This is an entire discussion in it's own right (in fact there is another subject on it) but Windows 95 while you can run it on a 386, good luck actually using it for anything. You lose a LOT of resources running Windows 95 on a slower machine like that, and most everything that you can play on Windows 95 with a 386, you can play faster and better using DOS or 3.x.

I'd take the MACH64 as it is the fastest card there, and compatibility is normally alright.

As far accelerated graphics on an ISA 386 goes, that Mach64 is just about as good as it gets. I was an ATi user during the DOS era, and it wasn't as terrible as some people claim. Then again, I mostly did adventure games. The CL GD5434 based cards are really not bad in Windows, and are supposedly quite compatible in DOS. I wasn't impressed with the earlier Cirrus Logic cards acceleration abilities though. On the S3 front, I do not believe there were any 64-bit cards for ISA. The best you're going to do is the S3 928. Those have 64-bit memory with a 32-bit graphics engine. Some of those cards had up to 4MB of VRAM, and a version from #9 had 1MB DRAM + 2MB VRAM (GXE level 12?). I also have a pretty rare ELSA Winner 1000ISA that has an S3 805i chip with a 16-bit RAMDAC that seems quite nice, but I need to do further testing. I can't recall if Matrox had any models, but their DOS performance is guaranteed to be super bad. The Tseng ET4000W32i with 2MB is also a possibility, but you have to make sure your card has the 110MHz RAMDAC if want 64k colour at 1024x768 in non interlaced mode. Personally, I find the Tseng configuration software to be pretty atrocious. ATI has really nice setup and diagnostic software for both DOS and Windows. With S3 it was kind of a mixed bag, but #9 tended to have software more competitive with ATi.

The fastest ISA cards for DOS that I have are the S3 805i, the CL GD5434 and the ET4000w32i. They all performed identically.

BTW, the Mach64 is really not that slow in DOS. It's at least average. There is no performance penalty with the VRAM version versus the DRAM version (I tested both extensively). The speed gap between the Mach64 and the S3 cards is practically non existent when you're talking about the ISA versions.

This.

lazibayer wrote:

This.

Wow! I've had that card, too! 😳
Windows 3.1 works in TIGA mode, but requires a special driver package.
I think it is available somewhere at http://files.mpoli.fi//

Jo22 wrote:

Wow! I've had that card, too! :shocked: Windows 3.1 works in TIGA mode, but requires a special driver package. I think it is ava […]
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lazibayer wrote:

This.

Wow! I've had that card, too! 😳
Windows 3.1 works in TIGA mode, but requires a special driver package.
I think it is available somewhere at http://files.mpoli.fi//

at the very end of that linked site actually

Jo22 wrote:

Wow! I've had that card, too! :shocked: Windows 3.1 works in TIGA mode, but requires a special driver package. I think it is ava […]
Show full quote

lazibayer wrote:

This.

Wow! I've had that card, too! 😳
Windows 3.1 works in TIGA mode, but requires a special driver package.
I think it is available somewhere at http://files.mpoli.fi//

Well I don't... I just happen to know this card 😊
I love multi-chip video cards... I often use this card to educate younger computer enthusiasts: back then you weren't supposed to get driver from the manufacturer of the sole video chip on the card, but instead from the card manufacturer.

Although the card is physically impressive, I don't know that TIGA cards are actually faster than the later generation accelerated SVGA cards. I think had they been, it would have been prominent in the magazines of the time. They certainly have an edge when it comes to maximum supported resolution and colour depths though. They probably also have some special features that make them suitable for CAD.

I have the GXiTC and did also the captures. A late SVGA ISA card, like the S3 928, Mach64 a.s.o. is faster than the TIGA cards. The advantage of the TIGA card is, that it has 1 MB instruction RAM where the DSP can be fully programmed - so anything goes (There is are even free sockets for a second DSP + RAM for dual rendering action). 2D Windows acceleration is just a side effect of the actual capabilities.

I think a card with Cirrus Logic chipset would be sufficiently fast and easy to obtain for OPs question.

its a pity that tiga is not svga compatible, and i wonder if it works with windows95.
and whats the most physically complicated isa svga card in the 1990s, when integrated acceleration had become popular?

I seem to remember reading that TIGA is not supported in Windows 95, and that it is not even possible to create a device driver since the design somehow violates the way Windows 95 functions.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I seem to remember reading that TIGA is not supported in Windows 95, and that it is not even possible to create a device driver since the design somehow violates the way Windows 95 functions.

any details on that? i cannot imagine this being incompatible on a hardware level, the possibilities of this architecture seem limitless

I think you need to search for TIGA and Windows 95 in the old newsgroups.

Was it common for chip/card manufacturer to provide win95 driver for their ISA products? I know win95 came with drivers for most ISA cards with ATi, CL, Tseng and S3 chips. Trident provided a beta driver for 8900/9000 but I am not sure if it works.

i just found a stb cirrus5434 2mb in a friend's hands, hopefully he hasn't sold it to anyone yet, phew!

I think many of the ISA VGA cards from 1993-96 got drivers for Windows 95, but they sometimes did not include all the features that they had in Windows 3.x. Most of those cards had native support with 9x anyway, so it didn't really matter anyway. I know for a fact that the Trident 9000i has drivers for 95, because my friend was using one.

The STB Nitro ISA card you're talking about is a good card. It has much better image quality than the Diamond Speedstar64.

I guess if a chip has both PCI and ISA versions it's more likely to have Win95 support.

i still have two questions just for curious:
1. what's the slowest video card with high/true color in windows? that is to say, one must have 1mb of dram or more(512k would only go up to 640*400*16bit), and with either integrated ramdac or 16/24bit external ramdac.
2. what's the most expensive(physically complicated) isa video card in the 1990s with single chip integrated acceleration?

both questions are limited to vga cards.

Here are some beefy ISA video cards. The most expensive one cost 8000 bucks back in 90~91.

noshutdown wrote:

i still have two questions just for curious: 1. what's the slowest video card with high/true color in windows? that is to say, o […]
Show full quote

i still have two questions just for curious:
1. what's the slowest video card with high/true color in windows? that is to say, one must have 1mb of dram or more(512k would only go up to 640*400*16bit), and with either integrated ramdac or 16/24bit external ramdac.
2. what's the most expensive(physically complicated) isa video card in the 1990s with single chip integrated acceleration?

both questions are limited to vga cards.

1. Look for the shittiest card you can find from Trident. Like low end for even Trident's standards (my video card is chewing gum)

2. Probably something from Number Nine, Diamond, or ATI.