ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) (03/25/91)
Posting this for person who can't post. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 01:50:24 PST From: cg199ag@icogsci1.ucsd.edu (Steve - Happy Hacker) Message-Id: <9103250950.AA16256@icogsci1.UCSD.EDU> To: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) In-Reply-To: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu's message of 25 Mar 91 02:44:15 GMT Subject: Re: Orchid PD2 vs. STB Ergo SVGA cards Status: OR From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Date: 25 Mar 91 02:44:15 GMT Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington >Can anyone tell me the difference between an Orchid Prodesigner II SVGA >card and an STB Ergo card? I want to be able to drive 1024x768 at 60 Hz. >Can these cards support CGA or EGA? If so, do they do this by multiscanning? >After talking to several mail-order houses, all I've learned is that both >cards are based on the Tseng-4000 chip set. The Prodesigner II seems to >have gotten lots of good reviews on the net, but the STB Ergo is significantly >cheaper and a newer design. > Another Tseng-4000 based card I've heard good things about is > the Boca SVGA. Since its available for something like $160 with > 1 meg installed from PC Connection, it may be worthwhile to add > this to the list of review requests. ---------------- I have a BOCA VGA card myself. I got it about 3 months ago for the exact price you mentioned. I could not be more pleased with this card. It's the second VGA card I have owned, the first being an STB Powergraph clone by Compudyne. VidSpeed rates the BOCA card at 4600 K/sec in all but one mode (I don't remember which, but it was a less-used mode, and the speed there was about 3000 K/sec). I have yet to find software that doesn't like it. The included disk has drivers for Ventura, Windows 3.0, older Windows, Autocad, WordPerfect 5 & 4, and a few others. The WP support is great for viewing, and you can chose any mode to use. (I like 800x600 because my monitor can't do 1024 non-interlaced). Overall, the speed difference between this card and most others I have used is very noticible. The STB I had rated about 2600 K/sec and half that in some modes. Overall, I'm a happy BOCA customer. My sys: Amstrad 386/33 w/256K cache VGA monitor by Compudyne, 1024x768 interlaced, and everything down. 1 Meg on the BOCA card, wait states for 16-bit turned all the way down and bus I/O speed all the way up. :) 7 Megs of ram (don't ask) etc.. Oh, two programs that are strange are DAZZLE and TUNNEL, both of which are VGA color-sliding graphics demos. When run in turbo (33MHz), the blue flickers noticably. This detracts from the overall smooth, hypnotic effect, so I take it out of turbo (25 MHz) and everything is like it should be. I did play with the bus speed and wait states, to no avail. I have never seen this happen in games or any other program, so I can live with it. I should also note that the STB card did this exact same thing, to the same extent. Both the BOCA and STB (as you mentioned) are Tseng ET4000 based. I needed this processor to run X-Windows under Interactive Unix, because others are not yet supported. I would have posted this to the net, but my current account lacks posting ablility. Feel free to post this in part or in whole if you wish. Good Luck! -Steve Haehnichen shaehnic@ucsd.edu -or- shaehnic@ucsd.bitnet Please disregard following sig! -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iskandar Taib | The only thing worse than Peach ala Internet: NTAIB@AQUA.UCS.INDIANA.EDU | Frog is Frog ala Peach Bitnet: NTAIB@IUBACS ! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------