its expected to be slower. the et4000 is legendary because its the first consumer card to hit the isa limit, but other companies caught up in a year or two, not to mention its a match between an isa non-accelerator and a vesa accelerator.

In this case I consider the ET4000 a downgrade in both speed and compatibility. Keep the VLB 5428 card 😀

If you want to pimp a 486, upgrade the cpu. If it takes 3V CPUs, go for AMD 5x86-133. This isn't too expensive upgrade and you'll get way better results (50-90% increase). If you want to change VGA card, it will cost a lot more and will give you max 10% increase.

Yep. The ISA ET4000AX is one of the better ISA cards, but all but the worst of VLB cards outrace it.

Phil (of Phil's Computer Lab) compares various graphics cards under DOS here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ha8Q_oLUr8. Long story short, the GD5428 does quite well. The GD5429 is slightly better, if your motherboard likes it. As has been pointed out, the graphics card will only buy you a small improvement, but if you're trying anyway, your best options might be the Tseng ET4000/W32i, S3 Vision968, S3 Trio32 or ATi Mach64. If you have a PCI slot, you have more options there.

Thank you all. I'll stick with the VLB card then. I am pretty sure that my motherboard does not support 3V. But anyway, I would like to keep the DX2@66 for now as it is a sweet spot for performance. I'll make a separate build with a DX4 or a 586 at some point.

The other upgrades I am trying to make are:

- memory from 20Mb to probably 48Mb
- better sound card (maybe a 2950) from a Vibra16C
- a second HDD
- a working CDROM

From the results Phil presented, it seems that for a 1x 486DX, that there isn't much benefit of VLB over ISA, but the divergence is more dramatic for a 2x, or clock-doubled, 486DX2.

Also, don't forget about the ISA Cirrus Logic GD-5434. I think this was the end of the line for ISA Cirrus Logic cards. It would be interesting to see if the GD5434 is faster than the GD5429 and by how much. I personally use the GD5434 in my non-VLB "386" setup, which is a 486SXL-40 (awaiting an upgrade to SXL2, DRx2, or BL3 - depending on results).

I ran a quick DOOM comparison of high-end ISA graphics cards some time ago. The results are attached. The GD5434 inched out on top, but the ET4000AX was very close behind. If you are going to run Windows95 or 3.11, I found the GD5434 to work best with higher resolutions (1024x768) and still 16-bit colour. The Mach64 was also great in Windows, but the DOOM scores were a bit less.

feipoa wrote:

From the results Phil presented, it seems that for a 1x 486DX, that there isn't much benefit of VLB over ISA, but the divergence […]
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From the results Phil presented, it seems that for a 1x 486DX, that there isn't much benefit of VLB over ISA, but the divergence is more dramatic for a 2x, or clock-doubled, 486DX2.

Also, don't forget about the ISA Cirrus Logic GD-5434. I think this was the end of the line for ISA Cirrus Logic cards. It would be interesting to see if the GD5434 is faster than the GD5429 and by how much. I personally use the GD5434 in my non-VLB "386" setup, which is a 486SXL-40 (awaiting an upgrade to SXL2, DRx2, or BL3 - depending on results).

I ran a quick DOOM comparison of high-end ISA graphics cards some time ago. The results are attached. The GD5434 inched out on top, but the ET4000AX was very close behind. If you are going to run Windows95 or 3.11, I found the GD5434 to work best with higher resolutions (1024x768) and still 16-bit colour. The Mach64 was also great in Windows, but the DOOM scores were a bit less.

ISA_Bench_VLSI.png

Man, that 8900D is trading blows with the best of them...

I've finally amassed a good collection of VLB cards.
I wish that I had a few more of the mythical beasts...Mach64, ArkLogic VL2000 in order to do my own benchmarks, but I'm content with what I've got with the 5434 and Vision 968 4MB. The reality is that most games that show small differences should be played on a newer system anyways. It's still fun, though, to collect high-end cards.

-S3 805-P (2MB)
-S3 Vision 968 4MB VRAM (#9GXE64 Pro)
-CL 5428 (1 or 2MB)
-CL 5429 (2MB)
-CL 5434 (Orchid Kelvin 64 VLB, 2MB)
-Tseng ET4000/w32 (2MB)
-Trident 9440
-WD 90C33

as well as a few ISA:
-CL 5434 (Diamond Speedstar 64 2MB)
-Trident 8900C
-Trident 8900D (1MB)

But the image quality of the 8900D is pretty poor in comparison to the others.

The GD5428/GD5429 VLB cards are a pretty good standard, although common and uninteresting. What's available of the 543x series for VLB isn't faster, and the faster Tsengs and S3's have compatibility issues with some fairly big titles. They're afflicted with an LFB bug, but high rez VESA performance is probably not a major concern for 486's.