VOGONS


First post, by TheAdmiralty

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Howdy!

Well, I've set the 486 build aside for now while I wait for a nice-looking VLB video card to pop up for it, along with a Baby-AT case. Focus looks like it's going to be on the good old AMD K6.

I'm having a helluva time finding a decent PCI video card for it, though. Motherboard is an Asus SP97-XV with four PCI and four ISA slots, four SIMM-72 and two DIMM slots, and all the works that go along with your typical Socket 7 board. Unfortunately, I don't have the capacity for an AGP card, which really limits things, but it's still a lot easier than shopping for the VL-Bus.

I'd buy this right here if I could only find a driver for it... yes, I know it's a FireGL card, and yes, I know what that means - I've never seen one of those things from this generation, though, and my system builds always end up turning into more of a collection of oddities than actual functionality anyway.

I've dug through all the Matrox Millenniums that are relatively period-correct to the first generation K6, and was rather unimpressed with them. The prices on a Voodoo are unjustifiable if you ask me, so that's out. As usual, I'm pushing for the absolute highest resolution and color depth possible in what will most likely be Win98 - 4MB of memory isn't going to cut it, so there goes most of the Diamond Stealth cards. Currently, I'm drifting throught ATI's early Rage cards, which might turn out something useful. Anyone have any recommendations while I continue to flip through eBay and the likes?

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Reply 1 of 9, by Putas

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I am afraid there was only NT driver, but for the price it is good collector item. Rage 128 would serve well (check for 128 bit memory), eventually some cheap Voodoo3 PCI should appear.

Reply 2 of 9, by elianda

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ELSA Winner 8 MB (with S3 Vision968)
Anything from Riva128ZX to GF4MX as PCI card.
Anything from Matrox G100 to G450
Same applies for Ati, anything from Rage Pro to Radeon 9250 PCI f.e.

Retronn.de - Vintage Hardware Gallery, Drivers, Guides, Videos. Now with file search
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Reply 3 of 9, by TheAdmiralty

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That's a shame... might take it just to add to the collection anyway, for $15. I've paid more than that for shipping alone.

I'm seeing a lot of OEM Rage128's that are pulls out of PowerMac systems, though some of them aren't. Also a couple Rage Pros and a nice Matrox G450 - I think I might end up going with that should all else fail. I've been flipping through old(er) reviews over at TomsHardware and ran into a couple Hercules cards, and that second one would be one of the most interesting things I could possibly find... unfortunately, I haven't seen any card at all from them for quite a few years now. Hard to believe how many things have just disappeared entirely.

He took out his hip flask when he reached the page that described how he reached the page that made him take out his hip flask.

Reply 4 of 9, by Skyscraper

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I would choose a Nvidia Riva 128(zx), Riva TNT(2) or a Geforce2(4) MX.
When it comes to 2D speed the Matrox Millenium is really really fast though.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 5 of 9, by Putas

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And Matrox is really sharp at high res, so the G450 would be my choice. Rage Pro has nothing on it, just like those Hercules cards.

Reply 6 of 9, by swaaye

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The GUI performance of G400, Rage128, Voodoo3 and TNT2 are similar anyway. Newer cards will beat Matrox unless you get a Parhelia perhaps, which has no Win9x driver. GeForce 4 MX 128bit should really stomp a Matrox G400/450/550.

However a K6 is a significant bottleneck so none of this matters much. The primary concern is a quality VGA signal.

Reply 8 of 9, by sliderider

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Putas wrote:

I am afraid there was only NT driver, but for the price it is good collector item. Rage 128 would serve well (check for 128 bit memory), eventually some cheap Voodoo3 PCI should appear.

Any cheap Voodoo3 PCI's that appear usually end up in my mailbox a few days later. 🤣

Reply 9 of 9, by TheAdmiralty

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Mmm... it's taking everything I've got to not sit here and tell myself "...but the next generation is just a bit better..." over and over again. The last time I did this, I ended up nearly ten years off with an AGP GeForce 6800 running alongside a Pentium II clocked at a whopping 266Mhz. Needless to say that build ended up being a bit out of whack.

My trusty Acer V193W (the one monitor I use for just about everything) has two ports on the back - VGA and power. It's probably the most bare-minimum widescreen monitor you'll ever find. It may run at the rather awkward resolution of 1440x900, but the thing is easy to pack up in a relatively small box, eats anything you throw at it, and has an exceptionally clear image with nice color. For being a free monitor from the local grocery store, it's quite a nice one. Even runs at 75Hz. 😎

sliderider wrote:

Any cheap Voodoo3 PCI's that appear usually end up in my mailbox a few days later. 🤣

So it's you! 😠 Heh, I know the feeling... I'm slowly soaking up all the ceramic processors I come in contact with, if for no reason other than keeping them from some guy thinking that he'll make a hundred dollars by scrapping a handful of perfectly good processors. I find myself questioning why I have a nice white-and-gold Fujitsu 8088 clone, sometimes, but oh well. Should these eBay sellers grow a collective brain and stop charging $500+ for these early Pentium-generation Single Board Computers, they'd probably start disappearing, too.

He took out his hip flask when he reached the page that described how he reached the page that made him take out his hip flask.