Vibra16S is a keeper. Apart from the hanging notes, it's highly compatible, should sound good and has authentic OPL3 sound.

The others are meh...

So the VLB video card is no good?

I'd be putting it into that 486DX2 box that currently has an ISA Stealth24 card in it.

I have to admit I've never had much luck with Cirrus Logic cards in the past.

Last is a VLB video card, labelled Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426. Good performer? It appears to have a multi I/O card built in, as there are headers for serial ports, floppy drives, etc...

I'm pretty sure I have one of those. I was going to use it but I didn't for some reason... its got an IDE controller built in yeah?

I think the main reason I didn't use it was because an S3 805 card I had was faster in 3dbench and pcpbench. But apart from that I don't think I had any issues with it. Now I've got a VLB ET4000W32P so I just use that instead 😀

Yeah, it looks like it's a VGA card and Multi I/O card in one.

I'm just left wondering how the card is designed. Is it an ISA video card with a VLB IO controller? VLB video card with ISA IO controller? VLB everything?

Guess i'd just have to try it and see... Is the CL-GD5426 any good on its own?

A photo, click to zoom:

Pardon the cameraphone-ness.

I think that's similar to mine, I'll have to check it when I get home.

From memory the performance was as you'd expect from a VLB 5426, but there were plenty of better VLB graphics cards out there too.

The IDE is definitely on the VLB, and the serial/parallel are definitely ISA. The VGA looks like it's probably on the VLB also, judging by the routing of the traces, but I'm not absolutely certain of that.

And to answer the previous question, the Cirrus 5426 is decent enough... good compatibility, usually pretty good image quality, and completely average performance. If it's actually running off the VLB, it should be a pretty good step up from an ISA card of any sort... but compared to other VLB cards it's nothing particularly special.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

If it's actually running off the VLB, it should be a pretty good step up from an ISA card of any sort... but compared to other VLB cards it's nothing particularly special.

That's what I wanted to hear! 😜

Keeping my feelers out for a VLB ET4000 or something, but this sounds like it will be a decent intermediate step up.

Turns out mine is different, its actually a GD5428

Although its helpfully labeled 'VL-IDE' next to the IDE connector so it seems pretty clear on that at least 😀

link for large 2MB picture

I wish this card had some sort of identifier on it so I could find some jumper settings guidance... 🙁

Isn't that an FCCID near the contacts? ICUVGA-GW146?

I did a search and apparently its made by Gainward but I can't find anything other than that...

Yep, that's all I got too.

I was hoping for a model number or something...

I emailed Gainward anyway, long shot but worth a try yea? 😜

So I emailed Gainward, and they asked me to send them a photo of the card...

Fingers crossed!!

Also, I downloaded a copy of the Total Hardware 99 archive last night, maybe it'll have something helpful in it.

SquallStrife wrote:

Guess i'd just have to try it and see... Is the CL-GD5426 any good on its own?

It's a low to mid end card usually sporting 1MB of RAM, while yours seems to be able to hold up to 2MB (expanding it adds 2-5% of performance from my experience). Highly compatible tho.
The 5428 is a slightly improved version of that chipset, which is what I'm currently using in my DX2 ... DOS performance is moderate, windows 3.11 drivers quite easy to set up.

Also read this thread -> Which Vesa Local Bus graphics card?
and this page -> http://www.computercraft.com/docs/videochipsets.shtml

SquallStrife wrote:

Keeping my feelers out for a VLB ET4000 or something, but this sounds like it will be a decent intermediate step up.

Feel free to give me a ring, since I've managed to find myself a S3 968 (presumely the fastest chipset for VLB around) based card I have another (german) guy on my hand who is willing to sell his ET4000, if you're interested I can give you his contact details.

About the Vibra16 cards ... people either use to love or hate them, while I prefer the later.

Well, I heard back from Gainward.

"Can't find anything, sorry, we're not even sure that this is a Gainward card!"

😢

Thanks for the offer shock, but I don't really have any money to spend on retro hardware at the moment. I got this Cirrus card for free, just paid for postage.

Ah well. I did get another Vibra16S! 😀

Retro Cirrus Logic official site w/ chip info. Oddly some stuff is missing. Oh well.
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/199801110854 … ts/numbers.html

swaaye wrote:

Retro Cirrus Logic official site w/ chip info. Oddly some stuff is missing. Oh well.
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/199801110854 … ts/numbers.html

Cheers for the link, unfortunately the card I have doesn't appear on that list... 🙁