ProfessorProfessorson wrote:
AMD still offers the Rage 128 drivers, though I want to mention I have had some issues with the installer not detecting the card and canceling the install depending on who made the Rage 128 exactly. If this happens to you, you can unrar the drivers into a folder and do a manual install in Win 98 from the device manager area, pointing to the folder with the drivers. It will present you with a list of files, and you need to select the top win9x related one, then select the card from the list of Rage 128 powered cards that it will present you with. For normal Rage 128 Pro cards I believe you will want to select the Rage Fury Pro from the list. The card will then install fully, including its ATI control panel options for DX and OpenGl.

Thanks will keep this in mind. I think they're just OEM Rage 128 Pro's, so the
Rage Fury Pro Drivers should work.

That's the G400 MAX. The G450 is much slower than a G400 MAX. Kinda like comparing TNT2 M64 to a TNT2 Ultra.

Another way to install ATI Rage 128 retail drivers on their OEM cards is to modify the INF file that contains the listing of card names / device IDs. It's pretty easy to do really. Just copy + paste one of the lines and change the device ID to your card's.

F2bnp wrote:

That's the G400 MAX. The G450 is much slower than a G400
MAX. Kinda like comparing TNT2 M64 to a TNT2 Ultra.

True yes, I already knew that, I'm also aware that a G450 is significantly
slower than a G400 Standard as well. But as far as I know the Standard G400
isn't much slower than the G400 Max, but throw a game like Quake 3 at it
and it's at least 25% slower than a TNT2 or Rage128 Pro, it sits roughly on
par with a Rage128 non-Pro.

Why is this if it scores so well on 3D Mark 99?

Quake 3 is an OpenGL game and Matrox cards always were slower on OpenGL. D3D was were they were at. Up until 2001 (? maybe 2000) Matrox cards did not even have a full OpenGL ICD. The G200 and G400 shipped with shitty D3DtoGL wrappers.

F2bnp wrote:

Quake 3 is an OpenGL game and Matrox cards always were slower on OpenGL. D3D was were they were at. Up until 2001 (? maybe 2000) Matrox cards did not even have a full OpenGL ICD. The G200 and G400 shipped with shitty D3DtoGL wrappers.

I guess that explains it then. But unfortunately, that would make the G400 unsuitable for my requirements. I need a good all-round card with good DOS Compatibility, and good D3D on OGL performance (640x480 res) for games
from 2000 and earlier. I'm hoping the Rage 128 Pro will do that for me.

If not, I guess I'll stick with the trusty old TNT2 M64's I already have. They've proven quite suitable for the job, but they're a little "fuzzy" in DOS Games, and "buggy" in one or 2 3D Games.

A Voodoo 3 or even better a Voodoo 5 would be ideal for what you need.
It also depends on the processor though, what are you feeding those cards?

The Rage 128 Pro wouldn't be that great unfortunately, especially for DOS I presume!

F2bnp wrote:

A Voodoo 3 or even better a Voodoo 5 would be ideal for what you need.
It also depends on the processor though, what are you feeding those cards?

The Rage 128 Pro wouldn't be that great unfortunately, especially for DOS I presume!

Voodoo's are rare, expensive, and not easy to come by. Especially the
Voodoo 5! 🙁. The other issue is I buy cards in pairs, since I have 2x
(Similar) Retro PC's.

As for Specs, the one is a P2 400 (Possibly going to make it a P2 450).
The other is a P3 450 (Might slow it down to a P2 450 as well). The one
is a 440ZX Chipset, the other is a 440BX.

What are the biggest know issues in DOS with the Rage 128 Pro? With the
TNT 2 I had issues with both Toonstruck and Versailles, but both issues
were fixed by using NOLFB.COM

Also had issues with Hardware acceleration in Monster Truck Madness
1&2 which were fixed by using the Jaton Vanta TNT2 Drivers.

Agreed on the Voodoo 5. Voodoo 3 not so much though. GeForce 2 MX cards are dirt cheap though and quite a bit faster than any of the cards I've referenced. From my experience they are quite compatible as well, DOS and all, I'd consider them as well!

F2bnp wrote:

Agreed on the Voodoo 5. Voodoo 3 not so much though. GeForce 2 MX cards are dirt cheap though and quite a bit faster than any
of the cards I've referenced. From my experience they are quite compatible as well, DOS and all, I'd consider them as well!

Believe it or not my first attempt was a Geforce 2 MX. Here's a Brief
History::)

1. The PC Came with a 4MB Rage IIc, it was a little slow, so I went
through my scrap parts and found an 8MB Vanta LT. Still way to slow.

2. On eBay I found a 64MB Geforce 2MX for about $12 inc Shipping, so I
thought I'd give it a go. It was certainly fast enough, but wasn't compatible
with games like Toonstruck, no matter what I tried.

3. Checked my local classifieds, and bought a Radeon 8500. Unfortunately,
the 8500 wasn't able to draw enough power from the 440ZX's AGP slot to
function correctly.

4. Got a Radeon 9600 Pro with a connector to fit AGP 2x... Need I say
more? 🙁 No Radeon 9600 Pro will ever work in a AGP 2x Slot. Sold it
for more than I paid though. 😀

5. Bought a Radeon 9200 off eBay. Compatibility was worse than Geforce
2MX, and there was no noticable performance improvement.

6. Bought a pair of Inno3D TNT2 M64's off eBay (Brand New). All seemed
to be going well with compatibility, but hit a few "walls" along the way.
Still the best so far.

7. Was given a pair of Matrox G450's. Worked great with DOS Games, but
too slow in 3D for Quake 3, Croc 2 and Carmageddon TDR2000.

8. Bought a Pair of Rage 128 Pro's from eBay... Still waiting for them to
arrive. (Usually 2-3 weeks).

So, as you can see, I have quite a surplus of useless graphics cards, and a
huge variety of different Win9X drivers for each of them. 🙁

Nothing is useless around here. 😜 Seriously though, the as far as DirectX and OpenGL goes, at least up to Quake 3, I have no complaints about the Rage 128 Pro cards. They are very capable cards for their time period. I wont begin to make any promises Dos wise for you though, as you plan to run two games I have never tried on the cards, or even own.

ProfessorProfessorson wrote:

Nothing is useless around here. 😜 Seriously though, the as far as DirectX and OpenGL goes, at least up to Quake 3, I have no complaints about the Rage 128 Pro cards. They are very capable cards for their time period. I wont begin to make any promises Dos wise for you though, as you plan to run two games I have never tried on the cards, or even own.

Well, I think I've hit the graphics performance cap with my current PC config.
Whether I use a Riva TNT2 M64, Geforce 2MX or Radeon 9200, I don't notice
a performance difference. So now it's all about compatibility. So I'll just have
to wait and see.

I'm doubtful that it'll work any better with games with built-in UniVBE drivers.
"Angel Devoid" doesn't work at all. Having said that, It runs perfectly in
DOSBox on my Win7 PC.

since your rig is pentium2/3 with bx/zx, geforce and radeon will surely yield some boost compared to tnt2 and rage128, unless you are running no 3d games at all.
but even if thats the case, you can still benifit from better stability and video playback.

noshutdown wrote:

since your rig is pentium2/3 with bx/zx, geforce and radeon will surely yield some boost compared to tnt2 and rage128, unless you are running no 3d games at all.
but even if thats the case, you can still benifit from better stability and video playback.

Well, to be quite honest, there was actually a slight reduction in
performance with the Radeon 9200. The Geforce 2MX and Riva TNT2 M64
were roughly the same.

A few things need to be considered to understand why performance won't
improve.

1. These are all AGP4x cards in AGP2x Slots.
2. When choosing the right drivers, compatibility was my priority, not
performance.

The bottom line is, if performance was a priority over compatibility, I'd
have used a P3 1GHz or Athlon Thunderbird and a Geforce 4 Ti 420, but
that's not the idea here.

AGP 2x isn't a problematic bottleneck in my experience. Certainly not with those cards. I've run Radeon 9700 and Geforce 5900 Ultra on my 440BX board with a Tualatin slotket and this definitely brings massive gains. I've even played a few levels of Doom 3 and FarCry on that.

Also, if you like to use antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, you want the most GPU power you can find.

swaaye wrote:

AGP 2x isn't a problematic bottleneck in my experience. Certainly not with those cards. I've run Radeon 9700 and Geforce 5900 Ultra on my 440BX board with a Tualatin slotket and this definitely brings massive gains. I've even played a few levels of Doom 3 and FarCry on that.

Also, if you like to use antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, you want the most GPU power you can find.

You're thinking of the Socket 370 440BX, which has an AGP2x/4x (Multi)
Slot. I'm using slot1 440BX/ZX boards, which only have AGP2x. Also, a P3
Tualatin is leaps and bounds faster than a PII Slot1 CPU, so it would be
able to reap the rewards of a faster GPU.

Totempole wrote:

You're thinking of the Socket 370 440BX, which has an AGP2x/4x (Multi) Slot. I'm using slot1 440BX/ZX boards, which only have A […]
Show full quote

You're thinking of the Socket 370 440BX, which has an AGP2x/4x (Multi)
Slot. I'm using slot1 440BX/ZX boards, which only have AGP2x. Also, a P3
Tualatin is leaps and bounds faster than a PII Slot1 CPU, so it would be
able to reap the rewards of a faster GPU.

There is no 440BX chip with AGP4X. You need 815, 820 or VIA Apollo Pro 133A or newer for Socket 370 with 4x.

Yes you are of course CPU limited with slower CPUs, unless you add on antialiasing and anisotropic. Turn on 8xS and even the GF5900U struggles in old games above 8x6.

swaaye wrote:

Totempole wrote:

You're thinking of the Socket 370 440BX, which has an AGP2x/4x (Multi) Slot. I'm using slot1 440BX/ZX boards, which only have A […]
Show full quote

You're thinking of the Socket 370 440BX, which has an AGP2x/4x (Multi)
Slot. I'm using slot1 440BX/ZX boards, which only have AGP2x. Also, a P3
Tualatin is leaps and bounds faster than a PII Slot1 CPU, so it would be
able to reap the rewards of a faster GPU.

There is no 440BX chip with AGP4X. You need 815, 820 or VIA Apollo Pro 133A or newer for Socket 370 with 4x.

Yes you are of course CPU limited with slower CPUs, unless you add on antialiasing and anisotropic. Turn on 8xS and even the GF5900U struggles in old games above 8x6.

Yes, sorry, that's right. I actually have a pair of 815 Chipset Motherboard &
CPU's lying around, the problem I have with them is the lack of an ISA slot
for my AWE64's.

Anyway, it doesn't really make a difference as to whether I can enhance
performance by upgrading or not, performance isn't the issue here.
I've experienced quite a few problems with the newer cards, particularly
in older games. the Geforce cards tend to be more compatible in DOS
than the Radeons, but they tend to cause severe tearing in Cryo DOS
games with panoramic view like Versailles. It's also worth noting that
you have to use really old NVidia Drivers to get Monster Truck Madness
to work in Hardware accelerated mode, which may explain the lack of
performance I'm getting from these cards.

I hear ya on compatibility headaches. I usually just use a Voodoo card of some sort for old 3D stuff that's touchy because most of those games were essentially designed for Voodoo. For DOS games, these days I usually just go with DOSBOX.

Anyone have any luck with an older Riva TNT vs the newer TNT2? As for the vanta (M64 tnt2) I always hated seeing those cards :s