This is an interesting thread to me, because I like to use DOS 6.x/Win3.1 as well. I have been building a PCI 486 and I am trying to select a good graphics card for both windows and DOS. Most of my efforts have been focusing on the latest model graphics cards confirmed to work in 486s. From what I understand, the Voodoo3 is supposed to have excellent DOS compatibility and functional Windows 3.x drivers (developed for Compaq apparently). I was told just the other day that Riva128, TNT and TNT2 Windows 3.x drivers are all buggy as hell, but perhaps it only applies to the AGP versions? I bought a TNT 16mb PCI card to test. The Savage4 card you tried is interesting. That was one of the potential PCI cards that was on my list. I can't remember why I did not buy it, but perhaps I read that one had buggy drivers as well. I ended up getting a Virge GX based card instead.

My advice is to try a voodoo3. I heard the Banshee was good in DOS as well, but it doesn't have dedicated Windows 3.1 drivers. The Voodoo3 drivers *may* work as I think they use the same 2D core. I haven't found any confirmation yet though.

If Win3.11 were the limiting factor, how about an older PCI S3 or Cirrus Logic vga card? At least that's what I had (or likely to have had) in that era.

I don't think AGP is an issue in Win 3.1. AGP features only really get used with 3D acceleration.

Matrox cards (G200 or G400) should be an alternative, decent 3D and Win 3.1 drivers, good availability/price. (G450 and G550 don't have Win 3.1 drivers IIRC.) According to Gona it is not as compatible in DOS as the Savage, but since you had issues even with the Savage it might be worth a try.

I don't know if you will be able to run 1366x768 with a Rage Pro card but then I've never tried to use 16:9 resolutions in Win9x.

archsan wrote:

If Win3.11 were the limiting factor, how about an older PCI S3 or Cirrus Logic vga card? At least that's what I had (or likely to have had) in that era.

Somewhere around here I have a 4MB ATI Rage II card, but I was hoping to take advantage of the AGP 🙁 and keep my 1 remaining slot (shared PCI/ISA,) free for future additions (like a joystick speed control card - which my 233 system needed, so I'm sure this one will too.) I guess I could put it in there as a test (if I can find the blasted thing. Right now, I'm doing web searches on AGP and Windows 3.1 and not finding anything except problems with newer cards (no 3.1 drivers.) The only good thing about all this is that vid cards are rather inexpensive. $5-10, I just don't want to be buying card after card. I already have 3 cards that all work fine in Win98 and DOS. It's just 3.1 that keeps smacking me down.

idspispopd wrote:

I don't think AGP is an issue in Win 3.1. AGP features only really get used with 3D acceleration.

Matrox cards (G200 or G400) should be an alternative, decent 3D and Win 3.1 drivers, good availability/price. (G450 and G550 don't have Win 3.1 drivers IIRC.) According to Gona it is not as compatible in DOS as the Savage, but since you had issues even with the Savage it might be worth a try.

I don't know if you will be able to run 1366x768 with a Rage Pro card but then I've never tried to use 16:9 resolutions in Win9x.

The Rage II ran 1633x768 just fine (though only at 64k colors and not 16M.) Part of the reason I was looking for 8M+ was to get rid of that limitation.

Well, I'm faced with a choice of TNT1, Rage Pro (not 128,) and Matrox G200. All of which claim to have Win3.1 drivers. Going to see if anyone knows of anything specific to AGP I might be missing. I figure 1 more try at an AGP card before I decide that there is something wrong elsewhere 🙁 I hate the thought that I might have to be yet another MB. The only thing swaying my decision here is that the Matrox driver is actually from the Matrox site itself and not somewhere else.

As far as I remember, there are relatively modern AGP cards like Voodoo 3, Riva 128, Matrox G200 which will work with Windows 3.1 at some extend, I never find a satisfactory midway card for my both Windows9x and Windows 3.1 needs.

The safest way I choose is dedicating the AGP card of my choice (even an FX5xxx or more) to Windows 9x, and insert a much older but robust and proven PCI card (like S3 variety, Millenium, Mystique, etc.) as secondary. The rest is just choosing from BIOS which card will be the primary card at boot time.

Well, I'm giving AGP one more chance. This time I went by older specs instead of concentrating on RAM, made sure I had a set of drivers. I decided on the Rage Pro because I found one that was new (in box,) and the picture of the box actually listed Windows 3.1. The price was pretty good too ($6,) ok the price was great 😀 If this one craps out on me, I might have to switch to the PCI card. I know I have it in one of my myriad of boxes, I had offered it in trade a while back (they went with a different card,) so I know it's around here somewhere. If the PCI card works, then I'm left having to face the fact that maybe it's the AGP port after all. It is basically the same as the Pro I'm ordering, only it has 4MB instead of 8MB. If it fails too, then I'm not sure what I'm going to do.... I have to admit, I've never tried it in a Win3 install. It's only recently (when I found my Win3 disks,) that I decided to dual boot my system with Win3/Win9x.

This is why people build multiple rigs as it is easier to just get things working rather than the complication of trying to mold several eras into just one machine.

The 8mb memory expansion for the ATi Rage II is useless in 2D modes. For some moronic reason it doesn't give you extra resolutions or colour depths. I bought the 8mb version new in 1997 and it was just about the biggest disappointment of my life. Apparently it's used as texture memory in some crappy ATi 3D games.

However, the Rage II was still a great card under Windows 3.1, and I can confirm that those drivers work quite well. ATi Flexdesk under Windows 3.1 was pretty sweet.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

The 8mb memory expansion for the ATi Rage II is useless in 2D modes. For some moronic reason it doesn't give you extra resolutions or colour depths. I bought the 8mb version new in 1997 and it was just about the biggest disappointment of my life. Apparently it's used as texture memory in some crappy ATi 3D games.

However, the Rage II was still a great card under Windows 3.1, and I can confirm that those drivers work quite well. ATi Flexdesk under Windows 3.1 was pretty sweet.

Well, the loss of 1366x768 is definitely a disappointment, but I already ordered the card. Oh well, I'll be happy if it will just work in 3.1 (and in DOS.) I'll worry about 1366x768 later I guess.

Hm, I did a little googlin' quickly last night and then forgot about it:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/micro … dos/Jt05tzE7Gg0

I used an ATI Rage Pro AGP 2x w/ 8
megs under OS/2 Warp 4, Win 3.11, the new Geoworks, NT 4, Linux, etc.
and I've never had any problems with it.

The good news about ATI Rage II/Pro is that they were immensely popular due to widespread adoption in OEM builds, which in turn likely affected their wide support / availability of drivers (at least compared to the later gaming-oriented cards). Now I don't know how relevant Gona's DOS VGA/VESA test is for you, but that Rage Pro could be your best bet for your 3.1-included rig.

I'm still interested in the compatibility & stability of that VIA chipset though.

Oh, and btw, I'd really appreciate it if you'll edit the topic title and include "Win 3.1", for easier reference in the future. 😀

archsan wrote:

I'm still interested in the compatibility & stability of that VIA chipset though.

I haven't done an extensive amount of testing really. Been fighting to get the graphics fully working. I haven't had any issues so far though. Windows loads up fine, both 98 & Win3.1 (in VGA mode.) I've installed the Win3.1 AWE drivers (not the 98 ones yet though,) without issue, and played some solitaire and minesweeper just messing around. In DOS I played some Betrayal at Krondor, Companions of Xanth, Curse of Monkey Isle, and Spellcasting 101. Again, not extensively, just to see how they worked. Tried disabling the cache and giving Wing Commander a shot, but it was too fast (it's going back to DOSBox.) As soon as I find the disks, I'm giving Privateer a shot, IIRC it didn't have any speed issues. I'm afraid that my joystick won't work though, and am starting to look for a game port card with speed control. Found 2 in a quick search on eBay. But in both cases, when asked about the speed box they had plugs for, the answer was "huh? What are you talking about?" Though, I'm starting to fear that the 800Mhz is too fast for those (from what my research is showing.) Might have to look in to alternatives (maybe a PCI game port card?) I see some more research coming up.

p.s. I changed the title. When I first started having a problem, it was in DOS as well is why I didn't think to specify Win 3.1 only. Sorry about that.

Well, my last post seems to have disappeared 🙁 I'm fairly sure I hit submit, but it's not here. Guess it's a good thing. The problem I was having turned out to have a simple fix. All I had to do was update the ESDI in BIOS and the problem went away. All is good now 😀 All my test games load up and display correctly (mostly - still have issues with this stupid LCD monitor.) The sound works fine now (with the LPT port enabled - the post is gone or you would understand that.) Windows 3.1 is working fine now. I even have 32 bit color in Windows 98 at 1280x1024 mode (just testing the highest resolutions offered,) so it is accessing all 8 meg for 2D graphics. It doesn't offer 1366x768, even though my PCI 4M Rage Pro card does, don't know what's up with that. I can live with 1024x768 though. The card actually reports itself as Xpert 98 card, but as long as it works I'm happy. Now to track down the Voodoo II drivers 😀

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I heard the Banshee was good in DOS as well, but it doesn't have dedicated Windows 3.1 drivers. The Voodoo3 drivers *may* work as I think they use the same 2D core. I haven't found any confirmation yet though.

I can confirm that the Banshee drivers work on the Voodoo3 in Windows 95 and Windows NT, not sure about Win3.11 though.

The ATI Rage II cards really just used Mach64 3.1x drivers as they were register compatible. I don't know about the Rage Pro as ATI never posted the drivers on their site, just a note saying they were on the install CD. 😠

I'll add another card with surprising Windows 3.1x compatibility, the Intel i740. They were posted on Intel's site at one time and they were actually Chips and Technology 65xxx drivers! I'm guessing the 2D portion is somewhat register compatible with that chipset, as Intel bought out that company for their graphics division.

http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=330

NJRoadfan wrote:

I'll add another card with surprising Windows 3.1x compatibility, the Intel i740. They were posted on Intel's site at one time and they were actually Chips and Technology 65xxx drivers! I'm guessing the 2D portion is somewhat register compatible with that chipset, as Intel bought out that company for their graphics division.

Fascinating. I740 and CT65554 are indeed very similar on Gona's dos compatibility list.