First post, by retro games 100
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Introduction
I am testing a Matrox G200 PCI 8MB video card. I have tested it in a PCI 486 mobo, and it works OK. I am also testing it in a slot 1 mobo, to test some of the latest Windows 98 drivers and utilities.
1) Link to the latest Windows 3.x driver. Filename is w31_161.exe.
2) Link to the latest Windows 95 driver. Filename is w9x_623.exe.
3) Link to the latest Windows 98 driver. Filename is w9x_682.exe.
4) Link to an older driver that works on a 486 mobo, for either Windows 95 or 98. Filename is w9x_433c.exe.
5) Link to the G200's BIOS, and BIOS utility. Filename is setup_g258_2.exe.
6) Link to a BIOS recovery utility. Filename is recover.zip.
7) Link to the Matrox PowerDesk driver uninstaller. Filename is pd_unin201.exe.
8 ) Link to an older version of the Matrox tweaker. See note 8 below. Filename is mtstu40409.zip.
9) Link to (I think) the latest Matrox tweaker - but see note 9 below. Filename is mtstu50204.zip.
10) Link to the VESA VBE/core V3.0 GX00VBE (version 1.0b4) utility.
11) Link to "Matrox Files", an old Matrox "fan made" website.
Notes
1) This seems to work well. I chose the 1280x1024 resolution option, and it worked on my LCD. This software package also contains an uninstaller, which is useful.
2) It seems that this driver includes the integrated ICD. Therefore, you don't need to download their final beta 2 ICD from the Matrox FTP site, if you are using this driver.
3) There are a couple of other later drivers. They are called w9x_683.exe and w9x_683beta.exe. You can get them here. I haven't tested them.
4) I wonder if this older version works OK on a 486, because it contains no Pentium instructions? BTW, this Matrox ftp site is useful. It has all of the Matrox archived software in it. You can't browse to all of this stuff, via their website. You can only browse *all* of it via this FTP site.
5) You can't run the Windows BIOS utility to flash the card, if you haven't installed the G200's graphics driver software beforehand. I've tested this on both Windows 95 and 98. There is an older BIOS package available on the Matrox FTP site. It seems more DOS oriented, and includes various DOS utilities. It is called setup351.exe. You can get this DOS package here.
6) This will restore the G200 to use the factory default BIOS. I think that's BIOS version 1.0 or 1.1. I haven't tested this.
7) I wonder why this is available seperately? For all of the driver versions I have installed, you can uninstall the PowerDesk and driver by going to Control Panel, and selecting to uninstall the Matrox software. Perhaps really old versions of this software did not have this feature? There is an older uninstaller available on the Matrox FTP site. This filename is pd_unin.exe. I have only tested pd_unin201.exe. I've tested it on both Windows 95 and 98.
8 ) Using this tool, I enabled "Advanced multitexturing" and "optimise for accuracy". I then ran Quake2 timedemo. I got ~15 FPS. I then disabled the advanced multitexturing, and I also selected "optimised for speed". I reran the Quake2 timedemo. I got ~18 FPS. So, it appears to do something. 😉 BTW, there is no overclocking tab in this version. That only appears in the 50204 version, but it doesn't appear to do anything for this G200 card. BTW, I've tried running these Tweaker utilities on Windows 95, and an error pop up message is displayed saying that W95 is not supported.
9) It runs OK, but doesn't appear to do much. Overclocking and changing the OpenGL options don't appear to work. I guess it has been designed for use with the G400 and above cards. The readme/release notes say that it supports the G200 PCI card, however. So, I don't understand why this isn't working too well. There are other older versions of this tweaker available. They can be found here and here.
10) This video utility adds VESA VBE/core V3.0 functionality, overriding the Matrox BIOS. It takes up about 8Kb of memory, as a TSR.
11) Contains several "fan made" utilities, including "MXSET", a utility to overclock the G200! I have not tested this.
The card
It looks like it's made by Compaq. I wonder why they call it a G2+? Are these things slower than the Matrox G200 cards?
MGA clock utility. You can find it here. Filename is mxck.exe
Mxinfo. You can find it here. Filename is mxinfo.exe
Matrox display properties. Shows the "integrated" ICD, for this 6.82 version driver.
MGA control panel, in Windows 3.11 (wfwg)
MGA advanced set up, in Windows 3.11 (wfwg)
MGA PowerDesk, in Windows 3.11 (wfwg)