Matrox Impression Plus, ISA version
http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/news/item … impression-plus

Thanks for the link, but I'd really like to know if this card is capable of functioning in an 8-bit slot, and which actions (jumpers, dips) I need to take to have it work. The PCI-version has none of these headaches, of course.

Why not just try it? I wouldn't assume it works, however. That card was made for professional use, not for putting it into an XT.

The dip switches are apparently for setting the IRQ.

I tried it, and it did not work. I should have mentioned that in my opening post. 8-bit is definitively not my area of expertise.

Thanks for the information on the dipswitch, it seems logical indeed that these are for IRQ rather than anything else.

If my memory is correct, the VGA performance of early Matrox cards (before the first gen Millennium and Mystique) was pretty abysmal anyway . My personal experience is based on the PCI Impression Lite that a friend owned . Again, going from memory, the correspondence between him and Matrox could basically be resumed as saying the cards were meant as video accelerators for Windows, CAD , etc and had great performance there, but VGA support was there for compatibility purposes only, not as anything that could be considered high performance . Yet again from memory, VGA performance on that PCI Impression Lite was subjectively so bad that it made OAK and Trident ISA cards look good in comparison .

I cannot comment on the Matrox Impression Plus ISA specifically, but I would not expect anything good from it on the VGA front, even if it did work in an 8-bit slot .

"The MGA Millennium has been both a critical and a popular favorite. The board’s success as a game platform was a surprise to Matrox, particularly since gamers scorned the Millennium’s predecessors due to lackluster VGA performance."

From https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-ne … xels/matrox-mga

Thanks Darry! Always great to get some background story to a card, even if it's not a good one 😊.

On such cards it is also possible for the DIP switches to set memory regions.

darry wrote on 2020-04-07, 03:04:

"The MGA Millennium has been both a critical and a popular favorite. The board’s success as a game platform was a surprise to Matrox, particularly since gamers scorned the Millennium’s predecessors due to lackluster VGA performance."

From https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-ne … xels/matrox-mga

Quote from that article:
1994 – Matrox introduced the Matrox Impression, an AIB that worked in conjunction with a Millennium card to provide 3D acceleration.

I don't think they know what are they talking about.

The Impression was geared toward 3D CAD work not gaming. I suppose you could run a Millenium for 2D and using the feature connection switch to the Impression plus for 3D CAD.

Unknown_K wrote on 2020-04-08, 22:25:

The Impression was geared toward 3D CAD work not gaming. I suppose you could run a Millenium for 2D and using the feature connection switch to the Impression plus for 3D CAD.

But what would be the point?
Are there any pictures of AIB Impression?