VOGONS


Replacment for S3 Trio64V2/DX

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First post, by silentwulf

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Looking to replace the GPU in my old DOS tower. It currently has a Trio64V2/DX, but I've had issues with the image cutting out ever few minutes. Happened in another machine too.

So ideally I'm looking for an identical PCI video card. Something that has good compatibility, GUI acceleration (Win 3.1), and something with enough 3D punch for Quake, or hi-res VESA resolutions for BUILD games.
What cards do you guys suggest?

I've also flirted with the idea of having a Voodoo1 card, down the line for DOSGlide.

Specs;
Dos 6.22/Win 3.1
200MHZ Pentium-S
32MB RAM
PCI/ISA slots

Last edited by silentwulf on 2018-10-31, 19:08. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 20, by silentwulf

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emosun wrote:

can you just buy the exact same card again as a replacement for yours that has the issue?

I could. Bottom line it's getting replaced.
Just figured I'd poke around for info just incase there might be something better.

Reply 3 of 20, by appiah4

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S3 Trio64V+ as a replacement would be fitting. You could also try a Cirrus Logic CL-GD543x/544x series card, Ark Logic ARK2000PV or Macronix MX86200 - all pretty good DOS/Win3.x cards.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 4 of 20, by KCompRoom2000

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An S3 Virge is also a good option if you can find a decent one at an affordable price, it might not be great at 3D acceleration, but it should be nearly identical to the Trio64 when it comes to 2D which is why people these days consider it as a cheaper alternative to the Trio64 cards.

Finding a video card that has Windows 3.1x drivers and great 3d acceleration is going to be a challenge, a Voodoo1 definitely makes the most sense for DOS games that use Glide, but if you're feeling adventurous, the ATI Rage Pro (with Mach64 drivers) and the nVidia RIVA TNT are options that may be worth looking into.

Reply 6 of 20, by Baoran

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In my experience it is very difficult to see performance difference with pci cards in dos when it comes to a pentium pc. In my pentium pc, I get same performance no matter if I put there diamond stealth 64 dram, voodoo 3, virge/gx, S3 Vision864 or TNT2 M64.
There might be minor differences, but so small that they don't matter in practice. Compatibility with the dos games you play is more important than performance of the card in my opinion.

Reply 7 of 20, by silentwulf

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Yeah the Trio64V2/DX is a near dream, compatibility wise.
Didn't really wanna deviate away from it too much since it's being replaced, though was curious if there was another card out there that was definitively better.

Reply 8 of 20, by The Serpent Rider

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Virge GX should be slightly faster even on Pentium MMX machine.

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Reply 10 of 20, by appiah4

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silentwulf wrote:

I’m guessing bits like the VESA version are all the same? Similar compatibility in Win 3.1?

I believe VESA version can vary between even different Trio cards with different BIOS versions so don't bank on that.

There is also the dumb 'washed out blacks' bug Trio64V2 and onwards cards are prone to in DOS.

I would rather stick to Trio64 or Trio64V+ myself, if you are going for S3. I only have one Virge/DX card among half a dozen Virge cards I've had over the years and all of them had terrible washed out blacks.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 11 of 20, by The Serpent Rider

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There is also the dumb 'washed out blacks' bug Trio64V2 and onwards cards are prone to in DOS.

Virge GX were rarely made by "cheap" manufacturers.

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Reply 12 of 20, by chinny22

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More of a bonus then a selling point but a Virge will also let you play around with the few S3D games as well

Reply 13 of 20, by Baoran

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The Serpent Rider wrote:

There is also the dumb 'washed out blacks' bug Trio64V2 and onwards cards are prone to in DOS.

Virge GX were rarely made by "cheap" manufacturers.

All virge GX cards I have seen were compaq cards. If they were used in their OEM computers, I doubt the most expensive components were used in the virge cards.

Reply 14 of 20, by The Serpent Rider

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Compaq GX is extremely well built compared to typical DX cards.

Last edited by The Serpent Rider on 2018-11-03, 02:22. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 15 of 20, by silentwulf

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I’ve never seen the washed out black issue firsthand on any S3 card I’ve owned. Is it based more on who manufactures the card as opposed to the chip itself? Color seems quite good even on my broken Trio.

Reply 16 of 20, by The Serpent Rider

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That's BIOS issue. Typically appears on cheap/reference cards from China/Taiwan.

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Reply 17 of 20, by squareguy

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I have great luck with the STB Virge GX cards built for Dell

Gateway 2000 Case and 200-Watt PSU
Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard
Intel Pentium III 450 CPU
Micron 384MB SDRAM (3x128)
Compaq Voodoo3 3500 TV Graphics Card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card
Western Digital 7200-RPM, 8MB-Cache, 160GB Hard Drive
Windows 98 SE

Reply 19 of 20, by Albercik

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Hi All,

I see there's a lot of S3 cards lovers here 😉 I have a S3 Trio64V2/DX PCI card that I bought few weeks ago for $5. My rig is Pentium III 600 (Coppermine) + 640MB RAM.

What I'm trying to achieve is to get some decent screen resolution (1024x768) with 256 colors in Windows 3.11, but every driver I'm installing - tells me that the graphics chip is not compatible with the driver.

As far as I remember - there was some hack that I'm supposed to do (it was on the last page of the original user manual) so the card will work in windows 3.1.

Does anyone remember what was that?

Thanks in advance,
Tim

P MMX 166MHz, 64 MB, S3 Trio64V2/DX, SB Vibra 16 ISA, 40GB HDD
P III 650MHz, 640 MB, nVidia Riva TNT2, SB 16 ISA, 120GB HDD
486 DX2 66MHz, 16 MB, Trident TVGA8900C, SB Vibra 16 ISA, 2GB CF