I'd like to see the 864 vs 964 and 868 vs 968 benchmarks. I only have 964 and 968 VRAM cards, so I can't compare to the DRAM models. What I can say is that my 9FX Motion 771 with the 968 is not a slouch in DOS. I'm not sure why some VRAM cards are horrible in DOS (mach32) and others are okay.

VRAM is supposed to be faster than DRAM because it can be read and written to simultaneously, but I think VRAM is somehow at a disadvantage because of the hair brained way DOS accesses video memory.

Also, I think it is kind of incorrect to imply that VRAM won the memory war because Windows took off. From what I remember when PCI bus became popular, EDO DRAM became the standard, which was later replaced by SDRAM and SGRAM. VRAM (and derivatives like WRAM) based cards seemed to basically disappear. (The same technologies applied to DRAM could also be applied to VRAM, for example EDO VRAM existed [but I've never seen anything that actually used it]). I will admit I am far behind the times in graphics card technology, but is there currently a VRAM based card still on the market? Everything seems to be based on DDRx or GDDRx.

VRAM got obsolete very quick. I think no one implied that VRAM won any "memory war", but of course the advantage of VRAM over DRAM showed in the Windows environment. One also has to take into account that VRAM was available way earlier than EDO DRAM and in a much lower density, thus VRAM was much more expensive to produce.

My benchmarks were made on a Shuttle HOT-419 R3 Motherboard, Quick setup with Am5x86WB 133MHz, 256K, 32M, No vesa tools, no tricks whatsoever:
Cards used: Miro 20SD (Vision 864) vs Miro 20SV (Vision 964). Please note that there are faster and slower cards with the same graphics core, so these results are of course not representative.

3DBench 1.0:

Vision 864: 76,9
Vision 964: 76,9

PCPBench:

Vision 864: 19,4
Vision 964: 19,1

Doom (Demo3):

Vision 864: 48,63
Vision 964: 44,25

Quake (Demo1):

Vision 864: 13,9
Vision 964: 13,7

The results show that both cards are very good DOS-performers. In Doom, the Vision 964 is 9% slower than the Vision 864, but both cards will give you a very decent framerate. In setups with slower CPUs the differences are even smaller. More complex scenarios like PCPBench and Quake are of course more CPU limited so one can't feel any difference in real life.

Same scenario as above, this time with ELSA Winner1000AVI (S3 Vision 868) vs Diamond Stealth 64 Video (Vision 968). Please note that the Diamond Stealth 64 is known to be a very fast card (I don't know if the card is clocked higher or has just BIOS optimizations), other vendors did a more conservative job and perform more like the Miro cards.
Again, the results are of course not representative for the used graphics chips.

3DBench 1.0:

Vision 868: 76,9
Vision 968: 83,3

PCPBench:

Vision 868: 19,4
Vision 968: 19,6

Doom (Demo3):

Vision 868: 48,65
Vision 968: 50,02

Quake (Demo1):

Vision 868: 13,9
Vision 968: 14

FGB wrote:

Vision968 (same as 964 + Video acceleration)

FGB wrote:

386_junkie wrote:

There is a 20SV online at the minute which is Vision 964 (VRAM based without acceleration), and its VRAM memory is more suited to Windows than in Dos.

Again, both claims/assumptions are wrong: The Vision 964 is a VRAM based accelerator card and of course it is suited for DOS. Also it has the VRAM advantage in Windows.

I can only speak for myself.. but since many folk bench systems and try to get the best possible FPS and scores etc and that little bit more out of their system... I would say that if I were building a system to be using Dos, I would use a DRAM based card. Whereas if I was building one in Windows, I would go for a VRAM based card... for the difference (if any) it makes.

Simple as that... anyone can use whatever they want in their own systems. Whilst we are all here online splitting hairs 🤣 ... in the real world, going by program requirements... there really is not too much in it tbh!

386_junkie wrote:

FGB wrote:

Vision968 (same as 964 + Video acceleration)

FGB wrote:

386_junkie wrote:

There is a 20SV online at the minute which is Vision 964 (VRAM based without acceleration), and its VRAM memory is more suited to Windows than in Dos.

Again, both claims/assumptions are wrong: The Vision 964 is a VRAM based accelerator card and of course it is suited for DOS. Also it has the VRAM advantage in Windows.

The fact that the 964 lacks the "video acceleration" feature (simple hardware YUV to RGB conversion and filtered video scaling) of the 868 and 968 models doesn't take away the great windows acceleration of the Vision 964. So your statement "VRAM based without acceleration" is false.

386_junkie wrote:

I can only speak for myself.. but since many folk bench systems and try to get the best possible FPS and scores etc and that little bit more out of their system... I would say that if I were building a system to be using Dos, I would use a DRAM based card. Whereas if I was building one in Windows, I would go for a VRAM based card... for the difference (if any) it makes.

Simple as that... anyone can use whatever they want in their own systems. Whilst we are all here online splitting hairs 🤣 ... in the real world, going by program requirements... there really is not too much in it tbh!

I agree that for a benchmark hunter the DRAM version is preferable over the VRAM version. But as most people have also Windows 3.x or 9x running on their 100MHz+ 486 machines, they would benefit from the VRAM version. IMO your bottom line is to the point, for the DOS gaming performance in a real world scenario it does not matter if you have a DRAM or VRAM based S3 Vision card. Both are great. I would never ever swap my S3 Vision for a S3 Trio32/64. Both Trios I have come with a slightly blurry output while my Visions have the nice Booktree DACs which I like much more (of course it is also depending on the Display / Monitor used).

thanks for all the information here! as i'm not exactly hunting for benchmark points, i'll go with the miro 40sv also for dos games..

thanks!