Trident TGUI9440
The TGUI9440 was Trident's first graphics chipset for the PCI bus, arriving in 1994.
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Released | Late 1994-1996 |
| Bus | PCI or VESA Local Bus. ISA 16-bit on some variants. |
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| Standards | MDA, Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA | |
| Memory | 512 KB, 1 MB, or 2 MB (45ns-80ns FPM or EDO DRAM) |
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| RAMDAC | Internal (108 MHz) (Likely to be their own TKD8001) |
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| See Also | Trident TVGA9000 Series Trident TGUI9660 / TGUI9680 |
The TGUI9440 was a "GUI Accelerator", supporting FPM or EDO DRAM memory from as fast as 45ns down to 80ns on a 64-bit memory bus. The 9440 series added linear addressing for faster performance. The chip itself also got an integrated 24-bit TrueColor DAC.
It supported resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 in 256 colours, 1024 x 768 in 64,000 colours, or 640 x 480 in 16.7 million colours.
On the acceleration side, it had hardware support for BitBLT, image and text transfers, line draws, short stroke vector draws, rectangle fills, and polygon fills.
Cards that are known to use this chipset include:
- Trident Microsystems PT-540 (FCC ID: HNG94DGIBDS4TPX)
- Trident Microsysttems HK7389 (FCC ID: HNG944AGIBDS2TPA1)
- Trident Microsystems 7379 PCI Bus Evaluation Board (with TGUI9440 AGi)
- Union TWN7389 (unknown FCC ID)
- SST-9440 PCI (unknown FCC ID)
- VL46A/V3 (unknown FCC ID)
- VL 46C/V2 (unknown FCC ID)
- 8247F/R2 (unknown FCC ID)
- Unknown TVGA9440-AGI card with model #PB-TD9440VL/SOJ/SMT/V2 (also 430-02003-703)
Variants
The Trident TGUI9440 chipset came in four variants in its lifetime. All 9440 variants are based on what Trident called TGUI9440AGi, which is the name given to the core architecture. Some ICs may be marked 'AGi' which could be early prototypes or just early released versions.
The first, TGUI9440 came in a 208-pin PQFP package.
TGUI9440-1 soon arrived with minor internal tweaks to the silicon. The "-1" suffix indicates a later mask revision which often targeted minor bug fixes, improved signal timings, or enhanced compatibility with specific motherboard chipsets rather than performance gains.
It was followed with the TGUI9440-2, also called TGUI9440-R, in 1996. The design of the TGUI9440-2 was a radical departure from the -1 variant, with its main focus on cost-reduction. It had its 32 KB VGA ROM BIOS now integrated inside the chip, and came in a 160-pin PQFP package. This revision lacked support for the ISA bus.
The last variant produced, TGUI9440-3, arrived in late 1996, re-adding support for the ISA bus - a strange decision since the TGUI9440 was designed as a 32-bit Windows accelerator, and they don't accelerate much of anything when hamstrung by the slower 16-bit ISA bus. TGUI9440 cards that solely use the ISA bus are quite rare.
There was also a TGUI9440CXi. CXi usually denotes a specific or 'custom' board layout or internal feature set, so CXi ICs may have been slightly different to the standard TGUI9440 as require different drivers. I understand this variant added a hardware cursor.
Competition
In 1995 the TGUI9440 competed directly with other low-cost 2D graphics accelerators such as the S3 Trio32 (a cut-down 32-bit version of their Trio64), Cirrus Logic excellent CL-GD5428 and CL-GD5429 (both VESA Local Bus 2 MB chipsets), and Tseng Labs ET4000/W32p which had been popular since 1992. The TGUI9440 also proved to be very popular, offering performance that often just nudged ahead of its competitors and at a lower price point.
With the introduction of the Pentium in 1994, the fact the TGUI9440 natively supported both the VESA Local Bus and PCI bus gave it longevity and flexibility across a time when consumers were moving from clock-doubled/tripled 486s to the new Pentium.
There was much more competition slightly higher up the price range, with S3's chipsets cornering the cheap-to-mid-range 2D accelerator market with their Vision964 / Vision968 in 1994, and their ViRGE which came out in 1995.
In the Media
The TGUI9440 has very little coverage in publications of the era.
Setting it Up
Downloads
TGUI9440 Datasheet Trident TGUI9440 Graphics Accelerator datasheet |
TVGAUTIL DOS Utilities
TVGAUTIL (DOS) drivers for 9440 series |
Windows 3.1 Drivers
Non-Accelerated Windows 3.1 drivers for 94xx Linear Addressing Trident cards. Also includes drivers for AGi variants. |
Windows 95 Beta Driver
Non-Accelerated Windows 95 driver for 9420DGI VL/PCI, 9440VXi VL, and 9440 AGi VL. Also works on 8900C, 8900CL, 8900D, and 9000i. |
Windows 95 / 98 Drivers
Windows 95/98 drivers for Trident Accelerator ISA/VL, 9320 PCI, 9440 PCI, and 9660/968x/938x/978x PCI. |
Windows NT 3.51 Drivers
Windows NT 3.51 drivers for Trident 93xx/9440/9470/96xx |
More Pictures
A Trident HK7389 PCI card with TGUI9440 and 1 MB of video memory (FCC ID: HNG944AGIBDS2TPA1)
Part #PB-TD9440PCI/SMT/V4 (S4.2)
Trident
Microsystems PT-540 PCI card with TGUI9440-1 and 512 KB of Fast Page Mode memory (FCC ID: HNG94DGIBDS4TPA1)
A TGUI9440-1 PCI card with 2 MB of video memory (unknown FCC ID)
A Trident TVGA9440 VESA Local Bus card with TGUI9440-1 chipset.