no, it's simply the hardware i have setup at the moment and wanted to try this card on it, to see how far things can be pushed. people on this forum have tried those cards on slower machines like P60s and 486s so i don't think it's too crazy though, i think 3dfx named the P90 as the official minimum for the card.

turok 1 actually runs not too bad for being below the p120 min req (apparently p100 for 3dfx), montezuma's return also ran surprisingly well, that game probably uses huge polygons and seems quite optimized. i think glide helped a lot with CPU overhead in titles like that. Q2 is somewhat painful, even though i'm sure some people would beat the game on a machine like that back in the day.

auron wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:02:

no, it's simply the hardware i have setup at the moment and wanted to try this card on it, to see how far things can be pushed. people on this forum have tried those cards on slower machines like P60s and 486s so i don't think it's too crazy though, i think 3dfx named the P90 as the official minimum for the card.

turok 1 actually runs not too bad for being below the p120 min req, montezuma's return also ran surprisingly well, that game probably uses huge polygons and seems quite optimized. i think glide helped a lot with CPU overhead in titles like that.

Okay, no problem. 😀

If you have any faster systems though you'll probably see more of a difference since just about anything 3D accelerated will be severely CPU limited on a Pentium 90.

Minimum requirements back then were seemingly written to make potential game buyers not sad that their 3 year old $2500 PC was already worthless for gaming. The mid to late 90s were really rough times for PC longevity. It's likely that any performance improvements made in later driver versions were made with faster CPUs in mind too.

There are some nice CPU scaling numbers in this post for reference:
Socket 7 Voodoo vs. Voodoo 2 CPU Scaling
From a P100 to a P200 for example, Turok went from 24fps to 49fps with a Voodoo 1, and it even continues scaling beyond that.

I would actually be really curious to see scaling across driver versions on a P200 or even a PII 266, 400, etc.

EDIT: Just to clarify. Your results do add some useful data points, so thank you for doing them! If anything, it tells us that the driver overhead during very CPU limited situations did not change significantly across driver versions.

auron wrote on 2025-01-22, 20:50:

it's RC55, so this could mean that the performance downgrade was already introduced in the RC66 build which should be on the OSR 2.5 CD instead of in DX 5.2.

If you tested with DX5 RC55 and then 5.2, these two have the EXACT same API related dll files. There are two different files, "devnode1.dll" and "devnode2.dll", but IINM these are not involved in processing. Someone with low-level programming knowledge could perhaps look at them to see what they do exactly. (There are other different files too but they are not important, like setup files, etc.)

This does not really explain the performance difference.

auron wrote on 2025-01-22, 20:50:

well, using the 3.01.00 driver it threw a glide related error when renaming the file to opengl32.dll and selecting the regular non-3dfx OGL option in quake2, that's a hint at a glide dependency. it presenting itself to software as a full ICD isn't saying anything about how the driver works internally. and i think my post was clear on distinguishing the minigl and icd, don't know why you seem to think i conflated those.

It talks to the chip through the glide dll but the ICD is an OpenGL driver; the glide API is not involved AFAICT. It seems something's wrong with Glide on your setup. Seeing all the problems you're having, considering the constant changes in drivers and other files, and that the games work here, probably it'd be better to test with a fresh windows.

auron wrote on 2025-01-22, 20:50:

my bad, i only mentioned the game in other topics as something i was never able to get running on any driver - get a black screen and some directx 5 related error after 30 seconds or so. feel free to test it if you want or not.

It's not a problem, just that emulating it yourself would be faster and you'd have the results immediately. I'll test once I get the time.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:14:

Okay, no problem. :) […]
Show full quote

Okay, no problem. 😀

If you have any faster systems though you'll probably see more of a difference since just about anything 3D accelerated will be severely CPU limited on a Pentium 90.

Minimum requirements back then were seemingly written to make potential game buyers not sad that their 3 year old $2500 PC was already worthless for gaming. The mid to late 90s were really rough times for PC longevity. It's likely that any performance improvements made in later driver versions were made with faster CPUs in mind too.

There are some nice CPU scaling numbers in this post for reference:
Socket 7 Voodoo vs. Voodoo 2 CPU Scaling
From a P100 to a P200 for example, Turok went from 24fps to 49fps with a Voodoo 1, and it even continues scaling beyond that.

I would actually be really curious to see scaling across driver versions on a P200 or even a PII 266, 400, etc.

EDIT: Just to clarify. Your results do add some useful data points, so thank you for doing them! If anything, it tells us that the driver overhead during very CPU limited situations did not change significantly across driver versions.

i'm aware the cards scale to a PII. if you look at it differently though, glide (or 3dfx minigl) doesn't have nearly as much utility when only using the fastest CPUs possible. not that it's wrong to do that, but it doesn't represent the average experience of the time either.

if you play GTA 2, the D3D renderer is a mess in terms of overhead and basically needs something close to the fastest CPUs at its release to reach the game's 25 FPS limit. in glide, i would expect the game to run quite well on the minimum required p200. but you wouldn't learn about aspects like that if only using the fastest possible parts.

auron wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:41:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:14:

Okay, no problem. :) […]
Show full quote

Okay, no problem. 😀

If you have any faster systems though you'll probably see more of a difference since just about anything 3D accelerated will be severely CPU limited on a Pentium 90.

Minimum requirements back then were seemingly written to make potential game buyers not sad that their 3 year old $2500 PC was already worthless for gaming. The mid to late 90s were really rough times for PC longevity. It's likely that any performance improvements made in later driver versions were made with faster CPUs in mind too.

There are some nice CPU scaling numbers in this post for reference:
Socket 7 Voodoo vs. Voodoo 2 CPU Scaling
From a P100 to a P200 for example, Turok went from 24fps to 49fps with a Voodoo 1, and it even continues scaling beyond that.

I would actually be really curious to see scaling across driver versions on a P200 or even a PII 266, 400, etc.

EDIT: Just to clarify. Your results do add some useful data points, so thank you for doing them! If anything, it tells us that the driver overhead during very CPU limited situations did not change significantly across driver versions.

i'm aware the cards scale to a PII. if you look at it differently though, glide (or 3dfx minigl) doesn't have nearly as much utility when only using the fastest CPUs possible. not that it's wrong to do that, but it doesn't represent the average experience of the time either.

Well, of course, a PII wouldn't represent the average experience when the Voodoo was released because it wasn't out yet. I just mentioned that for the sake of looking at driver performance near the upper limit of the CPUs that the Voodoo will scale with.

A Pentium 166 still nearly doubles the performance vs a 90 though in some games, and was released ~9 months before the Voodoo. I understand looking at Glide from a reduced CPU overhead perspective, but I think a P90 managing only 20fps average is just too much of a bottleneck, regardless of what the minimum requirements of the card or games say. Again, the data you've collected is still useful, but since it shows almost no differences in performance between versions it is important to note that it's likely due to the severe CPU bottleneck, not a lack of driver improvements. People just looking at the results in the original post may get the impression that there are no performance improvements to be had with later Voodoo drivers.

I haven't done the testing myself, I was just saying that it may reveal more about driver scaling to use a faster processor.

auron wrote on 2025-01-22, 21:41:

if you play GTA 2, the D3D renderer is a mess in terms of overhead and basically needs something close to the fastest CPUs at its release to reach the game's 25 FPS limit. in glide, i would expect the game to run quite well on the minimum required p200. but you wouldn't learn about aspects like that if only using the fastest possible parts.

Yeah, D3D performance in a lot of games back then was atrocious compared to Glide and OpenGL. And that is interesting, but is a bit of a different topic than comparing performance across driver versions.

(Man... trying to make this not sound so antagonistic, but the words are failing me today. I apologize >_< . I do appreciate your work, I was just giving a suggestion. )

Tested Croc demo and full game on two separate setups, DX7 with 3.01.00, and DX5 with 3.00.01. On both, using the options for other cards end in a black screen. However after doing some short research, it became apparent that the demo and the initial release of the game do not even support Direct3D. They use the proprietary APIs of the listed cards, so they certainly won't work on a Voodoo card.

I tested the Direct3D release and it works fine on the Voodoo 1. Just download the unofficial patch and the game should work for you too. If the patch doesn't install, extract the contents with 7-zip and manually apply them.

yes, and among said listed cards, there is this in the initial 1.0 version of the demo...

anyhow, got this to work in the end - deleting every 3dfx related file in the folder does the trick, though oddly it seems to recreate glide2x.dll every time. and just in case, it is running in glide indeed, as evidenced by the 3dfx splash screen. performance was no good for this type of game though but can't expect anything when below minimum requirements.

Somehow I thought you wanted a d3d test since that voodoo option was simply working. I didn't need to delete anything.

did a retest using a fresh windows install, same hardware. the planned installation order was like this: AWE64 driver CD -> DX3.0a -> DX5.0 -> DX5.0 package matrox -> V1 3.01.00 -> DX6.0 -> DX 6.0 package matrox, otherwise just MaxFileCache=4096 was set.

however, because the DX5.0 install updated the matrox driver without asking, i was not able to reproduce the issue in fallout by using the default sep 5 1996 dated driver with DX5.0. with the sep 13 1996 dated driver installed, i had an annoying issue with the refresh rate randomly changing to 60hz upon reboot, despite "optimal" being set. i've had this problem in the past, so this driver should probably just be avoided.

other than that, nothing changed from my prior tests. even when being the first voodoo driver that's installed, 3.01.00 has the same issues with glide, and i didn't even bother putting on Q2 at that point to test opengl. for whatever reason that driver refuses to work correctly on this setup, maybe it doesn't like the chipset. i was also able to reproduce the reduced 3d performance in >DX5.0 (PCP D3D 19.1 FPS in DX5.0, 18.2 FPS in DX6.0).

i also tested winbench 99 using just the directdraw test, with those various DX and driver versions. being a synthetic test it's not quite ideal to test the impact on game performance, but i'm not aware of a better directdraw test right now.

DX3.0a 9-5-96 driver wrote:

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2 DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800 […]
Show full quote

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800x600:Pixels Drawn 19.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1024x768:Pixels Drawn 19.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1152x864:Pixels Drawn 19.2 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1280x1024:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1600x1200:Pixels Drawn 20.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 20.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 14.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 7.87 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 9.39 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BltFast:Pixels Drawn 19.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Blt:Pixels Drawn 4.12 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Solid:Pixels Drawn 106 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Transparent:Pixels Drawn 12.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Full Screen:Pixels Drawn 3.87 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Windowed:Pixels Drawn 3.71 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Clipped:Pixels Drawn 3.7 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 17.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 17.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 18.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 256 pixels:Pixels Drawn 6.34 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 1024 pixels:Pixels Drawn 13.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 4096 pixels:Pixels Drawn 19.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 2.0x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 6.53 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.71 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Transparent, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 1.64 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 1.64 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 0.355 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 1.07 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 8 bit color:Pixels Drawn 1370 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 16 bit color:Pixels Drawn 1260 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 24 bit color:Pixels Drawn 16 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 32 bit color:Pixels Drawn 659 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2

DX5.0 9-13-96 driver wrote:

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 28.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2 DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800 […]
Show full quote

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 28.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800x600:Pixels Drawn 28.7 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1024x768:Pixels Drawn 28.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1152x864:Pixels Drawn 28.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1280x1024:Pixels Drawn 28.9 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1600x1200:Pixels Drawn 30.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 31.1 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 17.7 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 6.59 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 10.2 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BltFast:Pixels Drawn 28.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Blt:Pixels Drawn 12.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Solid:Pixels Drawn 106 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Transparent:Pixels Drawn 21.7 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Full Screen:Pixels Drawn 6.56 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Windowed:Pixels Drawn 6.21 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Clipped:Pixels Drawn 6.24 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 29 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 28.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 26.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 29.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 256 pixels:Pixels Drawn 6.58 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 1024 pixels:Pixels Drawn 17 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 4096 pixels:Pixels Drawn 29 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 2.0x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 6.51 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 3.55 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Transparent, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 3.51 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.72 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 0.363 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.97 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 8 bit color:Pixels Drawn 758 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 16 bit color:Pixels Drawn 1260 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 24 bit color:Pixels Drawn 15.9 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 32 bit color:Pixels Drawn 659 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2

DX6.0 9-13-96 driver wrote:

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 19.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2 DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800 […]
Show full quote

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 19.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800x600:Pixels Drawn 19.7 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1024x768:Pixels Drawn 19.7 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1152x864:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1280x1024:Pixels Drawn 19.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1600x1200:Pixels Drawn 20.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 20.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 17.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 5.86 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 7.44 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BltFast:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Blt:Pixels Drawn 10.1 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Solid:Pixels Drawn 107 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Transparent:Pixels Drawn 12.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Full Screen:Pixels Drawn 6.67 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Windowed:Pixels Drawn 6.34 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Clipped:Pixels Drawn 6.35 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 19.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 18.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 19.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 256 pixels:Pixels Drawn 5.35 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 1024 pixels:Pixels Drawn 12.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 4096 pixels:Pixels Drawn 19.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 2.0x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 6.47 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 3.14 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Transparent, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.64 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 0.358 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.72 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 8 bit color:Pixels Drawn 692 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 16 bit color:Pixels Drawn 1280 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 24 bit color:Pixels Drawn 15.9 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 32 bit color:Pixels Drawn 674 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2

DX6.0 included driver wrote:

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 41.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2 DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800 […]
Show full quote

DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 640x480:Pixels Drawn 41.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 800x600:Pixels Drawn 41 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1024x768:Pixels Drawn 41.2 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1152x864:Pixels Drawn 40.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1280x1024:Pixels Drawn 40.7 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size, 1600x1200:Pixels Drawn 39.1 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 41 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 24.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 16.5 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Color Depth, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 12.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BltFast:Pixels Drawn 41 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Blt:Pixels Drawn 39 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Solid:Pixels Drawn 106 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Transparent:Pixels Drawn 40.6 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Full Screen:Pixels Drawn 23.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Windowed:Pixels Drawn 19.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Clipped:Pixels Drawn 19.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 41 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in video:Pixels Drawn 20.1 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in video, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 18.4 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Memory, Source in system, Work area in system:Pixels Drawn 19.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 256 pixels:Pixels Drawn 9.32 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 1024 pixels:Pixels Drawn 27.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate BLT size, 4096 pixels:Pixels Drawn 41.3 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 2.0x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 6.46 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 3.14 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Transparent, 1.7x, 8 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.8 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 16 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.44 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 24 bit:Pixels Drawn 0.355 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Animate Stretch, Solid, 1.7x, 32 bit:Pixels Drawn 2.45 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 8 bit color:Pixels Drawn 710 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 16 bit color:Pixels Drawn 1270 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 24 bit color:Pixels Drawn 122 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2
DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth, 32 bit color:Pixels Drawn 659 Million Pixels/Sec 1,2

note that the results for DX6.0 with the older driver from DX5.0 may well be iffy, because it was running at 60hz for those tests. the millennium is normally supposed to run at 85hz in directdraw. the numbers are a bit all over the place, but DX6 with the newest driver performs the best here. this isn't quite unexpected because winbench 99 comes packaged with DX6. still, it does run even with DX3.0a and looks just the same. there was a transparency test which didn't actually render any transparency, but showed a hall-of-mirrors-style "layering" with all drivers, i was not sure if this is due to the matrox not supporting a feature or if it's supposed to look like this.

it doesn't seem that later DX versions use any more RAM, as at least on the desktop, there was just half a megabyte or so difference after boot, which might as well be due to some driver difference. and directdraw performance could even be improved, even with this older hardware by 1999 standards. so from what i'm able to say so far, the performance downgrade seems to only concern 3d performance.