Back in the day i had my S3 Virge hooked up to a Voodoo card when it was released, it was the sweet spot at that moment for DOS and Windows. Where the Virge shined in DOS the Voodoo did great on Windows. The first real 3D in Windows was awesome to see back then, if you look at it now it's weird that you have such good memories of something that looks quite terrible compared to what we have nowadays. But still, it was a great experience seeing all these kinds of technologies grow up!
Dark Forces 2 on Virge DX with 400x300 was my way to play it back in 1998 - many thanks for bringing back that memory. Currently I am actually playing that game again but on my Win98 monster P4 with GF5600FX and I don't need to tell you how "rich" I feel using that setup now, comparing to how poor I felt playing this on K5 100MHz and Virge DX in 1998. And this is why most of us do the retro PC hobby - to finally get the superior youth time games experience, using the machines which we could not even dream about back when Win95 or 98 were new 😊
At that time I had a Rage Pro, if I recall correctly it was my first attempt at 3D: what a disappointment. Most games would not run on 3D, requiring driver updates or game patches. I ended going 3dfx, which became the reference for me: not only worked, but Glide was amazing. I recall the bad reputation from S3 for 3D cards, never even tried to get one. I stuck with 3dfx until bankruptcy, then moved to Nvidia Geforce 3 and later had some Ati cards: normally had the best performance/power consumption card. Also worth considering was the 3D card image quality, I recall there were some issues depending on the algorithm choices in the early 3D days.
For some reason, I still find myself returning to the S3 Virge 375 DX to push it into doing things it wasn't supposed to do. I've been doing this since 1997 and I still wonder why. I guess that I never got over all the wrappers and emulators that overpromised and underdelivered. Mostly it's about making OpenGL 1.1 and 1.2 titles work through the DirectX wrappers, but also there are some OGL to S3D-TK ones.
Huh. Brands are bland these days. No, Dynamite, Revolution, Righteous, Monster, not even a bit of Mystique. :( Or Erazor, which is totally a Decepticon Transformer. :)
Hi! Unrelated question to the video, but ms dos 4.0 has just been open-sourced! Do you think that it can be ported to raspberry pi?? I would love it! Maybe we could even install windows 9x natively on it now:))
The msdos source is in x86 asm. RPi is arm, 9x/dos is x86. The two cant be any further apart. The best you can do is run an emulator like qemu to emulate a x86 PC.
@@costin9991 no not really because even you converted it to arm asm your talking also about 2 different system architectures. Windows 10 would have been recompiled and also had specific drivers and other software that can talk to the hardware. Also all of your MSDOS applications would have to be recompiled to run on ARM just to start. But again DOS apps are going to be expecting x86 hardware not modern hardware you will find on the raspberry pi. Also many of the dos applications are going to be 16 bit, this is why things like wine added dosbox to emulate the 16 bit code. Its easier to emulate older architectures in software and the modern hardware is fast enough it can usually be the same speed or faster than the old system would be. Its actually quite amazing the x86 system has been so backwards compatible over time that you can still run something like freedos on new systems.
2d capabilities , real ones, hw v scaling in quickview , dos games with scitech display doctor and so on is amazing, 3d = piece of shit (c). Price - inadequate cause all of 2d capabilities was also same on trio 64v+ and not much lesser on trio64, 32 , etc
Mine was ruined by the Inter i740, it had terrible performance and it was super glitchy. Games kept freezing, I couldn't play 2 matches in Worms Armageddon in a row, couldn't play 2 maps in NFS3 in a row... All sorts of issues. I got a Riva TNT2 and sold the i740 quickly.
I remember this time period, always trying to find video, motherboard, cpu combos that were fast enough and somewhat budget friendly to play the latest titles. Trident and S3 seemed to dominate the market. It was not until I got a Orchid Voodoo 1 and a 166Mhz Pentium 1 that gaming really became fun. Great video down memory lane, good to remember where we came from.
ViRGE cards are kind of like the Sega Saturn. They're not great at 3D but they're epic at 2D and it's just taken everybody a really long time to recognize that because of the era in which they were originally launched. If you want the best DOS gaming card, a ViRGE DX or GX really can't be beat. They're just not great 3D accelerators.
I have had a lot of luck messing around with the S3 cards. I agree they are not the most performant, but I still have fond memories using the S3 Virge in my Pentium MMX 200 system I built.
@@philscomputerlab I haven’t tested much with the Savage yet, so I’m eager to see how much better it is. I’ve heard mixed messages about it though based on other videos and articles.
@@mesterak The Savage4 does habe something could, it's Metal support, a proprietary API similar to Glide. So at least you can build a machine with a few games in mind and enjoy them. Unreal is one as well as Rune and others.
Your assessment is in line with my experience back then. I had one of these paired with a diamond voodoo 1 card to get the best of both worlds. The S3 was great for my collection of DOS games and for Windows, but the voodoo handled everything else.
The loss of S3 and 3dfx killed competition and innovation in graphic cards Edit Forgot how much better Jedi Knight looks with 3d acceleration (been over 10 years since I've been able to use 3d mode)
@@oldschooldude8370 S3 became meh unfortunately. S3 was one of if not the most common chipset pre 3d acceleration era (one of the reasons why it's DosBox's defualt) and other then SLI Nvidia completely nuked 3dfx as soon as the deal was done
I would probably try to get a S3 Savage 4 Extreme with DVI from Number Nine rather than trying my luck with Virge. Savage 4 is probably about the same price as Virge but with slightly more ram and better 3D performance for earlier 3D games.
I remember seeing these cards still sitting on the shelves of Harvey Norman in 2000, same store was still selling a 4400ti in 2008 lol. edit: also that swan dive in Lost Valley *chefs kiss*
I use this card in my retro build! What I will say about the DX is that it's got really good stability and compatibility. I'm pairing it with a Voodoo 1, works nicely
Purchased an S3 in 1998 for my Gateway 166 MMX CPU. Shit for 3d accelerating. Kept it though and bought an Apocalypse 3D graphic accelerator. I overclocked the Apocalypse 3D to an Apocalypse 5D.
@@philscomputerlab Wow! what a fancy setup that would have been! What CPU were you rocking in there? Was it the 133mhz Pentium you mentioned in a video?
Thank you for this video. In my card collecton I have some Virge/325 and some Virge/GX2. I just checked... there ary so many versions of the S3 Virge. I love the combination of S3 for 2D and Voodoo for 3D.
I actually had an S3 Virge bundled with an AMD 5x86 bare bones system in 1997. Back then I didn't know any better. Then I tried to play some modern 3D games...
While ViRGE/DX's performance is kinda better than a regular ViRGE itself... I wouldn't like it that much either... However, I would prefer to combine that ViRGE for 2D and then 3DFX Voodoo 1 or 2 with 3D... That would be more like of a dream GPU setup for me.
The S3 Virge, along with any S3 prior to the Savage 3D, really wasn't an actual 3D accelerator, despite the claims that it was the first one S3 produced since it technically provided all key features. It was famous for very good 2D features and performance, but notorious for bad 3D performance. ATI had similar struggles with their "Mach 64" Rage and GX line of GPUs. The first 3D GPU that actually delivered was the Savage 3D ( and Rage Pro on the side of ATI ), but it was late on the market, could not keep up in performance, and had pretty buggy drivers. Still I heard the S3 Savage 4 has become something of a collectors item, and ignoring the bugged out Savage 2000, the later Savage XP actually finally ended up pretty good - just way too late.
The CPU calculates and sends at least 27 PCI bus register values for every triangle drawn on the ViRGE. 13 are slopes requiring an expensive division each. This is why a fast CPU matters.
I have one of those on display (yeah! finally my unused cards are on display, thanks to Tech Ambrosia's 3D printed GPU stands). Back in the day, I was already using the superb Diamond Monster 3D (I don't remember with what 2D card), or more likely the disastrous original Matrox Mystique which I swapped to because having video editing features with the daughter card (That one I still have). The Virge and Virge/DX were always at the bottom in all the charts indeed and no enthusiast was considering them. The Matrox range were not far in the lack of gaming performance (If I recall correctly, framerates for the Mystique where higher than the S3 but texture management, effects and filtering were indeed terrible). I remember with windows 3.1, when 3D acceleration was the hot topic, the Matrox Millenium and its professional 3D features, was always up in the podium and the Mystique alleguedly inherited that. I have later wondered about how or if, that impacted DOS games at all. Funny thing, a couple years ago an original Millenium landed in my hands gifted by a friend (in the same box than the S3). I should put together a working 486 and compare them in DOS. Well, I should but probably wont... I always say this kind of things after seeing your videos :) A great review as always. Thanks!
Aside form as a pure MS-DOS card, I don't really see any use for the Virge. There are better 3D cards that you can have for similar prices, and sometimes less, simply because the "good" Virge cards have gotten a sort of cult status due to good MS-DOS performance (which can also be had with the S3 Trio or Vision cards). Other than for period correctness, there's no good reason to go with a Virge/DX/GX/VX. And they existed in a time when hardware 3D on the PC wasn't much to write home about.
Hey, i still have that Sidewinder 3D Pro at 0:20 :) Had to repair it a couple of times over the years, but it's still going strong, and still is my favourite joystick to use on my retro machines
@@damienretro4416 Still, it can do 16 bit colors in games and texture filtering. At least in some games and at low fps. But for a kid struggling with a 2d video card in the late 90s, it would have been something to look forward to🙂
I had an S3 Virge. It was such a pile of garbage (often called a "hardware decelerator") that I never bought any S3 product again. Hardly a surprise they didn't last much longer after churning out that turd.
Still use one as my favourite test card. However i have two Mystique's that are WAY faster in text/2d than the virge but for testing, it is good enough so i can keep my diamonds in safe heaven ^^. Got an S3 Trio64 the last days but... i decided to go on with the virge and sold the Trio.
At the time I had the diamond 2000 3D, in fact I still have it, I used it with a pentium 200 mhz mmx, for anything 3D I used the voodoo 1 at the time, it was a correct plate for 2d and not much else. I tried the Diamond with Interstate 76 with 3D acceleration at the time and it was not good at all. Doing a review two decades later on a 2 ghz Athlon are the typical delirious videos that are usually seen on RU-vid (that something can be done does not imply which is a good idea), it is evident that if you have an AGP socket you are not going to use a mediocre PCI board, the way this was approached makes no practical sense.
Why was the chip still so common? The virge is pin compatible with its 2D predecessors and so the old design could be used for the new chip and advertised with 3D. Many OEM manufacturers have done this.
I have an S3 Virge On Board N1C3BD with 4MB RAM in my 486 build. I didn't run into any graphical bugs but I didn't even try any other video card in this build. It just works with the games. I had more issues with the sound card drivers and memory management, but MEMMAKER helped with the memory issue and I used UNISOUND as my sound driver and now my 486 machine is almost perfect :)
I wonder why old games, even at lower frame rates, seem smoother compared to modern. Lately, I've been playing Descent on an emulated 486dx2-80 (via 86Box) and even though I don't think it's doing more than 20fps, it's perfectly playable...Looks and feels exactly like I remember. However, in just about any game after the year 2000 (maybe earlier), if I can't get more than 50 or 60fps, it might as well be a side show. Something changed and I can't put my finger on it...I think a lot of it is input lag but how did that get introduced?
Don’t you talk about my Virge DX like that! After coming from an Oak Technologies 512KB card that thing was amazing. 2Mb. Two!!! That was half my system ram. Ima sulk in the corner with my hurt feelings.
For me, the Virge DX/GX2 are the ideal 2D cards to pair with a Voodoo 1/2 and a flexible (super) socket 7 with the aim of maximizing DOS compatibility. The 2D picture quality is quite good in the cards I have, it scores well on the problematic DOS games matrix by Gonar, and the handful of S3D exclusives are a nice bonus. It does suck at 3D so I really want a Voodoo card for DOS Glide games and early Windows games. In any case, you'd be hard pressed to find an unplayable DOS games with a setmul compatible CPU, a Soundblaster AWE32/64, a Virge and a Voodoo 2.
@@xsc1000 Sure, there were other good options for DOS compatiblity. One could argue that a Voodoo 3+ does well at everything. Too bad the Rage Turbo didn't do well with those DOS games, because the A3D API was probably the second best after Glide.
The S3 ViRGE chipset was wonderful at DOS & Windows 2D gaming and productivity for it's time. It's a shame the 3D performance was so terrible compared to the 3dfx Voodoo cards! I had a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 card back then. I stuck to 2D or software mode 3D games until the 3dfx Banshee cards were released and I purchased a Diamond Monster Fusion card.
I always thought I had a Virge DX because my "Fast Driver" floppy said so. But the card definitely had 8mb of vram using a second daughter card. Now Im wondering if it was actually a S3 Virge VX??? Came in a Gateway G-200 Pentium Pro 200 48mb EDO Ram Ensoniq Sound Card 33.6k modem. The "Fast Driver" was the first time I understood how much a driver could improve performance. Monster Truck Madness was transformed!
Though unsure if DX or GX or VX, I had one (replacing the older 1MB S3 Trio64V+) with 4MB of RAM installed by default. It could run the first Tomb Raider game smoothly, but only in low resolution - high res mode felt like a "swift powerpoint presentation". It also ran TR2 and TR3 games, but with (close to) lowest settings available (HW acceleration mode). However, in TRC it hit its limits for me, as it couldn't display water as see-through properly - instead, it displayed "a layer of thick oil" 🙂 However, for all the 2D apps a/o games (including the "fake 3D" ones) I've ever used it with, this card just delivered flawlessly and I still think it was worth the money, in this regards, at least. Later, my last graphics card I tried, was the S3 Savage 4, which was so much more powerful, comparatively - but also around that time, I started switching to notebooks (as I'm not much of a gamer anyway). Still, my memories of searching for the best drivers, installing them and then messing around with various settings in apps and games are amongst the best (of the PC era).
3:50 "The legendary Laguna 3D" I think you mispronounced "infamous" :p An interesting variant of this series was the Trio3D. AGP support, at least physically, but breaking compatibility with some early S3D API games.
I was in Salzburg for a couple of days once, but not recently at all. In fact it was as far back as 2005, so that has to count as semi-retro at the very least😁
@@BilisNegra Oh, that reminds me, I visited a retro museum in Vienna that's in the basement of an old WWII flak tower. So, that's relevant to the channel. 😅 Salzburg was especially beautiful. Castles, oh the castles. 😲
PSX or PC for Tomb Raider? Definitely PC! Even if you don't have a 3D accelerator card, the software renderer is basically as good as the PSX, but on the PC you can save ANYWHERE! My 1st computer was a Pentium 166Mhz (not MMX) with an S3 Trio 64V+. I "upgraded" it with a Virge DX and PowerVR cards somewhere down the line, eventually I sold it to a friend. Good decision back then, not of the same opinion now...
Hello Phil! I am going to make a retro test for myself. I am going to call it "What if the P6 architecture succed to be the next P4 processor and netburst not succed to go into production." You probably remember, that the mobile P4 processors with core name Banias and Dothan are true P6 architectural processors with additional SSE2 support. That processors has a S478-isch package, but it is elecrically not compatible to the desktop S478 motherboards. Luckily ASUS made a S479 to S478 adapter, which costs nowdays more than 250 Euro. With this adapter, and a Asus-478 moterboard I am able to build a true Pentium 4 (P6 - architectural) system. The FSB of the Banias and Dothan cores are from 400 to 533 FSB, which is very inportant boost, compare to the tualatin P3 1400MHz, which has only memory access of 133MHz on the front-side-bus. You probably remember, you made a test between a P3 1400MHz and a P4 1400MHz processor, where the conclusion was, that the P3 is faster, and the P8 must be more than 1,8GHz to reach the spead of the P3 even if the memory access of the P4 is much faster. Now I am going to take the slowest Banias first, and test the difference against the fastest P3. And then the fastest Dothan, maybe I am going to try overclock it from 533 to 640 MHz FSB.
It's always worth to remember that PS1 and N64 had very low resolutions, so playing in 320x200 in 3D game should be ok back then - but of course everything changed with Voodoo and expectations were that 640x480 is that minimal resolution for PCs - and then Virge became immediately obsolete due to that.
I bet if it was tested on a period correct hardware, a late Pentium or a Pentium MMX, the difference between ViRGE and ViRGE/DX would be neglegible. Anyways, good video, thanks!
Hello Phil! Thank you so much for another amazing video, full of useful references and great games. Speaking about that, glad to see you tested Terminal Velocity. I remember how amazed I was when I saw it for first time, actually amazed to run it with min spec on my humble AMD K5 133Mhz, 8MB of Ram and a Trident 9440 PCI with 1MB haha. Cheers from Argentina!
I had PII233 with S3Trio3D agp, performance was terrible. Thief the Dark Project had all white textures. Rendering textures was not available. Would be great to see reviews on early Ati with 3D capabilities
I guess the 2d acceleration was only for windows 95+ and mainly for directx 2d acceleration for win apps. not many 2d dos accelerators, as almost everything 2d runs with the cpu only in dos. there must be some really rare 2d accelerated dos games specifically using the 2d acceleration cards in dos. not everyone likes the ultra smooth textures, too smooth. was doom 2d texture drawing ever accelerated in DOS. so was that vesa actually being used in many 2d-only games, in actual accelerator mode. if it was being used, it was used only a very short time. I have barely any memory of using anything vesa 2d accelerated apps or games in dos.
I wonder if choosing the exact same upgrade chips as the pre existing ones would make overclocking more stable. Maybe a heatsink on the GPU as well ? Also maybe a full upgrade of the ram chips with the fastest possible, could be a fun challenge, making the fastest S3 Virge possible !
I bought the Diamond 2000 Pro brand new back in the day. I certainly did not buy it for DOS games, but it was what I could afford (and it promused faster 3D!) until i built a new PC with the newly released TNT card. I had no idea what i was missing until i played my first game on that TNT. So no, no fond memories of the S3 cards. The advertising got me and im still bitter about it, lol.
It's funny how the cinematic 24 Fps was more than acceptable for so many of these old games. they play just fine and are just as fun. Don't get me wrong, locked 30 or 60 is phenomenal but back then? It didn't matter.
I had one of these back in the day that I upgraded the memory on. I think I paid 30 or 40 for the card in another 10 or 20 for the memory upgrade. I remember playing tomb raider on it with the patch and it ran extremely well but that was on a 166 MHz Pentium. Still it was vastly superior to the version I played on my friend's PlayStation
Hi Phil. Love your videos but, maybe I am the only one with this opinion but I found this one uncomfortably zoomed in. It made, for me, everything feel a bit spooky and somehow weirdly blurry (no offence intended).
My first computer had a S3 Virge DX, I remember a funky problem when I tried the Thief Demo back in the day. The performance was okay, but all the textures on the walls and floor was all gray, lighting was still done and seemed to work fine. Always wondered if that was a known bug with the S3 Virge.
Hey Phil! What's with the little beeper on the back of your Gotek? Does it try to emulate the sound of a real floppy? If so I'd love to know what pins to use; mine is almost completely unlabeled.
