deepthaw wrote on 2023-04-20, 22:23:

Are Trio3Ds good alternative to Virge cards? AGP Trio3D cards are pretty darned cheap. Looking for DOS/W3.1/9x. I recall running a Trio3D as my 2D card to go with my Voodoo2 back in the day and finding it worked fine for that.

If it is the Trio3D/2X, yes, and comes with a large amount of VESA video modes. The only issues are that S3D compatibility is non-existent (not a big deal) and has some performance issues with Build-based games which fortunately, I have a workaround involving UniVBE.

In addition, I recommend using S3VBEFIX with those cards in pure DOS or MS-DOS mode.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-04-20, 22:34:

deepthaw wrote on 2023-04-20, 22:23:

Are Trio3Ds good alternative to Virge cards? AGP Trio3D cards are pretty darned cheap. Looking for DOS/W3.1/9x. I recall running a Trio3D as my 2D card to go with my Voodoo2 back in the day and finding it worked fine for that.

If it is the Trio3D/2X, yes, and comes with a large amount of VESA video modes. The only issues are that S3D compatibility is non-existent (not a big deal) and has some performance issues with Build-based games which fortunately, I have a workaround involving UniVBE.

In addition, I recommend using S3VBEFIX with those cards in pure DOS or MS-DOS mode.

Thanks - I have one ordered. Odd question - I notice the ROM (I assume) on these is often socketed. Has anybody put out replacement ROMs so that we don’t need TSRs to patch some of the bugs? Probably overkill given that any game that needs the fixes probably doesn’t care about the memory a TSR takes up but still interesting.

deepthaw wrote on 2023-04-20, 23:26:

Odd question - I notice the ROM (I assume) on these is often socketed. Has anybody put out replacement ROMs so that we don’t need TSRs to patch some of the bugs? Probably overkill given that any game that needs the fixes probably doesn’t care about the memory a TSR takes up but still interesting.

Only to fix the brightness bug found in several S3 video cards permanently. The same link also mentions a simple software that does the same thing for the S3 Trio3D/2X without taking any memory.

CL 5446 is a great card for DOS. Both speed and compatibility. Very good luck is to find a 4MB version of this card.

Are later ATI cards (the X800 series in specific) really that bad for DOS? What issues do they have and can they be fixed? I only want to know as my Athlon 64 build with 98/XP has an X800 XT on AGP and I would like to play games like Wolf 3D, DOOM, build games like Duke and Shadow Warrior, maybe others if they interest me. I am not opposed to building a second PC for early 90s games as I know they are very very picky on what they will run on due to how unstandardized DOS software was.

bobsmith wrote on 2023-05-03, 13:41:

Are later ATI cards (the X800 series in specific) really that bad for DOS? What issues do they have and can they be fixed? I only want to know as my Athlon 64 build with 98/XP has an X800 XT on AGP and I would like to play games like Wolf 3D, DOOM, build games like Duke and Shadow Warrior, maybe others if they interest me. I am not opposed to building a second PC for early 90s games as I know they are very very picky on what they will run on due to how unstandardized DOS software was.

Those games should run fine IIRC, most well built later DOS games shouldn't have an issue. It's some 'unstandard' games like Commander Keen that has a scrolling issue (can see some examples here, under 'Radeon DDR'). You shouldn't need to load any VESA drivers. You also might have an issue with getting sound to work on hardware like that, depending on the environment and card that you have.

I had issues with my old 9800 Pro (long gone) trying to get VESA mode stuff running for a while but haven't been able to replicate it with my x850 which leads me to believe it was some other hardware incompatibility at the time.

Win 3.1 above VGA 16 colors will pretty much be a no-go unless you're able to magically get the 'standard' SVGA driver to work. I never have, not once.

Early DX5 and older Win95 titles may have problems because of missing features like table fog and driver issues.

If you've got the hardware already, try it all out and see what happens.

on this topic .. does anyone know about the machspeed vga gui2300 ? It has a vga and what appears to be a parallel port, This is a isa card with the extended board that would plug into the brown slot beside the isa slot.

New guy here. I have bumbled around some of the threads and not found the configuration info I am looking for, so hoping someone can advise. I've got a Pentium MMX chip and Intel AN430TX motherboard incoming. I want a good but not super expensive (i.e., Voodoo) graphics card. Has to be PCI or ISA. I ordered an nVidia GeForce 2, and wondering if a Diamond Speedstar 24X would be better, worse, about the same?

I don't have specific plans to run any fancy games, but would like to leave the option open to use some graphical software if needed. I am planning on MS-DOS 6.22 and DESQview/X. Trying to go without a Windows install, if I possibly can.

Ive used a virge dx but my p233 currently has a pci quadro 280, so basically an fx5200. Ive got windows 3.11 in 1280x1024 in true colour, works fine under windows 95 as well.
So you should be ok with a geforce 2 using the driver from Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and NVidia FX 5200? as I think thats the one I used.

I really love the MGA G450/550 AGP LP passive.
- works quite well in Dos
- native Warp4 driver with WinOS/2 support. (so truecolor in Win3x!)
- native acceleration in Amithlon
- WinNT/9X/2K/XP etc. support

Not fast, no TnL no S3tc, no PS, but great image quality.
Keep in mind that openGL does not support v-sync on these.

broderguy wrote on 2023-09-27, 21:32:

I've got a Pentium MMX chip and Intel AN430TX motherboard incoming. I want a good but not super expensive (i.e., Voodoo) graphics card. Has to be PCI or ISA. I ordered an nVidia GeForce 2, and wondering if a Diamond Speedstar 24X would be better, worse, about the same?

I don't have specific plans to run any fancy games, but would like to leave the option open to use some graphical software if needed. I am planning on MS-DOS 6.22 and DESQview/X. Trying to go without a Windows install, if I possibly can.

Two thoughts:

1) I had a Speedstar 24x back in the day with a 486-33. It worked well enough for dos and 1024x768x8bit color windows 3.1 and overall seemed like a good option considering that my system didn't have PCI or VLB. The down side was that Diamond did some proprietary ramdac tweaks on the board that didn't always play nice with generic WD90C31 drivers. This got frustrating when I wanted to do OS/2. I was hunting for working Diamond specific drivers for a long time and many hours were spent tweaking generic drivers to get them to synch as resolutions > 640x480. I eventually I got so frustrated that I spent the money for an ISA ATI Mach32 that was just much more compatible with non-windows Gui's. Maybe the Speedstar 24x driver situation improved in the last 35 years . Sometimes what was frustrating or buggy at the time became trivial once the good drivers came out.

2) Seems like an ISA Speedstar 24x might be a little old for a Pentium MMX. A PCI based S3 Virge, Matrox or ATI Rage with 2 or 4MB of ram would be more in line with what I used at the time. But if your Geforce 2 works, go with that. I'm assuming you got a Geforce 2 MX, right?

Hi, I'm newbe. I wanted to complete my retropc and I'm in doubt about which video card to buy.
ASUS A7V400MX-SE Socket A
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 400Mhz
512MB RAM (1 bank)
Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital SB0220 (dosdriver works perfectly)

Other than I've various VGA: Geforce 2 MX400, Ati Radeon 9250, Ati Radeon 7000, nVidia Geforce 6800, Riva TNT2 and an old RAGE All In Wonder.

The goal is to make a retro game PC with Windows 98SE (and few DOS games) at 1024x768 on a CRT monitor with Antialias 4x & Anisotropic 8x at stable 60 or 75Hz FPS with vsync always when possible.!

Unfortunately none of these video cards satisfy me: the nvidia 6800 driver are craps and don't run games with up to DX7 like unreal or unreal tournament (1 FPS in directx mode), Thief1\2 won't even start missions, and so on... shutdown and standby is messy...in short nvidia 6800 is unusable with win98.

The Geforce 2 MX400 works like a charme but is slow, so I replaced with the Ati 9250 gaining a good performance (tablefog regfix with thief2 is acceptable, I also like the increased fog); but with AA & AF the performance drops too low.

Reading on the forum, expecially in the Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures, I got the idea that a Radeon 9700 or 9800 could be an excellent video card to maximize performance and compatibility. Can a Radeon 9800 be the solution? Will that card allow me to play @60FPS vsync 4xaa + af, for example, with unreal or half-life or thief 2? And for DOS games?

I don't have any Radeon 9700\9800. I'll have to buy it. Do you think it would be a good choice for my needs?

usermame wrote on 2023-10-18, 17:33:

Hi, I'm newbe. I wanted to complete my retropc and I'm in doubt about which video card to buy. ASUS A7V400MX-SE Socket A AMD Ath […]
Show full quote

Hi, I'm newbe. I wanted to complete my retropc and I'm in doubt about which video card to buy.
ASUS A7V400MX-SE Socket A
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 400Mhz
512MB RAM (1 bank)
Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital SB0220 (dosdriver works perfectly)

Other than I've various VGA: Geforce 2 MX400, Ati Radeon 9250, Ati Radeon 7000, nVidia Geforce 6800, Riva TNT2 and an old RAGE All In Wonder.

The goal is to make a retro game PC with Windows 98SE (and few DOS games) at 1024x768 on a CRT monitor with Antialias 4x & Anisotropic 8x at stable 60 or 75Hz FPS with vsync always when possible.!

Unfortunately none of these video cards satisfy me: the nvidia 6800 driver are craps and don't run games with up to DX7 like unreal or unreal tournament (1 FPS in directx mode), Thief1\2 won't even start missions, and so on... shutdown and standby is messy...in short nvidia 6800 is unusable with win98.

The Geforce 2 MX400 works like a charme but is slow, so I replaced with the Ati 9250 gaining a good performance (tablefog regfix with thief2 is acceptable, I also like the increased fog); but with AA & AF the performance drops too low.

Reading on the forum, expecially in the Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures, I got the idea that a Radeon 9700 or 9800 could be an excellent video card to maximize performance and compatibility. Can a Radeon 9800 be the solution? Will that card allow me to play @60FPS vsync 4xaa + af, for example, with unreal or half-life or thief 2? And for DOS games?

I don't have any Radeon 9700\9800. I'll have to buy it. Do you think it would be a good choice for my needs?

Radeon 9800 pros are excellent performers in Win98SE. They have their usual ATI issues with earlier games but it basically runs like your 9250 but with a whole lot more power.

The x800/x850 series also do work decently well despite the drivers being labelled a 'beta' but it is still a beta driver.

Ati Rage Pro works very well on Windows 3.1 / 3.11. But it has problems with some EGA games (Commander Keen 4/5/6 for example).

brunobox99 wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:27:

Ati Rage Pro works very well on Windows 3.1 / 3.11. But it has problems with some EGA games (Commander Keen 4/5/6 for example).

Commander Keen ATi fix:
Re: Jerky scrolling in Commander Keen 6
https://pckf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6192

marxveix wrote on 2023-11-13, 18:54:

Commander Keen ATi fix: Re: Jerky scrolling in Commander Keen 6 https://pckf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6192 […]
Show full quote

brunobox99 wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:27:

Ati Rage Pro works very well on Windows 3.1 / 3.11. But it has problems with some EGA games (Commander Keen 4/5/6 for example).

Commander Keen ATi fix:
Re: Jerky scrolling in Commander Keen 6
https://pckf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6192

Thank you very much, I will try the patch tonight when I'm back home.

gen_angry wrote on 2023-10-20, 12:24:

usermame wrote on 2023-10-18, 17:33:

Hi, I'm newbe. I wanted to complete my retropc and I'm in doubt about which video card to buy. ASUS A7V400MX-SE Socket A AMD Ath […]
Show full quote

Hi, I'm newbe. I wanted to complete my retropc and I'm in doubt about which video card to buy.
ASUS A7V400MX-SE Socket A
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 400Mhz
512MB RAM (1 bank)
Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital SB0220 (dosdriver works perfectly)

Other than I've various VGA: Geforce 2 MX400, Ati Radeon 9250, Ati Radeon 7000, nVidia Geforce 6800, Riva TNT2 and an old RAGE All In Wonder.

The goal is to make a retro game PC with Windows 98SE (and few DOS games) at 1024x768 on a CRT monitor with Antialias 4x & Anisotropic 8x at stable 60 or 75Hz FPS with vsync always when possible.!

Unfortunately none of these video cards satisfy me: the nvidia 6800 driver are craps and don't run games with up to DX7 like unreal or unreal tournament (1 FPS in directx mode), Thief1\2 won't even start missions, and so on... shutdown and standby is messy...in short nvidia 6800 is unusable with win98.

The Geforce 2 MX400 works like a charme but is slow, so I replaced with the Ati 9250 gaining a good performance (tablefog regfix with thief2 is acceptable, I also like the increased fog); but with AA & AF the performance drops too low.

Reading on the forum, expecially in the Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures, I got the idea that a Radeon 9700 or 9800 could be an excellent video card to maximize performance and compatibility. Can a Radeon 9800 be the solution? Will that card allow me to play @60FPS vsync 4xaa + af, for example, with unreal or half-life or thief 2? And for DOS games?

I don't have any Radeon 9700\9800. I'll have to buy it. Do you think it would be a good choice for my needs?

Radeon 9800 pros are excellent performers in Win98SE. They have their usual ATI issues with earlier games but it basically runs like your 9250 but with a whole lot more power.

The x800/x850 series also do work decently well despite the drivers being labelled a 'beta' but it is still a beta driver.

The problem with 9800 Pros today is that they are expensive, and half of them are either dead or artefacting due to poor cooling back then 🙁 There are quite a number of threads about that on Vogons unfortunately.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-01-17, 07:52:

gen_angry wrote on 2023-10-20, 12:24:

usermame wrote on 2023-10-18, 17:33:

Hi, I'm newbe. I wanted to complete my retropc and I'm in doubt about which video card to buy. ASUS A7V400MX-SE Socket A AMD Ath […]
Show full quote

Hi, I'm newbe. I wanted to complete my retropc and I'm in doubt about which video card to buy.
ASUS A7V400MX-SE Socket A
AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 400Mhz
512MB RAM (1 bank)
Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Digital SB0220 (dosdriver works perfectly)

Other than I've various VGA: Geforce 2 MX400, Ati Radeon 9250, Ati Radeon 7000, nVidia Geforce 6800, Riva TNT2 and an old RAGE All In Wonder.

The goal is to make a retro game PC with Windows 98SE (and few DOS games) at 1024x768 on a CRT monitor with Antialias 4x & Anisotropic 8x at stable 60 or 75Hz FPS with vsync always when possible.!

Unfortunately none of these video cards satisfy me: the nvidia 6800 driver are craps and don't run games with up to DX7 like unreal or unreal tournament (1 FPS in directx mode), Thief1\2 won't even start missions, and so on... shutdown and standby is messy...in short nvidia 6800 is unusable with win98.

The Geforce 2 MX400 works like a charme but is slow, so I replaced with the Ati 9250 gaining a good performance (tablefog regfix with thief2 is acceptable, I also like the increased fog); but with AA & AF the performance drops too low.

Reading on the forum, expecially in the Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures, I got the idea that a Radeon 9700 or 9800 could be an excellent video card to maximize performance and compatibility. Can a Radeon 9800 be the solution? Will that card allow me to play @60FPS vsync 4xaa + af, for example, with unreal or half-life or thief 2? And for DOS games?

I don't have any Radeon 9700\9800. I'll have to buy it. Do you think it would be a good choice for my needs?

Radeon 9800 pros are excellent performers in Win98SE. They have their usual ATI issues with earlier games but it basically runs like your 9250 but with a whole lot more power.

The x800/x850 series also do work decently well despite the drivers being labelled a 'beta' but it is still a beta driver.

The problem with 9800 Pros today is that they are expensive, and half of them are either dead or artefacting due to poor cooling back then 🙁 There are quite a number of threads about that on Vogons unfortunately.

The radeon 9800 was a popular card with good performance, but like the geforce 4, seemed doomed to a short life span unless treated with a lot of care. I mean, I bought one of those giant passive cooler kits for my 9800 pro back in the day. Probably wasnt the best thing as far as life span goes, but I kept a 120mmfan in the case. It died shortly after I sold it to someone who didn’t have as much case cooling. I replaced it with an x800xl when I switched to pcie. I put a big after market IceQ cooler on it and and it works today, even though the cooler looks a little frankenstien monstery. It didnt fit quite right so I got out the cutting tools. Anyway , I hated the high pitch gpu fan wine of the early 2000’s. They managed to be annoyingly loud and inadequate at the same time.

Would you consider an AGP X700 to be a good substitute for a 9800pro ?

Win9x and Pixel-Vertexshader GPU DX8.1 and UP is not my cup of coffee. To me a good Win9x machine does have dx7 GPU, that's what is perfect.