What is the best video card to use in a 286 PC? I know many later cards required a 386 for some reason so which are the best ones for installation in computer with a 286?
I use anything ATi, OAK, Trident, Cirrus Logic or what ever. Any thing that fits 16-bit ISA will run fine. What spec 286 are you talking about here, how much ram and are you intending to run Windows 3.x? If it's pre '89 the period correct crowd would scream "fit an EGA card and monitor dummy".
I'm buying a 8-bit EGA/VGA card tomorrow. Just well, well just because. Who knows when that EGA crt will blow it's top.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Trident TVGA9000 works great in any 286 and is cheap. Faster cards are more or less wasted, as a 286 doesn't have the power to fully use them anyway.
I'm using a ET4000
wrote:I use anything ATi, OAK, Trident, Cirrus Logic or what ever. Any thing that fits 16-bit ISA will run fine. What spec 286 are you talking about here, how much ram and are you intending to run Windows 3.x? If it's pre '89 the period correct crowd would scream "fit an EGA card and monitor dummy".
I'm buying a 8-bit EGA/VGA card tomorrow. Just well, well just because. Who knows when that EGA crt will blow it's top.
It's an 8mhz 286 with 40mb hard drive. I haven't booted it in a while so I don't remember how much RAM, but I think it was 1mb. I know for certain it wasn't less than 640k because the machine question was never sold with less than that.
Just use the cheapest you can get hold of at this point. Handy to have for trouble shooting. 1meg was pretty standard then for a 286 system. What brand/chipset is the mobo?
Do you intend to do any upgrading in the future at all?.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
wrote:It's an 8mhz 286
So, rather early...
Some early SVGA would be appropriate, eg. ET3000, WD90C11, or thereabouts.
Żywotwór planetarny, jego gnijące błoto, jest świtem egzystencji, fazą wstępną, i wyłoni się z krwawych ciastomózgowych miedź miłująca...
TVGA have UGLY vertical lines TFT. ET4000 cards are better, especial ones from diamond, others tend to have also visable lines on TFT.
Disadvantage on ET4000 is that textmode 80x25 and EGA lowres are centered on TFT, VGA lowres is 0,5cm to the right on all cards I have.
WDc11 are nearly the same as the ET4000 cards. They offer a bit less moved image on vga-lowres to the right. (about 0,35cm)
Clear winner is ATI Wonder, extremly sharp and colorful image, performance not as good as ET4000 but alway centered image, excellent!
Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines
wrote:I'm using a ET4000
Same here, probably one of the fastest options, if not THE fastest (I know on faster machines there are some ISA cards that are marginally faster, but on a 286 you're probably not going to tell the difference).
Compatibility-wise the ET4000 is hard to beat.
It has good compatibility of itself, but because it was such a monster card at the time, many developers used these cards, so there's some software out there that works best on the ET4000, and some demos even require one, because they rely on its specific behaviour.
wrote:Disadvantage on ET4000 is that textmode 80x25 and EGA lowres are centered on TFT, VGA lowres is 0,5cm to the right on all cards I have.
That depends on the refresh rate that is used.
Many of these early cards come with tools that allow you to select which refresh rate to use for textmode (because of multisync monitors vs fixed VGA).
So you can probably fix that by using a utility to select a different refresh rate for textmode.
wrote:Disadvantage on ET4000 is that [...] VGA lowres is 0,5cm to the right on all cards I have.
Well, just press the auto adjust on your screen then, duh...
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - And i intend to get every last bit out of it even after loading every damn driver!
I have used TVGA8900, 9000 and Tseng ET4000 in my 286, now 386. Either one will be fine. Picture quality depends heavily on the specific PCB. I have had good and bad 9000s. A well shielded VGA cable will also go a long way.
wrote:I have used TVGA8900, 9000 and Tseng ET4000 in my 286, now 386. Either one will be fine. Picture quality depends heavily on the specific PCB. I have had good and bad 9000s. A well shielded VGA cable will also go a long way.
Some systems could be picky as well. A card may work just fine on one system and have noticeable issues in another config.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
wrote:wrote:Disadvantage on ET4000 is that [...] VGA lowres is 0,5cm to the right on all cards I have.
Well, just press the auto adjust on your screen then, duh...
very annoying to do this each time when falling back to dos (volkov commander)
Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines
wrote:TVGA have UGLY vertical lines TFT. ET4000 cards are better, especial ones from diamond, others tend to have also visable lines o […]
TVGA have UGLY vertical lines TFT. ET4000 cards are better, especial ones from diamond, others tend to have also visable lines on TFT.
Disadvantage on ET4000 is that textmode 80x25 and EGA lowres are centered on TFT, VGA lowres is 0,5cm to the right on all cards I have.
WDc11 are nearly the same as the ET4000 cards. They offer a bit less moved image on vga-lowres to the right. (about 0,35cm)Clear winner is ATI Wonder, extremly sharp and colorful image, performance not as good as ET4000 but alway centered image, excellent!
I found this to be also the case on my ET4000 cards when connected to my LCD.
My Cirrus Logic cards (CL-GD5424, 5426 & 5428), however, does not seem to exhibit this.
Can't recall what exactly it was, but I remember putting a paradise VGA board in my 286-16 in the early 90s. I did that so I could run 640x480 SVGA for Windows 3.x and Sierra games that supported it in DOS back then.
I do know exactly where my old 286 is and had been toying with the idea to retrieve it and restore it. It has been in a detach garage subjected to elements for over 25 years.
Midi Modules: MT-32 (OLD), MT-200, MT-300, MT-90S, MT-90U, SD-20
Btw. I remember that the DiamondSpeedstar 24x can run more than 256colors in Win3x on a 286.
All other card required at least a 386sx in oder to do so.
Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines
wrote:wrote:TVGA have UGLY vertical lines TFT. ET4000 cards are better, especial ones from diamond, others tend to have also visable lines o […]
TVGA have UGLY vertical lines TFT. ET4000 cards are better, especial ones from diamond, others tend to have also visable lines on TFT.
Disadvantage on ET4000 is that textmode 80x25 and EGA lowres are centered on TFT, VGA lowres is 0,5cm to the right on all cards I have.
WDc11 are nearly the same as the ET4000 cards. They offer a bit less moved image on vga-lowres to the right. (about 0,35cm)Clear winner is ATI Wonder, extremly sharp and colorful image, performance not as good as ET4000 but alway centered image, excellent!
I found this to be also the case on my ET4000 cards when connected to my LCD.
My Cirrus Logic cards (CL-GD5424, 5426 & 5428), however, does not seem to exhibit this.
My Diamond Speedstar ET4000 card has a great MUSIC brand DAC, and has perfectly clean analog output, no high frequency noise and clean image on digital displays.
wrote:Just use the cheapest you can get hold of at this point. Handy to have for trouble shooting. 1meg was pretty standard then for a 286 system. What brand/chipset is the mobo?
Do you intend to do any upgrading in the future at all?.
It's a Tandy 3000HD. Pretty rare model.
Oh, and I'm finding that Tseng cards from that time period are ridiculously expensive. What's the second best alternative?
