on modern systems.

I tested and reviewed a bunch of PCI graphics cards in DOS. My favorite period-correct cards are:
1. ARK2000PV
2. S3 Virge GX
3. CL-GD5446

If you don't care about being period correct, then the TNT2 M64 beats all of the above. See the link in my signature for more details.

Moved to Marvin -> General Old Hardware.

Is TNT2 M64 really better than GeForce 2 MX PCI?

Baoran wrote:

Is TNT2 M64 really better than GeForce 2 MX PCI?

They are probably the same, I think their DOS core is identical.

From my tests I concluded that all the Nvidia cards from riva128 and up to (at least) the GF4 cards all have the sane VGA core. I benchmarked several on my 233mmx , for example a riva128 and a GFMX440 have no difference in speed under DOS.
What is nice about the nvidia cards is the VBE3.0 BIOS - so no need for any TSRs for SVGA gaming.
Personally I changed the riva18zx I was using in my 233mmx DOS build for the S3 Trio3D/2x as the latter has working win3x drivers. Speeds are the same - nothing that makes a difference in DOS.
The S3s, Cirus and ARK vgas that were recommended above are also really great choices.

S3 and Cirrus chips are the most compadible! Thats all i am saying 😀

And if you wat to cheat, then Nvidia line is for you 😉

clueless1 wrote:

I tested and reviewed a bunch of PCI graphics cards in DOS. My favorite period-correct cards are: 1. ARK2000PV 2. S3 Virge GX 3 […]
Show full quote

I tested and reviewed a bunch of PCI graphics cards in DOS. My favorite period-correct cards are:
1. ARK2000PV
2. S3 Virge GX
3. CL-GD5446

If you don't care about being period correct, then the TNT2 M64 beats all of the above. See the link in my signature for more details.

Ark2000PV what the F....C is that?????

Ark2000PV is a speedy VGA 😁
Gona's DOS TESTS sheet says all IMHO: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Daniel222potato wrote:

I was wondering if anyone knows a good GPU (that isnt really rare) for my cyrix 6x86 PC build.
Note that my motherboard has ISA and PCI but no AGP.
I am running MS-DOS 6.22 if that matters.

These three cards are good cards for MS Dos 6.22 on a Pentium.
Just pick the one you find that are the cheapest.
You can allways compare: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/
There might be other cards you want to go for. 😀

- S3 Trio64v+
- S3 Virge325
- Cirrus Logic CL-5446

EDIT: Keropi beat me to.... 🤣

Cyberdyne wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I tested and reviewed a bunch of PCI graphics cards in DOS. My favorite period-correct cards are: 1. ARK2000PV 2. S3 Virge GX 3 […]
Show full quote

I tested and reviewed a bunch of PCI graphics cards in DOS. My favorite period-correct cards are:
1. ARK2000PV
2. S3 Virge GX
3. CL-GD5446

If you don't care about being period correct, then the TNT2 M64 beats all of the above. See the link in my signature for more details.

Ark2000PV what the F....C is that?????

Back in the mid 1990s Ark Logic made this chipset which turned out to be the fastest DOS chip of the day. They actually started with a VLB card (ARK1000VL) in 1993, then the ARK1000PV. They didn't last long, going out of business in 1999.
IMO the most famous of this chipset was the Hercules Stingray 64 Video back in 1995. In the mid 90s, Hercules was one of the top video card makers (at least in the US). Diamond also made one with this chip (Diamond Stealth 64 Graphics 2001).

More info:
http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/news/item … 8-ark-logic-inc

That compatibility table made me wonder. Is it only pci and agp cards that have compatibility problems? Can you assume that there would be no such compatibility problems if you would put ISA graphics card on your pentium system?

Baoran wrote:

That compatibility table made me wonder. Is it only pci and agp cards that have compatibility problems? Can you assume that there would be no such compatibility problems if you would put ISA graphics card on your pentium system?

IMO, the compatibility chart is a little overblown. Look at the games on there, have you ever played many of them? I think some of the stuff on there is relevant, like side scrollers (Keen) and some of the LCD issues, but the only card I've had actual issues with in actual games I play was the Matrox Millennium II. It's got enough issues that I would never choose it for a pure DOS system.

I have actually played most of those games back in 90s. Looking at that table the most compatible game seems to be doom. It works with almost all the graphics cards.

clueless1 wrote:

I tested and reviewed a bunch of PCI graphics cards in DOS. My favorite period-correct cards are: 1. ARK2000PV 2. S3 Virge GX 3 […]
Show full quote

I tested and reviewed a bunch of PCI graphics cards in DOS. My favorite period-correct cards are:
1. ARK2000PV
2. S3 Virge GX
3. CL-GD5446

If you don't care about being period correct, then the TNT2 M64 beats all of the above. See the link in my signature for more details.

I really like my 5446, but Virge edges it out due to certain models supporting VESA 2.0 with the onboard ROM.

Card with the best compatibility, decent performance, reasonably priced, readily available, a few of them, one being the Virge/DX. An if only card is the ark2000, good on compatibility and performance but harder to find and odds are priced higher.
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

gdjacobs wrote:

I really like my 5446, but Virge edges it out due to certain models supporting VESA 2.0 with the onboard ROM.

Great point. Also, even if you get a model that doesn't support VBE2.0, it's less costly to enable via software. S3VBE uses less memory than UniVBE or SDD.

And there are measurable differences between the different S3 chipsets. I found the GX > DX > 325 > Trio64V+. The faster the CPU, the bigger the performance gap between them.