Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!jarthur!jmerrill From: jmerrill@jarthur.claremont.edu (Jason Merrill) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Re: Tseng 4000 / Orchid Pro II - mostly hype? Message-ID: Date: 17 Apr 91 19:51:25 GMT References: <1991Apr16.233527.21277@athena.mit.edu> Sender: jmerrill@jarthur.Claremont.EDU Organization: M.Y.T.H. Inc. Lines: 40 In-reply-to: mmshah@athena.mit.edu's message of 16 Apr 91 23:35:27 GMT >>>>> On 16 Apr 91 23:35:27 GMT, mmshah@athena.mit.edu (Milan M Shah) said: > After hearing all the good things about the Orchid Prodesigner II and > the Tseng 4000 chipset based super vga cards, I decided to get one myself. > I was *very* disappointed. I have had exactly the opposite experience; I am very happy with my ET4000 clone. > First of all, I have a 20 MHz 386 machine with 64K cache, 8 Megs of RAM. I > have a Paradise 512K card, and my main environment is Windows 3.0 in enhanced > mode and in 800x600x16 resolution. I have a 20 Mhz 386 with 64K cache, and 4 Megs of RAM. I had a 512K Paradise clone, but I traded it (and some cash) for my Diamond SpeedSTAR. I was running Windows in VGA mode; I am now running in 1024x768x16 mode. > Well, I couldn't get the Orchid Pro II to beat the Paradise, especially while > running dos apps in a window. This was while running the card in 16 bit mode. I haven't run any benchmarks, but I saw a very clear increase in speed; 1024x768x16 runs about as fast as plain VGA did on my Paradise. > Moreover, the 800x600 drivers for the Pro II have, in my opinion, a serious > flaw : they use the fonts intended for 8514 (1034x768 mode). I don't like this Get the file tsng4311.zip (drivers revision 3.11, dated Jan 4, 1991) from cica. They use the VGA fonts in 800x600 mode. > I am convinced that for windows, a faster mainboard results in a much higher > increase in performance. If you've got an old Paradise (one of the ones that only goes up to 800x600x16), a 16Mhz 386 will drive it as fast as it can go. The ET4000 cards can handle a considerably higher transfer rate (I don't know the numbers). In my system, the hard drive is my serious bottleneck... -- Jason Merrill jmerrill@jarthur.claremont.edu