I think of those, only the Millennium and Stealth 3D 2000 will have a Win 3.1 driver. I'm assuming the Stealth 3D is an S3 Virge-based chipset. Of those two, I'd pick the S3 Virge. The Millennium might be a little faster in Windows and DOS, but has more compatibility issues (especially in DOS games).

Go with the Diamond Stealth 3d 2000, its a Virge, nice pare for a 486 system.
Virge cards were used in a lot of system back in the day and they tend to be your best bet for a stable and no nonsice system.

Those video cards are all newer than I'd use for ultimate compatibility. I'm a VLB guy, though. The Matrox has the most issues, not sure what order to rank the other four.

The SB Pro doesn't have an IDE compatible interface; the connector on the CT1600 is a proprietary Panasonic standard for old double and quad speed CD-ROM's.

-Motherboard: The only i was able to find was a pcchips M919 or its brother M912

M919 is a ISA+PCI+VLB board (which is bad, by the way — performance tends to suffer on those hybrid boards). M912 is ISA+VLB. Keep that in mind — all the videocards you've listed are PCI and won't work in M912.

Also, I've never had a PCChips board myself, but people tend to complain about them. The reason is fake L2 cache. That seriously affects performance of a 486 system and in many cases you won't be able to do anything about it (i.e. install real cache chips or get a COAST module). Since you're aiming for a somewhat fast DX4 system, I'd stay away from PCChips. You can read more about it here.

If you can't find/afford a better 486 board, I'd seriously consider going for a Socket 5/7 build (Pentium/Pentium MMX). Cheaper, easier to find, less caveats.

-Any IDE DVD drive/ CDRW drive will work connected to the SB16?

If you get yourself an ISA+PCI board for 486, it's almost certain to have two IDE connectors onboard. You won't need to connect your drive to SB16 or a multi-I/O controller, just plug them into the motherboard.

-Video card: Here i have doubts between:

Honestly I never had any issues with Matrox, but the common wisdom says that S3 is better compatibility-wise. The performance/image quality difference is negligible (IMO), so go for Diamond Stealth 3D 2000.

The M919 seems to be a great board once it's been "promoted" by adding a cache module.[bogus statement: retracted after reading Feiopa's post.]
Feiopa even used it in his monumental 486 benchmark "scripture".
As already mentioned the S3 based card would be the "smoothest" choice. I only have a few PCI cards and the only one guaranteed to work in any system is the one based on the S3 chip. Some of the other choices you mentioned might cause problems... for example: the ATI 9250 does not work in any older system I have.

I'm using a Number 9 S3 ViRGE in my custom 486(well it's a Cyrix 5x86 100) it seems to suit the system very well and image quality is excellent, I assume the diamond would be similar.

BSA Starfire wrote:

I'm using a Number 9 S3 ViRGE in my custom 486(well it's a Cyrix 5x86 100) it seems to suit the system very well and image quality is excellent, I assume the diamond would be similar.

That is an excellent choice. That or Trio64v+ or CL5446. Any of them cards, have excellent compatibility.
I would say near perfect compatibility. I have one of them #9-Virge325, and the signal strength kicks some serious ass.

The M919 is OKish if you have the COAST module for 256 K cache and are NOT running the FSB at 40 MHz. At 40 MHz, there is a 2/3 PCI multiplier, which reduces your PCI bus rate to 27 MHz instead of 40 MHz. I have had issues using VLB cards on the M919. What may happen is that you setup the system at 100 MHz, then feel bored and want to run at 40 MHz with an Am5x86-160. You may feel depressed by the 27 MHz PCI bus, and ultimately start searching for another motherboard. If this sounds like it fits your personality, then I'd pay a bit more for a quality 486 motherboard. The good ones seem to be going for $100-$300 these days.

With your current hardware and an Intel DX4-100, I'd go with a Virge or a Matrox. If you have any interest in playing Glide accelerated games in Windows 95, then go with the Voodoo3, however, I do not think the Voodoo3 will work on UM8881-based chipsets. It seems to prefer SIS496 chipsets.

If you have the cash and can find it, I highly recommend an Oxygen VX1 PCI card. Probably the best of the old cards money could buy. I've had (or have, somewhere) and Oxygen GMX, which was the ultimate card back then. (96MB)

On the less expensive side, I have a preference for Matrox Millennium 8MB PCI, very deep colors and with good drivers very stable in Windows and professional work. I never had any problems in DOS, but YMMV. I think you can dual-monitor it as well, under Win 3.x and Win9x. I've had 100's of these cards and loved every one of them.

Diamond 3DFx cards are also awesome, and have GLIDE support as well I think.

S3 - Rock Solid

feipoa wrote:

The M919 is OKish if you have the COAST module for 256 K cache and are NOT running the FSB at 40 MHz. At 40 MHz, there is a 2/3 PCI multiplier, which reduces your PCI bus rate to 27 MHz instead of 40 MHz. I have had issues using VLB cards on the M919. What may happen is that you setup the system at 100 MHz, then feel bored and want to run at 40 MHz with an Am5x86-160. You may feel depressed by the 27 MHz PCI bus, and ultimately start searching for another motherboard.

Have you tried to boot at 33MHz and change the FSB on the fly? Worked for me with a Gigabyte board (IIRC), I got 40MHz PCI.

M919 can be a great board... but there are (too) many revisions. RetroBoy, do you know the revision of your board?

1) Diamond Stealth 3d 2000 PCI: Virge based, best compatibility with DOS games I think, has Windows 3.1 drivers
2) Voodoo3 2000 PCI: Probably the fastest 2D core of the bunch, highly compatible, has a Windows 3.1 driver (http://falconfly.vogonswiki.com/voodoo3.html)
3) Matrox Millennium 2064 PCI: Probably the best Windows drivers, high/best performance in many games, but not the best compatibility.
4) Geforce 2 PCI: Highly compatible with DOS games, fast, but not from that era so no drivers and almost no utilities.
5) Diamond Viper V550 PCI: TNT based, there is a beta driver for Windows 3.1 but other Vogoners report that it's unstable. DOS performance is great and there are DOS utilities available.

I would go for the Diamond Stealth 3d 2000 if you want nothing exotic and want everything to work. The Voodoo3 and the Matrox share the second place. The Voodoo3 is highly compatible with DOS games and you can experiment with Glide games on a 486DX100 (I know I would). The Matrox is more period correct and gives you MSI support under DOS, if that is your thing. The other cards are only an option if you can live with generic drivers for Windows 3.1.

Other cards you might find interesting:
1) Matrox G200: Probably as compatible as the Millenium, but faster and has the best Windows 3.1 drivers I've seen;
2) S3 Savage4: Has perfect functioning Windows 3.1 drivers, highly DOS compatible. Might not work in a 486 however, but because it's not that popular it might be cheaper than the other cards;
3) Chips B69000: Windows 3.1 drivers, fastest card for Quake according to VGA Museum. Hard to find though.