Back when I started working on my first retro build (a 486 with muscles of steel), I had considered using the G450 as a 2D card, however, wanting to use the MS-DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.1 combination, I found myself limited in Windows to using the generic 256 color driver (Matrox had released Win 3.1 drivers for the G400 but not for the G450). So I looked for a solution: I had thought about modifying the G400 drivers (as mentioned, G450 is a simple die shrink of G400) however I found various negative experiences in this regard on the Internet and therefore I decided to give up.

Maybe whoever had tried to modify the G400 drivers to use them with the G450 had done something wrong, they didn't have enough experience.

For my build, I just thought, having a 4MB Millennium II available, that it would be enough for DOS and Win 3.1 and that in this way I would finish my build quickly and without any particular problems... and so it was... and so the project retro began 😁

I use the G450 with a win95 build in combination with a voodoo1 and a Matrox M3d, and it works great for me.

igna78 wrote on 2023-09-08, 22:36:

as mentioned, G450 is a simple die shrink of G400

That is impossible. G450 added a second ramdac and surely they wouldn't spare transistors on an unused 128-bit memory bus while they were at it.

Putas wrote on 2023-09-09, 17:14:

igna78 wrote on 2023-09-08, 22:36:

as mentioned, G450 is a simple die shrink of G400

That is impossible. G450 added a second ramdac and surely they wouldn't spare transistors on an unused 128-bit memory bus while they were at it.

I'm not a techie, but I remember several articles from the time referring to the G450 chip as a G400 chip built on a smaller process.

G450 spec: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/millennium-g450.c1922

G400 spec: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/millennium-g400.c3720

From the technical specifications reported on the boards made by TechPowerUp what I said seems confirmed to me.

Then the fact that the video cards based on these chips have different capacities because they are equipped with a different number of RAMDACs, as well as different memories and commission buses, this is another matter.

If you want to make a comparison it's like between P3 Coppermine and P3 Tualatin, they are essentially the same CPU, only that the second one, having been built with a more efficient process, was able to scale up in speed and with the extra space freed up on the die it received more L2 cache 😁

igna78 wrote on 2023-09-09, 22:56:

Putas wrote on 2023-09-09, 17:14:

igna78 wrote on 2023-09-08, 22:36:

as mentioned, G450 is a simple die shrink of G400

That is impossible. G450 added a second ramdac and surely they wouldn't spare transistors on an unused 128-bit memory bus while they were at it.

Then the fact that the video cards based on these chips have different capacities because they are equipped with a different number of RAMDACs, as well as different memories and commission buses, this is another matter.

If you want to make a comparison it's like between P3 Coppermine and P3 Tualatin, they are essentially the same CPU, only that the second one, having been built with a more efficient process, was able to scale up in speed and with the extra space freed up on the die it received more L2 cache 😁

it is not another matter. Die shrink means taking the same die and making it smaller. Enlarging the L2 cache for example means at the very least rearranging the layout, necessitating a design effort.

If it would be just a die shrink without changing any internal registers and logic then there's no reason why G450 not work (after changing DID) with old drivers. But as there 2nd RAMDAC was added it would be reason that some internal logic was changed and that could break the compatability with drivers. If we would have datasheets (not just a brief tech. spec) of both chips then we can compare how it really differs but I didn't find any leaked document of Gxx series, all I have is Matrox MGA-2164W developer’s specification.pdf