You are not supposed to use GLQuake without an OpenGL driver. Do not expect better 3d compatibility from an early architecture like Millennium II has.

Verdorie1 wrote on 2024-06-06, 18:11:

Recently I put a 4MB Matrox Millennium II in my socket 7 P200mmx machine. The previous video card was a 2MB Cirrus Logic CL-GD54 […]
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Recently I put a 4MB Matrox Millennium II in my socket 7 P200mmx machine. The previous video card was a 2MB Cirrus Logic CL-GD5446BV-HD-B.
I read on some other threads here that the Millennium II was one of the best performing PCI cards for DOS however I found all benchmarks from Phil's Dosbench program perform 2-5% worse except Chris' 3D Benchmark which performs about 10% better.
In Windows 95 the card works alright in games like Tomb Raider 2 or Monster Truck Madness at 640x480 getting roughly 25fps in each.
In GLQuake however the framerate is one frame every couple of seconds and in Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit it detects the card as "Direct3D Device 1" and it's missing all textures in game.
In Sega Rally Championship the D3D mode crashes to desktop and in Sega Touring Car Challenge the car textures are missing.

I am using Windows 95c and the Matrox Millennium II v4.33.045 (win9x) drivers found on the VOGONS Vintage Driver Library and DirectX 6.1 from my Speed Busters CD-ROM.

Have I done something wrong or is this how this graphics card is meant to behave?

I want to get a Voodoo 4MB for this pc eventually but that still doesn't explain the lesser DOS performance and the D3D and OGL issues.

I am new to socket 7 era stuff as I've always used a 486 with VLB or Slot 1 and newer stuff.

MM2 is Windows GUI and 2D high-res accellerotor (without OpenGL and usable D3D).

Its hard to find PCI graphics cards of that era with acceptible 3D capabilities, and the Millennium is not one of them.

It’s pretty clear I should grab a Voodoo for the 3D games.
I do find it odd though that in software 3D the Millennium II seems to be 10-15% slower than the GD5446 I tested software Quake and it’s 16fps vs 18.9fps and Need for Speed III software 8fps vs 10fps. It does however have a noticeably sharper and more vibrant output .

Verdorie1 wrote on 2024-06-06, 18:11:

Have I done something wrong or is this how this graphics card is meant to behave?

Welcome to first generation 3D!

GLQuake's slow because it's software rendering - pre-G400 MGA cards didn't have a GL ICD. You can at least try Techland's MSI3D driver (pulled out of the Crime Cities demo) with that to see it accelerate, though the mystique-based hardware isn't going to blend that lightmap properly. There's a reason why Matrox released the Matrox M3D 3d card as a stopgap during Millennium II's time, as that's PowerVR1-based and has a MiniGL driver that can work GLQuake well. 1997 was a crazy time for 3d.

There are performance and signal quality merits to the Millennium II however, and the dithered alpha blends without texture filtering can be a matter of taste (for the Direct3D games that do work, that is)... It'll also handle the large textures in MDK, something 3dfx can't do.

I wonder how a Nvidia Riva 128 stacks up in terms of video quality and 2D performance, I might give that a try too.
Of course in D3D it'll be a lot faster than the Millennium II.

Riva128 was designed with win9x (d3d/opengl) in their mind. Some say the VBE is very compatible and fast, but this heavily depends on what video bios the card has, for example my own riva128 was giving a bad experience in dos.

Idk about dos performance, but the short green radeon 7500 and about any 9200/9250 seem to just work great in pci form on these systems.

Watch out for the red mobile 7500 cards with the L shaped heatsink. Those need a different driver.

As far as the matrox goes, they are nice cards many like them with voodooo for their good signal, but they haven’t really been the best options for 3d gaming.