VOGONS


First post, by weldum

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Hi, i have 2 machines that need an isa vga card, sadly i don't have many options available but it doesn't matter.
286 20
4mb sipp
pcchips m209 board

386sx 25
4mb simm30
pcb-303 board (packard bell force 325)

the 386 has onboard graphics, an OTI067 with 512kb of vram, but is way slow, even in dos prompt after entering a command the screen slowly updates, so i want to change it.

the options are:
OTI087 1MB (i believe it has some sort of gui acceleration, it may be good or at least better than the onboard)
Trident 8900d 1mb, i've been offered two "variants" of the card, one with 8 ram chips and the other with 4, don't know if there's a difference though
Realtek RTG3105iEH, i've heard that these are pretty bad, maybe 512k
HMC HM86314Q, i've had one of those before, it looked nice and crisp but basic vga only, apparently these are very bad

i need help, thanks

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 3 of 6, by darry

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ViTi95 wrote on 2021-02-07, 23:55:

The OTI-087 is pretty fast (same level as Cirrus Logic GD-5422), I use it a lot with my 386DX. Avoid the Realtek RTG3105 at all costs, it's insanely slow.

Some (maybe all) of the earlier Oak chips are about as fast as the company's namesake (an oak tree). I strongly suggest that you avoid those . AFAICR, the Realtek RTG3105 has an 8-bit memory bus and will essentially get you nowhere and slowly at that. The only potential use for one is likely in a an original PC or an XT (if you really want VGA instead of CGA in one of those).

EDIT : The OTI-087 and 8900D are likely the best options , IMHO as well .
EDIT2: I just noticed OP's comment about the OTI-067 , so he already knows about early Oak chips .
EDIT3 : Some of those early cards have output that looks strange on LCD monitors, so if your will be using one of those, have a look here : ISA VGA output crap on LCD?
EDIT4: I wonder if anyone ever tested one of these "problematic" cards through an OSSC . If I ever see one of those cards for cheap locally, I will give it a shot and report back .

Reply 4 of 6, by pc-sound-legacy

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The OTI 1067 isn't that bad. Alt least in my benchmarks on a 486 machine.
https://youtu.be/0Tu75_q7bm4

So I think the OTI 1087 as it's successor should be a good choice, as well as the Trident 8900 wich is faster than it's low budget successor the 9000b. Realtek kards are generally said to be slow, but I suggest to download Phil's benchmark suite and compare them.

Reply 5 of 6, by darry

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pc-sound-legacy wrote on 2021-02-09, 23:03:

The OTI 1067 isn't that bad. Alt least in my benchmarks on a 486 machine.
https://youtu.be/0Tu75_q7bm4

So I think the OTI 1087 as it's successor should be a good choice, as well as the Trident 8900 wich is faster than it's low budget successor the 9000b. Realtek kards are generally said to be slow, but I suggest to download Phil's benchmark suite and compare them.

The Trident 8900 chips are not all equal . AFAIK, the D revision is significantly faster than the prevision revisions . See Cirrus Logic CL-GD5429 vs Trident 8900D - disappointing

Reply 6 of 6, by Eep386

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Don't forget the 8900CL. The 8900CL, not to be confused with the older and very slow 8900C, is very similar to the 8900D and can be a great ISA performer. I'm guessing all the 8900D does is fix some minor bugs in high color mode support, or something along those lines.

I have yet to see any Trident TVGA9000 cards that are worth the money and PCB they're soldered to personally, except maybe in systems where the fastest VGA performance is unimportant. The later 9000i cards are a little bit better but still far behind a semi-decent 8900CL/8900D.

The ISA OTI087s are much better than your typical Oak VGA card, provided you find one with a full 32-bit wide bus. I happen to have one such card with a 32-bit memory configuration and it's pretty good, though obviously still a little behind my WD90C31 ISA card with its 1MB of fancy-schmancy 45ns memory. The RAMDAC is obviously aftermarket on this card.

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Close-up of the DRAM chips. 70ns Sanyo chips on mine.

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Life isn't long enough to re-enable every hidden option in every BIOS on every board... 🙁