ET4000 Upgraded -> Diamond Stealth 64... Duh???
Sunarja Wihardja
I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32 with
it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap from
ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
486/66, or the difference between running a computer with "Turbo" on,
and off. But what I see is instead of a 486/33 maybe i'm getting a
486/36 <G>... I just see a TINY bit of increase. (BTW I'm using
Diamond Stealth VIDEO. does this make a difference?) I also tried
under windows some software, and still see barely a smidgeon of a speed
increase!
I'm running on an SONY 1304 MultiScan monitor. This is another
odity... When I ran the test software, I did the 640x480x256@72mhz
test screen, and it ran kinda slow. Then I did the 1280x1024 (I think
thats it.. the highest resolution, whatever it was) @ 42mhz refresh,
and the speed of the box moving down the screen quadrupled or more! Is
it supposed to do this? I would thing the higher the resolution, the
slower the video is gonna move?
The following are the software I have trieed with the new card:
1) Wing Commander III in Dos
The Wing Commander 3 diagnostic gave my Pentium an "8" (meaning
a 90mhz system)
It gave my video card however a "4" (meaning a VESA LOCAL BUS.)
??? I have bought one of the fastest video cards on the market
and I can only get a "4" VLB? I do have a PCI Card, why isn't it
running as so? Has anyone ever gotten a rating less than 4,
(which is better) in Wing Commander 3 before?
2) Space Quest 6 - Windows
I turned on the "Scrolling" function, and it was ahem. Slow.
Quite undbearable. Just as bad as my ET4000!
3) Mech Warrior II
320x200 flys :) But it did so on my ET4000 too. 640x480 had a
TINY burst of speed enough so that the response on a button press
didn't take 3 or 4 seconds to register. It STILL is hell to move
around. Choppy choppy choppy!
Does anyone have any idea why my Diamond Stealth appears to be running
so slow? At its current rate, its barely better than my ET4000/w32.
Any ideas on speeding it up, or what could be holding it back? I
dunno, but it seems almost just like my ET4000 to me, with just the
SMALLEST bit of speed added. Alot of my friends, and alot of you
people out there on the newsgroups say that these games fly in hires
mode with a stealth... It's not for me! Any ideas? Thanks a million!
(I seriously hope i can get this thing to go faster... Otherwise it
definately wasn't worth the $165). (Hehe swapmeet price<G>)
Tim Kelley
> I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
>about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32 with
>it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
>Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
>heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap from
>ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
>486/66, or the difference between running a computer with "Turbo" on,
>and off.
They were flat out *wrong*. The ET4000/wp32 is one of the fastest
DOS chipsets available (but it depends on how it's implemented -
Hercules Dynamite Power is generally considered to be the best ET4000 card).
Much, much faster than S3 864/868.
The S3 cards are "good" under DOS, but where they will turn
your computer into a speed demon is Windows - not DOS.
The fastest DOS card right now is the Hercules Stingray 64 Video
(ARK2000). It is also quite nice under Windows.
You can check out <http://www.dfw.net/~sdw/> for a comparison of
most video cards under DOS.
Of course, buying a DOS oriented card might not be all that wise an
investment at this point.
>But what I see is instead of a 486/33 maybe i'm getting a
>486/36 <G>... I just see a TINY bit of increase. (BTW I'm using
>Diamond Stealth VIDEO. does this make a difference?) I also tried
>under windows some software, and still see barely a smidgeon of a speed
>increase!
Too be sure, run Winbench 95 GWM on both cards. Windows should be
signifigantly faster. DOS should be actually a little slower, much slower
in SVGA.
Then try comparing the two cards in 16 bit color at 800x600. You WILL
notice the difference.
>1) Wing Commander III in Dos
> The Wing Commander 3 diagnostic gave my Pentium an "8" (meaning
> a 90mhz system)
> It gave my video card however a "4" (meaning a VESA LOCAL BUS.)
> ??? I have bought one of the fastest video cards on the market
> and I can only get a "4" VLB? I do have a PCI Card, why isn't it
> running as so? Has anyone ever gotten a rating less than 4,
> (which is better) in Wing Commander 3 before?
Do you have a combo VLB/PCI bus? Those will be a little slower, you know...
>Any ideas? Thanks a million!
>(I seriously hope i can get this thing to go faster... Otherwise it
>definately wasn't worth the $165). (Hehe swapmeet price<G>)
Yeah.. should be faster in Windows. No faster or even slower in DOS.
If you want really awesome DOS performance and very respectable Win
performance, go with Hercules Stingray 64 Video.
Timothy P. Kelley E-mail:tke...@ix.netcom.com
"The three things were damnably clever constructions of their kind,
and were furnished with ingenious mettalic clamps to attach them to
organic developments of which I dare not form any conjecture."
-H.P. Lovecraft
Marco Yu Chai Lee
says...
>
>
You should have went from your ET4000 w/32 to a MGA Millenium instead.
> I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
>about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32
with
>it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
>Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
>heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap
from
>ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
>486/66, or the difference between running a computer with "Turbo" on,
>and off. But what I see is instead of a 486/33 maybe i'm getting a
>486/36 <G>... I just see a TINY bit of increase. (BTW I'm using
>Diamond Stealth VIDEO. does this make a difference?) I also tried
>under windows some software, and still see barely a smidgeon of a
speed
>increase!
> I'm running on an SONY 1304 MultiScan monitor. This is another
>odity... When I ran the test software, I did the 640x480x256@72mhz
>test screen, and it ran kinda slow. Then I did the 1280x1024 (I think
>thats it.. the highest resolution, whatever it was) @ 42mhz refresh,
>and the speed of the box moving down the screen quadrupled or more!
Is
>it supposed to do this? I would thing the higher the resolution, the
>slower the video is gonna move?
> The following are the software I have trieed with the new card:
>
>1) Wing Commander III in Dos
> The Wing Commander 3 diagnostic gave my Pentium an "8" (meaning
> a 90mhz system)
> It gave my video card however a "4" (meaning a VESA LOCAL BUS.)
> ??? I have bought one of the fastest video cards on the market
> and I can only get a "4" VLB? I do have a PCI Card, why isn't
it
> running as so? Has anyone ever gotten a rating less than 4,
> (which is better) in Wing Commander 3 before?
>
>2) Space Quest 6 - Windows
> I turned on the "Scrolling" function, and it was ahem. Slow.
> Quite undbearable. Just as bad as my ET4000!
>
>3) Mech Warrior II
> 320x200 flys :) But it did so on my ET4000 too. 640x480 had a
> TINY burst of speed enough so that the response on a button
press
> didn't take 3 or 4 seconds to register. It STILL is hell to
move
> around. Choppy choppy choppy!
>
>Does anyone have any idea why my Diamond Stealth appears to be running
>so slow? At its current rate, its barely better than my ET4000/w32.
>Any ideas on speeding it up, or what could be holding it back? I
>dunno, but it seems almost just like my ET4000 to me, with just the
>SMALLEST bit of speed added. Alot of my friends, and alot of you
>people out there on the newsgroups say that these games fly in hires
>mode with a stealth... It's not for me! Any ideas? Thanks a
Dave Glue
> I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
>about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32 with
>it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
>Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
>heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap from
>ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
WHAT??! The people who told you that are fools.
The TsengW32 is one the of _fastest_ chips in DOS. I'm surprised you
see _any_ speed increase whatsoever, if not a decrease. The W32
chipset consistently benches out faster than the Stealth in DOS tests.
The Stealth may be a bit faster in Windows, but that means diddly for
your games.
Aurora
mentioned, and I felt that indeed said the same. However, due to my
job I'm in the position to test a lot of hardware, so I new those
postings were false. While there is some noticable speed difference in
videocards, I still very much feel that the DX33 vs DX66 comparison
that you mentioned, and I've heard other people state that comparison
also, is complete bullshit.
>1) Wing Commander III in Dos
> The Wing Commander 3 diagnostic gave my Pentium an "8" (meaning
> a 90mhz system)
> It gave my video card however a "4" (meaning a VESA LOCAL BUS.)
> ??? I have bought one of the fastest video cards on the market
> and I can only get a "4" VLB? I do have a PCI Card, why isn't it
> running as so? Has anyone ever gotten a rating less than 4,
> (which is better) in Wing Commander 3 before?
I have the same cards as you have, but I can't remember what rating I
got. My processor rated as a 66Mhz P5, allthough it's a DX4-100
>2) Space Quest 6 - Windows
> I turned on the "Scrolling" function, and it was ahem. Slow.
> Quite undbearable. Just as bad as my ET4000!
A faster videocard (or cpu) can never compensate for lousy scrolling
code......
>3) Mech Warrior II
> 320x200 flys :) But it did so on my ET4000 too. 640x480 had a
> TINY burst of speed enough so that the response on a button press
> didn't take 3 or 4 seconds to register. It STILL is hell to move
> around. Choppy choppy choppy!
I say that has more to do with your processor speed that videocard
speed, but that could be just me, of course....
>Does anyone have any idea why my Diamond Stealth appears to be running
>so slow? At its current rate, its barely better than my ET4000/w32.
I tetsted both, and the ST 64 Video Dram is a bit faster than the w32
in DOS, and a lot faster in Windows
>Any ideas on speeding it up, or what could be holding it back? I
>dunno, but it seems almost just like my ET4000 to me, with just the
>SMALLEST bit of speed added. Alot of my friends, and alot of you
>people out there on the newsgroups say that these games fly in hires
>mode with a stealth... It's not for me! Any ideas? Thanks a million!
>(I seriously hope i can get this thing to go faster... Otherwise it
>definately wasn't worth the $165). (Hehe swapmeet price<G>)
If you're implying that this is cheap, IMHO it isn't. Payed 250
guilders (155 US$)for mine, normal store pricing, no special offers,
and including 17.5% tax......
David B. Feig
Dram.
WCIII reports my computer speed at a 6, and my card got a 1 for speed
(which is surprising, sinceI thought that ATI cards aren't that fast in DOS).
I would say that your Diamond card probably is much faster in Windows,
and about the same in Dos.
Good luck
D. Feig
QAZ1111111
doesn't make much of a difference at all playing games. Mags tell you
other wise I guess to spur sales. The best thing you can do for a game is
a faster CPU period.
We need a real graphics card, SVGA must die or we all will go bankrupt
trying to keep up with these new games.
If you're out there and thinking that a 640x480 game runs slow on your P90
and it's the vidoe cards fault, you're right! But all the current SVGA
cards are equal. The P90 gives one all the Central processing power one
needs, it just needs a buddy in a real graphics card, not a monkey of a
card.
BH
pine
: Why doesn't somebody just tell it like it really is. The video card
: BH
Good boy, at last finally someone understands. You see, for DOS games,
you're at the mercy of the SVGA BIOS software. In DOS you're basically
on your own when talking to hardware, so most games just do the BIOS
function calls, which severaly hamstring the speed. Now going from an
ISA bus video card to a Local bus/PCI card WILL make a big difference,
but having a fancy accelerator built into the video hardware won't do you
a bit of good unless the DOS game software specifically was written to
use it (like Confimed Kill being written for S3 based cards). Windows is
a completely different deal though, and a hardware accelerator will do
wonders for speed- you are effectively exchanging slow CPU operations for
fast effecient hardware ones. Thats why it would be nice to see some
games written to run under windows, so they can use this acceleration
hardware, or perhaps just use the video driver that is for Windows.
-- "An ounce of skill is better than a pound of
muscle."
John Traigis
>Why doesn't somebody just tell it like it really is. The video card
>doesn't make much of a difference at all playing games. Mags tell you
>other wise I guess to spur sales. The best thing you can do for a game is
>a faster CPU period.
The video card makes all the difference in the world to most games I
play(like Descent and MechWarrior II). I have a DX2-66 with a
Hercules Dynamite Pro(2 Megs of ram with an Tseng-4000 w32i) and those
games both play much faster at higher resolutions(specifically
640x480) on my machine than they do on a friend of mine's P5-100(with
some Matrox 64 bit card...like a model or two before the Millenium).
MechWarrior II is not playable at all in 640x480 on his machine, where
on mine it's pretty playable...and when I get my DX4-120, it should be
just as playable at that 640x480 as it is now at 320x200.
It's all mainly due to the video card. The PCI version of my video
card in his machine would be a winning combination for playing games,
and should provide just fine for windows(the reasons I got this card
in the first place was because it was very fast in DOS and very fast
in Windows).
>If you're out there and thinking that a 640x480 game runs slow on your P90
>and it's the vidoe cards fault, you're right! But all the current SVGA
>cards are equal. The P90 gives one all the Central processing power one
>needs, it just needs a buddy in a real graphics card, not a monkey of a
>card.
You just said the video card makes no difference, now your saying it
does...make up your mind.
Anyhow, there are plenty of good SVGA cards out there that are
balanced. From experience with the Hercules Dynamite...I would say a
Dynamite Power PCI version would be a good "low end" card that would
be very fast in both DOS and Windows.
The Matrox Millenium is supposed to be VERY fast in Dos. People with
P5-75's are getting mid 90's on 3D Bench with it, so I'd say a P5-100
with a MM would be getting scores in close to 125 or so...and it's
blindingly fast in Windows from what I understand. Around $299 from
most mail order places for the 2 Meg version, and it's upgradable to 8
Megs.
Marcos Villaroman
: I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
: about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32 with
: it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
: Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
: heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap from
: ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
: 486/66, or the difference between running a computer with "Turbo" on,
: and off. But what I see is instead of a 486/33 maybe i'm getting a
: 486/36 <G>... I just see a TINY bit of increase. (BTW I'm using
: Diamond Stealth VIDEO. does this make a difference?) I also tried
: under windows some software, and still see barely a smidgeon of a speed
: increase!
What video mode are you using under Windows? At 640x480x256 colors, the
ET4000 W32P card has an edge. Bump up the video resolution above 800x600
or go above 256 colors and the Stealth card should kick butt.
A friend of mine bought a Stealth Video 64 VRAM (2mb). We compared it to
my Stealth 32, another friend's Dynamite Power, and a 3rd friend's
Stealth 64 DRAM. We concluded that the VRAM chips of the Stealth Video
64 gave it high enough performance under DOS to make it a good
DOS/Windows card (at $300). The DRAM version of the Stealth 64 was
way too slow for DOS stuff.
Given my needs and having only a 14" Sony GVM-1300 monitor (i.e., don't do
anything above 800x600 or do true color in Windows), I'm sticking to my
Stealth 32 until Window '95 takes hold in the gaming market and/or those
promised 3D accellerated cards becomes more of a standard.
: I'm running on an SONY 1304 MultiScan monitor. This is another
: odity... When I ran the test software, I did the 640x480x256@72mhz
: test screen, and it ran kinda slow. Then I did the 1280x1024 (I think
: thats it.. the highest resolution, whatever it was) @ 42mhz refresh,
: and the speed of the box moving down the screen quadrupled or more! Is
: it supposed to do this? I would thing the higher the resolution, the
: slower the video is gonna move?
Wierd. Though maybe the S3 chip compensated given how simple the
operation was.
: The following are the software I have trieed with the new card:
: 1) Wing Commander III in Dos
: The Wing Commander 3 diagnostic gave my Pentium an "8" (meaning
: a 90mhz system)
: It gave my video card however a "4" (meaning a VESA LOCAL BUS.)
: ??? I have bought one of the fastest video cards on the market
: and I can only get a "4" VLB? I do have a PCI Card, why isn't it
: running as so? Has anyone ever gotten a rating less than 4,
: (which is better) in Wing Commander 3 before?
: 2) Space Quest 6 - Windows
: I turned on the "Scrolling" function, and it was ahem. Slow.
: Quite undbearable. Just as bad as my ET4000!
Was this under Dos or Windows?
: 3) Mech Warrior II
: 320x200 flys :) But it did so on my ET4000 too. 640x480 had a
: TINY burst of speed enough so that the response on a button press
: didn't take 3 or 4 seconds to register. It STILL is hell to move
: around. Choppy choppy choppy!
Haven't tried this yet.
: Does anyone have any idea why my Diamond Stealth appears to be running
: so slow? At its current rate, its barely better than my ET4000/w32.
: Any ideas on speeding it up, or what could be holding it back? I
: dunno, but it seems almost just like my ET4000 to me, with just the
: SMALLEST bit of speed added. Alot of my friends, and alot of you
: people out there on the newsgroups say that these games fly in hires
: mode with a stealth... It's not for me! Any ideas? Thanks a million!
: (I seriously hope i can get this thing to go faster... Otherwise it
: definately wasn't worth the $165). (Hehe swapmeet price<G>)
Given your enjoyment of DOS games, I'd strongly consider doing it right
and getting the more expensive VRAM version of the Stealth 64. Again,
for that friend of mine, it was the best compromise: decent DOS
performance and great Windows performance [it'll be interesting to see
how the Stealth Video 64 VRAM does under Win '95]. Considering how much
one spends on computer games, the extra $150 or so doesn't seem that
bad. Then again, if excellent Windows performance at hi-resolution or
hi-color is _not_ a priority or you want to wait for the promised
"revolution" in video cards/Win '95 games at year's end, I'd return that
Stealth card and stick to your ET4K W32P a while longer.
- Marcos
--
Marcos Villaroman
mar...@netcom.com
Aurora
>sun...@ix.netcom.com (Sunarja Wihardja) wrote:
>> I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
>>about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32 with
>>it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
>>Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
>>heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap from
>>ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
>WHAT??! The people who told you that are fools.
>The TsengW32 is one the of _fastest_ chips in DOS. I'm surprised you
>see _any_ speed increase whatsoever, if not a decrease. The W32
>chipset consistently benches out faster than the Stealth in DOS tests.
>The Stealth may be a bit faster in Windows, but that means diddly for
>your games.
The w32 is marginally faster on some things under DOS. Under Windows
the Stealth will leave the W32 in the dust by far. Windows performance
may NOW mean diddly for games, but in about a year, You'll find it the
other way around.
QAZ1111111
Hercules Dynamite Pro(2 Megs of ram with an Tseng-4000 w32i) and those
games both play much faster at higher resolutions(specifically
640x480) on my machine than they do on a friend of mine's P5-100(with
some Matrox 64 bit card...like a model or two before the Millenium).
MechWarrior II is not playable at all in 640x480 on his machine, where
on mine it's pretty playable...and when I get my DX4-120, it should be
just as playable at that 640x480 as it is now at 320x200.
It's all mainly due to the video card. The PCI version of my video
card in his machine would be a winning combination for playing games,
and should provide just fine for windows(the reasons I got this card
in the first place was because it was very fast in DOS and very fast
in Windows).
REPLY:
That Matrox Card is one of a kind. It's a early entry into the 3D boards.
That board has a terrible DOS performance rating. If he picked any other
card he would be a good step ahead of you. But when games are programmed
for that Matrox then he'll burry you.
I have a Herc Dynamite Pro in my P90 it's a nice SVGA card. But it doesn't
perform hardly any better that a $80 cirrus logic board. You just happen
to be in a unique situation with your friend having that Matrox card. This
alone is giving you a false sense of where your card really stands against
the mainstream competition. Again that Matrox one day maybe a burner, when
it's programmed for properly.
BH
QAZ1111111
>If you're out there and thinking that a 640x480 game runs slow on your
P90
>and it's the vidoe cards fault, you're right! But all the current SVGA
>cards are equal. The P90 gives one all the Central processing power one
>needs, it just needs a buddy in a real graphics card, not a monkey of a
>card.
You just said the video card makes no difference, now your saying it
does...make up your mind.
REPLY:
I don't think so, I'm saying that if you think a game in 640x480 should
run smooth on a P90 and it doesn't it's the video cards fault. But you
can't buy a card right now to make it better you need a faster system. I'm
hearing a P-120 is helping this problem much either. SVGA is like a monkey
on a P90's back. A graphics card should relieve a CPU more.
BH
QAZ1111111
Good boy, at last finally someone understands. You see, for DOS games,
you're at the mercy of the SVGA BIOS software. In DOS you're basically
on your own when talking to hardware, so most games just do the BIOS
function calls, which severaly hamstring the speed. Now going from an
ISA bus video card to a Local bus/PCI card WILL make a big difference,
but having a fancy accelerator built into the video hardware won't do you
a bit of good unless the DOS game software specifically was written to
use it (like Confimed Kill being written for S3 based cards). Windows is
a completely different deal though, and a hardware accelerator will do
wonders for speed- you are effectively exchanging slow CPU operations for
fast effecient hardware ones. Thats why it would be nice to see some
games written to run under windows, so they can use this acceleration
hardware, or perhaps just use the video driver that is for Windows.
REPLY:
Agree 100%. Cards for windows will make a difference. I was more or less
talking in the DOS game enviroment.
Waiting for the new graphics standard.
BH
Rajesh Varia
aur...@worldaccess.nl "Aurora" writes:
Are you talking about WinG ??
There will proberbly be a new generation of cards offering WinG
acceleration ;-)
And just to throw in my 2 cents, W32i/ET4000 is faster than the Stealth64
VRAM, but the DRAM is faster. But the Cirrus 543x is quicker still.
All tests conducted in VLB on the same pentium 60.
Rajesh Varia r...@c4rv.demon.co.uk
Aurora
4 versions of the card, the 864/964 (Dram/Vram) and 868/968
(Dram/Vram)(aka St 64 Video) based. The xx8 series are a great
improvement over the xx4, IMHO.
I know I've probably been guilty of this also.....
I'll make up ;): I have a Stealth 64 Video Dram (868)
Aurora
Jeff Harvey
video card?
I'm running on a pentium 90 with 16 meg of ram. When I try to start the
game I get a small (about 2" by 2") window in the center of the screen
for about 2 seconds, then the screen blanks and the machine hangs.
I've called Buried in Time technical help and they said "You need a new
video driver". However, I called Diamond, and I already have the latest
driver for this card.
If you're playing Buried in Time on a Speedstar 64, can you tell me how
you got it working?
Thanks,
Jeff
jha...@megatest.com
C.R.Brown
: I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
: about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32 with
: it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
: Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
: heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap from
: ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
: 486/66, or the difference between running a computer with "Turbo" on,
: and off. But what I see is instead of a 486/33 maybe i'm getting a
: 486/36 <G>... I just see a TINY bit of increase. (BTW I'm using
: Diamond Stealth VIDEO. does this make a difference?) I also tried
: under windows some software, and still see barely a smidgeon of a speed
: increase!
: I'm running on an SONY 1304 MultiScan monitor. This is another
: odity... When I ran the test software, I did the 640x480x256@72mhz
: test screen, and it ran kinda slow. Then I did the 1280x1024 (I think
: thats it.. the highest resolution, whatever it was) @ 42mhz refresh,
: and the speed of the box moving down the screen quadrupled or more! Is
: it supposed to do this? I would thing the higher the resolution, the
: slower the video is gonna move?
: The following are the software I have trieed with the new card:
: 1) Wing Commander III in Dos
: The Wing Commander 3 diagnostic gave my Pentium an "8" (meaning
: a 90mhz system)
: It gave my video card however a "4" (meaning a VESA LOCAL BUS.)
: ??? I have bought one of the fastest video cards on the market
: and I can only get a "4" VLB? I do have a PCI Card, why isn't it
: running as so? Has anyone ever gotten a rating less than 4,
: (which is better) in Wing Commander 3 before?
: 2) Space Quest 6 - Windows
: I turned on the "Scrolling" function, and it was ahem. Slow.
: Quite undbearable. Just as bad as my ET4000!
: 3) Mech Warrior II
: 320x200 flys :) But it did so on my ET4000 too. 640x480 had a
: TINY burst of speed enough so that the response on a button press
: didn't take 3 or 4 seconds to register. It STILL is hell to move
: : Does anyone have any idea why my Diamond Stealth appears to be running
: so slow?
As u mentioned earlier the higher the resolution on the card ,the faster it
ran ,which implies ,that your motherboard is actually slowing up the stealth
card .In other words the more work the stealth 64 gets to do ,the faster
will be your video display .The et4000 cannot compare with the stealth 64 in
the slightest .The stealth is rated as the best ,commercially available video
cards on the market at the moment .
It a great buy ,check your dip switches on the card ,cos the stealth should
be kicking the et4000 refresh rate ,like something terrible .
Hope that helped :>
Lifes A BiTch and then U DIE....
Michael Lewis
>I'm running on a pentium 90 with 16 meg of ram. When I try to start the
>game I get a small (about 2" by 2") window in the center of the screen
>for about 2 seconds, then the screen blanks and the machine hangs.
2" by 2" is really small. What resolution are you running in? You should
try switching to 640x480 and 16-bit (65,000) colors. Another thing you may
want to try.. Look in your SYSTEM.INI file for a line under the [386Enh]
section which reads "device=dva.386". If you see this line, try removing
it. The line is installed by Video for Windows. It tries to speed up your
video display by making direct calls, but may be crashing.
Michael Lewis
Sanctuary Woods
Joe Neigel
>Has anyone gotten Buried in Time to work on a Diamond Speedstar 64
>video card?
I have 2 MB DRAM, and run it with 64K colors.
Frank van der Hulst
: > >> I just recently, by reading lots of posts all over the internet
: > >>about the Diamond Stealth 64/PCI Dram, have replaced my ET4000/w32 with
: > >>it. I'm running on a pentium/90mhz system, but it appears that the
: > >>Stealth just adds a tiny amount of speed. Nothing as much as i've
: > >>heard it should! People I've talked to have told me that the swap from
: > >>ET4000/w32 PCI to a Stealth would be like going from a 486/33 ->
: VRAM, but the DRAM is faster. But the Cirrus 543x is quicker still.
: All tests conducted in VLB on the same pentium 60.
This surprises me... I understood that the VRAM was the fast board.
FWIW, I've tried a generic S3 SVGA board in a P90, and a DS64 DRAM. The
3DBench results were 45.4 and 78.6 respectively. In FS5.1 I got frame
rates of 7.6 and 13.6. PCBench v9.0 gave me 2050 and 3900 approx.
These were both PCI cards, BTW.
I hope to be trying out a DS64 VRAM soon.
Frank.
Stephane Picard
>: Why doesn't somebody just tell it like it really is. The video card
>: doesn't make much of a difference at all playing games. Mags tell you
>: other wise I guess to spur sales. The best thing you can do for a game is
>: a faster CPU period.
>: We need a real graphics card, SVGA must die or we all will go bankrupt
>: trying to keep up with these new games.
>: If you're out there and thinking that a 640x480 game runs slow on your P90
>: and it's the vidoe cards fault, you're right! But all the current SVGA
>: cards are equal. The P90 gives one all the Central processing power one
>: needs, it just needs a buddy in a real graphics card, not a monkey of a
>: card.
>: BH
>Good boy, at last finally someone understands. You see, for DOS games,
>you're at the mercy of the SVGA BIOS software. In DOS you're basically
>on your own when talking to hardware, so most games just do the BIOS
>function calls, which severaly hamstring the speed. Now going from an
>ISA bus video card to a Local bus/PCI card WILL make a big difference,
>but having a fancy accelerator built into the video hardware won't do you
>a bit of good unless the DOS game software specifically was written to
>use it (like Confimed Kill being written for S3 based cards). Windows is
>a completely different deal though, and a hardware accelerator will do
>wonders for speed- you are effectively exchanging slow CPU operations for
>fast effecient hardware ones. Thats why it would be nice to see some
>games written to run under windows, so they can use this acceleration
>hardware, or perhaps just use the video driver that is for Windows.
It would be much better to have video cards with graphic processors on them.
I work with SGI machines, and the CPU on the video card is as much important
as the CPU on the mother board. The main CPU is free to do other things
than process graphics.
Imagine what Mechwarrior II would look like on a SGI Indy2. WOW!
We have a shareware (!) flightsim that makes US Navyfighter look like
some old Atari flight sim in terms of smoothness and realism.
Of course, it's a 30000$ machine, but my point was to mention that PCs should
start using Graphics copros to relieve the main CPU. I know I'm asking for a
lot. But, hey, Matrox has done it (video with 3D copro I think), but the
problem is there has to be a standard (I think SGIs use OpenGL).
Sunarja Wihardja
>a bit of good unless the DOS game software specifically was written to
>use it (like Confimed Kill being written for S3 based cards). Windows
is
>a completely different deal though, and a hardware accelerator will do
>wonders for speed- you are effectively exchanging slow CPU operations
for
>fast effecient hardware ones. Thats why it would be nice to see some
>games written to run under windows, so they can use this acceleration
>hardware, or perhaps just use the video driver that is for Windows.
>
>
Do you happen to know if the current Windows Games actually take
use of this? (Space Quest 6, Kings Quest 7 by sierra)? Does
_Anything_ that runs under windows automatically make use of the
accelerator? Since it is running the windows driver afterall... ?
On my machine the windows Scrolling is MUCH slower than the Dos
scrolling in Space Quest/Kings Quest... Any ideas?
Sunarja Wihardja
faster it
>ran ,which implies ,that your motherboard is actually slowing up the
stealth
>card .In other words the more work the stealth 64 gets to do ,the
faster
>will be your video display .The et4000 cannot compare with the stealth
64 in
>the slightest .The stealth is rated as the best ,commercially
available video
>cards on the market at the moment .
>
>It a great buy ,check your dip switches on the card ,cos the stealth
should
>be kicking the et4000 refresh rate ,like something terrible .
>
>Hope that helped :>
Wait, there are dip switches on the stealth? <G> I never saw that
one hehe... But i think its the bus cuz thats what people are saying.
PCI/VLB combo = BAD BAD BAD i've heard. Now I'm on the hunt for a new
motherboard :) Dammnit this PC hardware thing is costing me too much
money.
Dave Glue
>Of course, it's a 30000$ machine, but my point was to mention that PCs should
>start using Graphics copros to relieve the main CPU. I know I'm asking for a
>lot. But, hey, Matrox has done it (video with 3D copro I think), but the
>problem is there has to be a standard (I think SGIs use OpenGL).
To answer your question:
1)Buy the latest copy of PC Gamer.
2)Read it.
Warren Wang
: spi...@andrew.sca.usherb.ca (Stephane Picard) wrote:
: To answer your question:
: 2)Read it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then totally disregard what it says. It's not the fastest DOS card at all.
Every hardware article I read in game mags, with the exception of
joysticks perhaps, makes my head hurt. Oh and if no one has bothered to
tell you, the Millenium needs bunched of memory to actually use the 3-D
acceleration which is currently unsupported, not to mention the fact that
all the other 3-D accel cards will be bunches faster (including the lower
end ones).
Warren
Dave Glue
>: To answer your question:
His message was about how graphics accelerators are being
under-utilitzed. So I pointed him to the PC Gamer issue as it
discussed Win95 and it's ability to use 2D and 3D graphics
acceleration, and how games are already being designed for it. It had
nothing to do with the Matrox at all.
Anyways, I agree- for those looking for a next-generation video card,
avoid the Matrox. It's not nearly as fast as the newer 3D chips and
doesn't have true hardware-assisted texture mapping. With cheaper,
far more powerfull boards on the horizon, it doesn't make much sense
for gamers.
Roger A. Kendall
YES...we must have standardized, hardware-based video to get things to
really fly -- none of this ported ram stuff!
--
Roger A. Kendall
Music Perception and Cognition and Musical Acoustics Laboratory
UCLA
>>> For information on the experimental and computational activities in
Systematic Musicology at UCLA, or about MEDS, the Music Experiment
Development System, contact me at Ken...@UCLA.EDU <<<
Ad Astra Per Aspera
Chris Gannon
>Good boy, at last finally someone understands. You see, for DOS games,
>you're at the mercy of the SVGA BIOS software. In DOS you're basically
>on your own when talking to hardware, so most games just do the BIOS
I had a diamond stealth 64 DRAM (S3 chip) and just got to a Hercules
Stingray 64.
- I can now run ST:AFU in full screen 640x480x65536, where before I could
only go half size.
- Mechwarrior II runs noticeably faster.
- WCIII runs much faster, (video rating went from 3 to 1).
I suppose that my windows video speed isn't as good now, but I don't do
anything graphical in Windows.
What video card you have DOES make a difference.
Hamid R. Moazed
> From: ww...@metronet.com (Warren Wang)
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure
> Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure
> Date: 4 Aug 1995 03:19:40 GMT
> Organization: Texas Metronet, Inc (login info (214/705-2901 - 817/571-0400))
>
> Dave Glue (dav...@interlog.com) wrote:
> : spi...@andrew.sca.usherb.ca (Stephane Picard) wrote:
>
>
> : >Of course, it's a 30000$ machine, but my point was to mention that PCs should
> : >start using Graphics copros to relieve the main CPU. I know I'm asking for a
> : >lot. But, hey, Matrox has done it (video with 3D copro I think), but the
> : >problem is there has to be a standard (I think SGIs use OpenGL).
>
> : To answer your question:
>
> : 1)Buy the latest copy of PC Gamer.
>
> : 2)Read it.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Then totally disregard what it says. It's not the fastest DOS card at all.
> Every hardware article I read in game mags, with the exception of
> joysticks perhaps, makes my head hurt. Oh and if no one has bothered to
> tell you, the Millenium needs bunched of memory to actually use the 3-D
> acceleration which is currently unsupported, not to mention the fact that
> all the other 3-D accel cards will be bunches faster (including the lower
> end ones).
>
> Warren
I think Dave was refering to the article about Win95, not about any specific
graphics card. Win95 DOES have standard 3D and 2D function calls. The
manufacturers of graphics boards will have to supply Win95 drivers inorder
to take advantage of the native 3D operators on their boards. Once Win95
is out, I'd expect all graphics board manufacturers to begin publishing
Win95 drivers (I already got one for my Diamond Viper off the Diamond ftp
site a few weeks ago).
According to the articles I have read about Win95, it allows direct access
to the graphics hardware for bitblits, etc, through DirectDraw, but Direct-
Draw does not yet have 3D support. To get 3D support you'll need to use
another standard interface (not OpenGL although it is supported). I ran the
3D demos (RenderWare demos - you can download them from www.microsoft.com)
and they ran *very* smoothly.
I suspect there are going to be many new 3D accelerator boards (S3 and Trident
are working on it, Matrox and ATI already have them) very soon, and since
Win95 has a standard and efficient interface to them I suspect there are
going to be alot of good games taking advantage of it.
I'll save the naysayers the effort of posting a reply and post one myself:
"Windows 95 sucks, it's just a DOS shell, many operations are still "thunked"
down to 16 bit single threaded functions, OS2 is the best OS and the only
real OS, noone will write games for Win95, noone will pay $90 for Win95,
Microsoft is an evil empire and is set on ruling the whole world and
destroying all free trade... blah blah blah..." Yea, right. OS2 *is* better
but so was the Amiga, and they went out of business. Technology doesn't
sell technology, marketing does. What percentage of people do you think
know the difference between "preemptive" multitasking and "cooperative"?
Or for that matter, the difference between a computer and a hole in the
wall?
--
_______________________________________
Hamid R. Moazed | "The drill bit lodged in my skull
Staff Engineer | causes me no small amount of pain,
Renaissance Software | but as I recall life without it
Los Altos, CA | was really much the same..."
email: ha...@rs.com | ``3/4" Drill Bit'' KILLDOZER