There's a recent video comparing the Matrox G400 to the S3 Savage4. And for nearly all tests, the G400 beat the Savage4 by a factor of 4. Not sure what system was used though, sure something faster than a PPRO. Re: S3 Savage 2000

Rawit: Is the chili logo from your username related to the Cyrix 5x86-133 chili embedded into the chips dye? Looks just like it from what I recall. You were able to find a DVI add-on for the Matrox G200 then? There was a few on eBay years ago, but I passed, as I thought $55 was way too much for this little feature card.

I ran the Savage 4 Pro+ some today. Between OpenGL, D3D, and Metal at 1024x768, the S3 Metal api looked the best and was the fastest rendering mechanism for Classic Unreal. With detail textures enabled for both Metal and D3D using the built-in timedemo, Metal scored 20.1 fps, D3D scored 17.38, and Open GL 18.74.

I might need to run a few games on a few of the options to consider a preference. I think clocking the G450 to 400 MAX speeds might be a good way to go. I'm curious how the TNT, TNT2 Vanta, Oxygen VX1, and Rage 128 Pro compare to the G450 and S3 Savage 4 Pro. I'm feeling the FX5500, and Radeon 9000 series are too new for such a build. I'm guessing that there weren't any Radeon suggestions because they are also too new? I should probably thrown in the GF2 just to offer some scale. Not sure if I have the energy to run all these benchmarks though. Might be easlier to tally your votes next to the cards in the OP, which I've since done.

mmm Oxygen VX1

feipoa wrote:

There's a recent video comparing the Matrox G400 to the S3 Savage4. And for nearly all tests, the G400 beat the Savage4 by a factor of 4. Not sure what system was used though, sure something faster than a PPRO. Re: S3 Savage 2000

Rawit: Is the chili logo from your username related to the Cyrix 5x86-133 chili embedded into the chips dye? Looks just like it from what I recall. You were able to find a DVI add-on for the Matrox G200 then? There was a few on eBay years ago, but I passed, as I thought $55 was way too much for this little feature card.

The G400 and Savage4 were introduced in the same year... That must have hurt. The chili logo is a coincidence; Rawit is an Indonesian word for chili/pepper. For the G200 I had the MDR-20 / DFP board. DFP stands for Digital Flat Panel and it's basically identical to DVI, limited to 1280x1024 and uses the MDR-20 plug instead of the DVI connector we all know. I've noticed that the G2+ models on eBay that come from IBM machines tend to have this addon installed already.

Rawit wrote:

feipoa wrote:

There's a recent video comparing the Matrox G400 to the S3 Savage4. And for nearly all tests, the G400 beat the Savage4 by a factor of 4. Not sure what system was used though, sure something faster than a PPRO. Re: S3 Savage 2000

Rawit: Is the chili logo from your username related to the Cyrix 5x86-133 chili embedded into the chips dye? Looks just like it from what I recall. You were able to find a DVI add-on for the Matrox G200 then? There was a few on eBay years ago, but I passed, as I thought $55 was way too much for this little feature card.

The G400 and Savage4 were introduced in the same year... That must have hurt. The chili logo is a coincidence; Rawit is an Indonesian word for chili/pepper. For the G200 I had the MDR-20 / DFP board. DFP stands for Digital Flat Panel and it's basically identical to DVI, limited to 1280x1024 and uses the MDR-20 plug instead of the DVI connector we all know. I've noticed that the G2+ models on eBay that come from IBM machines tend to have this addon installed already.

Ahh, I think I know what you mean. There was a daughter card for the G200 with a standard DVI port though. I think there's a photo of it somewhere on Vogons, circa ~8 years ago.

oeuvre wrote:

mmm Oxygen VX1

I'll take that as a vote for the VX1.

The VX1, TNT, and G2MX400 are all tied for 3 votes.
G450, TNT2 Vanta at 2 votes.

When there was an 'or' statement offered, I have taken both, but only up to 2 preferences per user. No love for the Savage4 Pro it seems. I'm thinking I'll at least test the VX1 and G450 to see how they fare on this system.

Not sure what system was used though, sure something faster than a PPRO.

Pentium 4, which is must faster.

Savage 4 Pro is comparable to TNT2 M64.

Pentium III:
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p2.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p4.html

AMD K6-2:
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p3.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p5.html

Overall it's slow, but decent in driver overhead department for slow CPUs, if high resolution in games is not so important.

I'm guessing that there weren't any Radeon suggestions because they are also too new?

Slow drivers more likely. Radeon 7000 PCI is comparable to TNT2 Ultra, with some benefits like almost free trilinear filtering.

In early 200X, my next-door neighbor had a system with a 233 MHz Pentium II, a GeForce 2 MX and Windows 98. Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D played smoothly on that system, IIRC.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Pentium III: https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p2.html https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p4.html […]
Show full quote

Pentium III:
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p2.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p4.html

AMD K6-2:
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p3.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/savage4-roundup-p5.html

I haven't come across this website before. It was interesting to see how the TNT2 M64 outperformed the Diamond S540 when using the PIII compared to the K6-2, but only in 3DMark99Max. Do you also have benchmarks for the G450 and Oxygen VX1, preferably PCI cards.

I haven't come across this website before.

There's an english version called ixbtlabs, but sadly it's in poor state now. Easier to use the original russian site.

Do you also have benchmarks for the G450 and Oxygen VX1, preferably PCI cards.

You can find some G450 tests on ixbt. There's a whole section dedicated to benchmarks too: https://www.ixbt.com/3dv/?podrazdel=16&page=15
Oxygen is a rare beast and most reviews most likely don't have game benchmarks.

P.S.
Here's some old benchmarks with S3 Savage 4 and Matrox G450 included:
https://www.ixbt.com/video/0701i-video-fakk2.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/0501i-video-q3std.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/0501i-video-unr.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/0601i-video-unr.html
https://www.ixbt.com/video/0701i-video-exp.html

feipoa wrote:

Ahh, I think I know what you mean. There was a daughter card for the G200 with a standard DVI port though. I think there's a photo of it somewhere on Vogons, circa ~8 years ago.

According to the manual there were DFP and P&D (VESA Plug & Display) options. The P&D connector looks like a DVI connector but has more pins. Both options can be converted to DVI with a passive adapter.

Thanks for the links. Some of the benchmark results in those charts seem overly low. For example,

on a 1.2 GHz Athlon, Quake 3, 1024x768x16, the Savage4 scores only 15.4 fps, or 19.6 fps (overclocked). On my PPro-233/512K system, the Diamond S540 (Savage 4 Pro) scores 24.5 fps.

also on a 1.2 Ghz Athlon, Unreal, 1024x768x16, the Savage4 scores only 20.9 fps, or 23.5 fps (overclocked). On my PPro-233/512K system, the Diamond S540 (Savage 4 Pro) scores 20.1 fps. While these scores look to be in the same ballpark, I'd expect the 1.2 GHz Athlon to do quite a bit better.

EDIT: Perhaps they didn't select the most optimal driver? I find that I need to test almost all released version to find the best outcome.

Rawit wrote:

feipoa wrote:

Ahh, I think I know what you mean. There was a daughter card for the G200 with a standard DVI port though. I think there's a photo of it somewhere on Vogons, circa ~8 years ago.

According to the manual there were DFP and P&D (VESA Plug & Display) options. The P&D connector looks like a DVI connector but has more pins. Both options can be converted to DVI with a passive adapter.

Sorry, yes, it seems memory alone is unreliable. I was thinking of the P&D connector, which is similar looking to the DVI, yet still not the same Matrox connector as on the Matrox G200 MGI G2+/QUAD. At least the P&D drawing here looks different, https://www.matrox.com/graphics/media/pdf/sup … nuals/en_fp.pdf . There was some of these daughter card adapters with the P&D connector on them on eBay many years back. Did you get the adapter with the P&D or the MDR-20?

feipoa wrote:

Did you get the adapter with the P&D or the MDR-20?

I had both type add-on cards but I've only used the MDR-20 one. My Savage4 also has DFP/MDR-20 which I use to connect to a LCD.

I went to remove the FSB jumper on the board to see if it could do 50 MHz, but when removed, the FSB is still at 66 MHz. So looks like it is 60/66 only. I had to remove the RAID card to access the jumpers. I put the jumper back onto 66 MHz FSB, and the system doesn't turn on. I can hear the sound of the floppy drive's auto eject mechanism turn on, then off, then on, then off. As if the something in the system is constantly hitting the reset button. What could this issue be?

Perhaps the power good circuit being defective? The only way I have found to resolve it is to take the butt end of a screw driver and tap-tap-tap around the board, providing some impulse force. On the first time I noticed this problem, I final tap which turned the system on was a the chipset nearest the memory. The next time this happened, I had tapped the EEPROM chip. Bad solder joint somewhere? Does vibrating near death capacitors cause them to work again (perhaps removing a minor sporadic short inside)?

I did replace the EEPROM chip in the past, which required fine soldering to the board. Re: HELP! - Dead Intel VS440FX motherboard with BIOS EEPROM overheating But it had worked just fine for a few days, then the turn on/off issue came back, but after I replaced the PSU, I hadn't had any other issue until today, meaning it has worked fine for 2 months.

Purhaps turning 4 HDDs on at once, that is, they are not starting in sequence. Perhaps the surge of current from the PSU is causing some damage?

The board is still working after that last tap with the blunt end of the screwdriver, so I am hoping to benchmark some of these cards. I'm almost finished with the S3 Savage 4 Pro.

I'll be testing:

GLQuake
Quake II
Quake III
Outlaws
Incoming
Dark Forces 2 - Jedi Knight
Turok 1 & 2
Unreal
Tomb Raider 3 (if I can figure out how to display frame rates - anyone know?)
Descent III
MDK2
Blood (yes, I know its in software mode only)

How about Shogo: Mobile Armor Division and Expendable?

oohms wrote:

Matrox cards were never great for gaming and have aweful drivers. I would go a TNT or GF2MX because they work, have good drivers and good dos games compatibility. They are also common enough that you can try a few to get one with the sharpest image output

What year is it? Matrox drivers are fine and the G200 PCI is a great choice here. G450 PCI is even faster and I ran one for a long while, but the only major issue I had was that OpenGL drivers are kind of problematic with Quake 2 dynamic lighting and TurboGL does not work with G450 as a workaround.

Perhaps they didn't select the most optimal driver? I find that I need to test almost all released version to find the best outcome.

Most likely scenario. There's also some unofficial S3 drivers for your consideration (and incoming migraine): http://alt.3dcenter.org/treiber/grafikkarten-beta.php

appiah4 wrote:

oohms wrote:

Matrox cards were never great for gaming and have aweful drivers. I would go a TNT or GF2MX because they work, have good drivers and good dos games compatibility. They are also common enough that you can try a few to get one with the sharpest image output

What year is it? Matrox drivers are fine and the G200 PCI is a great choice here. G450 PCI is even faster and I ran one for a long while, but the only major issue I had was that OpenGL drivers are kind of problematic with Quake 2 dynamic lighting and TurboGL does not work with G450 as a workaround.

I thought I recall reading somewhere on this forum that the G400 series had an icd fix that worked for the lighting issue, and that it also worked for the G200. Is this not true with regard to Quake 2 in particular?

I'm voting Radeon 9250 as long as it's a 128bit card.

Just daring to be different, it isn't era appropriate in any way, but I feel they are underrated cards.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Perhaps they didn't select the most optimal driver? I find that I need to test almost all released version to find the best outcome.

Most likely scenario. There's also some unofficial S3 drivers for your consideration (and incoming migraine): http://alt.3dcenter.org/treiber/grafikkarten-beta.php

You mean these tweak utilities? I wouldn't know where to start. I see one driver in there which I probably haven't tried. Not sure if it comes with Metal. So far, I've only gotten the Diamond extreme driver with Metal to work properly.

1S3 Tweaked Treiber
2Beerman's Savage4 2.0 Info
3Beerman's Savage4 1.1 Info
4JGC's Unified Savage 3.05 Info
5JGC's Tweaked Savage4 3.0 Info
6JGC's Savage4 2.4 Beta2 Info
7Mr.F Savage3D 4.6 Info
8Mr.F Savage4 v.2.3 Info
9Mr.F Savage4 v.2.2 Info
10Mr.F Savage4 v.2.1
11Tatankas Savage4 1.5G Rev. A Info
12Tatankas Savage4 1.5G Info
13Vicconius Savage2000 v.0.20 Info
14Rob´s Savage4 v.1.03
15
16S3 (driver)
17Savage4 Pro(+) 8.20.38

I'm voting Radeon 9250 as long as it's a 128bit card.

ATi cards = horrible driver overhead. They are mostly unusable for systems with weak CPU.