The ARK was a hell of a thing in 1995-1996. Very fast, very good compatibility, even Commander Keen will display flawlessly.
I had one back in the day, in combination with a P1-166 and the first Voodoo (added in late 1996)... That machine rocked everything 2D (thanks to the ARK) and 3D obviously.

Unfortunately I do not have one in my collection anymore... Very unfortunate. Great card that is. I remember a review in PC-Player (German game magazine) from late 1995 where the brand new and quite expensive Matrox Millennium was just a teeny-tiny bit faster. But with what I do know now in hindsight of compatibility, I'd still prefer that ARK.

Do you really need 4MB RAM on your card, then your TRIO64 is a very viable option against the ARK, just little bit slower and with about the same compatibility. I dont's know about the Spitfire, but as long it uses the same EDO-Ram as the TRIO64V+ sports, the you can swap memory modules. Just beware of corresponding timings and EDO/FPM/etc., so please double check first!

VGApocalypse wrote on 2026-01-27, 11:45:

The ARK was a hell of a thing in 1995-1996. Very fast, very good compatibility, even Commander Keen will display flawlessly. I h […]
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The ARK was a hell of a thing in 1995-1996. Very fast, very good compatibility, even Commander Keen will display flawlessly.
I had one back in the day, in combination with a P1-166 and the first Voodoo (added in late 1996)... That machine rocked everything 2D (thanks to the ARK) and 3D obviously.

Unfortunately I do not have one in my collection anymore... Very unfortunate. Great card that is. I remember a review in PC-Player (German game magazine) from late 1995 where the brand new and quite expensive Matrox Millennium was just a teeny-tiny bit faster. But with what I do know now in hindsight of compatibility, I'd still prefer that ARK.

Do you really need 4MB RAM on your card, then your TRIO64 is a very viable option against the ARK, just little bit slower and with about the same compatibility. I dont's know about the Spitfire, but as long it uses the same EDO-Ram as the TRIO64V+ sports, the you can swap memory modules. Just beware of corresponding timings and EDO/FPM/etc., so please double check first!

The Trio64v+ and Oak Spitfire here both have 1MB, expandable to 2MB.

So, I think the 2MB Ark is the way to go, for sure. Now that I think about it, in all my years of collecting I don't think I've ever managed to find one myself.

Things to note:
Trio64v+ cards can vary quite a bit in performance depending on how they are configured. I would lean toward this one being a slower one since it has 60ns EDO. Whether that makes any difference at all for the OP's intended use case, I can't say.

The Oak Spitfire is a neat card, is fairly uncommon and should be decently compatible with things, but it's probably going to be a lot slower than the others.

I can't figure out what the DA-15 or the 3.5mm jacks are for on this card though. Nothing that would compensate for slowness, of course, but still it is interesting to see those on there. If your card has any markings indicating what those ports are for, let us know. Somehow that information hasn't made it to the internet as far as I can tell

Just judging by quality, ARK2000MT card is the best option out of 3. It's performance is overestimated though and ISC GENDAC has quite spotty picture clarity on LCDs.

DesktopDynamite wrote on 2026-01-27, 11:06:

Hi, […]
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Hi,

Currently have the ARK logic 2000MT installed on my Pentium 200MMX machine.

I am using this rig mainly for 2D platform games and currently using MS-DOS 6.22 using Phil's ms-dos starter pack, not sure if I will install Windows 95 at a later stage.

Came across the S3 Trio64v+ and was wondering if it is better than the ARK 2000MT, and if it is, can I upgrade the RAM chips from the OAK spitfire 64111 card, are the RAM compatible ?

TIA

The only problem of ark is not support 15+ videomodes in low resolutions, ej 320x240 at 16bit

scitech Univbe mostly solve the problem but is a big tsr, and still i found some incompatibility

Beside this, in DOS is rock solid and fast.. very fast

I tested a ark2000 and a S3 in my p200, finally decide to use s3 because this, i need 16bit mode for some stuff

theelf wrote on 2026-01-27, 22:33:

The only problem of ark is not support 15+ videomodes in low resolutions, ej 320x240 at 16bit

scitech Univbe mostly solve the problem but is a big tsr, and still i found some incompatibility

I am intrigued 😉, having never played a game using 16bit colour in 320x240. Could you call out some? I'd really like to look into these, seems i've missed out on smth cool and interesting!

VGApocalypse wrote on 2026-01-28, 09:20:

I am intrigued 😉, having never played a game using 16bit colour in 320x240. Could you call out some? I'd really like to look into these, seems i've missed out on smth cool and interesting!

Some mentioned here:

16Bit Color Dos Games

People seem to really like Alien Trilogy when it comes to the high color issues in DOS games, but there's also X-MEN Children of Atom, Extreme Assault, Grand Theft Auto and STTNG: A F U that can also make use of low-res high color modes. It's also common for some popular DOS-based emulators (ZSNES, MAME)

There's also a couple of caveats to S3 Trio64s though, their VBEs are a gamble between cards (S3VBE20 exists to iron this out) and there's the brightness boosting issue which was only just realized in more recent years.

leileilol wrote on 2026-01-28, 14:05:

there's also X-MEN Children of Atom, Extreme Assault, Grand Theft Auto...

How could I not have known about Extreme Assault from my favourite classic turn based strategy game manufacturer ?!
Will check that out. Thank you!

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-01-28, 10:12:

VGApocalypse wrote on 2026-01-28, 09:20:

I am intrigued 😉, having never played a game using 16bit colour in 320x240. Could you call out some? I'd really like to look into these, seems i've missed out on smth cool and interesting!

Some mentioned here:

16Bit Color Dos Games

I dont play much games, never built a retro.machine thinking in games

But software, for example image viewers/editors, or video player like quickviewpro not only use and need 16bit+ videos mode for proper playback but with S3 cards have hardware scaling

Emulators are very important for me, kgen and neocd are examples of emulators work fine in p200 and 16+bits are a must