I decided to test Windows NT 4.0 on my new (to me) IBM 300GL with a Pentium MMX 200 MHz. This computer’s configuration is very similar to the PC I had in the late 90s (except I used an ATX-style motherboard/case for my Pentium MMX). Running NT 4.0 on this computer really brought back some memories, including running my Creative DXR3 MPEG accelerator with DVD movies.
I had a generic 14” CRT monitor back then, so I never ran the DXR3 at a resolution much higher than 800x600. I also never stressed the accelerator to see what it could do at higher resolutions until today. Now I use a 27” 1080p monitor even with my retro projects. I decided to crank up the accelerator’s resolution and aspect ratio to see how it worked.
The DXR3 card uses a VGA pass-through cable from the video card and overlays the MPEG playback over it. Creative’s DXR3 manual only states compatible pass-through resolutions up to 1280x1024, 24-bit color, but it doesn’t mention any widescreen resolutions.
I started testing the card at 1280x1024 using my PCI Matrox G200 as the primary video card. Unfortunately, the DXR3’s image quality looked a lot softer than the G200 would produce by itself at this resolution. Still, the DXR3 provided smooth playback of a widescreen DVD movie (letter boxed in full screen mode) with few artifacts.
I next planned to look at the image quality at 1024x768, but I noticed that NT 4’s display menu offered me a resolution of 1280x720 (widescreen). I gave it a try to see if it would pass through the DXR3, and it did. The image quality of the Windows desktop looked much sharper at that resolution compared to 1280x1024. The DXR3 even played back the DVD video in this mode, including the wide aspect ratio in full-screen mode. Unfortunately, the DXR3 produced a number of visual artifacts at this resolution during DVD playback.
I also tried 1080p. The DXR3 did pass 1920x1080 through the card, but it sadly would not sync the video playback in either windowed or full screen modes at that resolution.
I’m still surprised that a widescreen mode worked at all considering the vintage of the DXR3 card. I totally didn’t expect to see that. Here’s a picture of it running in 720p (windowed):