traiger@oxy.edu (Saul Traiger) (10/09/90)
Last week I finally got hold of the drivers for my Orchid Prodesigner Plus board. My complaints are numerous. 1. Orchid has never contacted me about the drivers, even though I'm a registered owner; not a postcard, not a word. 2. In 256 color mode, with a NEC 3D, and a Gateway 2000 25 MHZ 386, performance is pitiful. The screen updates are so slow that I find this mode unusable. If I wanted a slow GUI I would have bought a Mac. 3. In 800x600 or 1024x768 modes, switching to a full-screen DOS app invokes an ugly modes switch which is both visually annoying and time consuming. I have another machine which has an ARC multisync and an OEM Paradise board - this was much less expensive - and it has none of these bad side-effects. (The ARC, like the NEC is also interlaced at the highest resolution.) 4. Both 800x600 and 1024x768 have significant flicker. The higher resolution is so bad that it is unusable. In short: I paid a premium for an Orchid card and a NEC 3D monitor, but I'm getting far better performance from an OEM Paradise card and ARC monitor. I would not recommend the former combination to anyone who wishes to use Windows 3.0 Saul Traiger This is my opinion, but not traiger@oxy.edu my mere opinion.