Errius wrote:

I have that G550 as well. It doesn't have NT drivers.

Here are some NT4 drivers. Hopefully one would work.
5.06.027
5.05.019
4.92.001

Errius wrote:

I also have a 180 MHz Pentium Pro machine set up as a fast DOS box.

Pentium Pro is not good at 16bit OS/applications like DOS applications. Pentium Pro is best in clean 32bit OS/apps like NT.
For DOS games better a Pentium 1 MMX 233 or even better a 500MHz K6-2+. I think for a fast dos box the K6-III+ is the best choise.

Errius wrote:

I have that G550 as well. It doesn't have NT drivers.

G550 has NT drivers at the "Archived Support Drivers" > "Previous Releases" > "Win NT 4":
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/support/dri … splay/#WinNT4.0

Gona wrote:

Pentium Pro is not good at 16bit OS/applications like DOS applications. Pentium Pro is best in clean 32bit OS/apps like NT. For […]
Show full quote

Errius wrote:

I also have a 180 MHz Pentium Pro machine set up as a fast DOS box.

Pentium Pro is not good at 16bit OS/applications like DOS applications. Pentium Pro is best in clean 32bit OS/apps like NT.
For DOS games better a Pentium 1 MMX 233 or even better a 500MHz K6-2+. I think for a fast dos box the K6-III+ is the best choise.

Errius wrote:

I have that G550 as well. It doesn't have NT drivers.

G550 has NT drivers at the "Archived Support Drivers" > "Previous Releases" > "Win NT 4":
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/support/dri … splay/#WinNT4.0

A Pentium Pro system makes a perfect DOS and Win 9x system if one aim for running late DOS games and Windows games from 1995 - 1998.

Just because it's even better at running Windows NT dosn't make it bad at running DOS and Win 9x. The Pentium Pros supposed performance issue with running 16 bit code is exaggerated.

The only issue I can see is that a Pentium Pro 200 system will use about 100W when a Pentium MMX 233 system which is similar in performance only will use half of that and will therefore be easier to cool without noise.

I have made benchmarks with Duke Nukem 3D (1280x1024) and Quake 1.08 (800x600) and not prove this.

Gona wrote:

I have made benchmarks with Duke Nukem 3D (1280x1024) and Quake 1.08 (800x600) and not prove this.

Quake is much faster on a Pentium or Pentium MMX compared to the Pentium Pro and the Pentium II clock for clock. The thing is that Quake is heavily optimized for the Pentium and an extreme case. I have not compared Duke Nukem 3D but I guess that could be another similar case. Both games run fast enough on a Pentium Pro though.

Phil here on the forum did a comparison between the P233 MMX and the Pentium II 233 recently and on avarage the Pentium II 233 came out on top (by some margin). The Pentium Pro 200 will probably perform well in the same games as the Pentium II 233 did.

Skyscraper wrote:

Gona wrote:

I have made benchmarks with Duke Nukem 3D (1280x1024) and Quake 1.08 (800x600) and not prove this.

Quake is much faster on a Pentium or Pentium MMX compared to the Pentium Pro and the Pentium II clock for clock. The thing is that Quake is heavily optimized for the Pentium and an extreme case. I have not compared Duke Nukem 3D but I guess that could be another similar case. Both games are fast enough on a Pentium Pro though.

Phil here on the forum did a comparison between the P233 MMX and the Pentium II 233 recently and on avarage the Pentium II 233 came out on top (by some margin). The Pentium Pro 200 will probably perform well in the same games as the Pentium II 233 did.

Duke Nukem 3D is not similar case because in Quake 800x600 the P233MMX outperform (demo1 13.3) the Cyrix M II 433GP (demo1 11.9) but in Duke Nukem 3D P233MMX (episode1 level7) got 21.5 but Cyrix M II 433GP got 23.0 fps. So Duke Nukem 3D has not optimalised to P1 as Quake.
Very few system can gives playable speed with DOS Quake in 800x600 and Duke Nukem 3D in 1280x1024.
Later I will retest PPro and I will show results.

Gona wrote:

Duke Nukem 3D is not similar case because in Quake 800x600 the P233MMX outperform (demo1 13.3) the Cyrix M II 433GP (demo1 11.9) […]
Show full quote

Skyscraper wrote:

Gona wrote:

I have made benchmarks with Duke Nukem 3D (1280x1024) and Quake 1.08 (800x600) and not prove this.

Quake is much faster on a Pentium or Pentium MMX compared to the Pentium Pro and the Pentium II clock for clock. The thing is that Quake is heavily optimized for the Pentium and an extreme case. I have not compared Duke Nukem 3D but I guess that could be another similar case. Both games are fast enough on a Pentium Pro though.

Phil here on the forum did a comparison between the P233 MMX and the Pentium II 233 recently and on avarage the Pentium II 233 came out on top (by some margin). The Pentium Pro 200 will probably perform well in the same games as the Pentium II 233 did.

Duke Nukem 3D is not similar case because in Quake 800x600 the P233MMX outperform (demo1 13.3) the Cyrix M II 433GP (demo1 11.9) but in Duke Nukem 3D P233MMX (episode1 level7) got 21.5 but Cyrix M II 433GP got 23.0 fps. So Duke Nukem 3D has not optimalised to P1 as Quake.
Very few system can gives playable speed with DOS Quake in 800x600 and Duke Nukem 3D in 1280x1024.
Later I will retest PPro and I will show results.

Don't forget to use "fastvid" with the Pentium Pro. I agree that these systems are too slow to run high resolution VESA modes in FPS games but a few FPS more or less is not enough to make that much of a difference.

[Edit]

I just checked Phils benchmark results. Duke Nukem 3D is a game that for some reason really favors the Pentium MMX over the Pentium II and Pentium Pro. This is however not generally the case in your avarage DOS or early Win 9x game.

From Phils review of the PII 266. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4t0MbYaGVg (Phils review gives a good insight when it comes to P55C vs P6)

[/Edit]

Skyscraper wrote:

I just checked phils results. Duke Nukem 3D is a game that really really favors the Pentium MMX over the Pentium II and Pentium […]
Show full quote

I just checked phils results. Duke Nukem 3D is a game that really really favors the Pentium MMX over the Pentium II and Pentium Pro. This is however not generally the case in your avarage DOS or early Win 9x game.

From Phils review of the PII 266. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4t0MbYaGVg (Phils review gives a good insight when it comes to P55C vs P6)

[/Edit]

Duke Nukem 3D in high resolution is not run fast enough on PPro and PII systems, because these systems good in 32bit.
Average DOS and early Win9x games are likely run fast enough on MMX/MII/K6/PPro/PII systems this is why I test DOS Quake and Duke Nukem 3D in high resolutions.

Gona wrote:

Duke Nukem 3D in high resolution is not run fast enough on PPro and PII systems, because these systems good in 32bit.
Average DOS and early Win9x games are likely run fast enough on MMX/MII/K6/PPro/PII systems this is why I test DOS Quake and Duke Nukem 3D in high resolutions.

Are you sure it's only because of 16 bit vs 32 bit and not some other architectural difference? I'm not saying that it isn't but many other DOS games runs just as fast and some even faster on the P6 architecture. My knowlede on this topic is admittedly not great enough to answer exactly why.

My point is that if some DOS game runs too slow in high resolution VESA modes on a Pentium Pro 200 or a Pentium II 233 CPU then a Pentium MMX 233 generally isn't fast enough to make it playable.

One thing the Pentium MMX is good at though is overclocking. The Pentium MMX running at 292 MHz (3.5 x 83 MHz) is probably fast enough to really make a differece against the Pentium Pro in high resolution VESA modes when it comes to for example Duke Nukem 3D but then again why not just use a PIII 500 or something even faster.

Does Pentium Pro 200 need fan cooling or is a heat sink sufficient?

Errius wrote:

Does Pentium Pro 200 need fan cooling or is a heat sink sufficient?

If you do not have a really large heat sink and good air flow in the box you need a fan. The Pentium Pro 200 draws close to 40W.

I have thought about upgrading my 180 to 200 but if I have to get a new heatsink and fan it probably isn't worth the trouble for a DOS machine.

lazibayer wrote:

Here are some NT4 drivers. Hopefully one would work. 5.06.027 5.05.019 4.92.001 […]
Show full quote

Here are some NT4 drivers. Hopefully one would work.
5.06.027
5.05.019
4.92.001

Gona wrote:

G550 has NT drivers at the "Archived Support Drivers" > "Previous Releases" > "Win NT 4":
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/support/dri … splay/#WinNT4.0

Those contain drivers for the Millennium G550 which is not the same card as this Low-Profile G550. There are no NT drivers for the LP G550. (You can tell them apart because the Millennium G550 uses standard DVI/SVGA outputs but the LP G550 uses a proprietary video cable.)

Errius wrote:

Those contain drivers for the Millennium G550 which is not the same card as this Low-Profile G550. There are no NT drivers for the LP G550. (You can tell them apart because the Millennium G550 uses standard DVI/SVGA outputs but the LP G550 uses a proprietary video cable.)

I don't have NT4 otherwise I could fiddle around with the INF file and see if the driver works with G550 LP PCI.

I happen to be working on my Pentium Pro setup as well. So here are a few random numbers.

TLDR :
a ppro 200 256k uses 29% more power than a P200 for 2% more perfs in Doom, 19% more perf in Quake (320), 37% more perf in quake (640)
a ppro 200 256k uses 26% more power than a P200mmx for 7% less perfs in Doom, 9% more perf in Quake (320), 14% more perf in quake (640)
a ppro 200 1M uses 71% more power than a P200 for 5% more perfs in Doom, 36% more perf in Quake (320), 49% more perf in quake (640)
a ppro 200 1M uses 67% more power than a P200mmx for 4% less perfs in Doom, 25% more perf in Quake (320), 23% more perf in quake (640)

a Tseng Labs ET6000 is 21% faster in doom, 9% faster in Quake (320) compared to a S3 Virge VX

I fail to see how a pentium pro is not a good system for DOS games.
It's not worse than contemporary systems.
If the fact faster things exist is sufficient to find a system useless, well, this hobby would be quite limited.

Boring spreadsheet :
(Doom, Quake 320, Quake 640, Watts during Quake 640)

Setup A : seasonic SSG-200G AT PSU, 4x16MB EDO 60ns, Tseng Labs ET6000 2MB(Viewtop), CF adapter with 2GB Transcend 133x

ASUS P55T2P4 256K, P54 200MHz : 82.80, 43.3, 14.2, 41W
ASUS P55T2P4 256K, P55 200MHz : 90.42, 47.0, 17.3, 42W

Gigabyte 686NX,P6 200MHz 256K : 84.49, 51.4, 19.8, 53W
Gigabyte 686NX, P6 200MHz 512K : 87.25, 54.9, 20.2, 61W
Gigabyte 686NX, P6 200MHz 1M : 87.25, 58.7, 21.2, 70W

Setup B : enermax EG365VE ATX PSU, 2x32MB EDO 60ns, S3 Virge VX 4MB(STB Velocity), CF adapter with 2GB Transcend 133x
Gigabyte 686NX, P6 200MHz 256K : 70.33, 47.7, NA, 53W
Gigabyte 686NX, P6 200MHz 1M : 71.96, 53.9, NA, 70W
Didn't have S3VBE on my SD card at that time.

Setup C : enermax EG365VE ATX PSU, 128MB SDRAM PC 133 CL3, Tseng Labs ET6000 2MB(Viewtop) PCI, 5GB IDE HDD
ASUS P3B-F, PII 200MHz : 84.30, 53.8, 20.3, ???
ASUS P3B-F, PII 233MHz : 89.88, 61.0, 23.0, ???

Skyscraper wrote:

Are you sure it's only because of 16 bit vs 32 bit and not some other architectural difference? I'm not saying that it isn't but many other DOS games runs just as fast and some even faster on the P6 architecture. My knowlede on this topic is admittedly not great enough to answer exactly why.

My point is that if some DOS game runs too slow in high resolution VESA modes on a Pentium Pro 200 or a Pentium II 233 CPU then a Pentium MMX 233 generally isn't fast enough to make it playable.

Of course I think Pentium Pro has lot architectural difference. My experience is that high resolution DOS games which are not playable on Pentium Pro or PII can be playable on K6-III.

lazibayer wrote:

Errius wrote:

Those contain drivers for the Millennium G550 which is not the same card as this Low-Profile G550. There are no NT drivers for the LP G550. (You can tell them apart because the Millennium G550 uses standard DVI/SVGA outputs but the LP G550 uses a proprietary video cable.)

I don't have NT4 otherwise I could fiddle around with the INF file and see if the driver works with G550 LP PCI.

nt4_506027.exe\mga64.inf
is very simple, not contains

PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_2527&SUBSYS_0F42102B

(Matrox Millennium G550 Low-profile PCI) like strings but it has

%Matrox% Millennium G550%ENG%=IN1 %Matrox% Millennium G450%ENG%=IN1 %Matrox% Millennium G400%ENG%=IN1 %Matrox% Millennium G200%E […]
Show full quote

%Matrox% Millennium G550%ENG%=IN1
%Matrox% Millennium G450%ENG%=IN1
%Matrox% Millennium G400%ENG%=IN1
%Matrox% Millennium G200%ENG%=IN1

strings, but I should try it, might works with all PCI and AGP G550 cards.

Gona wrote:

nt4_506027.exe\mga64.inf is very simple, not contains […]
Show full quote

nt4_506027.exe\mga64.inf
is very simple, not contains

PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_2527&SUBSYS_0F42102B

(Matrox Millennium G550 Low-profile PCI) like strings but it has

%Matrox% Millennium G550%ENG%=IN1 %Matrox% Millennium G450%ENG%=IN1 %Matrox% Millennium G400%ENG%=IN1 %Matrox% Millennium G200%E […]
Show full quote

%Matrox% Millennium G550%ENG%=IN1
%Matrox% Millennium G450%ENG%=IN1
%Matrox% Millennium G400%ENG%=IN1
%Matrox% Millennium G200%ENG%=IN1

strings, but I should try it, might works with all PCI and AGP G550 cards.

I think INF files for NT4 have the hardware ids in the ";SubsysID" section. You might need to inject the id for G550 LP PCI, which is "2B,10,27,25,2B,10,42,0F" if it doesn't work without injection.

When I use a PPro, I often grab a Voodoo3 2000. It really covers all the bases. Glide, fast DOS and GUI, sharp output, etc.

Otherwise I might mess with a Matrox Mystique or Verite card. Whatever.

Skyscraper wrote:

My point is that if some DOS game runs too slow in high resolution VESA modes on a Pentium Pro 200 or a Pentium II 233 CPU then a Pentium MMX 233 generally isn't fast enough to make it playable.

One thing the Pentium MMX is good at though is overclocking. The Pentium MMX running at 292 MHz (3.5 x 83 MHz) is probably fast enough to really make a differece against the Pentium Pro in high resolution VESA modes when it comes to for example Duke Nukem 3D but then again why not just use a PIII 500 or something even faster.

Heh yeah. I messed around with Cybermage once, to see what CPU that was needed to get it truly fluid at 640x480. Probably around 60 fps. I ended up with a P3 600 Coppermine. 😀 Even the P3 Katmai at 600 wasn't able to keep it fast all the time so I figure the Coppermine's on-die L2 cache helped a bit.