Minimalist VGA Card \ VOGONS

Minimalist VGA Card

Topic actions

First post, by Great Hierophant

Posted on 2014-02-05, 01:13

Great Hierophant Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 2412
Joined: 2003-04-27, 08:20

I found this card relatively recently :

file.php?mode=view&id=13782&sid=452251eabdd6d01b99301b56cf03bfd4

It is strictly a VGA card on the single chip CL GD-5401 chip. It uses 2 x 256Kx4 chips and 1 x 32Kx8 ROM. When I first saw it, I thought that it was highly probable that the card would work in an 8-bit system notwithstanding it had a 16-bit connector. I was right, it did. Oddly enough, it was made no earlier than the 10th week of 1995, a bit late for a strict VGA card. Obviously, considering the 8-bit RAM and ROM, the performance of this card is likely to be less than ideal in a 286 system, but with a 386 and ROM BIOS shadowing and cacheable video memory, the performance situation should improve.

However, one admires the minimalist design of the card. It cannot be pared down any further and retain the basic VGA essence. (It can't be upgraded either). The only thing it is missing from a full VGA card is the little-used feature connector. As far as DOS compatibility goes, it plays everything I can throw at it, including various Mode X games. Visual quality is not particularly remarkable.

Performance wise, I know the use of what is essentially 8/16-bit hybrid card is not going to give stellar performance. I tested this card in a 486DX2/66 with 16MB RAM. No external cache was enabled, the hard drive was running off a regular ISA IDE channel and the sound and music were turned off. DOOM 1.9s timedemo demo3 was used :

2134 gametics - 4460 realtics = 16.82 fps

Compare with its elder brother, a VLB CL GD-5429 card w/1MB RAM running in the same system :

2134 gametics - 2400 realtics = 31.25 fps

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 1 of 7, by bristlehog

Posted on 2014-02-05, 06:03

bristlehog Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1746
Joined: 2013-04-11, 17:56
Location: Armenia

I have a quite similar card:

Here you can get fantastic wallpapers created by a friend of mine: patreon.com/Unpocodrillo

Reply 2 of 7, by RacoonRider

Posted on 2014-02-05, 07:07

RacoonRider Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1868
Joined: 2012-03-20, 15:36
Location: Siberia

Along with minimalistic motherboard design, these were probably one of the cost-cutting solutions for late 386DX-40, which stil sold in quantity around 1995. With prices dropping, they were harder and harder to sell.
One less similar card to these two is Trident TVGA9000i-3 I got with my first retro computer. It has similar basic features: capability of working in both 8 and 16 bit ISA slots, small board, low memory (512KB). It was originally shipped in a PC with very minimalistic board with 386SX-40 soldered on.

/picture is not mine/

Reply 3 of 7, by SquallStrife

Posted on 2014-02-05, 11:12

SquallStrife Offline

Rank l33t

Rank: l33t
Posts: 3041
Joined: 2010-02-06, 15:18
Location: aka RetroSwim

I have one of those Trident cards, same as RacoonRider's, but it won't work in my XT. Works in a 286 in an 8-bit slot though. Weird right?

VogonsDrivers.com | Link | News Thread

Reply 4 of 7, by vlask

Posted on 2014-02-05, 11:58

vlask Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 471
Joined: 2009-06-29, 18:01
Location: Czech Republic

Realtek had even smaller, heard that they used them for servers (no need there for anything else than cursor). They even integrated bios into main chip, so they can save cost of bios chip 😎

From never cards is quite small vanta LT for oems without cooling.

Not only mine graphics cards collection at http://www.vgamuseum.info

Reply 5 of 7, by idspispopd

Posted on 2014-02-05, 12:15

idspispopd Offline

Rank Oldbie

Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1213
Joined: 2012-02-15, 21:08
Location: Hamburg / Germany

Great Hierophant wrote:

Obviously, considering the 8-bit RAM and ROM, the performance of this card is likely to be less than ideal in a 286 system, but with a 386 and ROM BIOS shadowing and cacheable video memory, the performance situation should improve.

Cacheable video memory? I know that BIOS shadowing is sometimes called cacheable video memory (even in BIOS setup), but IMO video memory must not be cached. On later CPUs the MTRRs can be set to use write combining for video memory, but I don't think that real caching would work. I just have to think about the whole EGA stuff, like read accesses loading internal latches etc., that would break with caching.