I just tested almost all my ISA graphics cards on a 286. I'm a bit disappointed since only few of them actually worked on a 286. It seems that almost all later ISA graphics cards have BIOS that uses 386 instructions.
I tested them using 24” HP LP2475w LCD monitor. It doesn't handle analog VGA well so none of the cards produced as good image quality as I would have liked. Best of them produced image quality that could be considered decent. Worst cards produced image quality so bad that I certainly don't ever want to use them with this monitor. One card failed to work at all with this monitor.
I tested with Keen 4 since it has two options (jerky motion fix and SVGA compatibility) for cards that are not 100% EGA/VGA compatible. Cards with perfect compatibility do not need to enable either. I consider compatibility to be more important than speed.
#9 (S3 928 ). This turned out to be the best ISA graphics card. Too bad it don't work on a 286.
ATI (28800-5). My LCD monitor did not work at all with this card. The card does work on a 286 since there were no beeps and system booted based on hard disk LED activity.
Cirrus Logic (CL-GD5422)
Hercules Dynamite (ET4000/W32i). Worked on a 286 but only with Turbo disabled. There were some minor graphics corruption with Turbo enabled. First I thought that the RAM was bad but there were no problems on a 386.
Paradise VGA Professional Card (PVGA1A). This Paradise required SVGA compatibility unlike the other Paradise. This one is one year older and has 512 kiB RAM.
Paradise (PVGA1A). This Paradise had perfect compatibility unlike the Professional Card. This one has 256 kiB RAM.
Trident (TVGA8800BR). This is the only card I tried only on 386. It it old and 8-bit so it should work even on XT systems. This was the only card that was too slow to run Keen 4 smoothly on a 386 DX-40. Keen 4 ran smoothly with all other cards on both 286 and 386.
Trident (TVGA 9000i-1). This one has jumpers for 8-bit mode but it turned out that the BIOS requires 386.
I've always liked Paradise cards and with a good reason. Image quality is a lot better than low-end graphics cards from early 90s. Paradise are also compatible so I have a good reason to keep Paradise on my 286. I would like to know if there are even better alternatives.
Edit: Here are additional cards.
OAK OTI037C. The only 16-bit card that was not fast enough for Keen 4 on 386-40. Wikipedia says that the OTI037C is a 8-bit VGA chipset so no wonder. This turned out to be easily faster than Trident 8800 but not as fast as 8-bit Paradise. Maybe the chip internally accesses RAM using 8-bit data path while the external data path is 16-bit. The card did have a jumper for grayscale operation. I would have liked it when I had to use grayscale IBM VGA monitor.
Paradise VGA Plus. 8-bit card that was actually faster than OAK and by far faster than Trident 8800. Avoid Tridents if you need 8-bit capable VGA card. This is simply 8-bit version of the non Professional Paradise card.
Since the 386 have VLB slots (386/486 hybrid motherboard), I decided to test the few VLB cards that I have.
ATi Graphics Wonder (Mach 32 VLB). Surprisingly this had the worst image quality of the VLB cards.
Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 (VLB). This should be quite fast so people usually recommend it since these are not rare. I feared that it would have as bad image quality as the ISA CL but it turned out to be far better. I had the Mach 32 on my 386 but now I'm going to replace it with this.
#9 GXE64 (S3 Vision864 VLB). Again the #9 with S3 turned out to be the best. This one had the best image quality of all tested cards. This is the only card that my monitor is happy with. I've used this card on my 486 gaming system and happily keep it there.
I tested them using 24” HP LP2475w LCD monitor. It doesn't handle analog VGA well so none of the cards produced as good image quality as I would have liked. Best of them produced image quality that could be considered decent. Worst cards produced image quality so bad that I certainly don't ever want to use them with this monitor. One card failed to work at all with this monitor.
I tested with Keen 4 since it has two options (jerky motion fix and SVGA compatibility) for cards that are not 100% EGA/VGA compatible. Cards with perfect compatibility do not need to enable either. I consider compatibility to be more important than speed.
#9 (S3 928 ). This turned out to be the best ISA graphics card. Too bad it don't work on a 286.
- Requires 386+: YES
- Image quality: Decent (best of tested cards).
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
ATI (28800-5). My LCD monitor did not work at all with this card. The card does work on a 286 since there were no beeps and system booted based on hard disk LED activity.
Cirrus Logic (CL-GD5422)
- Requires 386+: YES
- Image quality: Bad but a little better than Tridents.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
Hercules Dynamite (ET4000/W32i). Worked on a 286 but only with Turbo disabled. There were some minor graphics corruption with Turbo enabled. First I thought that the RAM was bad but there were no problems on a 386.
- Requires 386+: NO
- Image quality: Decent. Perhaps a little bit worse than the S3.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: ON
Paradise VGA Professional Card (PVGA1A). This Paradise required SVGA compatibility unlike the other Paradise. This one is one year older and has 512 kiB RAM.
- Requires 386+: NO
- Image quality: Decent but not quite as good as the best ISA cards.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: ON
Paradise (PVGA1A). This Paradise had perfect compatibility unlike the Professional Card. This one has 256 kiB RAM.
- Requires 386+: NO
- Image quality: Decent but not quite as good as the best ISA cards.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
Trident (TVGA8800BR). This is the only card I tried only on 386. It it old and 8-bit so it should work even on XT systems. This was the only card that was too slow to run Keen 4 smoothly on a 386 DX-40. Keen 4 ran smoothly with all other cards on both 286 and 386.
- Requires 386+: NO
- Image quality: Bad. Trident 9000i was the only one with even worse image quality.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: ON
Trident (TVGA 9000i-1). This one has jumpers for 8-bit mode but it turned out that the BIOS requires 386.
- Requires 386+: YES
- Image quality: Bad. This card easily had the worst image quality.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
I've always liked Paradise cards and with a good reason. Image quality is a lot better than low-end graphics cards from early 90s. Paradise are also compatible so I have a good reason to keep Paradise on my 286. I would like to know if there are even better alternatives.
Edit: Here are additional cards.
OAK OTI037C. The only 16-bit card that was not fast enough for Keen 4 on 386-40. Wikipedia says that the OTI037C is a 8-bit VGA chipset so no wonder. This turned out to be easily faster than Trident 8800 but not as fast as 8-bit Paradise. Maybe the chip internally accesses RAM using 8-bit data path while the external data path is 16-bit. The card did have a jumper for grayscale operation. I would have liked it when I had to use grayscale IBM VGA monitor.
- Requires 386+: NO
- Image Quality: Decent. Not quite as good as the best ISA cards but a bit better than on Paradise cards.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
Paradise VGA Plus. 8-bit card that was actually faster than OAK and by far faster than Trident 8800. Avoid Tridents if you need 8-bit capable VGA card. This is simply 8-bit version of the non Professional Paradise card.
- Requires 386+: NO
- Image Quality: Decent but not quite as good as the best ISA cards.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
Since the 386 have VLB slots (386/486 hybrid motherboard), I decided to test the few VLB cards that I have.
ATi Graphics Wonder (Mach 32 VLB). Surprisingly this had the worst image quality of the VLB cards.
- Requires 386+: YES
- Image Quality: Below Paradise cards but far better than ISA Tridents or ISA Cirrus Logic.
- Fix Jerky Motion: ON
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 (VLB). This should be quite fast so people usually recommend it since these are not rare. I feared that it would have as bad image quality as the ISA CL but it turned out to be far better. I had the Mach 32 on my 386 but now I'm going to replace it with this.
- Requires 386+: YES
- Image Quality: Decent. About the same as ISA Hercules Dynamite with ET4000/W32i.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
#9 GXE64 (S3 Vision864 VLB). Again the #9 with S3 turned out to be the best. This one had the best image quality of all tested cards. This is the only card that my monitor is happy with. I've used this card on my 486 gaming system and happily keep it there.
- Requires 386+: YES
- Image Quality: Good.
- Fix Jerky Motion: OFF
- SVGA Compatibility: OFF
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