VLB VGA card - which BIOS settings might impact it? \ VOGONS

VLB VGA card - which BIOS settings might impact it?

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First post, by badmojo

Posted on 2012-10-02, 06:07

badmojo Offline

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The VLB card I own which produces the best picture (to my eyeballs anyway) is based on the ET4000AX chipset, and it works well for everything except Ultima 7. U7 runs fine but is quite corrupted (imagine massive scanlines).

There are a couple of jumpers on the card and - without documentation - I've tied all combinations with no change.

I've tried an ISA ET4000AX card and it works fine, and I've tied several other VLB cards too (S3, Cirrus Logic, etc) and they all work. So it has something to do with this particular card.

The motherboard is an OPTI 495SLC with an AMI BIOS- it's a long shot but does anyone have any ideas about possible BIOS settings that would impact a VLB VGA card?

Thanks for any help.

Reply 1 of 5, by eL_PuSHeR

Posted on 2012-10-02, 07:38

eL_PuSHeR Offline

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Just a shot in the dark

Video bios shadow -> Disabled
System bios cacheable -> Disabled
Video bios cacheable -> Disabled

USWC mode -> Non USWC

Reply 2 of 5, by Anonymous Coward

Posted on 2012-10-02, 11:10

Anonymous Coward Offline

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It could be a conflict between the ET4000 and the 495SLC chipset. From what I remember the 495SLC had a few VLB related bugs which were fixed in the 495SX.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 3 of 5, by badmojo

Posted on 2012-10-02, 22:26

badmojo Offline

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Thanks for the replies; no luck with any of that though unfortunately. It looks like it's as anonymous coward says, this motherboard just has buggy VLB support.

Very disappointing, I really like this motherboard, apart from this one issue it's a winner.

Another question - I've been using an ISA ET4000AX VGA card and although everything looks fine, there's noticeable hitching in some games. Mortal Kombat for example is lags a bit.

I wouldn't have thought there'd be a noticeable difference in 2D games b/w ISA and VLB - does shoving an ISA card in a VLB slot upset things? Would putting it into a plain 16 bit ISA slot help?

BTW, are you the same anonymous coward that was chatting with THE Woz over at Slashdot?

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 4 of 5, by RichB93

Posted on 2012-10-03, 00:06

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By default all unregistered users are called 'Anonymous Coward' on /. 😜

Reply 5 of 5, by badmojo

Posted on 2012-10-03, 00:35

badmojo Offline

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RichB93 wrote:
By default all unregistered users are called 'Anonymous Coward' on /. 😜

🤣, I see. I thought that user was dominating the conversation a little!

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