ExplodingLemur wrote on 2022-12-27, 19:24:

Which ones did you try, and which ones showed improvement over the Vortex86VGA?

I only have notes for these just now :

1            PCIE Vortex86VGA    PCIE Quadro FX1700    PCI Virge DX
2DOS DOOM                27.0                  60.6            57.1
3DOS Quake               27.3                  32.8            32.7

I also tried an OG Voodoo but it didn't work (not uncommon with faster processors). I think a Voodoo II would stand a good chance of working.

I did try a few more cards but I don't have notes for them (I fried my SOM before I could test them properly). The faster PCIE cards didn't show any improvement over the Quadro FX1700. I guess we've reached a CPU limit, for doom/quake anyway.

Maybe one of those mini pcie server graphics cards would provide the same speed as the FX1700. If anyone has one I'd like to see benchmarks, would make a nice alternative to the vortex86vga (and possibly provide DVI?), though they don't seem to be terribly easy to get hold of

Time for a RasteriVGA? 😉

rasteri wrote on 2022-12-27, 19:46:

would make a nice alternative to the vortex86vga (and possibly provide DVI?)

Theoretically, you should be able to get DVI out of the Vortex86VGA. It has 24 bit TTL and LVDS output (though the Mini PCIe card seems to be sold with those connectors unpopulated), and there are chips that could convert either to DVI or even HDMI with sound (CH7033, CH7036 for example.) I don't know if those outputs require a different VGA bios to be enabled, though.

The big problem is resolution scaling. Most displays don't support common DOS game resolutions on their DVI/HDMI inputs, so it would need to be scaled by the device. The vast majority of ICs that do scaling (like the CH7033 and CH7036 mentioned earlier) also only support a few common input resolutions. So I think a decent DOS gaming PC with DVI/HDMI output would probably either need to do scaling on an FPGA, or have a VGA chip that will internally upscale to a modern resolution (as modern GPUs often do when you run old applications.)

I'm not sure if the Vortex86VGA can do internal scaling, but even if it can, it's probably limited to 1024x768 output. You COULD upscale that with one of the cheap ICs mentioned above, but upscaling the video twice would look horrible.

Maybe the GPU could be changed for something better?
I think the GeForce fx5200 or ATi x1300 chips can be bought NOS.
Now this would make the build much harder, more complex, would require a big cooler (or something active), but I'm not sure the price would increase much considering how expensive the current GPU is, and it'd perform much better in dos and would even do 3d in windows 😀
And you can have a DVI or hdmi output

Deksor wrote on 2022-12-28, 11:35:

Now this would make the build much harder, more complex,

Hit the nail on the head - the amount of engineering required to design a full graphics card is way more than you think. We're talking high-speed memory routing, impedance control, 6 or 8 layer boards.

Some like this have onchip ram so that's not as hard for these.
Now I know it's still definitely not easy at all.

Deksor wrote on 2022-12-28, 18:14:

Some like this have onchip ram so that's not as hard for these.
Now I know it's still definitely not easy at all.

With a datasheet and reference design for the package it’d probably be doable (but hard, especially because of the BGA soldering).
Though - this particular one is AGP I think?

I wonder how easy these would be to integrate? 2D only, but maybe they push pixels faster than the Vortex86VGA? They're all BGA though.

https://www.siliconmotion.com/download/3PS/a/ … B_EN_201910.pdf
https://www.aspeedtech.com/server_ast2600/
https://www.aspeedtech.com/server_ast2500/

ExplodingLemur wrote on 2022-12-28, 18:43:

I wonder how easy these would be to integrate? 2D only, but maybe they push pixels faster than the Vortex86VGA? They're all BG […]
Show full quote

I wonder how easy these would be to integrate? 2D only, but maybe they push pixels faster than the Vortex86VGA? They're all BGA though.

https://www.siliconmotion.com/download/3PS/a/ … B_EN_201910.pdf
https://www.aspeedtech.com/server_ast2600/
https://www.aspeedtech.com/server_ast2500/

There are already Mini PCIe cards out there using the SM750 chip. I have no clue whether they’re DOS/VESA compatible, if they come with a BIOS/firmware or if that needs to be added to the EX’s ROM like the v86vga etc. Someone wanna give it a shot?

Eivind wrote on 2022-12-28, 19:10:

There are already Mini PCIe cards out there using the SM750 chip. I have no clue whether they’re DOS/VESA compatible, if they come with a BIOS/firmware or if that needs to be added to the EX’s ROM like the v86vga etc. Someone wanna give it a shot?

I ordered an InnoDisk EMPV-1201-W1 from eBay that has some variety of SiliconMotion chip, though it'll be a while before I can try it. My EX module won't ship until sometime next week and I haven't ordered a run of TinyLlama boards yet. There's another listing for the IEI IGCME-1300-R10 which has an ASpeed AST1300 too.

ExplodingLemur wrote on 2022-12-28, 19:35:

Eivind wrote on 2022-12-28, 19:10:

There are already Mini PCIe cards out there using the SM750 chip. I have no clue whether they’re DOS/VESA compatible, if they come with a BIOS/firmware or if that needs to be added to the EX’s ROM like the v86vga etc. Someone wanna give it a shot?

I ordered an InnoDisk EMPV-1201-W1 from eBay that has some variety of SiliconMotion chip, though it'll be a while before I can try it. My EX module won't ship until sometime next week and I haven't ordered a run of TinyLlama boards yet. There's another listing for the IEI IGCME-1300-R10 which has an ASpeed AST1300 too.

Exciting! Looking forward to seeing what this card can do!

Though I feel I should remind everyone - taking a step back from the hunt for the most fps in doom or whatever - the TinyLlama was designed to be a modest DOS computer, sacrificing crazy performance in late 90's games for older games compatibility, board size and especially cost. 😉 It'll basically never run Crysis.
That being said - as someone who's been overclocking and tweaking performance my whole life (FSB/clock divider jumpers, modded BIOSes, pencil traces on Durons, home made watercooling blocks, etc etc) I totally get why we'd want to try to beef up the video card performance here! 😁 (Just don't get your hopes up too much, the V86EX isn't really that fast compared to other CPUs)

While I'm waiting for the 16.9344 MHz crystal to arrive at JLC's warehouse, here are a couple of screenshots from KiCad of revision 2.1:

Eivind wrote on 2022-12-28, 22:45:

While I'm waiting for the 16.9344 MHz crystal to arrive at JLC's warehouse, here are a couple of screenshots from KiCad of revision 2.1:

Looking forward to its successful test and release! 😀

Eivind wrote on 2022-12-28, 19:10:

There are already Mini PCIe cards out there using the SM750 chip. I have no clue whether they’re DOS/VESA compatible, if they come with a BIOS/firmware or if that needs to be added to the EX’s ROM like the v86vga etc. Someone wanna give it a shot?

I've just ordered one. As these things are aimed at servers I would expect them to support text modes and VESA modes, as that's all servers typically run in. And yeah I'd expect them to come with their own BIOS, just like the PCIE graphics cards I tried

Doing some surface level research on the SM750 PCI device ID - PCI\VEN_126F&DEV_0750

There doesn't seem to be VXD model driver out there for this chip as far as I can tell, so for 98SE you would need to use VBEMP9X to get access to higher resolutions, and no 3D of course.

can someone upload the Vortex86VGA driver? I'm curious to have a look at it..

Duffman wrote on 2022-12-29, 10:41:

can someone upload the Vortex86VGA driver? I'm curious to have a look at it..

Are you talking about a Win9x driver? Don't think one exists, unfortunately. There are Linux, WinCE 6 and 7 and WinXP drivers though. I'll put them up on a github repo if you're interested? (too big to post here)

Duffman wrote on 2022-12-29, 10:41:

can someone upload the Vortex86VGA driver? I'm curious to have a look at it..

Probably VBEMP9x will run on it.

Eivind wrote on 2022-12-28, 22:45:

While I'm waiting for the 16.9344 MHz crystal to arrive at JLC's warehouse, here are a couple of screenshots from KiCad of revision 2.1:

Is it really 2032??? 😀 a lot nice since you can grab them even at local stores 😀

Duffman wrote on 2022-12-29, 10:41:

can someone upload the Vortex86VGA driver? I'm curious to have a look at it..

I have a mod of the svga driver that works in windows 3.1 with higher res.