I'd opt for authenticity whenever I could. I find it more than embarassing to see people maxing out their system specs - then play your shit in Dosbox entirely, is my usual advice when I see people complaining about 386/486 (graphics) performance.

Although, admittedly an upgrade of a video card is rather common when it is somehow contemporary but when I see 486 with 32 MB RAM, 4 MB VLB cards + Voodoo I just have to puke...

Returning to your specific case: Assuming money is not a problem and there is no personal need for such graphics power an ET4000C could theoretically provide I would consider using the authentic hardware. Most 386 can't even make good use out of anything that kicks a sluggish old ET3000 anyway...

No one can answer that but you. I think you're not quite there yet, if you asking.

Personally I can live with new PSUs and slightly OP optical drives and HDDs, but that's about it. Took me a year an a half of this hobby to put most of the picture together.

However, if this card is something you like - grab it regardless. Buyer's remorse is nothing compared with a feeling of a missed opportunity.

blurks wrote:

Although, admittedly an upgrade of a video card is rather common when it is somehow contemporary but when I see 486 with 32 MB RAM, 4 MB VLB cards + Voodoo I just have to puke...

Weeeeell... What other system than a 486 would've used a 4MB VLB graphic card?

Personally I have no beef with people building high end, period correct systems today. I mean, if we'd had the means back then, we'd most likely have been sporting ATI Mach64 4MB graphics cards, AWE32 or other relatively "high end" sound cards, and tons of RAM... Oh, and let's not forget cached SCSI controllers. Oh, and the MT-32 and SC55 would've been obligatory as well. It was only a matter of money that kept most of us from having that kind of hardware.

What I don't get though, is the whole thing with running MS-DOS on way, way, way too modern systems to run DOS games at inflated resolutions, using hacked executables or edited CFG files, and 60+fps. I mean, that isn't what DOS gaming is all about. Then you may as well just run DOSBox and not have to worry about hardware at all.

486 with 32MB RAM? Amateur! 15 years ago I was running one with more than that, I found one that would take 128MB 72p FP SIMMs and did 256 MB 😜 (also installed Windows XP on the system using a PODP83, then clocked it down to 16MHz for the most pointlessly slow experience I could generate 😵 ).

I do both authenticity and power, having some highly authentic Olivetti XT systems, but also a ludicrously upgraded Pentium 3 Packard Bell - not to mention a pretty standard P133 system fitted with four sound cards - something you wouldn't have done back in 1996 either.

Bottom line: nothing related to vintage computing is truly rational, so we're doing this shit for the fun of it. If you derive fun from complete authenticity, do that. If you derive fun from maxxing out builds in a way you could never have afforded in the day, do that. If you enjoy something else, do whatever that is. So long as it doesn't mean destroying the hardware involved, I don't think anyone else is entitled to tell you anything at all about what you should and shouldn't be doing; the only opinions you're really entitled to is whether what you're choosing actually fits with your own stated goals.

Dosbox is virtualisation, not the same thing at all, I have no interest in it. I like period correct (and realist) but I also like to be able to run games on a time machine type system that will cater for extended eras and provide the best possible gaming experience. My main system has a mixture of componennts from 1988 to 2018 and works amazingly well, playing for example Ultima 7 beter than it did on the 486 DX33 I had in 92. Eaxh to his own.

dionb wrote:

486 with 32MB RAM? Amateur! 15 years ago I was running one with more than that, I found one that would take 128MB 72p FP SIMMs and did 256 MB 😜 (also installed Windows XP on the system using a PODP83, then clocked it down to 16MHz for the most pointlessly slow experience I could generate 😵 ).

That is so pointless it is funny again! 😁

But no one beats Windows XP on 7 MHz: https://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini.htm

blurks wrote:

[...]
That is so pointless it is funny again! 😁

But no one beats Windows XP on 7 MHz: https://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini.htm

Yep, my setup was basically the 16MHz he did there - not 100% sure, but probably also a late SiS 486 chipset - just with more RAM. Tempted to start looking for an Overdrive now to see if I could drop even lower - replacing the clock crystal on a fairly early 486 board with one from an XT might just do the trick... 😎

^^

This sort of nonsense is of course one of the other kinds of fun you can have with retro hardware.

Your graphics card is period-correct enough for a 386. Unless you have the matching keyboard, monitor, case stickers, manuals, floppies etc and you're aiming to 100% authentic (which would admittedly raise the value a lot), I wouldn't bother.

I got curious and searched on eBay. If it is the card I think... Yowza! That's one expensive piece of hardware. Sure, if you've got an excess of money, and would enjoy simply owning it, then go for it. If you're mainly interested in having a working system, then I'd say save the money for later.

LunarG wrote:

I got curious and searched on eBay. If it is the card I think... Yowza! That's one expensive piece of hardware. Sure, if you've got an excess of money, and would enjoy simply owning it, then go for it. If you're mainly interested in having a working system, then I'd say save the money for later.

Hah! You may have just saved me some money. The one I saw with the book was ~110 Euros, or £93 + shipping. I just checked ebay and you are correct, there is indeed one on Ebay, but I'm guessing we are looking at different cards, as the one on Ebay is £20 with free shipping.

konc wrote:

Your graphics card is period-correct enough for a 386. Unless you have the matching keyboard, monitor, case stickers, manuals, floppies etc and you're aiming to 100% authentic (which would admittedly raise the value a lot), I wouldn't bother.

I'm pretty much there TBH. To the point I'm on the hunt for a Compaq-branded mousemat, and I'm ordering a replacement 26-pin 3.5" floppy drive to replace the broken one so I can continue to use the breakout board.

---

Edit: WAS £20 with free shipping 😉

Edit 2: What card were you looking at LunarG?

I like authenticity to a point but I'm not slavish about it. In your situation I'd stick with what you have personally.

My stance for the most part is GIMME MOAR POWER!!! unless I am dealing with software or hardware that is speed sensitive.

Only "stock" stuff I have are some laptops and even then I will probably be using something to be able to add a PCI video card and a PCMCIA sound card and also replace the spinning rust with an SSD which I have already done to a few of them.

Vaudane wrote:

Hah! You may have just saved me some money. The one I saw with the book was ~110 Euros, or £93 + shipping. I just checked ebay a […]
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LunarG wrote:

I got curious and searched on eBay. If it is the card I think... Yowza! That's one expensive piece of hardware. Sure, if you've got an excess of money, and would enjoy simply owning it, then go for it. If you're mainly interested in having a working system, then I'd say save the money for later.

Hah! You may have just saved me some money. The one I saw with the book was ~110 Euros, or £93 + shipping. I just checked ebay and you are correct, there is indeed one on Ebay, but I'm guessing we are looking at different cards, as the one on Ebay is £20 with free shipping.

konc wrote:

Your graphics card is period-correct enough for a 386. Unless you have the matching keyboard, monitor, case stickers, manuals, floppies etc and you're aiming to 100% authentic (which would admittedly raise the value a lot), I wouldn't bother.

I'm pretty much there TBH. To the point I'm on the hunt for a Compaq-branded mousemat, and I'm ordering a replacement 26-pin 3.5" floppy drive to replace the broken one so I can continue to use the breakout board.

---

Edit: WAS £20 with free shipping 😉

Edit 2: What card were you looking at LunarG?

I was looking at the Compaq Advanced Graphics 1024, brand new with manual, costing a cool €130. Dutch seller.
I guess that wasn't the type of card you were looking at then? ^^

You could buy the authentic card just to have (and perhaps to keep as a spare), but also keep the ET4000C in there and treat it as an upgrade. After all, people still mostly upgraded their machines back then. Not like the current modern-day nonsense where [devolves into rant about soldered CPUs, cases that are glued closed, etc].

Short answer is: It only matters what you want. You're going to have people telling you it's blasphemy to alter the OEM condition even a little. Others are hot-rodding, overclocking, benchmarking, and trying everything they can to make their "technically still a" 486 run like a Pentium 166.

I say, if you want a Pentium, build a Pentium. A 386 isn't supposed to be fast. It's a 386. That's not what they do.

OTOH, if you're planning to run Windows on that thing, 512KB is a nearly pointless amount of video RAM. I guess that's where I become a hypocrite, because I have no desire to live in 640x480 when I could opt for a slightly more exotic card and have 1024x768 @ 16-bit color. It all depends on what you want to do with it. I have aspirations to start writing DOS and early Windows code, so I need more pixels, and don't want to settle for an 8-bit palette. If all I were doing is playing DOS games, well... 320x240x256 is enough for anyone, and 386s don't need fast video chips bogged down by slow busses, so you may as well go for period-correct if you're already almost there.

All opinions, not dogma, of course.

I tend towards authenticity for everything *except* the GPU. This is mainly a 3D thing, but most GPUs of the day struggle to play games of the same era with max settings, and the ones that do tend to become rare, expensive albatross parts for the vintage collector. On the other hand, if you are willing to step the GPU forward a generation or two, a mid-range card from a subsequent generation will smash any came from the era you are targeting. The main problem is the late Win98 era with the switchover from AGP to PCIe...you are basically stuck with the top end AGP cards like FX5900Ultra, as later cards either don't have AGP or don't support certain DX6 features.

To each their own, but my computers have never been a static configuration. I see no reason why vintage builds should be either.

When living thru the 486 era- My new 1992 pc started as a 486sx-33, 4mb ram, 170mb hard drive and by the end of 1995 it was a 486dx4-100, 12mb ram, 540mb hard drive.

If I owned that DX4-100 now, I'd probably still have ebay alerts checking for Pentium Overdrive or K5-133 chips. I've always wanted my PC's to achieve their full potential, when practical.

I think if you've got something NIB from 1989 with full kit then you should keep it original (or trade it for even more parts), if it's well-used or scratch-built then you can do whatever you like.

I'm still trying to find the right small colorful RGB gaming case for a "386/486 LAN Party" build idea I have.

My XP machine is a USFF i3 Optiplex.

I got a Dell 3520 case I'm hoping to put a new i7 in as my new gaming machine.

Oddly enough I'm mostly leaving my car the way I bought it, weird.

Get the card authentic card and enjoy both. Some people get pleasure out 100% OEM computers and cars and some love to max them out and create "sleepers." Ask yourself where you side. Maybe it's both.

My opinion is that PCs are meant to be upgraded and that "period correctness" is a fallacy. But I come from a cobble your PC yourself world. Yet even Compaqs have slots and cards that are interchangeable for upgradeability and repairability. Back in the day, we used to upgrade our PCs specs as much as we could, and we still do it today. For example I been using an i7-3770 with a 660 Ti video card for six years or more and upgraded only upgrade the video card to a 1080 last August. I've also upgraded the SSDs and will mod the BIOS so I can boot from NVMe. That's certainly not authentic or period correct for a 2012 PC.