I would say 'no', because Matrox cards are renowned for their excellent display quality. This would be completely destroyed when you run it through a Voodoo card with a daisy-chain cable 😀
Other than that, does it really matter? The 2d card isn't being used in Voodoo games, and the Voodoo card isn't used in 2d scenarios.
So I'm not sure if the question 'What's a good 2d card?' is any different from 'What's a good card to couple with a Voodoo card?'.
Matrox are fine cards for Windows anyway, but they may have some compatibility issues in DOS.

I think so. Many people like the Matrox ones for their picture quality and the S3s for their DOS-games compatibility.

Personally I'd prefer to go with S3 as I like the extra flexibility but you could simply try both of them.

Also there are a LOT of Matrox and even more S3 cards and especially the S3 ones were made by different manufacturers (I'm not sure about Matrox) and they aren't all created equally (though the performance differences between different cards with the same S3 chip shouldn't be very noticeable).

I also like the Rendition 2100 (the one made by Diamond) but those have kinda disappeared and aren't as common anymore, I still see S3 and Matrox pop up regularly here in The Netherlands.
A Banshee or Voodoo 3 (both 3DFX 2D/3D cards) might also be nice, but not sure if you would want to get 2 3DFX cards just so you can use one of them

Scali wrote:

I would say 'no', because Matrox cards are renowned for their excellent display quality. This would be completely destroyed when […]
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I would say 'no', because Matrox cards are renowned for their excellent display quality. This would be completely destroyed when you run it through a Voodoo card with a daisy-chain cable 😀
Other than that, does it really matter? The 2d card isn't being used in Voodoo games, and the Voodoo card isn't used in 2d scenarios.
So I'm not sure if the question 'What's a good 2d card?' is any different from 'What's a good card to couple with a Voodoo card?'.
Matrox are fine cards for Windows anyway, but they may have some compatibility issues in DOS.

This is a good point btw, though it didn't really bother me much when I was using my old friend's PC with Voodoo 1. There is quite a difference in quality of those loop cables though (the cables running from the 2D card to the Voodoo), but even if he's gonna use the card with a Voodoo 1, might as well get a nice one right away in case the card ever ends up being used without a Voodoo 😀

Tetrium wrote:

There is quite a difference in quality of those loop cables though (the cables running from the 2D card to the Voodoo)

The cards themselves can make quite a difference as well. Some use high-quality relays (you can hear them click), while others use cheap transistor circuits which affects signal quality a lot more.
I'm not sure if anyone ever tried to make a list to categorize the cards and their display quality.

Tetrium wrote:

Also there are a LOT of Matrox and even more S3 cards and especially the S3 ones were made by different manufacturers (I'm not sure about Matrox) and they aren't all created equally (though the performance differences between different cards with the same S3 chip shouldn't be very noticeable).

For S3 yes, S3 only made the chips, and sold them to companies that created the actual PCBs. Much like how nVidia and AMD operate today.
Matrox has always made their own cards, which means they have very consistent high quality (the main reason why they have such high image quality is because they used an expensive 5th order image filter with low-tolerance components. Most other cards used simpler 2nd or 3rd order filter designs, and to make matters worse, they would choose cheaper high-tolerance resistors and capacitors to implement them. This meant that the filter wasn't as good as the Matrox one to begin with, and the tolerance in the components used to implement them meant that they didn't perform as designed either. In some cases, removing part of the filter will actually improve image quality. I did this on an Asus GeForce2 GTS, and the results were excellent).

ATi used to build its own cards as well, so their older cards were consistent and high-quality. Then they had a transitional period where you could have either 'Built-by-ATi', or third-party cards. Eventually Built-by-ATi disappeared.
However, ATi chose to move the output filter inside the GPU itself (I believe this was with the Radeon 9700), so that third parties could no longer mess up the image quality by using cheap components.

Scali wrote:

I would say 'no', because Matrox cards are renowned for their excellent display quality. This would be completely destroyed when you run it through a Voodoo card with a daisy-chain cable 😀

This isn't true at all - My G400 still looks fantastically clear and crisp when plugged in via a pass-through cable, much more so than all of my other cards.

Scali wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

There is quite a difference in quality of those loop cables though (the cables running from the 2D card to the Voodoo)

The cards themselves can make quite a difference as well. Some use high-quality relays (you can hear them click), while others use cheap transistor circuits which affects signal quality a lot more.
I'm not sure if anyone ever tried to make a list to categorize the cards and their display quality.

I never thought about the image quality of the Voodoo 1 boards themselves, but I reckon the 3D image rendered by the Voodoo 1 itself could also differ between different card manufacturers.

This is actually an interesting idea. One would need someone with a large amount of Voodoo 1s made by as many different manufacturers as possible and preferably even with the different cables, there's quite a lot of possible combinations 😁
I still have all the passthrough cables, but I basically put all my passthrough cables of all my V1s and V2s in a single box, so I got no way to tell which cable belonged to which 3DFX 3D board. That doesn't really matter a lot I think as many retro computer enthusiasts will have multiple 3D boards and passthrough cables to go along with this, but many may only have the single boards and perhaps have gotten suitable passthrough cables elsewhere. Or perhaps even standard VGA cables to lengthen the signal, even though those are usually a lot longer.

I have a ton of the Diamond V1s and a few others (one ATC-2465, one Orchid and at least 1 other non-Diamond I think), but then theres the second problem: How do we "judge" image quality?
And I reckon the actual display will have something to say about the image we as end users are gonna see, so there's several different factors.

But still an interesting idea 😀

Scali wrote:

For S3 yes, S3 only made the chips, and sold them to companies that created the actual PCBs. Much like how nVidia and AMD operat […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote:

Also there are a LOT of Matrox and even more S3 cards and especially the S3 ones were made by different manufacturers (I'm not sure about Matrox) and they aren't all created equally (though the performance differences between different cards with the same S3 chip shouldn't be very noticeable).

For S3 yes, S3 only made the chips, and sold them to companies that created the actual PCBs. Much like how nVidia and AMD operate today.
Matrox has always made their own cards, which means they have very consistent high quality (the main reason why they have such high image quality is because they used an expensive 5th order image filter with low-tolerance components. Most other cards used simpler 2nd or 3rd order filter designs, and to make matters worse, they would choose cheaper high-tolerance resistors and capacitors to implement them. This meant that the filter wasn't as good as the Matrox one to begin with, and the tolerance in the components used to implement them meant that they didn't perform as designed either. In some cases, removing part of the filter will actually improve image quality. I did this on an Asus GeForce2 GTS, and the results were excellent).

ATi used to build its own cards as well, so their older cards were consistent and high-quality. Then they had a transitional period where you could have either 'Built-by-ATi', or third-party cards. Eventually Built-by-ATi disappeared.
However, ATi chose to move the output filter inside the GPU itself (I believe this was with the Radeon 9700), so that third parties could no longer mess up the image quality by using cheap components.

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

It would make sense Matrox never sold their GPUs to other companies as I never seen such a card and never heard or read about such cards either.
With Ati the old cards are the same story, but I never really thought about that as I never used one of those Ati cards as I always ended up favoring a card from another manufacturer (mostly NVidia, S3 or 3DFX based ones, amongst a couple others I used a single time or so) except for their later AGP and PCI-E boards which, as you mentioned, were actually build by a non-Ati (or non-AMD) company.

I used to think the Orchid Righteous 3D's mechanical relays were a plus. It was talked about back in 97. But in reality that card mangles the VGA signal. You don't really want to run above 800x600 with it in the chain. The reference Voodoo2 cards are quite a bit better. So let's not be thinking the clicking means much about quality. 😁

And the Radeon 9700 tends to pick up interference. Do a search on horizontal lines. Member Maximus had a few threads about analog interference issues with other cards too.

I mostly dislike analog video.

swaaye wrote:

So let's not be thinking the clicking means much about quality. 😁

But the noise is just...so...cool!

do you think I should get a g200 or g400? also looking into the ati mach series but if I get one of the isa ones would that hurt the voodoo passthough? For those haven't seen at build (my very first thread) I am going to run a pentium mmx on it

ISA card? Any system capable of running a Voodoo2 has no business running an ISA gaphics card - they are just too slow. Get one and watch as even Windows' own GUI becomes sluggish.

Lot's of people praise the Matrox cards for the clean and powerful signal strength. However, I have come across a Number9 card with a super output strenghth. It just feel's like everything is double as sharp, when compared to a card like a Cirrus Logic PCI.

Talked about here in a topic from 2011....
VGA PCI S3 Number 9 Virge 325 card, basic info.

Personally. I just love this card for it's signal strength. So good... 😜

never heard of number9 sounds interesting. I'll look in it. After looking in to it i went with the number 9 card. Hopefully will go well with the voodoo 2 card.

cnpr wrote:

never heard of number9 sounds interesting. I'll look in it. After looking in to it i went with the number 9 card. Hopefully will go well with the voodoo 2 card.

Number 9 was afaik a graphics card manufacturer of the old days back when graphics cards were mainly ISA, VLB and PCI and many of their cards I've seen used an S3 GPU. They catered mostly to the high-end market, so should have good quality components. They aren't very common though, but one thing I noticed is they tended to not use reference designs so they tend to look different from other cards using the same GPU.

They tend to be easy to identify from a pic though because of that "9" they usually silkscreened on the PCB

Number 9 also made their own chipsets.
http://vintage3d.org/n9.php#sthash.tnuXs0vn.dpbs

Tetrium wrote:

cnpr wrote:

never heard of number9 sounds interesting. I'll look in it. After looking in to it i went with the number 9 card. Hopefully will go well with the voodoo 2 card.

Number 9 was afaik a graphics card manufacturer of the old days back when graphics cards were mainly ISA, VLB and PCI and many of their cards I've seen used an S3 GPU. They catered mostly to the high-end market, so should have good quality components. They aren't very common though, but one thing I noticed is they tended to not use reference designs so they tend to look different from other cards using the same GPU.

They tend to be easy to identify from a pic though because of that "9" they usually silkscreened on the PCB

Also, all of their names for their products are the names of Beatles' songs. (Revolution, Pepper, Imagine, Ticket 2 Ride) and often mentioned short lyrics snippets on their video BIOS screen, etched into the PCB, etc. Quite different and unique. 😀

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_Nine_Visual_Technology

I had paired an Imagine 128 Series II with a Voodoo2 in my 1997 gaming rig, before later replacing them both with a Voodoo3 3000. Yes, it worked well enough. 😀

I am testing lately the different 2D analog quality with G4xx cards and I would say that their great analog signal seems to help a lot the final resulting quality when through a external pass-cable as the Dxr3, at an more than acceptable level (testing 1024x768/75Hz). Maybe the Voodoo when running in 3D would not get benefit from it, but why not in desktop.

I use an old socket 7 Cyrix MII sytem with a Creative DXR-2 DVD card and only the Matrox cards provide a good image. Was using a G450, now a Mystique 220(wanted the G450 for something else 3D related)

If you are so much after quality, why not simply use one of the good CRTs with two inputs?