Trident TVGA9000i this is your fault! Get any PCI card, like any generic S3 Trio64 for 5€ it will be miles better 😉

If you want a good slowdown, then use an ISA VGA card. Use Trident ISA card if you want even more slowdown 🤣

I concur, avoid ISA graphics cards on Pentium-era systems. They are too slow and will bottleneck the rest of your setup.

Also, looking at that Speedsys screenshot, you seem to have 128MB RAM installed. This could also contribute to the slowdown since the Intel 430TX chipset can only cache 64MB. Uncached RAM is much slower and can reduce overall system performance.

kixs wrote on 2022-10-13, 06:03:

Trident TVGA9000i this is your fault! Get any PCI card, like any generic S3 Trio64 for 5€ it will be miles better 😉

The reason I got the Trident card is that I wanted to try out the VGATV since my only VGA CRT is a rather shitty 17" to instead run it on my Sony 21" CRT TV via SCART RGB. There's a Trio64 in that list, maybe I should try out one of those. Best I could find within EU on Ebay is unfortunately a wee bit more than 5€, but rather 30€.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-13, 06:11:

Also, looking at that Speedsys screenshot, you seem to have 128MB RAM installed. This could also contribute to the slowdown since the Intel 430TX chipset can only cache 64MB. Uncached RAM is much slower and can reduce overall system performance.

I think I have a 32MB laying around, I'll test that one out. Thanks for the suggestion.

UPDATE: This did unfortunately not improve things one bit.

Vresiberba wrote on 2022-10-13, 06:25:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-13, 06:11:

Also, looking at that Speedsys screenshot, you seem to have 128MB RAM installed. This could also contribute to the slowdown since the Intel 430TX chipset can only cache 64MB. Uncached RAM is much slower and can reduce overall system performance.

I think I have a 32MB laying around, I'll test that one out. Thanks for the suggestion.

UPDATE: This did unfortunately not improve things one bit.

I wouldn't expect it to change anything. Get a compatible PCI VGA card.

Vresiberba wrote on 2022-10-13, 06:25:

I think I have a 32MB laying around, I'll test that one out. Thanks for the suggestion.

UPDATE: This did unfortunately not improve things one bit.

Your system is likely too bottlenecked by the ISA graphics card already.

It's still a good idea to keep RAM within the maximum cacheable amount though.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-13, 07:21:

Your system is likely too bottlenecked by the ISA graphics card already.

I get that it's bottlenecked for what the computer can ultimately do. But why is it slower than a 486 33SX playing Doom 2? I didn't have a PCI card in my 486 in '94, it was a Cirrus Logic 542X something-ISA and I didn't get this poor performance until very late game where there was dozens of monsters on the screen. I mean, I don't want 200+ FPS, just a bit more than 10.

From Phil's Computer Lab benchmark suite, I get 6448 realtics in the Doom max details benchmark, which translates to about 11 FPS. This guy got 8958 realtics, or 8 FPS with a 386 DX40. Even if the Trident is slowing the system down to hell, it can't be just a few percent faster than a 386 system. Something is obviously wrong, here.

Vresiberba wrote on 2022-10-13, 07:31:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-13, 07:21:

Your system is likely too bottlenecked by the ISA graphics card already.

I get that it's bottlenecked for what the computer can ultimately do. But why is it slower than a 486 33SX playing Doom 2? I didn't have a PCI card in my 486 in '94, it was a Cirrus Logic 542X something-ISA and I didn't get this poor performance until very late game where there was dozens of monsters on the screen. I mean, I don't want 200+ FPS, just a bit more than 10.

486 with a 486 class video card is fine but a Pentium 200MMX with a 486 slow as dirt ISA video card is asking for trouble.

That 486 would have had a very slow FSB which works fine with the 8mhz ISA bus, that Pentium with a 66MHz bus however needs a pci video card.

Also that cirrus logic card was 100% better than that trident you have.

Cirrus Logic cards are as a general rule faster than Trident cards, not to mention 486 systems regularly came with VLB slots which you could take advantage of for nearly PCI levels of bandwidth. Doom (and Doom II by this logic) is one of those games that really benefits from VLB and PCI. Not to mention, it relies on Mode Y which is not always well implemented in many cards of the era. Cirrus Logic cards usually did pretty well here. As far as your memory of the 486/33 goes, I'd wager you are likely misremembering how bad the performance actually was. Doom already can struggle on a 486 DX2/66 on some levels and Doom II has more complex levels and with many more enemies, so the 486 33 definitely had a hard time.

The advice given by others in this thread is correct. It is criminal to pair a fast Pentium MMX with an ISA video card, and a Trident at that! I've seen some people do this to achieve slower performance on such systems due to the bottleneck created, but you do not seem to belong in this target group. Lowering RAM to 64MB will also help increase performance, but certainly not until you upgrade your video card.

If you must insist on this particular videocard, then perhaps consider playing the game using FastDoom which will help a lot with the performance.

It’s criminal to pair anything with that trident card, though it might be nice on a 286.

Garrett W wrote on 2022-10-13, 07:56:

If you must insist on this particular videocard...

I really don't, I only got it for trying VGATV I mentioned above and is currently the only graphics card I own, ISA or PCI. I just want to understand why Doom 2 is running so slow.

Vresiberba wrote on 2022-10-13, 07:31:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-13, 07:21:

Your system is likely too bottlenecked by the ISA graphics card already.

I get that it's bottlenecked for what the computer can ultimately do. But why is it slower than a 486 33SX playing Doom 2? I didn't have a PCI card in my 486 in '94, it was a Cirrus Logic 542X something-ISA and I didn't get this poor performance until very late game where there was dozens of monsters on the screen. I mean, I don't want 200+ FPS, just a bit more than 10.

Could it be possible that you had a VLB graphics card in your 486 system back in the day? Those are much faster than ISA graphics cards.

Also, as others have pointed out, not all ISA graphics cards are the same. Some perform better than others.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-13, 08:11:

Also, as others have pointed out, not all ISA graphics cards are the same. Some perform better than others.

Obviously.

Vresiberba wrote on 2022-10-13, 08:12:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-13, 08:11:

Also, as others have pointed out, not all ISA graphics cards are the same. Some perform better than others.

Obviously.

Indeed. My ET4000W32 ISA runs circles around your Trident. But as posters before me said: Get a PCI card.

As far as ISA graphics cards are concerned:
Trident, Oak and Realtek are known to be rock bottom in performance.

That 9000i is a slow isa card, it's adequate only for a 386. Faster isa cards were suitable for slow 486s even some from trident. But trident 9000 series were generally slower than 8900 cards, besides speed those cards have no acceleration so they are very slow on windows , and only 512 KB of ram and crappy ramdac so you get low resolutions and refresh rates plus crappy output. What did you expect? I mean it's a good card and has some value but for a 286 or 386 machine. There are benchmarks for isa cards around here.

Even on 286 there is "noticeable" difference between Trident and Tseng cards. So the faster the CPU, the more will Trident slow the graphics down. CPU is still fast at calculating. But transferring video is slowing the performance down.

I know this first hand. I had 286-16 with C&T VGA card in 1992. I upgraded only the motherboard to 486slc-33. The game I played then, F1GP, was only 5% faster on this system. I thought that 486slc-33 was sh!t. But later managed to upgrade VGA card for Trident 8900D and the game was flying 🤣 486slc-33 is otherwise pretty much as fast or a little faster then 386DX-40.

kixs wrote on 2022-10-13, 10:26:

Even on 286 there is "noticeable" difference between Trident and Tseng cards. So the faster the CPU, the more will Trident slow the graphics down. CPU is still fast at calculating. But transferring video is slowing the performance down.

I know this first hand. I had 286-16 with C&T VGA card in 1992. I upgraded only the motherboard to 486slc-33. The game I played then, F1GP, was only 5% faster on this system. I thought that 486slc-33 was sh!t. But later managed to upgrade VGA card for Trident 8900D and the game was flying 🤣 486slc-33 is otherwise pretty much as fast or a little faster then 386DX-40.

A 486-SX 33 wasn't exactly able to run Doom I very well let alone Doom II so even with a VLB card the game would have still chugged along, I think the OP doesnt understand how bus bandwidth affects computer performance.

https://ecomputernotes.com/fundamental/introd … omputer/isa-bus

An 8Mhz 16bit ISA card used with a 32bit processor will cause performance issues as the CPU has to do extra work, the other issue is the measly 8-16Mb/s data rate of the ISA bus. (PCI is 133MB/s)

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-10-13, 10:47:

An 8Mhz 16bit ISA card used with a 32bit processor will cause performance issues as the CPU has to do extra work, the other issue is the measly 8-16Mb/s data rate of the ISA bus. (PCI is 133MB/s)

8 MB/s ? 16 MB/s ?
In which world do you live?
In reality it is hard to push Tsengs to over 7 MB/s on 8,33 MHz ISA 16 bit.

ISA Tridents? Hard to bring over 2,5 MB/s. Waitstate over waitstate.

That's the approx. maximum rated data transfer rate for ISA, in theory its ~16MB/s in reality its much lower at around ~8MB/s per cycle for the standard 8.33MHz, PCI 33 is rated for 133MB/s doesnt mean you will always get these transfer rates. As for what the card you plug in is capable of that has got nothing to do with what the bus is actually capable of, different devices will only transfer as fast as their design allows. Better designs will get closer to the 8MB/s that ISA is capable of, shit designs . .wont, like that Trident card.