Retro Review: Tseng Labs ET4000AX Part 3

11th November 2022

In part 2 I ran some synthetic benchmarks on this SVGA card from 1991 (though it's really 1989 tech). In part 3, I will record some videos of games running on the ET4000, and on other cards that were around a similar timeframe of 1989-1991. Again, this is on a PC that's way ahead of the time period for the card and that is by design, so the card is not being throttled by any other components.

To begin with, let's see how it runs some 1989 and 1990 games, coupled with a middle-of-the-road 386DX-25.

F-15 Strike Eagle II (MicroProse, 1990)
This games runs really well on a 386DX-25 with full graphics detail, very smooth with no graphical glitches. 
Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (Electronic Arts, 1989)
Indy 500 runs at a good clip - this is running at maximum detail, but does seem to suffer an incorrect cyan fill on the track at regular intervals.
 
Test Drive 3: The Passion (Accolade, 1990)
TD3 requires a slow 386 due to its CPU speed sensitivity - a 386SX-25 is about right with full detail enabled. The Tseng runs this game very well.
 
Midwinter (MicroProse, 1990)
A game that does drop frames to keep the game's pace up when you're outside, so definitely good for a middling 386, not a fast 286. On 486 systems it will run too fast.

 

ET4000 Downloads

For a full list of Tseng Labs downloads, please click here.

Windows 3.0 / 3.0a Driver 15th January 1992 Supports resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 (up to 256 colours) and 1280x1024 (up to 16 colours)/ With Hicolor DAC 640x480 can display up to 64,000 colours.	Windows 3.1 Driver 16th April 1992 Supports resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 (up to 256 colours) and 1280x1024 (up to 16 colours). With Hicolor DAC 800x600 can display up to 64,000 colours. Note: HiColor and TrueColor modes will not work in Windows 3.0, but 256-colour mode does work.	Windows 3.1 Driver 1st March 1993 Supports resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 (up to 256 colours) and 1280x1024 (up to 16 colours). With Hicolor DAC 800x600 can display up to 64,000 colours.
Windows 3.1 Driver 18th April 1994 For ET4000/AX, ET4000/W32i and ET4000/W32p cards. Supports resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 (up to 256 colours) and 1280x1024 (up to 256 colours). With Hicolor DAC 800x600 can display up to 64,000 colours. Note: HiColor and TrueColor modes will not work in Windows 3.0, but 256-colour mode does work.	Windows 3.1 Driver 8th December 1994 Supports resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 (up to 256 colours) and 1280x1024 (up to 16 colours). With Hicolor DAC 800x600 can display up to 64,000 colours.	Windows NT 3.1 Driver 4th March 1994 Supports resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768. Possibly for W32 cards only(?).
VESA 1.2 Driver 8th May 1996 For ET3000 and ET4000 cards, a TSR that provides VESA VBE (Video BIOS Extensions) v1.2.	Utility Driver Disk 8th May 1996 ET4000 and W32 family generic utility/driver disk. Use the -d option when unzipping	Windows 3.1 / 3.11 VESA SVGA Patch 19th December 1994 Patches the SVGA256.DRV to make it VESA-compliant. Works on a number of graphics cards of this era where you cannot find a driver for your own specific graphics card. Tseng ET4000 is one that it supports, as well as Trident 8900C, CL-GD542x, ATI 18800/28800, Video 7/Headland GC205/208/209 and Paradise/WD PVGA1A and WD90C00, . The original SVGA256.DRV is included in Windows 3.11 (WFW), but the driver itself can be downloaded from the net from various places (do a search for SVGA.EXE).