kaputnik wrote on 2023-01-16, 21:05:

Deunan wrote on 2023-01-16, 20:37:

kaputnik wrote on 2023-01-16, 11:22:

Are there any other suggestions on how to provoke those jailbars? 😀

Monkey Island intro, as I mentioned earlier. And 320x200 256-color mode in general, it's way easier to spot with pixel/line doubling and also you test your monitor for proper upscaling. 640x480 and higher modes usually work well, it's the lower resolutions that are problematic. EGA's 640x350 is fortunately rarely ever used. Although that seems to be a good LCD monitor - the 800x600 mode looks nice. What's the brand/type and what native resolution it has?

If you mean the title screen in the original version, it looks good. No jailbars as far as I can see 😀

The monitor is a Lenovo ThinkVision LT1913p, native resolution is 1280x1024. It was basically the cheapest non-widescreen 19" IPS monitor with reasonable response times etc I could find at the time.

Apparently Trident cards are the worst offenders jailbars wise, like my 8900 CL, never saw anything in Windows 3.1 or using apps/games within it, it's always in maybe 60 to 70% of games running in DOS. Some examples are Lotus III or Grand Prix Circuit by Accolade. I do have an older LCD than usual, a Samsung SyncMaster 151s. Got it because it's beige exactly like a CRT would be 🤣

waterbeesje wrote on 2023-01-14, 21:51:

Another option I'd recommend as second option is the less known UMC 408. It is about as fast as an ET4000AX in benchmarks but needs a TSR to unlock it's potential. Preferably the UMC driver, not the usual UniVBE.

I have this card and it is really fast. Trident 8900D is only little slower but I think Trident's picture quality is better. UMC gives burn out colors, haven't tried that on CRT yet, only LCD if that's the case.

But what TSR are you talking about?

My other opinions are that Cirrus 5434 VLB is superb, it takes 50MHz VLB with no problems (tested with 5x86/150) and it's blazing fast card. I have one that's 2MB version with memory interleaving in my 5x86/160 -machine.
Back in nineties I had Expertcolor branded S3Vision864, that was superfast too. Run Duke Nukem 3D @320x400 (UniVBE) on my 486DX2/90MHz, faster than my friends new and shiny Pentium 60.

dj_pirtu wrote on 2023-01-17, 11:46:

But what TSR are you talking about?

Had it posted here before:

Re: questions about 2 graphic cards?

😀

kaputnik wrote on 2023-01-16, 21:05:

If you mean the title screen in the original version, it looks good. No jailbars as far as I can see 😀

The monitor is a Lenovo ThinkVision LT1913p, native resolution is 1280x1024. It was basically the cheapest non-widescreen 19" IPS monitor with reasonable response times etc I could find at the time.

Yup, that's the best moment to spot jailbars. I have to re-test my 5429 someday but I also noticed it has improved in video output quality over previous CL chips.
As for the monitor, I use Samsung B1940R which is also 1280x1024 but TN. These are cheap and good monitors, 5:4 aspect ratio matches well the older 4:3 video modes and 19" is plenty of screen space. However TN might be more susceptible to jailbars than IPS due to it's limited color depth. I wonder if that's a factor, I will have to test this too with my PC monitor which is IPS.

kaputnik wrote on 2023-01-16, 11:22:

Interesting discussion on jailbars with Cirrus cards. […]
Show full quote

Interesting discussion on jailbars with Cirrus cards.

Got an ISA CL-GD5429 graphics adapter in my 486, connected to a 19" LCD monitor. Haven't seen the slightest trace of any jailbars so far. Running Windows 3.11 in 800x600, 65356 colors.

Launched and checked edit.com as suggested earlier in the thread, nothing there either.

The only artifacts I can see is some very slight ghosting and fuzziness, but guess that's to be expected with a 2 meter KVM cable, a KVM switch, and another 30 cm VGA cable between the computer and the monitor. Really got to try to get hold of the shorter 1 meter alternative at some point on that note.

Are there any other suggestions on how to provoke those jailbars? 😀

Yes, certainly, here are some examples from a 5429 VLB. All but the noted exception are through the Extron, for comparison.

You can see how much worse it is when I use VGA output direct to the LCD (some older dell ultrasharp) in the second doom screenshot.

Also, Windows looks perfectly fine. Guess its either because of the display mode and/or driver

So here are some examples with my Samsung Syncmaster 151s LCD and Trident 8900CL combo, playing Accolade's Grand Prix Circuit and Lotus III. Less noticeable on camera in Lotus' case but in reality is just as present.

As with other people's examples, Windows 3.1's image is clean as a whistle. Is it due to drivers? Would actually using DOS display drivers alleviate / eliminate this issue?

3.1 looks good to me, not pixelated. Is Windows 3.1 using the Standard VGA driver?

The Trident 8900 is supported by both the Windows 3.1 Super VGA driver (800x600 16c), as well as by the WfW 3.11 SVGA drivers (256c), by the way.

The latters will run on Windows 3.1, too. They once were distributed separately by Microsoft, as well.

http://www.gaby.de/ftp/pub/win3x/drivers/svga.zip
Source: http://www.win31.de/edrivers.htm

Of course, it's also possible to use the native Trident 8900 drivers written by Trident itself.

Unfortunately, not all drivers are the same. Some may require 1 MB VGA memory for "fast mode" etc.

The Super VGA drivers are very basic, by comparison, but "just work".

http://mpolibbs.steptail.com/hardware/DISPLAY/TRIDENT/

Good luck! 🙂

Edit: Or let me rephrase what I meant to say.
The screen shot of Windows 3.1 looks no - pixelated, slightly filtered.
This could be because of interpolation or a result of the timings of the VGA card.

Back in those days, VGA cards could be configured for different monitor types (very basic/limited VGA monitors, PS/2 monitors, NEC multisync etc).
Each DIP switch setting caused slightly different timings.

Anyway, a pixel-perfect image isn't necessary *that* great of an experience in 3.1x.
Back in the 90s, I had got a blurry little IBM PS/2 monitor.

And tell you what? I miss it nowadays, exactly because it was slightly blurry. 😢
Windows 3.1 and games looked much nicer to me that way.

Edit: Found a picture for comparison.
That's how Windows 3.x and OS/2 are supposed to look, in my humble opinion.
No scarlines, no pixel-perfectness. Just an ordinary VGA monitor from the late 80s.

maybe I'm just lucky, but honestly I've never had a problem with cirrus. here in the UK the retro PC hobby is expensive and stuff like Tseng and Ark cards are rarely seen for sale anyway. I know for certain that my 1mb cirrus 5446 Could beat a 2mb s3 vision-based diamond stealth64 (both being pci) by around 4-7 marks when it came to vga games.
what is likely more Important to you however is the image quality is more about the brand of the card and signal components, rather than the gpu chip make - the only isa video card I have is a 1mb cirrus 5428 dated from 1994, cornerstone was one brand of video card geared towards the dtp market, so the quality of those should be nice in theory, but often still used common chips like the 5402 making them quite games compatible

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2023-01-21, 01:21:

maybe I'm just lucky, but honestly I've never had a problem with cirrus. here in the UK the retro PC hobby is expensive and stuff like Tseng and Ark cards are rarely seen for sale anyway. I know for certain that my 1mb cirrus 5446 Could beat a 2mb s3 vision-based diamond stealth64 (both being pci) by around 4-7 marks when it came to vga games.
what is likely more Important to you however is the image quality is more about the brand of the card and signal components, rather than the gpu chip make - the only isa video card I have is a 1mb cirrus 5428 dated from 1994, cornerstone was one brand of video card geared towards the dtp market, so the quality of those should be nice in theory, but often still used common chips like the 5402 making them quite games compatible

The Super VGA drivers for Windows 3.1x support those chips (afaik).:

ATI VGA series, including
ATI VGA Wonder
ATI VGA Wonder Plus
ATI VGA Wonder 24XL

Cirrus Logic VGA (6420, 5420 series)

Oak Technology VGA (077 series)

Paradise VGA, including
Paradise VGA 1024
Paradise VGA Professional

Trident VGA (8900C series) *, including
Trident Impact

Tseng VGA (ET4000 series) **, including:
Boca VGA
Cardinal VGA
Diamond Speedstar series
Everex Viewpoint series
Metheus Premier VGA
Orchid Prodesigner II
Sigma VGA Legend
STB Powergraph

Video Seven VGA, including
Video Seven FastWrite
Video Seven 1024i
Video Seven VRAM
Video Seven VRAM II

Western Digital VGA

So there are two Cirrus types being supported, even. The 6420, 5420 series.
Maybe some more, not sure. Depends on how backwards compatible later/other models were.

Anyway, Windows 3.1x support isn't the most important bit, maybe.
What's interesting however: HCLs like this give an impression about popular hardware of the day.
So this list can be used as an orientation, too.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-21, 00:57:

3.1 looks good to me, not pixelated. Is Windows 3.1 using the Standard VGA driver? […]
Show full quote

3.1 looks good to me, not pixelated. Is Windows 3.1 using the Standard VGA driver?

The Trident 8900 is supported by both the Windows 3.1 Super VGA driver (800x600 16c), as well as by the WfW 3.11 SVGA drivers (256c), by the way.

The latters will run on Windows 3.1, too. They once were distributed separately by Microsoft, as well.

http://www.gaby.de/ftp/pub/win3x/drivers/svga.zip
Source: http://www.win31.de/edrivers.htm

Of course, it's also possible to use the native Trident 8900 drivers written by Trident itself.

Unfortunately, not all drivers are the same. Some may require 1 MB VGA memory for "fast mode" etc.

The Super VGA drivers are very basic, by comparison, but "just work".

http://mpolibbs.steptail.com/hardware/DISPLAY/TRIDENT/

Good luck! 🙂

Edit: Or let me rephrase what I meant to say.
The screen shot of Windows 3.1 looks no - pixelated, slightly filtered.
This could be because of interpolation or a result of the timings of the VGA card.

Back in those days, VGA cards could be configured for different monitor types (very basic/limited VGA monitors, PS/2 monitors, NEC multisync etc).
Each DIP switch setting caused slightly different timings.

Anyway, a pixel-perfect image isn't necessary *that* great of an experience in 3.1x.
Back in the 90s, I had got a blurry little IBM PS/2 monitor.

And tell you what? I miss it nowadays, exactly because it was slightly blurry. 😢
Windows 3.1 and games looked much nicer to me that way.

Edit: Found a picture for comparison.
That's how Windows 3.x and OS/2 are supposed to look, in my humble opinion.
No scarlines, no pixel-perfectness. Just an ordinary VGA monitor from the late 80s.

For Windows 3.1 I think I'm using actual Trident drivers. I never noticed a single second of jailbars in Windows 3.1, it was always in DOS games. As for DOS drivers as people told me it didn't require drivers and in fact it would be better not to install any I didn't do anything. Jailbars on my LCD is the only issue for me, don't have any more complaints regarding image quality. The LCD is actually pretty sharp and vibrant in person, even though it's clear it had some usage. My phone's camera not that great but at least I think the jailbar effect was illustrated. Thank you for your help and links, I'll compile various driver files and see what's what, even if I alleviated the jailbars slightly just by installing DOS drivers it would be a huge success.

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2023-01-21, 01:21:

maybe I'm just lucky, but honestly I've never had a problem with cirrus. here in the UK the retro PC hobby is expensive and stuff like Tseng and Ark cards are rarely seen for sale anyway. I know for certain that my 1mb cirrus 5446 Could beat a 2mb s3 vision-based diamond stealth64 (both being pci) by around 4-7 marks when it came to vga games.
what is likely more Important to you however is the image quality is more about the brand of the card and signal components, rather than the gpu chip make - the only isa video card I have is a 1mb cirrus 5428 dated from 1994, cornerstone was one brand of video card geared towards the dtp market, so the quality of those should be nice in theory, but often still used common chips like the 5402 making them quite games compatible

Jailbars wise from my research Trident is the worst brand in that regard when using LCD displays. Like I said in earlier posts, if I had the space I would just use the original CRT that came with this 486 and call it a day, but that won't happen in the near future. The current problem for me like I also discussed, with Cirrus or other alternatives, is that as with most mid-level to very good cards they are going up in price nearing the top class ones, it's all trending and compressing upwards. I'll just be patient and see what gives, but this thread was already a huge help in providing me with a good scope of alternatives. Wish I knew this issue about the Trident cards before I bought it but hey.

I have a Pentium Pro Vectra with onboard Cirrus 5446 graphics that impressed me in the past, it was my grandfather's originally and it handled like a champ lots of heavy games for the era that we threw at it.

Here’s my post about jail bars a couple years ago.

Re: Let's improve video output quality of VGA ISA/VLB cards

I have a CL5429 with terrible jail bars and a CL5426 with perfect video.

I have a mach32 card made my ATI with perfect signal and a mach32 card from kia that looks terrible in 320x200

Mostof the time, the cards look fine in SVGA resolution

douglar wrote on 2023-01-21, 02:26:

Here’s my post about jail bars a couple years ago. […]
Show full quote

Here’s my post about jail bars a couple years ago.

Re: Let's improve video output quality of VGA ISA/VLB cards

I have a CL5429 with terrible jail bars and a CL5426 with perfect video.

I have a mach32 card made my ATI with perfect signal and a mach32 card from kia that looks terrible in 320x200

Mostof the time, the cards look fine in SVGA resolution

I don't notice jailbars in DOS games every time but definitely around 60 to 70% of the time, did you ever use DOS display drivers or just Win 3.1 display drivers and ran the games in DOS as is?

andre_6 wrote on 2023-01-21, 02:30:

I don't notice jailbars in DOS games every time but definitely around 60 to 70% of the time, did you ever use DOS display drivers or just Win 3.1 display drivers and ran the games in DOS as is?

DOS doesn’t really use video drivers. Doom in my examples talks directly to the VGA hardware. I could try using some VESA/VBE extensions, but I don’t think Doom would use them, would it?

Here’s the pictures from a trident card with similar issues:
Re: Let's improve video output quality of VGA ISA/VLB cards (First success !)

andre_6 wrote on 2023-01-21, 02:00:

For Windows 3.1 I think I'm using actual Trident drivers. I never noticed a single second of jailbars in Windows 3.1, it was always in DOS games. As for DOS drivers as people told me it didn't require drivers and in fact it would be better not to install any I didn't do anything. Jailbars on my LCD is the only issue for me, don't have any more complaints regarding image quality. The LCD is actually pretty sharp and vibrant in person, even though it's clear it had some usage. My phone's camera not that great but at least I think the jailbar effect was illustrated. Thank you for your help and links, I'll compile various driver files and see what's what, even if I alleviated the jailbars slightly just by installing DOS drivers it would be a huge success.

Hello Andre, please don't despair. It may take a while, but I'm sure a solution will materialize, eventually.

There are several things that can be tried out:

- Use an VGA to HDMI converter -> it has its own Analog to Digital converters (ADC, A/D converter).
While they are not as flexible as PC monitors, they perhaps can handle certain signals better.

- Try fixing the noise floor. Either by using a clean PSU or by installing blocking capacitors.
On the mainboared (if there are empty solder pads) or on the VGA cards.
You can install multiple types in parallel (1 nF, 100 nF, 1 micro Farad), if you wish.
An old oscillograph can help checking for noise (RF, ripple etc). Bandwidth doesn't matter. An 1 MHz scope works, as does an 30/50/500.. MHz model.

- Try changing the timings. A DOS utility, like 67Hz.com, can alter things slightly.

- Use an old SCART TV with a homebrewed VGA kabel. Together with a DOS utility, you can play games using 320x200 to 640x480 resolutions.

- Similar as above. Use a dedicated VGA to SCART or AV converter box.
It will convert and scale resolutions for your PAL/NTSC or RGB/SCART TV.

- try a different VGA cable

- try changing the orientation of your monitor's power plug (unless it has a dedicated power brick).
Maybe there's a grounding issue that causes banding or jailbar effects.

funny thing about lcd screens is, the first desktop LCD monitors were released in the UK by CTX, or Churntex in 1994 and TFT's were fairly common by 1998, so I find the requirement of bulky CRTs as somewhat trivial for most 90s PCs

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2023-01-21, 04:44:

funny thing about lcd screens is, the first desktop LCD monitors were released in the UK by CTX, or Churntex in 1994 and TFT's were fairly common by 1998, so I find the requirement of bulky CRTs as somewhat trivial for most 90s PCs

LCD monitors weren't common on desktops in 1998...

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2023-01-21, 04:44:

funny thing about lcd screens is, the first desktop LCD monitors were released in the UK by CTX, or Churntex in 1994 and TFT's were fairly common by 1998, so I find the requirement of bulky CRTs as somewhat trivial for most 90s PCs

I'm pretty sure you have mixed something up - like a wrong decade 🤣

kixs wrote on 2023-01-21, 11:23:

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2023-01-21, 04:44:

funny thing about lcd screens is, the first desktop LCD monitors were released in the UK by CTX, or Churntex in 1994 and TFT's were fairly common by 1998, so I find the requirement of bulky CRTs as somewhat trivial for most 90s PCs

I'm pretty sure you have mixed something up - like a wrong decade 🤣

Or maybe it was a monochrome or passive matrix model?

Here's one from 1990. ^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJvqnpMT8RM

Edit: I've had got a tiny LCD pocket TV (Casio?) in 1995 or so.
It was not a desktop monitor, of course, but it was in colour. The screen had roughly 2" to 3", I think.
There was a 3,5mm jack for AV, too. So it technically could do composite video.

Here's a video phone from 1992, also with a small colour LCD. 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX8RWPk6W9Q

LCD existed back then and even earlier for laptops... but they weren't common till at least 2004 maybe 2005. Can't remember now when I got my secondary 19" LCD Samsung monitor, beside primary Sony 19" CRT. Had this for a couple of years and then replaced both for 26" LG IPS LCD - this had to be around 2008 when I moved to a new apartment. Was also considering Dell 3008 but the delay was too high.

I can only find this TV chart LCD vs CRT sales:

But by my guess LCD monitors had surpassed CRTs a bit sooner.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-01-21, 04:29:

Hello Andre, please don't despair. It may take a while, but I'm sure a solution will materialize, eventually. […]
Show full quote

andre_6 wrote on 2023-01-21, 02:00:

For Windows 3.1 I think I'm using actual Trident drivers. I never noticed a single second of jailbars in Windows 3.1, it was always in DOS games. As for DOS drivers as people told me it didn't require drivers and in fact it would be better not to install any I didn't do anything. Jailbars on my LCD is the only issue for me, don't have any more complaints regarding image quality. The LCD is actually pretty sharp and vibrant in person, even though it's clear it had some usage. My phone's camera not that great but at least I think the jailbar effect was illustrated. Thank you for your help and links, I'll compile various driver files and see what's what, even if I alleviated the jailbars slightly just by installing DOS drivers it would be a huge success.

Hello Andre, please don't despair. It may take a while, but I'm sure a solution will materialize, eventually.

There are several things that can be tried out:

- Use an VGA to HDMI converter -> it has its own Analog to Digital converters (ADC, A/D converter).
While they are not as flexible as PC monitors, they perhaps can handle certain signals better.

- Try fixing the noise floor. Either by using a clean PSU or by installing blocking capacitors.
On the mainboared (if there are empty solder pads) or on the VGA cards.
You can install multiple types in parallel (1 nF, 100 nF, 1 micro Farad), if you wish.
An old oscillograph can help checking for noise (RF, ripple etc). Bandwidth doesn't matter. An 1 MHz scope works, as does an 30/50/500.. MHz model.

- Try changing the timings. A DOS utility, like 67Hz.com, can alter things slightly.

- Use an old SCART TV with a homebrewed VGA kabel. Together with a DOS utility, you can play games using 320x200 to 640x480 resolutions.

- Similar as above. Use a dedicated VGA to SCART or AV converter box.
It will convert and scale resolutions for your PAL/NTSC or RGB/SCART TV.

- try a different VGA cable

- try changing the orientation of your monitor's power plug (unless it has a dedicated power brick).
Maybe there's a grounding issue that causes banding or jailbar effects.

Hi Jo22, thank you for your help and kind words, how could one despair with such help? Worst case scenario I'll just use the 486 with jailbars in most DOS games and that's it. I'll be on the lookout for SVGA capable games as douglar mentioned to see how it looks. As soon as I can I'll give the DOS display drivers a try just for kicks. Seems to me that it's a dispersed topic, I can perfectly believe that DOS doesn't use display drivers at all, but then again why do DOS display drivers actually exist? I've had people in Vogons saying different things about this, which as a learning user is confusing. If I don't see jailbars in Windows 3.1, which has display drivers, than trying out DOS drivers would in theory be a possible way to solve the problem?