Non-Aero windows 7 run even with 8 MB Voodoo3... both D3D and glide working. 😀
http://abload.de/img/v3_onboardkxdb.png
HW museum.cz - my collection of PC hardware
Thanks for the effort guys.
I wanted to end on positive and tried my Voodoo3 and 4 PCI along my main graphics card (would be so comfy), but they won't even initialize.
Guess that would only work on 32-bit versions
wrote:Official spec from Microsoft is 128MB, and that's what I'm quoting from. I'm actually kind of surprised it would enable with <128MB (it should fail the WEI check and refuse to start).
EDIT
A bit of searching and apparently there are some "odd duck" cases where it unofficially works on 64MB setups - usually laptops or other IGP solutions, and at lower resolutions and potentially with some features disabled (this last point I wasn't able to find a conclusive listing of, one example is "Blur" though).
Yeah maybe features are missing. I didn't notice anything missing though. It only had to run 1280x800.
wrote:honestly you can run windows 7 on a Rage IIC without any issues, ask anyone with a server.
You can run it without Aero, but Aero requires a DX9 compatible card.
The only other requirement that I can see for Aero that might be affecting it is that the driver must be a WDDM certified driver. Not every driver released is WDDM certified. A lot of times the drivers originally released by the video card manufacturers aren't WDDM drivers. Eventually they get replaced by WDDM certified drivers. Also, Microsoft recommends more video memory for larger monitors. 256mb seems to cover all contingencies up to and including a 30 inch LCD at 2560 x 1600.
wrote:wrote:honestly you can run windows 7 on a Rage IIC without any issues, ask anyone with a server.
You can run it without Aero, but Aero requires a DX9 compatible card.
The only other requirement that I can see for Aero that might be affecting it is that the driver must be a WDDM certified driver. Not every driver released is WDDM certified. A lot of times the drivers originally released by the video card manufacturers aren't WDDM drivers. Eventually they get replaced by WDDM certified drivers. Also, Microsoft recommends more video memory for larger monitors. 256mb seems to cover all contingencies up to and including a 30 inch LCD at 2560 x 1600.
Yes, WDDM 1.0+ is required for Aero (and Metro) support. IIRC 1.1 (whatever was released around the time of Vista SP2/7) was where a lot of performance improvements were made for memory usage, and a lot of "first-gen" cards like GeForce FX and (afaik) Radeon 9 didn't receive those optimizations. I had no problems with a 256MB 7900GS running Aero Glass under 7x64 up to 2048x1152, but didn't have anything higher resolution to test with - the card wasn't really that heavily loaded. By contrast, FX 5800 Ultra in Vista with the nVidia beta drivers will show 100% VRAM usage and cycle the GPU in and out of "performance" mode depending on whats going on screen-wise (and the GPU will run at 70*C or higher for desktop applications, because its under load). Tom's Hardware tested this out too, but I'm not sure I could find the link again.
wrote:Yeah maybe features are missing. I didn't notice anything missing though. It only had to run 1280x800.
After giving it some more thought, it's kind of a weird configuration - how many 64MB DX9 cards, ignoring mobile stuff with the allocation set to that, really exist? You're basically talking some bottom-of-the-barrel FX 5200 and 9550 boards, and not much else afaik (of course your Mobility 9600 also fits into that). HyperMemory cards will support >128MB through a combination of their local and shared resources, and most IGPs can have more memory allocated (I have an Intel GMA-equipped laptop that does this, and it has no trouble with Aero either).
wrote:Non-Aero windows 7 run even with 8 MB Voodoo3... both D3D and glide working. 😀
http://abload.de/img/v3_onboardkxdb.png
I've heard of, but have not tested myself, Voodoo2 working under 32-bit Vista using the 2k/XP driver as well. 😲
wrote:Thanks; that's some good info! I did a lot of searching around and as you suggested, much of it is a toss up. It seems the 128MB requirement is only for Aero, whereas the basic Home version only requires 32MB of video RAM. Kudos for mentioning the Parhelia.
No problem. I think Matrox is probably the only major chipset maker that fully embraced XDDM though. Just out of curiosity I went to their support website and checked, and they do actually offer XDDM drivers for Vista and 2008 R2 for the G450 and G550 series, dated Oct 2013. So it's certainly something they were supporting over time as well, not just a launch-day beta like the FX Vista drivers. According to Microsoft's documentation, XDDM is supposed to offer some backwards compatibility for Vista and 7 (see here for more: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wind … e/ff570584.aspx) but I've not taken the time to test a driver for 2k/XP/2k3 on a Vista/7 install. AFAIK Aero will not enable on XDDM drivers, even if the hardware supports it otherwise (e.g. if Wildcat REALiZM 800 could work in 7 with its 2k3 driver, Aero would not likely work, even though the card meets the hardware requirements (it has >128MB of VRAM and supports PS2.0+)).
One thing I did learn upon looking that article up: Windows 8.x does not support XDDM drivers.
well it makes sense with 8 they would drop all pre DX9 cards, really if you think about it we are talking cards from 2002 or older, and most machines using them would be to slow to run anything faster than XP. I mean baseline is a Pentium 4 2.53/Athlon XP 2200, 512mb Ram, DX8 GPU.
wrote:No problem. I think Matrox is probably the only major chipset maker that fully embraced XDDM though. Just out of curiosity I went to their support website and checked, and they do actually offer XDDM drivers for Vista and 2008 R2 for the G450 and G550 series, dated Oct 2013.
Matrox really does have long-lasting support, and WDDM for G450/G550 probably won't have any advantages. But there was a post here that 3D acceleration was removed after some driver revision. I'm not sure if the post was about G400, but I can't imagine that G450 and G550 are treated much different.
