Nice desolder, are you replacing original graphics processor with NOS one?

^ yes, the old one had broken and completely missing legs so there was no point to attempt fixing it. There are NOS 964 ICs on eBay - not on the cheap side but that's what I will get.
There are also a 10uf tantalum and a 100nf ceramic caps missing , in the area on top of the ramdac.

Hmm, I would have asked you for your preferred source for NOS computer parts if you hadn't revealed it 😀

Not too long ago I was looking for a whole Voodoo1 chipset, but couldn't find any trustworthy source. Was about to buy two faulty V1s from ebay, when just a day before purchase I got offered two working Voodoos and two Matrox PCI cards for the same price locally, talk about luck. Had to abandon my project of reviving an 8 meg V1 then.

S3 chips are common, they are easy to find IMHO - even if all fails one can get a random pci vga from somewhere and transplant the IC... but there is no market or anything special going on with them atm they just gather dust in storage... 🤣
Lucky find there btw - it sure beats doing solderwork!

keropi wrote:

but there is no market or anything special going on with them atm they just gather dust in storage... 🤣

Heh, the definition of NOS.

I wouln't mind doing some soldering work. Sooner or later I'll restore that card, but you got to act fast, because with each passing year required parts are getting rarer and pricier.

true, each last year was better for old hardware 🤣

I've always been curiuos what would happen if you swapped in a 968 instead of the 964. They are supposed to be pin compatible.

There must be some advantage to the 968 - but do you know which? faster clock? sgram support?

I think it's slightly faster, and it has some kind of video playback accelleration.

I always get the benefits of 864, 868, 964, and 968 confused, no matter how many times I'm reminded. Isn't the 968 best for Windows acceleration?

I am bumping this just in case anyone found the card in the meanwhile, I still have not fixed mine 😀
thanks!

Would bios v2.04 from a 968 based Stealth 64 qualify?

^ nah, I want the original Diamond BIOS for the card
thanks anyways!

You could be waiting awhile. I'm still looking for BIOS version 2.02 for a Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM T w/86c764-P chipset (not BIOS v2.01 and not v2.09).

Roger. I went ahead and stored a .vbi of my card's bios just for the learning of it. Does it have any value, would it be appreciated in some database somewhere? Are there potentially other BIOSes not mentioned above that could be uploaded?

DeafPK wrote:

Roger. I went ahead and stored a .vbi of my card's bios just for the learning of it. Does it have any value, would it be appreciated in some database somewhere? Are there potentially other BIOSes not mentioned above that could be uploaded?

Might be wishing for a Vogons Drivers but for BIOSes 😀 But I imagine the legality of such images being a lot more difficult to navigate.

keropi, currently there are few of these cards on ebay, you could try asking sellers to dump BIOS for you if, of course, they would understand how to do that. Some people might be really helpful, others - not computer savvy.

SSTV2 wrote:

keropi, currently there are few of these cards on ebay, you could try asking sellers to dump BIOS for you if, of course, they would understand how to do that. Some people might be really helpful, others - not computer savvy.

I haven't had luck with this in the past. I even offered $ for a digital copy of a BIOS.

I bought this card in December 1994 (expensive as hell back then), still works as good as new. This is the 2MB version, your card looks like the 4MB.

I used NSSI to copy the Bios. It is version 1.05H, dated 8/4/1994. Anyone know if the bios chip is flashable?
On Diamonds old website I downloaded a later 1.07H and 1.07U Bios for this card.

UNIVBE 6.53/6.7 works amazing with this card. Bios 1.05h comes with VBE1.2. Loading Univbe doubled my frame rate in Quake, and Nascar Racing.