VOGONS


Reply 20 of 29, by pshipkov

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All good PC-Engineer.
Thanks for the additional notes and info.

You are seeing some of the things i observed with it as well.
It benefits from FPU, which is not typical for video games up to Doom class stuff.
This makes it misleading for "classic" interactive DOS graphics.
You can verify its dependence on FPUs if you run it on a 386 systems with and without FPU. Results are vastly different.
Aside of that it is decently indicative measure for video cards, but still predominantly CPU sensitive.
But this is kind of inline with all apps/games from that era - in the general case - CPU is everything that matters.

Do you have more charts ?
Don't be shy. : )

retro bits and bytes

Reply 21 of 29, by PC-Engineer

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Ohh, i have some charts more, but this is the wrong thread for it 😉

Maybe I don't understand exactly what you mean by FPU dependency.
At least for 486 (did not tested 386), the FPU dependance of PCP Bench is minor. The SX/33 without FPU has 92% of Performance of DX/33 with FPU. Or the UMC U5S without FPU has 118% of Performance of DX/33.

But even this FPU dependency does not change the suitability of the PCP Bench as a comparison for graphics cards with the Same CPU for me. With Quake it is apparently something else, because here the strong FPU limitation (on 486) almost completely cancels the scaling of the graphics cards, so that even an ISA graphics card is enough to draw the data provided by the FPU.

Epox 7KXA Slot A / Athlon 950MHz / Voodoo 5 5500 / PowerVR / 512 MB / AWE32 / SCSI - Windows 98SE

Reply 22 of 29, by pshipkov

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Yeah, we kind of hijacked the thread instead of getting a room for the two of us.
If you try in 386 machine you will see how strongly dependent PCPB is on FPU.
But also, if the CPU is fast enough, the perf difference between FPU or not gets smaller.
486 hardware masks the problem. So in a way we can say that things are somewhat consistent there.

In both PCPBench and Quake 1 i see around 10 fps difference between best/worst components on a 30 max fps basis.
So both tests give enough range to judge something on them.
But both predominantly CPU/FPU bound before hit anything around VGA, etc.

Anyhow.

retro bits and bytes

Reply 24 of 29, by OSkar000

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Wow, lots of response here thru the weekend 😀

I don't mind my thread getting hijacked with lots of more or less useful information for me.

So if I understand things correctly I should try to find a S3 Vision 864, 868, 964 or 968 with at least 2mb ram.

I can get an ATI Mach 32 with 2mb ram but that card is pretty limited due to its slow-ish ramdac. Still thinking of getting it to try if its any fun/good/useful.

Reply 25 of 29, by PC-Engineer

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The Mach32 are very good cards for DOS and Windows for its time, if you don’t need 1600x1200.
Also the drivers for Windows and DOS (little TSR for VESA compatibility) have a good quality. The best variant is one with VRAM, 2MB (for memory interleave) and ATI68875 RAMDAC (135MHz).

Epox 7KXA Slot A / Athlon 950MHz / Voodoo 5 5500 / PowerVR / 512 MB / AWE32 / SCSI - Windows 98SE

Reply 26 of 29, by OSkar000

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PC-Engineer wrote on 2022-04-05, 08:57:

The Mach32 are very good cards for DOS and Windows for its time, if you don’t need 1600x1200.
Also the drivers for Windows and DOS (little TSR for VESA compatibility) have a good quality. The best variant is one with VRAM, 2MB (for memory interleave) and ATI68875 RAMDAC (135MHz).

The card I can get is a Graphics Wonder Mach 32 with the 135mhz RAMDAC and 2mb DRAM, fcc id EXM229.

It seems to be pretty usable and fits some of my needs.

Reply 27 of 29, by maxtherabbit

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PC-Engineer wrote on 2022-04-02, 17:01:
I have tested some VLB cards in system with a Am5x86 @160MHz for DOS apps. […]
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I have tested some VLB cards in system with a Am5x86 @160MHz for DOS apps.

In general the following accelerators can get a recommondation in DOS and Windows:

S3 864 / S3 868 / S3 968 / S3 Trio64 / S3 Trio64 V+ (all with 2MB DRAM or 2/4 MB VRAM)
ATI Mach32 2Mb VRAM / ATI Mach 64 2/4 MB VRAM
Trident TGUI 9440 2MB DRAM
ALG 2228 2MB DRAM
Cirrus Logic GD5434 2MB DRAM

In any case (for the cards above) make sure, you have 2MB RAM for 64Bit memory access or Memory interleave (Mach32) - only important for windows. For windows use make sure you have a (>)135MHz Hi- or Truecolor DAC. With Trio64 and TGUI9440 i observed spaghettized pictures on TFT screens. The best affordable, fastest card would be one with S3 864 like @kixs recommends. The S3 cards with DRAM are faster in DOS than the VRAM variants. In Windows the S3 VRAM cards are faster. With ATI cards the VRAM cards are equal to DRAM cards in DOS and faster in Windows.

The S3 Vision cards: 864/868 (DRAM) and 964/968 (VRAM) and Trio64 are 64Bit.
The older S3 cards 805 (DRAM) and 928(VRAM) and Trio32 are 32Bit, while the 805i has memory interleave with 2MB DRAM.
The S3 868/968 are nearly identical to the 864/964 with some additional video acceleration and zooming features.
The Trio64 hat the 864 core with integrated 135MHz RAM DAC.

For 1600x1200 @8bit with 60Hz or higher you need a 4MB card with 175MHz (or higher) RAM DAC. So you should look for: ATI Mach64 +Memory Upgrade, Diamond Stealth 64 (Video) VRAM +Memory Upgrade (was available with S3 964 and 135MHz DAC and as „Video“ with S3 968 and 220MHz DAC), ELSA Winner 2000 4MB version (was available with S3 928 and 964).
All of these cards are nearly unobtainalble. The best chance for you is to ask the user Madao, he developed a own S3 968 4MB VRAM card.

Fantastic data. Do you have access to a TVGA8900CL or TVGA8900D? They have a 32 bit memory interface and are significantly faster than their 'C' counterparts

Reply 28 of 29, by PC-Engineer

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Unfortunately no! I have so far got two OAK ISA variants, a Mach8 and a GD5422 ISA. I will add these to the test at some point.

Epox 7KXA Slot A / Athlon 950MHz / Voodoo 5 5500 / PowerVR / 512 MB / AWE32 / SCSI - Windows 98SE

Reply 29 of 29, by kixs

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-04-18, 13:30:
PC-Engineer wrote on 2022-04-02, 17:01:
I have tested some VLB cards in system with a Am5x86 @160MHz for DOS apps. […]
Show full quote

I have tested some VLB cards in system with a Am5x86 @160MHz for DOS apps.

In general the following accelerators can get a recommondation in DOS and Windows:

S3 864 / S3 868 / S3 968 / S3 Trio64 / S3 Trio64 V+ (all with 2MB DRAM or 2/4 MB VRAM)
ATI Mach32 2Mb VRAM / ATI Mach 64 2/4 MB VRAM
Trident TGUI 9440 2MB DRAM
ALG 2228 2MB DRAM
Cirrus Logic GD5434 2MB DRAM

In any case (for the cards above) make sure, you have 2MB RAM for 64Bit memory access or Memory interleave (Mach32) - only important for windows. For windows use make sure you have a (>)135MHz Hi- or Truecolor DAC. With Trio64 and TGUI9440 i observed spaghettized pictures on TFT screens. The best affordable, fastest card would be one with S3 864 like @kixs recommends. The S3 cards with DRAM are faster in DOS than the VRAM variants. In Windows the S3 VRAM cards are faster. With ATI cards the VRAM cards are equal to DRAM cards in DOS and faster in Windows.

The S3 Vision cards: 864/868 (DRAM) and 964/968 (VRAM) and Trio64 are 64Bit.
The older S3 cards 805 (DRAM) and 928(VRAM) and Trio32 are 32Bit, while the 805i has memory interleave with 2MB DRAM.
The S3 868/968 are nearly identical to the 864/964 with some additional video acceleration and zooming features.
The Trio64 hat the 864 core with integrated 135MHz RAM DAC.

For 1600x1200 @8bit with 60Hz or higher you need a 4MB card with 175MHz (or higher) RAM DAC. So you should look for: ATI Mach64 +Memory Upgrade, Diamond Stealth 64 (Video) VRAM +Memory Upgrade (was available with S3 964 and 135MHz DAC and as „Video“ with S3 968 and 220MHz DAC), ELSA Winner 2000 4MB version (was available with S3 928 and 964).
All of these cards are nearly unobtainalble. The best chance for you is to ask the user Madao, he developed a own S3 968 4MB VRAM card.

Fantastic data. Do you have access to a TVGA8900CL or TVGA8900D? They have a 32 bit memory interface and are significantly faster than their 'C' counterparts

With Trident chipsets there isn't a standard rule. Sometimes even the same looking cards with the same chipsets have different performances. I find CL cards faster than D.

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs