VOGONS


First post, by retro games 100

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I am testing a VGA PCI S3 Number 9 Virge 325 card. Here's some software that I found, downloaded and tested.

Link to Windows 9x driver software, W9531201.zip. It works on w95. There's no need to download anything for w98, because it's on the w98 CD-ROM.
Link to Windows 3.11 driver software, w3110505.zip. It works on WFWG 3.11.
Link to an S3 DOS utility (S3D10004.zip) that identifies the hardware. It works on DOS 6.22.

Questions

1) I would like to download some software from www.nine.com, but they don't exist anymore. There's also an ftp site: ftp.nine.com. Does anyone have any back up software from these sites?

2) On the s3graphics legacy webpage, it mentions "Live Video Drivers". What are these? Thanks a lot for any help.

PICT2200.JPG

WinTune 97, on Windows 95 on a Pentium III @ 1.4 GHz machine.
no9_old.jpg

WinTune 2, on Windows 3.11, on a P3 1.4 GHz PC.
no9.jpg

Last edited by retro games 100 on 2011-04-09, 13:55. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 13, by swaaye

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4adfdb30710214.gif
😁

RG100 you require a Virge VX for completeness.

Web Page for this card.
http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200003050338 … ers/332drv.html

"Live Video" may refer to some sort of video accelerator card that attached to the VESA connector or that small connector below it. S3 had something called the Scenic Highway that was an optional addition, I recall.

Reply 2 of 13, by retro games 100

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Thanks a lot for the info! That article was interesting because it mentioned Terminal Velocity, Hellbender, and Winbench 96. There's a patch for Terminal Velocity, for the Virge chipset. It's here, on the downloads section. It's for the registered version, not the shareware version. I'll need to buy this game if I want to apply that patch.

I tried the trial version of Hellbender (heltrial.exe), but it crashed on my w95 box. I'll see if the PIII-1.4GHz CPU is causing problems by running too fast. I'll remove this test mobo, and try a slower SS7 mobo with a P-MMX-233 in it. I'm really interested in Winbench 96. Does anyone have a copy please? Any old version would be interesting to test. I think it came on a CD-ROM. I think it's quite large.

Very unfortunately, all of the wayback download links for the nine.com website are dead. I would like to try this software, which is now unavailable. Any one got any of these, please? They are all for the Hawkeye utility and driver downloads.

332p_dom.exe (domestic, Windows 95)
332p_int.exe (international, Windows 95)
w9205cd.exe (beta, Windows 95) -- I found this on DriverGuide. For convenience, it's here.
325w9149d.exe (WHQL, Windows 95)
325w3108.exe (Windows 3.11)

I installed the beta Hawkeye & drivers on to a Windows 95 machine, but when I ran the Hawkeye control panel, it just did nothing. Maybe it was getting confused with the later S3 drivers on my w95 box? Also, I've used WinTune for some of my tests. For convenience, links to this software appears below.

Link to WinTune 2.0, for Windows 3.11
Link to WinTune 97, for Windows 95
Link to Wintune 98, for Windows 98

Reply 3 of 13, by iulianv

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Does yours show this?

http://www.eeggs.com/items/40295.html

I also have one, and it does 😀...

Reply 4 of 13, by retro games 100

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😀 Hehe. She loves you! Evidence. Scroll down to the photo, Swaaye spotted this.

Edit: You can see this on the photo at the beginning of this thread, but it's not quite as clear.

Reply 5 of 13, by retro games 100

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I managed to get Hawkeye95 working. I uninstalled the current S3 driver, and then reinstalled Hawkeye.

Hawkeye shows info about the card.
no9_b.jpg

Nice flags.
no9_a.jpg

Reply 7 of 13, by SquallStrife

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I think the Wintune 97 and Wintune 2 screenshots are the same image!

VogonsDrivers.com | Link | News Thread

Reply 8 of 13, by retro games 100

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SquallStrife wrote:

I think the Wintune 97 and Wintune 2 screenshots are the same image!

That was so strange. I repeatedly pressed the F5 key, to make sure the images were OK. They looked OK, so I kept pressing F5 again. And then both images looked the same, like your observation. So I adjusted the settings inside google picasa, and it's now fixed. Thanks for pointing out that problem. 😀

Reply 9 of 13, by vlask

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You can try also some overclockin 😏 or memory timing changing 😉 Virge card shows nice score improvment when clocked higher...
For dos use MCLK094A.ZIP - http://reocities.com/siliconvalley/campus/649 … til/myutil.html

Not only mine graphics cards collection at http://www.vgamuseum.info

Reply 10 of 13, by retro games 100

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Thanks a lot for the link! I tried it and it worked. I tried this at the C:\ dos prompt - c:\mclk /0 80 2 2. The Trio64v+ card's speed was changed from 59MHz to 73 MHz. I ran PcpBench and VidSpeed4 before and after this change:

Pcpbench 18.0, after 19.0
VidSpeed4 1775R, after 1956R

Edit: Sorry, when I saw Vlask's thread, I had removed the Virge card, and replaced it with a Trio64V+. Sorry for the confusion. But the good thing is that mclk.exe works on both of these cards!

Reply 11 of 13, by retro games 100

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I find that Wintune 2.0 for Windows 3 freezes quite often, when it runs the Disk test. Has anyone else noticed this? If so, do you know if there is a solution to this problem? Thanks.

Edit: Actually, it seems that this test can take several minutes. I think it's best to be patient, and simply wait. WinTune 2.0 has just finished this disk test, and tells me that my CF unit is slow. Fair enough.

Reply 12 of 13, by iulianv

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Here's two of the requested files... I would test the w3 one myself, but I just finished a 486 VLB rig yesterday, and I'd like to play with it at least for a week before moving on (to 486 PCI) 😀.

Reply 13 of 13, by retro games 100

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Thanks very much! 😀 I've downloaded both files. To begin with, here's 325w3108.exe in action! It's Hawkeye for the Number 9 card, for Windows 3.

HE3.jpg