WTB: 3D Accelerators for DOS and Win95/98

I think I got rid of the very last of mine a little while back, but free bump for you.
 
I don't think there were any ISA 3D accelerators, but IIRC Creative's 3D Blaster was VLB. Beyond that, the early accelerators were all PCI to my knowledge, as that was the performance option at the time.
 
I will look after work tomorrow. If I find the ISA card I will let you know.

I don't have any way to test it tho. So no way to assure it works. It was when I pulled, years ago.


I miss that ol 286
 
Halon said:
I don't think there were any ISA 3D accelerators, but IIRC Creative's 3D Blaster was VLB. Beyond that, the early accelerators were all PCI to my knowledge, as that was the performance option at the time.
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Depending on how strict with terms you want to be...340x0 cards could be used for 3D acceleration. Since they were full fledged CPUs, they could do 3D even if lacking dedicated 3D functions.
 
Most 3D accelerators are going to be PCI or AGP pre-GPU days. There was a Creative Labs 3D Blaster that was for VLB. Used a Cirrus Logic 3D chip of whose model number I cannot remember - was the first of its kind for the consumer market I believe. I think the card came in 1MB and 2MB configurations. That's gonna be holy fucking rare, Batman, though...
 
Only ISA VGA I could find, and no idea if it still performs.

PXL_20230810_214543402.jpg
 
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DogsofJune said:
Yes, I may have something in pci.
The pic looks to be Cirrus logic 1 megabyte VGA card for an ISA slot.
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You sure? It might only be 512K from the fact it's only got two (small) DRAM chips (that say 256 on them, I'm assuming that's capacity in KB...) I'd have to look up the part numbers to be sure.

EDIT: A quick Google search shows zero matches for the part number...
 
That is not a 3D accelerator, it is a very early VGA card. The CL-GD5401 is listed on this page. I expect it'd be passable for 386-targeted DOS games, and with UniVBE/Scitech Display Doctor you could do as much with it as the 256KB of VRAM would allow. It's definitely not an SVGA card, though.
 
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Mr. Bluntman said:
You sure? It might only be 512K from the fact it's only got two (small) DRAM chips (that say 256 on them, I'm assuming that's capacity in KB...) I'd have to look up the part numbers to be sure.

EDIT: A quick Google search shows zero matches for the part number...
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Nope not sure, you very well could be right. It's been a day and an age since it was used.

Post 9 said ISA was on the list of things to look for.

Perhaps the OP is unsure of what is being asked for.
 
Halon said:
That is not a 3D accelerator, it is a very early VGA card. The CL-GD5401 is listed on this page. I expect it'd be passable for 386-targeted DOS games, and with UniVBE/Scitech Display Doctor you could do as much with it as the 256KB of VRAM would allow. It's definitely not an SVGA card, though.
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DogsofJune said:
Nope not sure, you very well could be right. It's been a day and an age since it was used.

Post 9 said ISA was on the list of things to look for.

Perhaps the OP is unsure of what is being asked for.
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Halon is correct. As the thread title indicated, I am indeed looking for 3D accelerators for DOS and Win95/98
 
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PowerVR is a name to look for - maybe you can find a Matrox m3D on eBay. I always wanted to play with a PCX2 and never had the chance.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
Most 3D accelerators are going to be PCI or AGP pre-GPU days. There was a Creative Labs 3D Blaster that was for VLB. Used a Cirrus Logic 3D chip of whose model number I cannot remember - was the first of its kind for the consumer market I believe. I think the card came in 1MB and 2MB configurations. That's gonna be holy fucking rare, Batman, though...
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Ah man I had a Creative Labs 3D Blaster back in the day.. was my first ever GPU upgrade. Loved it.
 
mknlb50 said:
Both ISA and PCI are fine. AGP is a no go sadly!
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mknlb50 said:
I'm in the mood to collect so even if it's not very well known, I would looovvveee to tinker around with it!
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I apologize, I seem to have misread your posts. Plus, I never toted what I posted as a card with 3D acceleration, plus it wasn't the one I was looking for originally. It just ended up being all I could find in ISA flavor. Still, you seemed to say ISA is fine. I assumed possibly wanted ISA for collection purposes. Hence the confusion to what you want. My bad.

I do agree about the lack of ISA 3D, however, you stated ISA was fine and no AGP. Which is a shame, that I have for sure as I came across them digging up the relic I posted above. I do believe I have something in PCI, but that requires another look.

Perhaps the question should be asked, what motherboard, or motherboards, are you using?
 
Halon said:
PowerVR is a name to look for - maybe you can find a Matrox m3D on eBay. I always wanted to play with a PCX2 and never had the chance.
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I would strongly recommend against doing so. There were lots of problems with tile based renderers then. Lots of visual gitches. Also, if you didn't have a lightning fast 2D card performance suffered. I briefly switched from a 3Dfx card (yes, when it was 3Dfx) to an M3D and I absolutely regretted it from the jump. That said, it has the best looking 3D accelerated versions of Resident Evil (if you can find a PVR copy even - I tried in futility), MechWarrior 2, and Tomb Raider... 1024x768 support in the latter...

Any PowerVR PCX1 (no bilinear filtering or per pixel mip mapping) or PCX2 card is little more than a novelty, a feather in your collection's cap. Please treat it as such. Save yourself the headache. Get a 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics card. Hell, even a Voodoo Rush is better in a pinch. You can find them still for sub-$200 if you look hard enough and for long enough.
 
Halon said:
PowerVR is a name to look for - maybe you can find a Matrox m3D on eBay. I always wanted to play with a PCX2 and never had the chance.
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Hah I wish I could get one. It's hard enough to find one online tbh. I never even heard of it while I was growing up and I'm not surprised these cards are pretty rare to come by
 
mknlb50 said:
Hah I wish I could get one. It's hard enough to find one online tbh. I never even heard of it while I was growing up and I'm not surprised these cards are pretty rare to come by
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They never sold particularly well is why. Most were probably put in landfills after they didn't sell, or people just threw them out with their old computer thinking it's worthless. It was originally $199, IIRC, then it was quickly discounted to $99, possibly less. Should tell you all you need to know. For shits and giggles you should see the 3dfx render of Unreal, then check out the PowerVR PCX2 version. It's comical how much worse the PowerVR version is.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
They never sold particularly well is why. Most were probably put in landfills after they didn't sell, or people just threw them out with their old computer thinking it's worthless. It was originally $199, IIRC, then it was quickly discounted to $99, possibly less. Should tell you all you need to know. For shits and giggles you should see the 3dfx render of Unreal, then check out the PowerVR PCX2 version. It's comical how much worse the PowerVR version is.
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I dunno, this doesn’t look awful for 1998 to me:


View: https://youtu.be/GT0OILijFfo

Seeing it struggle more with Quake II (or Quake III…) is a different story, but compared to running it in software mode on a Pentium MMX it’s still a big improvement.
 
Halon said:
I dunno, this doesn’t look awful for 1998 to me:


View: https://youtu.be/GT0OILijFfo

Seeing it struggle more with Quake II (or Quake III…) is a different story, but compared to running it in software mode on a Pentium MMX it’s still a big improvement.
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Doesn't look too bad. That reminds me, I think even Dreamcast used a PowerVR GPU and it produced some of the most amazing graphics for its time. PS2 suffered from jaggies issues while DC didn't either

They're not terrible by any means and I think it would be fun to own a powervr card at some point down the road to tinker around and what not
 
mknlb50 said:
Doesn't look too bad. That reminds me, I think even Dreamcast used a PowerVR GPU and it produced some of the most amazing graphics for its time. PS2 suffered from jaggies issues while DC didn't either

They're not terrible by any means and I think it would be fun to own a powervr card at some point down the road to tinker around and what not
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Originally the Dreamcast was slated to use a 3Dfx chip, but the latter got confused and released information about it at a press show, ostensibly to ensure they were properly disclosing their business activities. Unfortunately they were over-cautious and the news was released in violation of the terms of their preliminary agreement. Sega was furious and cancelled the deal, and went with PowerVR instead.

The Dreamcast graphics chip was released in slightly modified form as the Neon 250 graphics board in the year 1999, but shaky drivers and iffy hardware buried it in the year of the GeForce256. The Kyro cards did a mite better a little while later despite a DirectX 6-level feature set… and then PowerVR disappeared for a while outside of a few niches until the iPhone.
 
You're looking for a PowerVR Kryo PCX1//2 based card (Matrox or Hercules I think) or a 3dfx Voodoo 1, both PCI cards. About the only place you'll find one these days is ebay (and it looks like they're pretty expensive), or maybe someone has one sitting in a box around here (which is what you're asking for). I used to have one of the PowerVR cards, worked great in Quake and Half-Life, but unfortunately that was like 20 years ago. Otherwise, consider this a free bump.
 
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