Not Mac: Orchid Kelvin 64 MPEG VBA video card

#1 Sat, 28 Sep 2013 - 05:56

Found this puppy at the local recycler. Or rather, my brother found it. Orchid Kelvin 64 MPEG VBA/VESA video card. 2MB memory and has an MPEG decoder on it. Not too shabby for a DOS video card.

I'll be using this puppy in my DOS gaming rig.

#2 Sat, 28 Sep 2013 - 09:01

That card will be a cracker, make sure it is coupled with your finest 486 DX4-100! From vague memory is the Tseng Labs ET4000/6000 the fastest VLB card you can get?

#3 Sat, 28 Sep 2013 - 16:33

Fastest depends on color depth and resolution. My fastest VLB were high end S3 cards with 4MB of RAM, fastest at 24 bit was probably a Matrox card that is a mile long.

#4 Sun, 29 Sep 2013 - 02:37

Holy crap that's a crowded VESA card.

I see two additional VRAM pads. Try soldering in more and see if you can upgrade to 4mb.

#5 Sun, 29 Sep 2013 - 03:02

Cool!

#6 Sun, 29 Sep 2013 - 05:56

Mine is already 2MB. The one with the open sockets is the 1MB version, which you can upgrade to 2MB. Unfortunately you can't get 4MB on this card.

Here's mine:

#7 Sun, 29 Sep 2013 - 06:02

It does have a feature connector. Supposedly I can expand the function of the video card.

#8 Sun, 29 Sep 2013 - 19:09

Usually you attached an MPEG card through the VFC however that's integrated. You can however attach a tuner, frame grabber or perhaps budget in for a VFX1.

#9 Sun, 29 Sep 2013 - 20:32

The VESA connector was used mostly for overlay cards (CAD, video capture) to dump video to the primary card.