Document: PCI Video Cards for OS/2 list Maintainer: Patrick Duffy, duffy@theory.chem.ubc.ca Last Revision Date: August 19, 1995 Archived at: ftp.netcom.com, in directory /pub/ab/abe/ CompuServe (GO BENCHMARK) Web pages: http://warp.eecs.berkeley.edu/os2/workbench/work.htm This document may be distributed freely, provided it is distributed in its entirety and is unmodified. This is the PCI video card for OS/2 list. Remember that I depend very heavily on your input, and of course feel free to correct any continuing misconceptions I might have, or to insist that I should recommend a card I don't, or to add a new card/piece of information to what's here already. Your contributions and/or corrections are always welcome and certainly appreciated. I've added the PCI vendor IDs of the card manufacturer to the list, in most cases in brackets after the relevant card entry. The first entry is HEX, and the second one is decimal. General comments: For any video card (and any operating system, really) it's potentially to your advantage to pick a card which is either supported directly or is backwards compatible with some standard supported directly by the operating system vendor. That way, if a new release of the operating system in question breaks the drivers you have, you'll either be guaranteed new drivers with the operating system, or at least have a "fall-back" point, where you'll have higher resolution than VGA, though likely not with all the accelerated features of the card. For OS/2 2.1/2.11, you'll want standards supported by IBM. There are no PCI XGA cards (something for which I would give my eye teeth), so your best bet is a PCI S3 801/805/928-based card which works with the IBM drivers. These seem to be relatively few in number in North America (though fairly common in Europe), so if you can't find one listed here, a safe bet is the ATI Graphics Ultra Pro listed below, especially since it is used (with the latest ATI drivers) in several OS/2-certified systems. It has the added advantage of being 8514 compatible, which means that you'll have higher-than-VGA-resolution drivers for it, even if they don't support all available modes of the card, if a new release of OS/2 breaks ATI's drivers. Also a good bet would be any video card which uses the ET4000-W32[i,p] chip, since the ET4000 (not -W32[i,p]) chip is supported by OS/2 out of the box, and the new W32[i,p] chips are supposed to be backwards compatible with it. For OS/2 Warp, driver support seems to be much better. Support (either by IBM or coerced by IBM) for almost all major video chipset types is built in, so when picking your card a good criterion to search by is driver maturity, followed next by speed. Fast cards are all well and good, after all, but mediocre drivers can take away all the advantages they potentially offer. I'll try (as best I can) to offer up opinions where that's concerned. Please feel free to contribute. Useful Numbers: --------------- #9: ftp.nine.com (FTP site) http://www.nine.com (WWW site) ATI: (905) 882-2600 (sales) (905) 882-2620 (sales -- FAX) (905) 882-2626 (tech. support) (905) 882-0546 (tech. support -- FAX) (905) 764-9404 (BBS -- N,8,1) ftp.atitech.ca (FTP site) www.atitech.ca (WWW site) 76004.3656@compuserve.com (General Inquiries) 74740.667@compuserve.com (Tech. Support) GO ATITECH (CompuServe) Avance: ftp.avance.com (FTP site) www.avance.com (WWW site) Dell: ftp.dell.com (FTP site for S3/764 drivers) Diamond: (408) 736-2000 (voice) (408) 730-5750 (FAX) (408) 524-9301 (BBS -- N,8,1) ftp.diamondmm.com (FTP site) www.diamondmm.com (WWW site) 75300,3673 (CompuServe) DIAMOND.TECH (Genie) ELSA (Germany): 0241-9177-981 (mailbox) 0241-9177-7800 (ISDN port) +49/241-9177-981 (outside Germany) Hercules: (800) 532-0600 (voice) (510) 623-6050 (voice) (510) 623-1112 (FAX) (510) 623-7449 (BBS - US) +49-8142-40898 (BBS - Germany) ftp.hercules.com (FTP site) www.hercules.com (WWW site) S3: s3.com (FTP site) SPEA (Germany): voice: +49 8151 266 240 fax: +49 8151 266 150 BBS: +49 8151 266 241, 300 - 14400 - N,8,1 PART ONE: Cards Supported Out-of-the-box by Warp ================================================= a) 64-bit Cards --------------- Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ #9 GXE64* The GXE64 is based on the S3/864 chipset and uses up to 2 MB of DRAM. A GXE64 is being used in combination with the Qlogic SCSI card and the Intel 60 MHz Pentium motherboard without problems. Note that there may or may not be two versions of this card; when you order yours make _certain_ that the card you're getting uses the S3/864 chipset to get out-of-the-box support in Warp. (Number 9 Computer Company: 105D/4189) Under Warp: The drivers supplied with Warp apparently support all modes of the card and work without problems. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support seems pretty good from #9. The drivers (the last version of which supported all modes of the card) seem to work well with few problems. Actix GE 64* Another S3/864-based card, with 1 MB (expandable to 4) of memory. (S3 Inc.: 5333/21299) Under Warp: All modes of the card are supported, and the card is reported to work well, with the exception that switching between full-screen sessions which use the DOS/4GW extender and the MetaGraphics library can result in the bottom half of the DOS full-screen being corrupted. Under 2.1/2.11: S3 has released drivers which apparently support most modes of the card, up to 16bpp. Deal of the week: 2 MB: $299, from Treasure Chest Peripherals (800) 677-9781/(504) 733-3890 4 MB: $459, from Harmony Computers, (800) 441-1144 Asus PCI-AV264CT Here's an interesting one from Asus. This card is apparently based on the Mach64CT chip and has a 135 MHz DAC. It is expandible to 2 MB of VRAM (and comes with 1 MB standard). The really interesting part, though, is that this card has in it a sound card as well. The video portion of the card has driver support under OS/2, but the sound card portion does not seem to. The card supports all of the following refresh rates and colour depths: (Asustek Computer, Inc.: 1043/4163) (ATI Technologies Inc.: 1002/4098) Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 90 / 100 800 x 600 8/16/24* 90 / 100 1024 x 768 8/16* 100 / 100 1152 x 864 8/16* 80 / 80 1280 x 1024 4/8* 75 / 75 * - Indicates that 2 MB of VRAM is required. ATI G Pro Turbo** This card is based on the ATI Mach64 chip and takes up to 4 MB of VRAM. (ATI Technologies Inc.: 1002/4098) Under Warp: All modes of the card are supported, and the drivers are reported to work very well. There are new drivers out from IBM (called MAC64.ZIP, I believe), available from the IBM BBS, which apparently do not fix many problems. One person has reported that his mouse cursor disappears when placed over an area on the desktop which has played an AVI file in Galactic Civilizations. Under 2.1/2.11: All modes of the card are supported, but the drivers are not as mature. Drivers (found as m64v94.zip on the ATI FTP site) are available. Apparently, however, they aren't much better than the older 2.1 drivers, as they don't really fix all that much. The character loss problem is apparently solved by use of the SIO comm. drivers. It is also necessary to set video_switch_notification to ON for your Windows and DOS full-screen sessions, or your desktop will be severely corrupted on switching back from a Win-OS2 full screen session. Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 Up to 72 Hz 800 x 600 8/16/24 Up to 72 Hz 1024 x 768 8/16/24* Up to 72 Hz 1280 x 1024 8/16*/24+ Up to 72 Hz (*) Indicates that 4 MB of VRAM is required. (+) The 24-bpp mode of this resolution is not supported in the Warp drivers. Deal of the week (2 MB): $365.75 from Vektron International, Inc., (800) 725-0081/(214) 606-1278 Deal of the week (4 MB): $579 from Harmony Computers ($539 for the OEM version) (800) 441-1144 ATI Winturbo** This is a less expensive version of the Graphics Pro Turbo above, and is the card which generally comes with systems which advertise a Mach64 card. The main differences between this card and the Pro Turbo are that this card cannot be upgraded to 4 MB from the 2 MB it comes with without purchase of a separate add-on board (the sockets have not been mounted to do so), and the manual is a little less thorough and has less information in it. The card is reported to work well, with the exception that, with the new drivers (mach64.zip), the cursor sometimes disappears and the fonts in Win-OS2 seamless sessions are sometimes scrambled. (ATI Technologies Inc.: 1002/4098) ATI Xpression** This is a DRAM-based version of the Graphics Pro Turbo card. Drivers as for that card, though refresh rates at higher resolutions and colour depths are not as high as for the Graphics Pro Turbo. (The card will do up to 75 Hz at 1280x1024x8bpp. 8 bpp requires 2 MB of DRAM, of course.) This card will accept a maximum of 2 MB of DRAM. Note that newer versions of this card no longer store monitor settings in EPROM! If you have a newer version of this card, use the new ATI drivers (from the ATI FTP site) and everything should work properly. (ATI Technologies Inc.: 1002/4098) Diamond SpeedStar* This is a series of cards based around the Cirrus Logic CL543X chipsets. All cards (to my knowledge) use DRAM. (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Under Warp: Driver support is reported to be good, and the cards are said to run without problems. Under 2.1/2.11: The drivers for the 5428 chipset work with it, and support most modes of the chip. Diamond has released functional 256 colour (only) drivers for this card. Diamond Stealth 64 Based on the 864 chipset from S3. This card takes either 1 or 2 MB of DRAM, but has been discontinued (in favour of a card with the same name which uses the S3 Trio32 chip). (This is the reason I'm not recommending it.) (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Under Warp: People have reported mixed success with this card and the drivers supplied with Warp. One person has reported that 'bit rot' sets in when switching to and from full-screen Win-OS2 sessions. Under 2.1/2.11: Version 1.02 of the drivers now seem to support most modes and all necessary colour depths. One poster has reported that Ultimotion works for him, so that warnings in the readme file that comes with the drivers about playback not working seem to be spurious. Genoa Phantom 864 This card is based on the S3/864 chip and takes up to 2 MB of DRAM. The card is reported to misbehave under DOS, as it blanks the screen after a hotkey return from PCTools. (So I'm not recommending it.) (Genoa Systems Corp.: 1047/4167) Under 2.1/2.11: OS/2 drivers exist and the card is reported to work well. Under Warp: This card should work with the OS/2 drivers supplied. No reports of success yet, though. Intel Cirrus Logic* There are two cards by Intel which use the 543X chipset. One, the PCICL54301MB, uses the 5430 chipset and comes with 1MB of VRAM. The other, the PCICL54342MB, uses the 5434 chipset and comes with 2 MB of DRAM. (Cirrus Logic: 1013/4115) (Intel: 8086/32902) Under Warp: The DRAM card is supported, but is reported to not be 100% stable. The card has all the green features and apparently will blank the screen automatically. However, occasionally when the card is "re-awakened", the screen will either be a) totally garbled or b) will give bold over/underscores on different letters. Starting an OS/2 fullscreen session and closing it fixes the problem. The card could be responsible for instability on at least one .netter's system. Apparently, on Warp beta II, the accel. drivers hung his system regularly. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support is said to be there, but is of unknown quality. Cirrus Logic has released 8-bit drivers for the card, so I suspect that this is all that is available. Orchid Kelvin 64* This card uses the Cirrus Logic 5434 chipset. 2 MB of RAM supports: Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 Up to 75 Hz 800 x 600 8/16 Up to 75 Hz 1024 x 768 8/16 Up to 75 Hz 1280 x 1024 8* Up to 75 Hz (Cirrus Logic: 1013/4115) Under Warp: The card and drivers are reported to work well. Under 2.1/2.11: Drivers are in the file KOS211.EXE (off the Orchid BBS), but they only do 8 bit colour. Presumably also the 5428 drivers will work with this card as they do the Diamond. Spider Graphics* This card uses the Cirrus Logic 5434 chipset. Driver support as for the Diamond SpeedStar 64 and the Orchid Kelvin 64, presumably. (Cirrus Logic: 1013/4115) b) 32-bit Cards --------------- Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ ATI GU Pro/2MB*+ This card is based on the Mach32 chipset from ATI, and comes with 1 or 2 MB of VRAM. (ATI Technologies Inc.: 1002/4098) Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 Up to 72 Hz 800 x 600 8/16/24 Up to 72 Hz 1024 x 768 8/16 Up to 72 Hz 1280 x 1024 8 Up to 72 Hz* (*) Depends on the DAC installed: ATI68875B: 60 Hz N/I ATI68875C: 74 Hz N/I Bt481: 95 Hz I Under Warp: The Windows and Win-OS2 drivers for the card seem to have problems co-existing. It's necessary to write a batch file to copy the Windows driver into place when booting straight DOS as a result. Otherwise, the card seems to run very well. (The aforementioned video problem should not be an issue with Warp+Win-OS2 when it's released.) Under 2.1/2.11: Drivers exist for all supported video modes of the card including true colour. They (version 2.1) work fairly well, although there have been problems reported with PMX and Ghostscript which did not exist with the 1.2 drivers (which have no 24 bit colour capability). This card is 8514-compatible. The latest drivers (m32v85.zip from ATIs FTP site, known as version 2.4) seem faster, but do not seem to fix the bugs above to my knowledge. ** IMPORTANT ** to avoid complete corruption of your desktop when running full-screen Win-OS2 settings, make sure you set video_switch_notification to ON (it defaults to off) for your full-screen DOS sessions and your full-screen Win-OS2 sessions. The version 2.4 drivers also introduce one new bug having to do with not all of the fonts being made small when all the spaces for the fonts are made small. If speed is important, go with the 2.4 drivers. For my own part, I see no real compelling reason to switch to the new drivers from the 2.1 drivers. Cardex Challenger* This card uses the ET4000-W32p chipset and comes with 1 MB (upgradable to 2 MB) of RAM. Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 up to 72 Hz 800 x 600 8/16/24 up to 72 Hz 1024 x 768 8/16* up to 70 Hz 1280 x 1024 8* up to 70 Hz (*) Requires 2 MB (Cardexpert Technology: 10B0/4272) Under Warp: The card is reported to work very well, with no problems and all modes supported in the 2 MB configuration. With 1 MB on the card, one person has reported problems with any resolution beyond VGA. The Warp drivers apparently do not support a hardware cursor above 256 colours. (Get the latest drivers from Tseng, which apparently fix many of these complaints.) Under 2.1/2.11: All resolutions are supported, but only at 8 bpp. Cardex Thunder64 Pro This card uses the Cirrus Logic 5434 chipset and is PCI 2.0-compliant. It takes up to 2 MB of 70 ns DRAM and has all the green functions. Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 74 Hz 800 x 600 8/16 74 Hz 800 x 600 24 60 Hz 1024 x 768 8/16 75 Hz 1280 x 1024 8 60 Hz (Cardexpert Technology: 10B0/4272) Under Warp: The card is reported to work fairly well (using the updated drivers from the IBM BBS, with only minor bugs. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support as for other Cirrus Logic cards, presumably. Diamond Viper This card uses the P9000 chipset from Weitek. I've seen a lot of futzing with this card, and I've had reports from people that it will not work with Asus SP3G motherboards (with BIOS rev. 3.12 on the card). Other people have had no problems, though. To be avoided. Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 70 Hz, 800 x 600 8/16 60, 70 Hz, 800 x 600 24 60, 72 Hz, 1024 x 768 8/16 60, 70 Hz, 1280 x 1024 8 60, 70 Hz, 1600 x 1200 8 60 Hz (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Under Warp: I've had a report of success with the card using an Intel Premiere II (90 MHz) board with the 1.00.01.AX1 (!) BIOS, except that apparently there is colour flicker (only briefly) when starting a Windows application. Under 2.1/2.11: Diamond has released version 1.02 beta drivers which fix a lot of problems with the older (1.01) drivers. They are reported trouble-free initially, provided that you remember to use the "-d" option when unzipping the driver files to disk if you use PKUnzip (Info-Zip does this automatically). Resolution change via system setup is not supported yet (this must be done via dspinstl), although refresh rates above 60Hz for higher resolutions now are. Diamond Viper Pro This is a newer version of the Viper, based around the Weitek P9100 chipset (the P9000 is in the Viper). Driver support as for the P9000, with notes and reservations as listed above. (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Genoa Phantom 2MB* This card uses an ET4000/W32p chipset. (Genoa Systems Corp.: 1047/4167) Under Warp: Driver support and refresh rates as for the Cardex Challenger. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support and refresh rates as for the Cardex Challenger. Genoa Phantom 32i* This card uses an ET4000/W32i chipset. Drivers as above for the Phantom 2MB. (Genoa Systems Corp.: 1047/4167) Hercules Dynamite* Another ET4000/W32-based card. Power Drivers/support as for the Cardex card, with the exception that rev. D of the card has problems with the Warp drivers (corrupted desktop when it is first displayed). A fix is available from IBM for this. (Tseng Labs Inc.: 100C/4108) Intel Mach32** Intel has discontinued their generic S3/928 card in favour of three new (also generic) PCI video cards. This card is very likely the best bet of the three, since it has the same chip as is in the Graphics Ultra Pro above, and ATI has drivers that work for all modes and resolutions of that card. The card also comes with the ATI68875C DAC, so you'll get good refresh rates at high resolutions and colour depths out of it. (ATI Technologies Inc.: 1002/4098) (Intel: 8086/32902) Micro Media ???* This is a card based on the S3 Technology P86C805 chipset which will, apparently, work with the IBM S3 drivers. (S3 Inc.: 5333/21299) Leadtek T200* This card can have up to 2 MB of RAM and will also hold a video capture daughterboard. The video card itself works with the current ET4000/W32p drivers. The video capature daughterboard (composite & S-VHS input and 15-pin SVGA output) is only supported under Win/3.1 at the moment, but apparently OS/2 drivers are promised "soon". There is also being developed an MPEG daughter-board for the card. Support as for the Cardex, presumably. (Leadtek Research Inc.: 107D/4221) STB LightSpeed* Another ET4000/W32p card. Driver support as for the Cardex, presumably. (STB Systems Inc.: 10B4/4276) PART TWO: Cards Requiring Third-Party Support ============================================== a) 128-bit Cards ---------------- Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ #9 Imagine 128 This is actually a family of three cards from #9. The primary difference between them is the RAMDAC they use, and the maximum amount of memory which they will accept. All cards have 128-bit internal operations and have a 128 bit path to VRAM. The 128-1280 has a 170 NHz RAMDAC, the 128-1600 has a 220 MHz RAMDAC, and a newer version of the 128-1600 has at least a 220 MHz RAMDAC (by IBM) and will accept up to 8 MB of VRAM. The other cards (with the different RAMDACs) will accept up to 4 MB of VRAM. OS/2 drivers (of reasonable quality, I'm told) are included with the card. The cards (in their various configurations) support the following resolutions and refresh rates: Resolution # of bpp refresh rate ---------------------------------------------------- 640 x 480 8/16/24 at least 100 Hz 800 x 600 8/16/24 at least 100 Hz 1024 x 768 8/16/24 at least 100 Hz 1152 x 864 8/16/24 at least 100 Hz 1280 x 1024 8/16/24 at least 100 Hz 1600 x 1200 8/16/24* 60/100 Hz+ *The 24-bit colour depth requires 8 MB of VRAM. +The 100 Hz refresh rate requires the 8 MB card with the IBM RAMDAC (Number 9 Computer Company: 105D/4189) Under OS/2 2.1/2.11: Driver status unknown. Under Warp: Drivers exist and are reported to work well, with the exception that refresh rates only apparently work up to 80 Hz for the IBM RAMDAC-based card. b) 64-bit Cards --------------- Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ #9 9FX Motion This card uses the S3/968 771** chipset and up to 4 MB of VRAM. (Number 9 Computer Company: 105D/4189) Under Warp: Drivers are available from the #9 FTP site and are reported to work well. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support is unknown, though #9 has a pretty good history of consistent OS/2 support. Check first, though. #9 GXE64 The GXE64 may or may not exist in two flavours, one of which (this one) uses the S3 Trio64 (764) chip. If you get the card which uses the Trio64 chip, make sure that OS/2 drivers come with the card to keep the driver hunt to a minimum. (Number 9 Computer Company: 105D/4189) Under Warp: Drivers are available from the Dell ftp site, apparently, though they are of unknown quality. The latest drivers from S3 (at S3's FTP site, called S3_252.zip) are also reported to work with this card. Under 2.1/2.11: There are drivers at S3's FTP site, in the file s3x6403a.zip and s3x6403b.zip. I do not know whether the video drivers are language-dependent or not, so be advised that the person who informed me of their availability is Japanese and running OS/2 2.11J. #9 GXE64Pro The GXE64Pro is based on the S3/964 chipset and will take up to 4 MB of VRAM. These cards will not work with the drivers which come with Warp. (Number 9 Computer Company: 105D/4189) Under Warp: #9 has apparently released new drivers which fix install problems. Apparently most modes of the card are supported, and the drivers are reported to work reasonably well. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support seems pretty good from #9. The drivers (the last version of which supported all modes of the card) seem to work well with few problems. DEAL OF THE WEEK: GXE 64PRO: $355 (800) 554-9950/(414) 357-7814 #9 Vision 330 This card uses the S3/764 chipset and will take up to 2 MB of DRAM. (Number 9 Computer Company: 105D/4189) Under Warp: The drivers are reported to work well with either the 1 or 2 MB versions of the card. The install process is said to be complicated but well documented. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support is unknown. Diamond Stealth 64 This card is based on the 964 VRAM chipset from S3 and will take up to 4 MB of VRAM. Under Warp: Diamond has apparently released version 1.02 drivers recently which, though not optimized, are reported to be fairly solid. MMPM/2 is reported to be unstable, however (though whether or not this is video driver-related is unknown). You may need a BIOS upgrade (to version 1.07) to get what Diamond calls "full OS/2 support". (Apparently the BIOS you get depends on where the 964 chip used in the card was manufactured -- very odd.) (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Under 2.1/2.11: Version 1.02 of the drivers are now out. No reports of success or failure with them yet, though. Diamond Stealth 64 Based on the 764 chipset from S3. This card replaces the Stealth 64 in the list above, and comes with either 1 or 2 MB of DRAM. (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Under Warp: Driver support (without ultimotion video, apparently) is available. I've had mixed reports from people using this card. For some, it works well. For others, desktop corruption results on switching from full-screen to windowed sessions. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support is unknown, though the card should work with the Warp drivers. Diamond Stealth 64 This card is based around the Video VRAM S3 Vision968 video accelerator and uses the Texas Instruments 3026 220 MHz RAMDAC. The card comes with 2 MB (upgradeable) or 4 MB (nonupgradeable) of VRAM, and has available an optional hardware MPEG/video capture daughtercard. Drivers for OS/2 2.1 and Warp are in the box (version 1.0). The 2 MB card supports all the following colour depths and resolutions (refresh rates unspecified): 256 colors: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024 65K colors: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 16.7mill colors: 640x480 (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Under 2.1/2.11: No reports. Under Warp: The card is reported to work well with the supplied drivers, although the install has some quirks: Follow the manual's instructions and when dspinstl *fails*, go in to \os2\install and copy dspinstl.sav (Warp's dspinstl.exe) over dspinstl.exe (Diamond's that has the problem). Restart dspinstl, follow the rest of the instructions and you're up and running. Note that Go95, Diamond's monitor config utility (centring, refresh etc) doesn't work properly in Warp. You *must* choose one of the pre-defined monitors since the user-defined option is disabled. In addition, if you are using this card with an AMI Atlas PCI motherboard, you may need to upgrade the BIOS to get the combination to work; AMI has a (flash) BIOS upgrade which is specific to S3-based cards. ELSA Winner 1000 This card is based on the 864 Pro PCI chipset and takes up to 2 MB of DRAM. The current drivers support 16 bpp. (Elsa GMBH: 1048/4168) ELSA Winner 2000 This card is based on the 964 Pro PCI chipset and takes up to 4 MB of VRAM. The current drivers support 16 bpp. (Elsa GMBH: 1048/4168) Hercules Stingray This card uses the ARK2000PV chip, 64/Video and will accept up to 2 MB of DRAM. (Vendor ID unknown) Under Warp: Driver support for all the 8 and 16 bpp modes of the card is there. The drivers have had a problem reported, and apparently Hercules is working on a solution. Under 2.1/2.11: The card uses the same driver as for Warp. No reports of success/failure, though. Miro Crystal 20SD* The 20SD uses the S3 864 chipset Crystal 20SV* and will take up to 2 MB of DRAM. The 20SV uses the S3 964 chipset and will take up to 4 MB of VRAM. Older versions of the 20SD may have problems setting ergonomic refresh rates. The latest revision of the 20SD supports all of the following modes/refresh rates: Resolution # of bpp Max. refresh rate ------------------------------------------------------ 640 x 480 8/16 59.9 / 60.4 800 x 600 8/16 56.0 / 75.0 1024 x 768 8/16+ 87.0* / 75.0 1152 x 864 8+ 60.0 1280 x 1024 8+ 88.6* + - indicates that 2 MB of DRAM are required. * - indicates an interlaced refresh rate. (Miro Computer Products AG: 1031/4145) Under Warp: Warp drivers for the 20SV were released January 11/95. The card is, apparently, working very nicely, with all available resolutions and modes of the cards supported, including 1152x864. One person has reported running at 1024x768x100 Hz (colour depth unspecified, however). Drivers for the card may be found at ftp.leo.org, in the directory /comp/os/os2/drivers/display Under OS/2 2.1/2.11: One person has reported getting 1280x1024x8bpp at 72 Hz with the 20SD card, and the drivers are reported to work well. (How this was accomplished given the card specifications above is a bit of a mystery, though.) Orchid Fahrenheit This card takes up to 4 MB of VRAM Pro 64 and uses the S3/964 chipset. (S3 Inc.: 5333/21299) Under Warp: Driver support is reported to be poor, as the drivers provided routinely lose synch and do not display the correct colours. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support as for other 964-based cards, presumably. (i.e. only 16-bit) S3 Vision868* This card, as the model name implies, uses the 868 chip from S3. The card (I believe) uses DRAM (up to 2 MB). (S3 Inc.: 5333/21299) Under Warp: Driver support is in place, and the drivers are reported to work well. Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support unknown, though drivers for the 864 cards (which were 8-bpp only for 2.1) should work with the card. Spea Mirage P64* Also based on the new 864 chipset from S3. The card will take up to 2 MB of DRAM. Resolution # of bpp Max. refresh rate ------------------------------------------------------ 640 x 480 8/16/24 100/100/95 800 x 600 8/16/24 100/101/73 1024 x 768 8/16* 100/79 1152 x 864 8* 76 1280 x 1024 8* 75 (*) Indicates that 2 MB of DRAM is required. (Spea Software AG: 1017/4119) Under Warp: The latest drivers are called osmip204.zip on the Spea BBS. They explicitely support Warp, all resolutions, high refresh rates and work flawlessly. There's also a tool included to switch resolutions, color-depths, and refresh rates under PM. Under 2.1/2.11: The latest drivers are version 2.04 (osmip204.zip). As noted above, the drivers support all modes of the card and high refresh rates. STB Velocity64V This card is based on the S3/968 chip and will take up to 4 MB of VRAM. (STB Systems Inc.: 10B4/4276) Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support unknown. Under Warp: Drivers come with the card, but I've had no direct reports of success with the card. (I have had one indirect report.) c) 32-bit Cards --------------- Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ Diamond Stealth 32 This card uses the ET4000/W32 chipset, but will apparently not work with the W32 drivers in Warp. (Diamond Computer Systems: 1092/4242) Under Warp: Presumably the OS/2 2.1/2.11 drivers will work with this card, though I've had no reports of success. Under 2.1/2.11: Support for this chipset is limited to 8 bit colour. Diamond has released what appear to be drivers of reasonable quality for the 8-bpp modes of this card. Given Diamond's track record with drivers, though, I don't think I'll recommend it until they have proven they'll keep on supporting OS/2 for a while. Deal of the week: $195 from TC Computers, (800) 723-8282 ELSA Winner 1000* This card is based on the S3 928 chipset and comes with either 1 or 2 MB VRAM. This card will not work with the IBM S3 drivers. (Elsa GMBH: 1048/4168) Under Warp: Presumably the 2.1/2.11 drivers will work with this card, though I've had no reports of success. Under 2.1/2.11: Make sure you have the latest install/driver disks for this card to get all the available modes of the card which, in its 1 MB configuration, will do up to 1280x1024x4bit at 60 Hz N/I. Lower resolutions offer more colours and higher refresh rates. Hercules Stingray Pro This card uses the ARK Logic ARK1000PV chip, and will accept up to 1 MB of DRAM only. Under Warp: Provided you get the latest drivers from the Hercules FTP site (the Warp drivers are at revision 2), the card is reported to work fairly well. Support for all of the 8 and 16 bpp modes of the card is provided, with a future driver release supporting all 24 bpp modes as well (though the release date for these drivers is undetermined). It's interesting to note that this card and the Stingray 64 use the same driver. (Vendor ID unknown) Under 2.1/2.11: The card uses the same driver for Warp and for 2.1/2.11, though I've no reports of success/failure here. Miro Crystal 10SD* This is another card based on the S3/805i chipset. (Miro Computer Products AG: 1031/4145) Under Warp: The IBM S3 drivers are reported to work very well with it. Under 2.1/2.11: The IBM S3 drivers are reported to work well with it, although drivers specific to the card are available on on cdrom.com in /pub/os2/2_1/drivers, as file miro110.zip. Spea Mercury LITE This is supposed to be based on the S3 928 chipset. Successful installation requires that the V7MIRVBE TSR be installed in the full-screen DOS session from which SVGA is run so that the SVGA program will detect the card properly. (Spea Software AG: 1017/4119) Under Warp: This card is *not* supported by IBM, but is supported by native drivers from SPEA. Driver installation is reported to be much improved over older versions, as the need for V7MERVBE is gone. SPEA delivers an installation tool called V7setup.exe which will set resolution and refresh rate in an OS/2 sesssion. Rebooting will start the card with those settings. Under 2.1/2.11: The Warp drivers and tools should work with it. c) Other cards -------------- Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ Diamond Flower Inc. WG-1010P This card apparently uses the SIS SG86C201 chipset and takes up to 2 MB of DRAM (Fujitsu 814260-70 is recommended). There is a jumper for PCI bus interrupt select (A - D, though what the card does with the interrupts I'm not sure), which apparently is shipped from the factory open (the card does not use an interrupt, I would guess). (Vendor ID unknown) Under Warp: The card has drivers which are alleged to work with Warp, but the install procedure fails in a manner similar to the Diamond Video VRAM cards (with a similar remedy, I suppose). Under 2.1/2.11: Driver support is unknown, though the Warp drivers will likely work. Hercules Stingray This card uses the Avance Logic 2301 chipset and comes with 1 MB RAM. (Vendor ID unknown) Under Warp: Video support is unknown, though 2.1/2.11 drivers should work with it. Under 2.1/2.11: Beta OS/2 drivers are available for the Express (below), which should presumably work with this card as well. STB Express Another card with the Avante 2301 chipset. (STB Systems Inc.: 10B4/4276) Under Warp: Video support is unknown, though the drivers for 2.1/2.11 should work with it. Under 2.1/2.11: Beta drivers are available for this card which apparently are fairly stable. One bug reported is that in seamless Win-OS/2, when the mouse pointer is clicked, the click does not occur where the mouse pointer is, but seems to be down and to the right of the pointer. This has apparently been reported to IBM and is being investigated (though I'm not sure by whom). d) Just say no... Manufacturer Model Comments ------------------------------------------------------ Intel PCIMGAII The last (and certainly least where OS/2 is concerned) generic Intel offering is based on the MGA-II chip from Matrox. Beware, as explained below. (Intel: 8086/32902) (Matrox: 102B/4139) Matrox New drivers (version 2.0) supporting 24 bit colour are finally out for the Matrox cards, and are reported to work reasonably well. However, given the length of time it took to actually produce the drivers and the mediocrity of the drivers resulting from the effort (some cards are _still_ unsupported), I still maintain that this is a card with a message on it, and the message is: "Beware. This is not a card for buying; this is a card for laying down and avoiding." Given my (rather horrid) experiences with the MGA II, and the reports of others who have mailed their troubles to me and what I've seen on the .net, I'm not recommending it. Maybe ever. (Matrox: 102B/4139) There's what I know. Please E-Mail suggestions/corrections and I'll post again. -- Patrick Duffy, duffy@theory.chem.ubc.ca -- I am Homer of Borg. Resistance is fu-- mmmmm... donuts...