VOGONS


First post, by tobiasrieper

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As the title describes I can’t for the life of me get this Matrox G2+ working on Win98SE. In DOS 6.22 the card works perfectly have tested Duke3d, Doom and Raptor.

I have tried installing Matrox Drivers 5.25, 5.52 in Safe Mode as Well as Normal mode. I’ve also done a clean install, installed the card without any chipset drivers (se installs MS drivers for system devices ) I’ve tried intels chipset drivers 2.80 and 3.20 to no avail.

Sometimes It loads up with the desktop but no Matrox utilities are installed, sometimes windows screen goes completely black until I reboot into safe mode. When I’m in safe mode the card says it’s installed but I can’t see any Matrox programs in the program files.

It’s like the cards half installed. I’ve made sure my monitor says plug and play (I don’t get a list of refresh rates)

I’ve also reflashed the bios with Matrox official utility (3.3)

Any idea where I’m going wrong?
My S3 cards are all PCI (work fine) the Matrox is AGP (my board is a Vobis motherboard and can’t find a suitable bios update , it’s still on P01.

Driving me a bit nuts to be honest x

Thanks 😀

Reply 2 of 11, by tobiasrieper

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Thank you I’ll download them all and try them one by one ! oh thats where ive been going wrong, they multi isntall - d1,d2,d3,d4 and the exe. Ive just been isntalling the exe. What a bizzard driver arrangment.

Reply 3 of 11, by swaaye

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tobiasrieper wrote on 2026-07-22, 11:24:

Thank you I’ll download them all and try them one by one ! oh thats where ive been going wrong, they multi isntall - d1,d2,d3,d4 and the exe. Ive just been isntalling the exe. What a bizzard driver arrangment.

The split drivers appear to be sized for loading onto floppies. (d = disk).

The below should be complete driver downloads.
w9x_515.exe
w9x_520.exe
w9x_525.exe
w9x_530.exe
w9x_541.exe

Reply 4 of 11, by tobiasrieper

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Thank you ! I tried 5.41 after reboot straight black screen this was after installing the 2.80 Intel drivers. Maybe it doesn’t like the lx board?

Reply 5 of 11, by swaaye

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tobiasrieper wrote on 2026-07-22, 22:15:

Thank you ! I tried 5.41 after reboot straight black screen this was after installing the 2.80 Intel drivers. Maybe it doesn’t like the lx board?

It's not incompatible with 440LX, but it's possible it doesn't like your particular 440LX board. It could also be the G200 card itself. I would get another AGP 2x card of some sort to test if the motherboard is working ok.

Reply 6 of 11, by tobiasrieper

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swaaye wrote on 2026-07-23, 00:38:
tobiasrieper wrote on 2026-07-22, 22:15:

Thank you ! I tried 5.41 after reboot straight black screen this was after installing the 2.80 Intel drivers. Maybe it doesn’t like the lx board?

It's not incompatible with 440LX, but it's possible it doesn't like your particular 440LX board. It could also be the G200 card itself. I would get another AGP 2x card of some sort to test if the motherboard is working ok.

I have a Abit BE6 Motherboard 440bx on the way so can try with that next week! It’s a weird Vobis one with no AGP configuration options. I’d update the BIOS but can not find a compatible updated one (manufacturer code 25a)

This is why I prefer PCI, no issues with my S3 cards!

Reply 7 of 11, by swaaye

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tobiasrieper wrote on 2026-07-23, 07:03:

This is why I prefer PCI, no issues with my S3 cards!

AGP on Intel motherboards is usually rock solid. You can count on these video cards having been thoroughly tested on Intel chipsets. There is an issue with some motherboards having inadequate power delivery for some cards though. Matrox G200 shouldn't be a problem. You also can't be sure this ancient hardware is still working properly. Especially relating to capacitors.

I was actually an early adopter of G200 in 1998. I ran it on an Abit BH6 alongside my Voodoo1. I bought the G400 in 1999. These cards had the best image quality by far during those years.

Reply 8 of 11, by tobiasrieper

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I honestly don’t think this particular board is up to it to be honest. I could recap the board, it’s only some big caps on the VRMs. When I get the BX board I’ll have another go. Until then I’ll just play DOS 😀

Reply 9 of 11, by swaaye

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tobiasrieper wrote on 2026-07-23, 19:53:

I honestly don’t think this particular board is up to it to be honest. I could recap the board, it’s only some big caps on the VRMs. When I get the BX board I’ll have another go. Until then I’ll just play DOS 😀

By the way, for Matrox card info the Matrox Users Resource Center is the place to do some searching. This was a big discussion forum for Matrox hardware back in the day.
http://murc.ws/forum/hardware/general-hardwar … matrox-hardware

Reply 10 of 11, by bjrnx

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Maybe updating the bios to latest stock intel version (P14 afaik) helps. It is discussed/explained here how to do it for OEM boards:

Re: Need Help Finding What the Latest BIOS for This Motherboard Is
https://web.archive.org/web/20090224233143/ht … 20OEM%20version

Download can be found at https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/intel-al440lx-atlanta

Iirc I once successfully followed the recovery procedure removing the config jumper to update an OEM board.

Reply 11 of 11, by swaaye

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tobiasrieper wrote on 2026-07-21, 21:02:

I’ve tried intels chipset drivers 2.80 and 3.20 to no avail.

It just occurred to me that you said you installed chipset drivers for 98SE. 440 chipsets do not need any OS drivers for 98SE. It includes drivers for them.

You also don't need any of the unofficial service packs or really any updates aside from whatever DirectX version a game needs.