The chart you linked above has it - 9th from the top.

It’s here! Had no idea it was going to include the original box, too bad that’s how they shipped it and slapped a label on it. Although the box mentions 2themax but my bios isn’t marked as such.

And damn, only getting 18.1 on the ARK, what am I missing? I have jp1 0ws jumper set and JP3 for IRQ9 is also open. This should be fun tracking down!

Can you try whether a 2nd RAM bank makes it faster?
And you should try to open JP1 for 0 waitstates.

Disruptor wrote on 2021-10-12, 20:55:

Can you try whether a 2nd RAM bank makes it faster?
And you should try to open JP1 for 0 waitstates.

Yep sorry I should mentioned this, I’ve added a 2nd ram bank and set the jumper to 0ws for the 18.1 score.

I was thinking to bring it up early but forgot - 2theMax appeared slightly slower than those orange ARK1000VLs.
Can be something simple as a different BIOS version.

pshipkov wrote on 2021-10-12, 21:24:

I was thinking to bring it up early but forgot - 2theMax appeared slightly slower than those orange ARK1000VLs.
Can be something simple as a different BIOS version.

This could def be it, any chance you could share your bios dump or point me where to go? I need that super fast VLB 🤣.

Add flames for good measure 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Hitting 18.8 in Quake 1.06 dosbench option C on the ARK with VESA Mode 11 320x200 so that’s cool. 0.6fps ahead of the Trio32 in the same mode.

Duke3D scores are so far identical in both 320x200 and 320x400 to the Trio.

But maybe a different BIOS as suggested will push it a tad higher.

Hope it is the BIOS.

pshipkov wrote on 2021-10-13, 05:46:

Hope it is the BIOS.

Thank you pshipkov but no dice, I was certain this was it, maybe I’ve got a jumper or two different on my motherboard?

Just to be clear, still only hitting 18.1 with pshipkov’s ARK1000 bios, the saga continues!

Pshipkov, curious what speed dram you have on your ARK1000 board? Perhaps they’re faster than the 70ns I have on mine? Maybe that’s the difference?

Tried swapping the video card and controller slot positions but no measurable impact. I did discover setting the AT Bus Clock from 7.159MHz to “1/4 CLKIN” or better now gives me a consistent 18.2fps, progress!

About to chuck the ARK at the wall like a ninja star. I can’t get SDD to give me the same number of modes after swapping the Trio back in and out. Tried deleting the install directory and reinstalling and the last result was 15 modes to 12 🤣. Like WTF. Originally was going from 15 modes up to 43.

Def leaning on the Trio32 as my fav card so far based on compatibility and image quality and good enough performance. The ARK is def the fastest in dos though.

Will test both ark cards here later today to refresh my memory.

Ok, so how your jumpers look now and how bios settings are configured.
The fact that isa clock was at 7.xxx makes me think that other things may also need tweaking.

That SDD issue - did anything else change between before/after video card swap ?

Take a video if you do the ninja thing. Can be a good reference for the rest of us. We are all in the same boat. 😉

Both cards are really good in their own way.

I’ll def take a video if I resort to any martial arts 🤣.

SDD is just really flaky with this ARK, I re-ran config on it and eventually got back to the 40+ modes. It will configure it different every time.

Jumpers currently (AMD 5x86 160MHz, 1024k cache)

JP1: 1-2
JP2: open
JP3: open
Jp4: open
JP5: 1-2
JP6: 1-2
JP7: 1-2
JP8: 2-3
JP9: 1-2
JP10: 2-3
JP11: 2-3
JP12: where is it? Lol
JP13: 2-3
JP14: 1-2
JP15: MIA
JP16: 1-2 & 4-5
JP17: 1-2 & 5-6
JP18: 1-2
JP19: 1-2 & 3-4 & 5-6
JP20: 1-2
JP21: 3-4 (L1WB)
JP22: 1-2 & 4-5
JP23: 2-3
JP24: 2-3
JP25: 1-2
JP26: 2-3 (assume 26, the 6 is cut off)
JP27: 2-3
JP28: 1-2
JP29: 1-2
JP30: MIA
JP31: MIA
JP32: open
JP33: 1-2

Tried my POD100 in this board along with the ARK and bested my scores from my PCI socket 3 setups. The POD seems to prefer L2 in WB on the Asus. I was able to achieve a score of 30.4 in Quake 1.08, same screen size as Phil’s option C, using VESA mode 11. This combo is pretty quick.

My best pure Phil Quake score on a PCI system was 26.7. My best pure Phil Quake score on this board so far is 27.1.

Unfortunately no amount of cursing would get sound fx working in Duke 3D with the POD installed. Swap back to the AMD and bam, sound FX worky. Maybe this system was just meant to remain a 486.

So what happens if you further tighten the ISA Bus clock ? I think there was 1/2 option. Also, if you set L2 policy to WT instead of AUTO.

Need to stare a bit longer at the jumper settings ...

Yes, you can tweak with VESA modes and different binaries to squeeze extra fps from it.
I post results from default tests only to not distort things online for the other 3 people who care to notice. heh.

pshipkov wrote on 2021-10-13, 17:59:

So what happens if you further tighten the ISA Bus clock ? I think there was 1/2 option. Also, if you set L2 policy to WT instea […]
Show full quote

So what happens if you further tighten the ISA Bus clock ? I think there was 1/2 option. Also, if you set L2 policy to WT instead of AUTO.

Need to stare a bit longer at the jumper settings ...

Yes, you can tweak with VESA modes and different binaries to squeeze extra fps from it.
I post results from default tests only to not distort things online for the other 3 people who care to notice. heh.

No gains if I speed up ISA bus further.

Hrm, the only options for L2 that I have are WB and Auto, do you have a specific WT option? Maybe I’ve got the wrong bios if so.

Yep, sticking to the default tests make sense. Hopefully I’m clear when I don’t.

Yeah several main boards with POD support do not support it properly due do intel changed the POD specs very lately.

matze79 wrote on 2021-10-13, 21:17:

Yeah several main boards with POD support do not support it properly due do intel changed the POD specs very lately.

Yep def something up with the POD implementation. If I disable L1 cache I can get sound effects working in Duke3D.