I don't have a 486 experience, but Rage II is definitely the card to render graphics most properly.
Compatibility of Laguna3D, even 5464, is not that bad.

The 5464 is alright for that, I ran one on my 486 before upgrading to a matrox G200. It would play early 3d games like starwars jedi knight or outlaws, though it's definitely not the fastest and does have some graphics glitches. Note, only 1 version of driver worked for me (I can probably find out) AND I had to turn off bus mastering for the card to work on my pcchips m919 (the driver I used had that option) . This may be necessary on other motherboards as well, as the busmaster problem apparantly has something to do with how 486s handle L1 cache

If you have Rage2+/Rage2+DVD or Rage3, you can try my driver, original RageII did not work (Douglar tested)
Original RageII i do not have, cant test it. Lowest i have is Rage2+DVD 2MB and tested G-Police&Turok at 3D.
Find Rage2+ or Rage3 4MB PCI, then more ATi3DCIF demos and games work,dont recommend any 2MB card.
I would try to use minimal Win95a or Win95b and install Rage 2+ / Rage3 4MB + Tomb Raider with ATi Patch.

Rage2+ and Rage Pro you could upgrade to 8MB (4MB + 4MB) and that would be maximum with PCI
Lowest that i have used Rage Pro and Rage XL was AMD K5 PR166 and that worked at 3D.

Re: ATi RagePro drivers and software

one more question: as for the rage2 and rage2+dvd series(excluding the later rage2c), is it the only 8mb solution using model 37900 card with model 38000 expansion board?

noshutdown wrote on 2025-11-06, 02:18:

one more question: as for the rage2 and rage2+dvd series(excluding the later rage2c), is it the only 8mb solution using model 37900 card with model 38000 expansion board?

I think not. For example my Rage2+DVD card is 109-40100-00 and it comes with 2MB, but i have seen them with 4MB onboard as well.

109-40100-00 2MB + 2MB expansion
https://www.hardware-collection.net/Xhoba/en/ … d/ATI-Rage.html

109-40100-00 4MB without mem expansion
https://ru.pc-history.com/ati-109-40100-00-pci.html
Oh no, expansion card option is missing on this one.

Still my drivers at the moment are more optimized for Rage3 i think,i have less experience@Rage2,what atid3d.dll i should use for Rage2?
Rage2 is at least 2x slower than Rage3. If possible find Rage3 PCI card and use that with / without memory expansion 4MB up to 8MB ram.

Some Rage Pro PCI cards
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/3d-rage-pro-pci.c1717
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/rage-pr … turbo-pci.c1715
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … l-in-wonder-pro
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/ati- … ert-at-work-pci
https://www2.vgamuseum.info/media/k2/items/ca … 7e759e2e_XL.jpg

marxveix wrote on 2025-11-06, 07:48:

Still my drivers at the moment are more optimized for Rage3 i think,i have less experience@Rage2,what atid3d.dll i should use for Rage2?
Rage2 is at least 2x slower than Rage3. If possible find Rage3 PCI card and use that with / without memory expansion 4MB up to 8MB ram.

true, the rage pro is a true 3d card (unlike those primitive ones without opengl support) and a totally different design over the rage2, and i also think its approximately 3 times as fast.
but that makes it just something slightly inferior to the riva128, not something different that i wanna try.
the rage2 and trident9750, while primitive, can get a number of early d3d games running without major glitches, which in turn are far better than rage1, at3d and a few others that i mentioned.
the rendition1000 is also a true 3d card that i favored, and interestingly slow, but couldn't get it running on 486 machine so far.

noshutdown wrote on 2025-11-06, 08:35:

true, the rage pro is a true 3d card (unlike those primitive ones without opengl support) and a totally different design over th […]
Show full quote

marxveix wrote on 2025-11-06, 07:48:

Still my drivers at the moment are more optimized for Rage3 i think,i have less experience@Rage2,what atid3d.dll i should use for Rage2?
Rage2 is at least 2x slower than Rage3. If possible find Rage3 PCI card and use that with / without memory expansion 4MB up to 8MB ram.

true, the rage pro is a true 3d card (unlike those primitive ones without opengl support) and a totally different design over the rage2, and i also think its approximately 3 times as fast.
but that makes it just something slightly inferior to the riva128, not something different that i wanna try.
the rage2 and trident9750, while primitive, can get a number of early d3d games running without major glitches, which in turn are far better than rage1, at3d and a few others that i mentioned.
the rendition1000 is also a true 3d card that i favored, and interestingly slow, but couldn't get it running on 486 machine so far.

If you go with Rage2, then Rage2+ is bit better i think, i havent met Rage2c in PCI, but it exist.

3D Rage II - first version of the chip, launched in Sep 1996. PCI only.
3D Rage II+DVD - added hardware MPEG decompression and further optimised 2D and 3D performance. PCI only.
3D Rage IIc - a later version released as the budget card alongside the 3D Rage Pro. PCI or AGP.

https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/at … ti_3drageII.php

With my driver 3DCIF works@Rage2+ or Rage2+DVD.

Only advice, take at least 4MB Rage2+ and use low resolutions in 3D with 486.

Try only 3DCIF dos game Actua Soccer
This game have a Win9x installer, but the game itself is a DOS game, needs DOS or DOS mode (with DOS CD-ROM and mouse drivers).
https://gona.mactar.hu/ATI3DCIF/