A small update on the EISA graphics card front... and i've just been generously donated (paying only for shipping!) a 3D chipset... Artist XJ1000, by a friend over on Amibay.

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of information out there about the card, but what I have found are some old news clippings which inform that the chipset has 3D capabilities (albeit over 8.33 MHz bus!) with the card itself having 2MB VRAM onboard. The simm bank along the top supports upto 8MB DRAM, though this DRAM can only be used in CAD operations apparently. To run in 3D mode I need to find proprietary software.

I also managed to find a site with Windows (3.1x & 95) driver zips for the chipset. In one of the zips there seems to be a small .CFG file which I can only hope is "the" config file... but they are really small files so I have my doubts... will need to wait until the card arrives to test.

Though I have a few 386 EISA projects on the go so hopefully this card will be untilized in one of them somewhere!

I remember these cards. I forgot that they made one for EISA bus. I think I heard that the VGA core on this card might possibly be okay. I have to say I'm pretty surprised they made 95 drivers. Does it have them for NT4 as well?

386_junkie wrote:

A small update on the EISA graphics card front... and i've just been generously donated (paying only for shipping!) a 3D chipset […]
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A small update on the EISA graphics card front... and i've just been generously donated (paying only for shipping!) a 3D chipset... Artist XJ1000, by a friend over on Amibay.

[ link edited ]

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of information out there about the card, but what I have found are some old news clippings which inform that the chipset has 3D capabilities (albeit over 8.33 MHz bus!) with the card itself having 2MB VRAM onboard. The simm bank along the top supports upto 8MB DRAM, though this DRAM can only be used in CAD operations apparently. To run in 3D mode I need to find proprietary software.

I also managed to find a site with Windows (3.1x & 95) driver zips for the chipset. In one of the zips there seems to be a small .CFG file which I can only hope is "the" config file... but they are really small files so I have my doubts... will need to wait until the card arrives to test.

Though I have a few 386 EISA projects on the go so hopefully this card will be untilized in one of them somewhere!

^^ Clicking through to your image host took me to some fake malware / phishing site when I went to close the tab. Anyone else getting that?

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I remember these cards. I forgot that they made one for EISA bus. I think I heard that the VGA core on this card might possibly be okay. I have to say I'm pretty surprised they made 95 drivers. Does it have them for NT4 as well?

Among others, yes; -

http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohlandl/artgraphics/AR … 00_Drivers.html

Though the only one missing from the list that I would liked to have seen is NT3.1. There is now no chance this will be going into the Systempro, ELSA being a likelier candidate.

BTW did you get the message I sent you about the Symphony board regards to cache resistors & onboard cache wait state? Been looking online for more info but it keeps pointing me to modern manufacture boards.

If anyone has time / experience with EISA, could you please look at the file !AGI5510.CFG located in xj204win.zip (last zip file) and with a keen eye share your opinion on whether this is or is not possibly the config file to register a new EISA device within a system.

Thanks in advance for your efforts.

xjas wrote:

^^ Clicking through to your image host took me to some fake malware / phishing site when I went to close the tab. Anyone else getting that?

Fortunately no, but I have phishing turned off in my browser. I have just joined imagebam on recommendation from other vogoners as dropbox wasn't working.

Will keep an eye out for that, thanks.

The Matrox Magic arrived a couple of days ago... I have already tested and installed it into one of the Deskpro's. 😀

Thanks to kixs over on milliways ebay thread (it's gone now)... another had surfaced itself: -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-VGA-video-c … r-/141863422759

Does anyone know if this is a true 'EISA' graphics card or maybe a proprietary / local bus technology adapter similar to the Tseng?

It was meant for you 😉

I hope he packages it well. I received one motherboard from him wrapped only in an ordinary newspaper and lots of sellotape. At least it wasn't inspected by the customs and was still in a working condition 😁

I've bought from him before... he's ok, i'd say anything listed 'as-is' should be expected to be working 50% of the time but aside from needing a good clean the card seems ok. It s motherboards you need to be careful with.

Thanks again for the post

As for Matrox, the ultimate EISA solution would be the Matrox Studio: https://archive.org/details/Matrox though I don't think the only EISA card in the set is a graphics adapter.

My guess is that it is EISA, since it uses S3 911 chipset with VRAM. All of the OPTi local bus cards I've seen so far use ET4000AX with DRAM. However, this card is not in the TH99 database, so you're taking a gamble plugging into an EISA board unless you know for certain what it is. Did you look up the FCCID? You could also try loading the video BIOS into an editor and examining the header.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

My guess is that it is EISA, since it uses S3 911 chipset with VRAM. All of the OPTi local bus cards I've seen so far use ET4000AX with DRAM. However, this card is not in the TH99 database, so you're taking a gamble plugging into an EISA board unless you know for certain what it is. Did you look up the FCCID? You could also try loading the video BIOS into an editor and examining the header.

Nothing came up in the FCCID, a bit more extensive searching came up with this: -

http://xjman.dsl.gr.jp/XF311/AccelCards.html#S3 911/924

Confirming the 911 and 924 both come in ISA, EISA, and VLB varieties. Still, not a lot of information out there... not looking forward to the config / driver search.

I may yet have a look at the bios string though just to be just... i'll look to back it up and archive it at least in any case.

There were Opti local bus cards with S3 chip. The card's name is "SVLB", which could stand for " Super VGA Local Bus". The silkscreen font reminds me of several other hardware items made by TMC.

Just for the sake of completeness... MiroCrystal 32S

A new addition to the family; -

Nice thread... but I don't think I'm the only one missing some benchmarks of these cards, especially compared to their ISA/VLB cousins 😉

kixs wrote:

Nice thread... but I don't think I'm the only one missing some benchmarks of these cards, especially compared to their ISA/VLB cousins 😉

Thanks.

That could be an additional side project... I'm in the process of building a couple of 384 / 486 EISA systems with the aim to make some benchmarks, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do some benching of the EISA graphics cards on hand. Of course it may be difficult to compare all of them with ISA & VLB as I only have the one rig with an EISA / VLB motherboard and this is for 486 CPU's only.

Another consideration when comparing graphics cards of different buses would be to try and keep things like memory & chipset details constant. The only graphics card chipset that I have spanning all 3 buses (ISA, EISA & VLB) is probably S3's 924. Something more to look into perhaps.

The only graphics card chipset that I have spanning all 3 buses (ISA, EISA & VLB) is probably S3's 924.

That's great... I really wonder how EISA performs. Although I'll stay with ISA and VLB systems. Just a few cards left for my collection and will do a benchmark round when I get some free time later this year 😉

BastlerMike wrote:

Just for the sake of completeness... MiroCrystal 32S

This, this is an awesome card.