CompuServe Messages

I am considering buying a new video card. I know all about the new 64-bit video cards (matrox, ati, #9, etc.) I also know about that the best cards nowadays are for the vesa and pci buses. However, i am upgrading the card on my old isa machine so I won't be able to buy one of them. What is a good isa card? I will be using windows alot but i also need good speed for dos (all my dos based games <G>). I will be spending ALOT of time in 3d studio and autocad, modelling and rendering. One of my main questions is: Should I buy a standard accelerator card (e.g. Ati Graphics Turbo) or should I spend a bit more to buy a card with 3d acceleration (e.g. Matrox Impression Pro)? If I decide to buy a 3d accelerated card, I won't be buying the $1000+ cards; I'll wait until i see some compuserve member selling a used one <G>. What is the actual speed increase if i use a 3d accelerated card? I heard in CADENCE that Autocad 12 Render took 12 hours to render a picture without a 3d card but it took less that 5 minutes with a 3d card. Is that true? How is it with 3DS? Someone told me that rendering speed will not increase. Is that true? I think that if the rendering speed will not increase, it will still be a good deal because I can use Pavel K.'s SANDRA to do realtime previews, which I think will save me alot more time than if rendering time was shorter. Can anyone answer these questions or give any advice? Thanks in advance. Anthony.