VOGONS


First post, by BitWrangler

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Hi Vogons,

I am plotting a socket 7 limited space/compact build, and it dawned on me that most of the basic PCI that I have around are full bracket height, or only a little shorter. I am remembering a short SiS 6326 PCI years ago, but I have not come across it recently.

What I need it to do... DOS games and Win95, 2D is fine, early 3D stuff would be nice, as long as it doesn't skimp DOS modes. Also I don't want anything too high power, I have actually some DX9 up low pro PCI, but they are unsuitable for this build. I wish to avoid jet engine loud cooling solutions by running up the power requirements too high, I am aiming for something like 60W total.

So apart from possibly the remade Rage XLs I am looking for 2nd half of 90s only cards that are short. Hopefully un-special generic ones that don't go for $$$.

I guess the remade RageXLs seem like the default choice as they are cheap and available. I have done the driver dance back in the day with originals and I know what I'm in for to get the 3D working anywhere near reasonable. I understand the voltage problems and why they might be picky about boards. What I don't see mentioned about them is whether their supplied BIOS is cutting low DOS modes, and whether a former retail or OEM BIOS is 100% working and supports them properly if they are.

I had a browse through what was on RetroWeb so far and didn't see anything I didn't know about, though I think they've only got a fraction of what VGAMuseum has, but that site doesn't seem to be searchable or browsable in a convenient way to look for them there. Plus IDK if the cards I am trying to find have been interesting or remarkable in any ways at all to attract much attention from collectors or retroheads.

TIA for any hints..

Last edited by BitWrangler on 2024-12-01, 14:48. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 1 of 12, by matze79

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What size exactly do you look for ? there several"LP" Cards out.
Matrox G550 for Example

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Reply 2 of 12, by BitWrangler

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Thanks, yeah that one is officially low profile by the looks of it, with an available bracket. I am wondering if "low profile" as a de facto form factor existed before the noughts though, so looking for anything "around" that short, bracket doesn't worry me, I can find one or use without maybe.

Looks like a great card to bear in mind for 500Mhz with Win98 builds but less so for win95 and I see comments that it has no low SVGA mode support for DOS, so feeling less than ideal for this build.

This one is going to be staying under 400mhz, probably nearer 300, and I am seeing CPU scaling like this...
Exploring the performance of the Matrox G550
Which suggests the card is more of a liability under 500Mhz than an asset.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 3 of 12, by DaveDDS

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FWIW, looking in my "junk/spare" cards boxes, I see 4 fairly short low-profile cards:

Gigabyte GV-R645SL (in a Gigabyte box showing "6450")

Gigabyte GV-N2100C

Ati Radeon HD4550

Ati Radeon HD5570

Model P690 (No idea what maker this is - very few markings on board)

These are all probably several years (or more) old.
If you happen to be considering any of these, I can take exact measurements.

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Reply 4 of 12, by BitWrangler

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Thanks for looking Dave, but I don't think I'm gonna get PCI Expresss cards in a Socket 7 PCI motherboard unless you know something I don't. I also have several around that spec, 6450s etc.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 5 of 12, by BitWrangler

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Due to there being Windows 95 drivers for TnT to FX, and the cards of those generations behave okay in DOS, I find I can consider the MX4000, NVS 50 and NVS 280 PCI cards, and possibly FX5200, all in PCI 32bit. But I am not seeing the right deal on any of those yet.

Some models have "funky cable disease" meaning they need a dongle to a non-standard video connector. This also affects the Matrox suggested, which is another strike against it.

There may be some MX200 and MX400 around that might be short enough also, but I am not finding them at good prices right now. Jaton seems to be somewhat consistent in making their cards as compact as possible.

Anyway, still not finding anything closer to Windows 95 and Socket 7 era, that is more likely to be DX 6 if it has 3d at all.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 6 of 12, by wbahnassi

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In defence of the Chinese RageXLs, I tried it in a dual Xeon 3.46GHz workstation build via PCIE-PCI bridge. Its DOS compatibility was not bad at all. It won't give you smooth scrolling in Keen4. Standard VGA and SVGA games ran just fine, which is a huge chunk of the DOS library. IIRC I also tried EGA games and I remember they worked too (it's been a while). I think I would have remembered if the card failed on EGA. And the card has drivers for Win3.1 and Win9x...

Bottom line I wouldn't discard it as an option. It's worth a try.

Turbo XT 12MHz, 8-bit VGA, Dual 360K drives
Intel 386 DX-33, TSeng ET3000, SB 2.0, 1x CD
Intel 486 DX2-66, CL5428 VLB, SBPro 2, 2x CD
Intel Pentium 90, Matrox Millenium 2, SB16, 4x CD
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Reply 7 of 12, by Hoping

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The ‘new’ Rage XL's seem to be the best fit for what you are asking for, they don't have a low profile bracket, but they are easy to trim and adapt. Also, I don't think there is a smaller PCI graphics card, or at least I've never seen one. In my experience, they are very good companions for a Socket 7, in fact I have three of them.
Then there is the issue of driver overhead on cards with newer GPUs, I understand that when you say Socket 7, you are talking about Pentium/MMX processors, and those processors will heavily penalize the performance of newer GPUs.

Reply 8 of 12, by BitWrangler

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wbahnassi wrote on 2024-12-01, 15:18:

In defence of the Chinese RageXLs, I tried it in a dual Xeon 3.46GHz workstation build via PCIE-PCI bridge. Its DOS compatibility was not bad at all. It won't give you smooth scrolling in Keen4. Standard VGA and SVGA games ran just fine, which is a huge chunk of the DOS library. IIRC I also tried EGA games and I remember they worked too (it's been a while). I think I would have remembered if the card failed on EGA. And the card has drivers for Win3.1 and Win9x...

Bottom line I wouldn't discard it as an option. It's worth a try.

That's good to hear that the DOS modes aren't any more nerfed than original Rages. I regard that Keen/Apogee thing as game incompatibility rather than card incompatibility because it's an ugly timing hack that works only when old cards are slow, and despite all the hand wringing about it, it is a minor thing to work around.

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Reply 9 of 12, by dionb

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Do you already have a motherboard for this build?

If not, do what was common in this kind of build in the era you are looking at and go for onboard VGA. Boards with onboard Cirrus Logic or S3 chips were relatively common and have pretty decent DOS and Win95 compatibility.

You're right in noting that formalized low-profile didn't exist in So7 era. Apart from onboard stuff, if height was limited, risers were the common solution - which also meant that most solutions were proprietary. The best you could generally do in terms of standardization was LPX form factor with a PISA riser, but even there basic things like exact distance of slot backplates from the riser could and did differ from implementation to implementation.

Reply 10 of 12, by BitWrangler

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dionb wrote on 2024-12-02, 06:58:

Do you already have a motherboard for this build?

If not, do what was common in this kind of build in the era you are looking at and go for onboard VGA. Boards with onboard Cirrus Logic or S3 chips were relatively common and have pretty decent DOS and Win95 compatibility.

Yeah I get what you mean, I have an M-571 with the SiS which would actually be ideal for this build, but I only have one of them and it feels more particularly extra ideal for something else. I am in this mood of "Try to accommodate lots of middle end stuff in self-made and repurposed enclosures, and save the cases for higher end builds." as well as having a vague "compact stack" idea where I try to get as many generations as possible in one vertical pile so as to have a "one desk" retro station, whereas full size builds tend towards only having 2 or 3 "out" and set up properly at once.

Anyway, mostly I've got stuff already that I am trying to find uses/homes for, and in this case there's a multitude of boards possible, but I think top three candidates are M-537DMA, P5F76, and T2P4.. ... but it's also good not to have too unicorny a board in these builds, since they would be last systems to go in a downsize, so replacement if they die should be straightforward.

dionb wrote on 2024-12-02, 06:58:

You're right in noting that formalized low-profile didn't exist in So7 era. Apart from onboard stuff, if height was limited, risers were the common solution - which also meant that most solutions were proprietary. The best you could generally do in terms of standardization was LPX form factor with a PISA riser, but even there basic things like exact distance of slot backplates from the riser could and did differ from implementation to implementation.

Heh yeah, "implementation may vary" is super true, got this one earlier machine of that type, and I thought it was twisted or something because the riser sat at something like 85 degrees not 90... but nope, found a pic of someone else's and yup, leans by design, or mis-design.

Anyway, in this sitch I can scratch up other short cards, network and sound, already, so only needed something for the graphics, and decent universal risers seem to go for more than low end PCI VGA. They would be more of a consideration if I had particular graphics in mind.

Looked at a few sellers of the Rage XL on ebay, some of them are listing under $10 but it's a multi-item listing and the low priced thing is a USB cable, not the card, so beware of those clowns. Then some had the "new design" PCB and some had the ATI PCB, I found one which had the 109-72300-10 clone cheap and clicked buy on that, but it won't be here for weeks.

I am still interested in hearing about other mostly pre-2000 cards that might be similar in form factor to low profile though.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 11 of 12, by The Serpent Rider

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BitWrangler wrote on 2024-11-30, 14:59:

What I need it to do... DOS games and Win95, 2D is fine, early 3D stuff would be nice, as long as it doesn't skimp DOS modes. Also I don't want anything too high power, I have actually some DX9 up low pro PCI, but they are unsuitable for this build. I wish to avoid jet engine loud cooling solutions by running up the power requirements too high, I am aiming for something like 60W total.

ASUS V7100 Pro PCI is low profile Although mine has some issues with VESA, which probably can be fixed with different BIOS.

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Reply 12 of 12, by BitWrangler

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Oh nice thanks, looks like it's a good thing I'm not looking for the AGP one as that seems to come in 3 different shapes, whereas the PCIs are all looking the same.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.