It doesn't get much mention, but as far as PCI cards go I found the Elephant M3 64V+ that I have (which is oddly not an S3 Trio64V+ but actually a Macronix MX68200FC) is a very compatible and fast video card.

I'd been using the ARK2000PV in my DOS system, but ran into a compatibility issue in some games' setup programs, where the text mode used didn't display properly, so I could not read the text in that game's setup program. So I switched to the S3 Virge GX, which is slightly slower, but has no compatibility issues. Plus, it's got upgradeable RAM and I upgraded it to 4MB so it could run higher resolutions in Links LS. It's my favorite DOS card at this time.

moved to Video

clueless1 wrote:

I'd been using the ARK2000PV in my DOS system, but ran into a compatibility issue in some games' setup programs, where the text mode used didn't display properly, so I could not read the text in that game's setup program. So I switched to the S3 Virge GX, which is slightly slower, but has no compatibility issues. Plus, it's got upgradeable RAM and I upgraded it to 4MB so it could run higher resolutions in Links LS. It's my favorite DOS card at this time.

Aww man. I am running the ARK2000PV in my system. Which games had problems?

I am also using the ARK2000 but never had this problem with any of the games so far

I only have the ARK1000PV, anyone knows anything about how that card performs?

CkRtech wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

I'd been using the ARK2000PV in my DOS system, but ran into a compatibility issue in some games' setup programs, where the text mode used didn't display properly, so I could not read the text in that game's setup program. So I switched to the S3 Virge GX, which is slightly slower, but has no compatibility issues. Plus, it's got upgradeable RAM and I upgraded it to 4MB so it could run higher resolutions in Links LS. It's my favorite DOS card at this time.

Aww man. I am running the ARK2000PV in my system. Which games had problems?

I believe it was the setup program used by 1942: Pacific Air War by Microprose. I know other games use that one, can't remember off the top of my head though.

appiah4 wrote:

I only have the ARK1000PV, anyone knows anything about how that card performs?

From what I recall, it performs nearly the same as the 2000 series in DOS. The 2000 has GUI advantages in Win.

Ok, after reading the entire topic i am more confused than i was before reading it.
Right now i have a Matrox Mystique G220 with 4mb in my 486 computer but theres a few issues with the horizontal scrolling in a few games like commander keen, golden axe, fifa, manchester united the double, and the list goes on.
Bottom line can anyone tell me what's the best card for plain dos games?
I have a few S3 lying around and i'm really considering going for them but i just love the Matrox speed... i really don't know what to do 😒

paulo_becas wrote:

Ok, after reading the entire topic i am more confused than i was before reading it. Right now i have a Matrox Mystique G220 with […]
Show full quote

Ok, after reading the entire topic i am more confused than i was before reading it.
Right now i have a Matrox Mystique G220 with 4mb in my 486 computer but theres a few issues with the horizontal scrolling in a few games like commander keen, golden axe, fifa, manchester united the double, and the list goes on.
Bottom line can anyone tell me what's the best card for plain dos games?
I have a few S3 lying around and i'm really considering going for them but i just love the Matrox speed... i really don't know what to do 😒

If you don't care about period-correctness, get an Nvidia TNT2 M64 PCI. It's hands-down the fastest card I've tested in DOS and the compatibility is flawless too. Otherwise, any Cirrus Logic or S3 PCI card will do. Honestly, the difference between slowest and fastest is usually not noticeable. Typically 10% or less. Check out the benchmark results in the link in my sig.

Cirrus Logic and S3 cards are the go to cards for retro DOS machines, i have a Cirrus GD5446 2mb, S3 Trio64 2mb, a couple S3 Trio64v+ 2mb (1 is a phoenix 64v+ and the other one is a number nine 9fx motion 331), and a S3 Virge/DX 4mb, they were pretty good with DOS games. nVidia cards are also a decent choice too, a TNT2 M64 works okay for DOS games, i don't know how trident and tseng is and i know that ATI and Matrox have issues with scrolling in Commander Keen

Windows9566 wrote:

Cirrus Logic and S3 cards are the go to cards for retro DOS machines, i have a Cirrus GD5446 2mb, S3 Trio64 2mb, a couple S3 Trio64v+ 2mb (1 is a phoenix 64v+ and the other one is a number nine 9fx motion 331), and a S3 Virge/DX 4mb, they were pretty good with DOS games. nVidia cards are also a decent choice too, a TNT2 M64 works okay for DOS games, i don't know how trident and tseng is and i know that ATI and Matrox have issues with scrolling in Commander Keen

Cirrus was a brand I avoided in the 1980s, like ATI, Trident, Paradise and many others. Bad drivers made them a nuisance.

In my experience back then Matrox Mystique was the best on ISA, The drivers for Windows 3.0 and 3.1 were excellent, this made the biggest difference.
For normal good user experience, Tseng ET3000 and then 4000 was the card to go. Unspectacular. But many OEMs delivered bad drivers, you had to stick to known good drivers and use them universally.

Your experience was wrong as there was no ISA Matrox Mystique.

appiah4 wrote:

Your experience was wrong as there was no ISA Matrox Mystique.

It's so long ago... then the Matrox Mystique was the successor of the ISA Videoseven Mirage that I liked best on ISA. The latter also had great drivers and supported extended text modes well, like 132x44. Which was *very* convenient back then when most had onlt 80x25.

retardware wrote:

In my experience back then Matrox Mystique was the best on ISA, The drivers for Windows 3.0 and 3.1 were excellent, this made the biggest difference.
For normal good user experience, Tseng ET3000 and then 4000 was the card to go. Unspectacular. But many OEMs delivered bad drivers, you had to stick to known good drivers and use them universally.

Mystique is a PCI card and you're right if there weren't issues with the scrolling in a few games this card was one of the best for DOS gaming, very fast, windows and DOS drivers were excelent. It's really a shame.

Mystique had Win30! drivers??

dr.zeissler wrote:

Mystique had Win30! drivers??

Even G400 has Windows 3.x drivers; beyond that, they don't exist (sadly for G450 as well).

dr.zeissler wrote:

Mystique had Win30! drivers??

Yes and i've uploaded the original CD to Vogons drivers

By the way anyone knows why vogons drivers is down??

31x is common, but 3.0! is very rare. The later ISA-Cards only supported 3.1x so a PCI card with win30! thats fantastic!
Chips 450 driver does support win31x, not 3.0. (on the houdini-card DX2/66 in my PM6100)
The older ET3000/4000 (without W32) do have 30drivers. Diamond Speedstar (VGA/xxx) have WIn30-Drivers.

I only see 31x https://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/support/dr … atest/previous/

The guy that made the dos-compatibility for games should add:

PinballDreams2 to the list. The scrolling stutters when the text moves from left to right on some cards.
I don't know which "oldschool-feature" is needed for this... and what exactly causes this.

Matrox G100 stutters, Mystique is OK!