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Super Socket 7 issues with agp cards

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First post, by Nemo1985

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I'm testing the intel 740 8mb agp I received today.
I'm having heavy issues with my epox ss7 machine.
During the post the screen flickers (not everytime), in windows (98 SE) for a brief moment every works fine, when I make start 3dmark99 the images are corrupt.
In dos the screen flickers, but when I start q1 everything is fine.
In the bios the settings are fail safe, agp 1x and aperture size 4mb.
Driver version PV4.0
In the vogons library there is a collection file full of bios and different driver versions, but before flash a new vga bios I'd like to be sure that there won't be any problem.

I tried the card in a sis p4 mb and everything seems ok, but it has windows xp and I can't make 3dmark2k or 99 works.

I checked the bios and it is the version 212, I tried to update to 239, but the flash fails to start and it probably does because it's not an intel card, it's from powercolor.
Like this one, except that is ver1, it has a connector and the bios chip is socketable.
1_1_6673276.jpg

Last edited by Nemo1985 on 2019-01-23, 20:27. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 35, by canthearu

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The Intel 740 is really the wrong card to use on a super socket 7 system. It is very heavily focused and reliant on AGP features, and ss7 tend to have a lot of trouble with properly supporting these AGP features.

You will probably never get it working well.

For SS7 systems, 3dfx Voodoo based card are generally better because they use the AGP slot as a glorified PCI slot, without enabling any of the special features AGP offers.

Reply 2 of 35, by Nemo1985

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canthearu wrote:

The Intel 740 is really the wrong card to use on a super socket 7 system. It is very heavily focused and reliant on AGP features, and ss7 tend to have a lot of trouble with properly supporting these AGP features.

You will probably never get it working well.

For SS7 systems, 3dfx Voodoo based card are generally better because they use the AGP slot as a glorified PCI slot, without enabling any of the special features AGP offers.

Thank you for the answer, I know, I just needed to test it to check if the card is working fine, I suppose it does.
For future reference, I tested different cards on my ss7 system and I had problems with just 3 so far: Matrox G450, Nvidia Riva TNT and the Intel 740

Reply 4 of 35, by tpowell.ca

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Nemo1985 wrote:
canthearu wrote:

The Intel 740 is really the wrong card to use on a super socket 7 system. It is very heavily focused and reliant on AGP features, and ss7 tend to have a lot of trouble with properly supporting these AGP features.

You will probably never get it working well.

For SS7 systems, 3dfx Voodoo based card are generally better because they use the AGP slot as a glorified PCI slot, without enabling any of the special features AGP offers.

Thank you for the answer, I know, I just needed to test it to check if the card is working fine, I suppose it does.
For future reference, I tested different cards on my ss7 system and I had problems with just 3 so far: Matrox G450, Nvidia Riva TNT and the Intel 740

Really, you had problems with a Matrox card?
In my case, it has been the most stable, and my go-to card for testing various hardware. I tried on my VIA chipset-based SS7 builds a G400, G450 and a G550 and those NEVER had any issues other than being (too) slow.
I since switched to a V3 3000 AGP for both DOS and Windows 98 game compatibility (Glide, excellent DOS/VESA extensions).

Problem cards have always been ATI primarely and nVidia cards. These were VERY driver-sensitive. Using a recent driver often resulted in system freezes when launching D3D games and system stability was always an issue.

  • Merlin: MS-4144, AMD5x86-160 32MB, 16GB CF, ZIP100, Orpheus, GUS, S3 VirgeGX 2MB
    Tesla: GA-6BXC, VIA C3 Ezra-T, 256MB, 120GB SATA, YMF744, GUSpnp, Quadro2
    Newton: K6XV3+/66, AMD K6-III+500, 256MB, 32GB SSD, AWE32, Voodoo3

Reply 5 of 35, by Nemo1985

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tpowell.ca wrote:
Really, you had problems with a Matrox card? In my case, it has been the most stable, and my go-to card for testing various hard […]
Show full quote
Nemo1985 wrote:
canthearu wrote:

The Intel 740 is really the wrong card to use on a super socket 7 system. It is very heavily focused and reliant on AGP features, and ss7 tend to have a lot of trouble with properly supporting these AGP features.

You will probably never get it working well.

For SS7 systems, 3dfx Voodoo based card are generally better because they use the AGP slot as a glorified PCI slot, without enabling any of the special features AGP offers.

Thank you for the answer, I know, I just needed to test it to check if the card is working fine, I suppose it does.
For future reference, I tested different cards on my ss7 system and I had problems with just 3 so far: Matrox G450, Nvidia Riva TNT and the Intel 740

Really, you had problems with a Matrox card?
In my case, it has been the most stable, and my go-to card for testing various hardware. I tried on my VIA chipset-based SS7 builds a G400, G450 and a G550 and those NEVER had any issues other than being (too) slow.
I since switched to a V3 3000 AGP for both DOS and Windows 98 game compatibility (Glide, excellent DOS/VESA extensions).

Problem cards have always been ATI primarely and nVidia cards. These were VERY driver-sensitive. Using a recent driver often resulted in system freezes when launching D3D games and system stability was always an issue.

I tried a g200 and it worked without issues, while the g450 after installing the drivers in windows it won't load the computer stuck with white dot in the screen... The same card works without issues in a p4 machine.

canthearu wrote:

You could try the attached guide for the TNT

http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/rivatnt/

Ill try to follow this guide but my agp settings are already fail safe: agp 1x, aperture size 4mb and so on.
The tnt crashes during the 3dmark, no errors the program just crashes, I also tried: gf2 mx400, tnt2 ultra, tnt2 m64 and they work without issues.

Reply 6 of 35, by ATauenis

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The only Super Socket 7 chipset that oficially supports i740 - later revisions of VIA MVP3 such as CE. I have successfully used 740 in a Lucky Star 5MVP3 rev 4.0 motherboard with Win98 and Quake 1/2. Other non-Intel chipsets are not well compatible with AGP features and tricks used by i740.

tpowell.ca wrote:

Problem cards have always been ATI primarely and nVidia cards. These were VERY driver-sensitive. Using a recent driver often resulted in system freezes when launching D3D games and system stability was always an issue.

This is caused by driver bugs and appearing mostly on old systems. On fresh installed OSes most drivers are working correctly. Only perfomance issues are exists. A good practice is to reinstall OS on any driver version change. It is long, but prevents from seeing such bugs.

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Reply 7 of 35, by appiah4

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Intel 740 was my first AGP card to go with my P2-300 system in 1998. I remember that it had a shitload of issues even on a supposedly hassle-free motherboard chipset like the 440LX. With an SS7 chipset your life will be HELL. If you really want a similar performance 1997-1998 AGP card in there that will play ball with a SS7 motherboard I would suggest a Matrox G200. The better option would be to go with a PCI card such as a Savage3D, TNT or Voodoo Rush.

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Reply 8 of 35, by canthearu

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Nemo1985 wrote:

Ill try to follow this guide but my agp settings are already fail safe: agp 1x, aperture size 4mb and so on..

The i740 is going to really struggle on a 4meg AGP aperture size. Would need a larger size if anything. The entire i740 is designed around texturing over the AGP bus, the local memory on card is only used for framebuffer, with textures in system memory. This means that your aperture needs to be large enough to store all your game textures, otherwise you risk thrashing the texture memory.

Reply 9 of 35, by Nemo1985

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For sure my Epox doesn't have the last revision of MVP3: https://imgur.com/a/Mm7pVPQ

I changed a couple of settings following the guide, the tnt works fine, I still get inconsistent results on 3dmark99 like the tnt did the same results as the tnt2 ultra, I suspect it's because of via drivers or because i'm very cpu limited (k6-2 500).
https://imgur.com/a/dWz4oxM

But that being said now the TNT seems to works fine, I give up with the i740, I didn't want to use it just take some benchmark, while the g450 gives this when windows loads:
https://imgur.com/a/7dFBVAE
At the first I was thinking the card was broken but it works fine on my p4 machine.

Reply 11 of 35, by Nemo1985

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canthearu wrote:

Yeah, the Matrox and Intel cards would be the most lilely to have problems, neither device got the driver love they needed in the end.

Thank you for your confirmation 😀

Definitely g450 and i740 are not going to work on mvp3

Reply 12 of 35, by misterjones

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Nemo1985 wrote:
For sure my Epox doesn't have the last revision of MVP3: https://imgur.com/a/Mm7pVPQ […]
Show full quote

For sure my Epox doesn't have the last revision of MVP3: https://imgur.com/a/Mm7pVPQ

I changed a couple of settings following the guide, the tnt works fine, I still get inconsistent results on 3dmark99 like the tnt did the same results as the tnt2 ultra, I suspect it's because of via drivers or because i'm very cpu limited (k6-2 500).
https://imgur.com/a/dWz4oxM

But that being said now the TNT seems to works fine, I give up with the i740, I didn't want to use it just take some benchmark, while the g450 gives this when windows loads:
https://imgur.com/a/7dFBVAE
At the first I was thinking the card was broken but it works fine on my p4 machine.

This is likely the issue. I remember the MVP3 being problematic with a number of different video cards/chipsets.

I had a 4MB Real3D Starfighter that I ran for years, in fact I sold it along with my Matsonic motherboard, K6-2 450, and all. My Matsonic board (ms6260s) had an ALi Aladdin V chipset and I had absolutely no issues with it. One of the best cards I had for that machine until I got my Geforce 2MX. I ran an STB GLyderMAX II, the Real3D card, Diamond Stealth III S540, Matrox G450 DH, and the Geforce2MX on that board without a single problem.

Reply 13 of 35, by tpowell.ca

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Nemo1985 wrote:
canthearu wrote:

Yeah, the Matrox and Intel cards would be the most lilely to have problems, neither device got the driver love they needed in the end.

Thank you for your confirmation 😀

Definitely g450 and i740 are not going to work on mvp3

I've had a G450 and G550 working on an MVP3 boards (DFI and FIC) and ALi (ASUS P5A) with zero issues with the latest drivers in Windows 98.
In fact, other than the Voodoo3 line, its the only other card that ran on AGP without problems on these chipsets.

With AGP ATI and nVidia cards its been a constant struggle. And this was on a fresh install of 98SE.

  • Merlin: MS-4144, AMD5x86-160 32MB, 16GB CF, ZIP100, Orpheus, GUS, S3 VirgeGX 2MB
    Tesla: GA-6BXC, VIA C3 Ezra-T, 256MB, 120GB SATA, YMF744, GUSpnp, Quadro2
    Newton: K6XV3+/66, AMD K6-III+500, 256MB, 32GB SSD, AWE32, Voodoo3

Reply 14 of 35, by Nemo1985

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tpowell.ca wrote:
I've had a G450 and G550 working on an MVP3 boards (DFI and FIC) and ALi (ASUS P5A) with zero issues with the latest drivers in […]
Show full quote
Nemo1985 wrote:
canthearu wrote:

Yeah, the Matrox and Intel cards would be the most lilely to have problems, neither device got the driver love they needed in the end.

Thank you for your confirmation 😀

Definitely g450 and i740 are not going to work on mvp3

I've had a G450 and G550 working on an MVP3 boards (DFI and FIC) and ALi (ASUS P5A) with zero issues with the latest drivers in Windows 98.
In fact, other than the Voodoo3 line, its the only other card that ran on AGP without problems on these chipsets.

With AGP ATI and nVidia cards its been a constant struggle. And this was on a fresh install of 98SE.

Do you have the chance to check if you have the latest revision of mvp3 chipset? They could have fixed the issue with matrox other than i740.

Reply 17 of 35, by tpowell.ca

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Nemo1985 wrote:

Do you have the chance to check if you have the latest revision of mvp3 chipset? They could have fixed the issue with matrox other than i740.

Ah, good question.
Although, my ASUS P5A didn't fair much better with these same cards (ATI/nVidia)...

My issue with ATI and nVidia was that anytime I tried to run a D3D game/demo the computer would hard-lock.
With super old nVidia drivers (v2x...4x) I was finally able to get some cards working, but no such luck with ATI.

The Voodoo cards worked perfectly, as did the Matrox cards. But Matrox has medicre DOS legacy compatiblity and lackluster 3D performance so Voodoo3 it is. I never tried an intel 740 on these though.

  • Merlin: MS-4144, AMD5x86-160 32MB, 16GB CF, ZIP100, Orpheus, GUS, S3 VirgeGX 2MB
    Tesla: GA-6BXC, VIA C3 Ezra-T, 256MB, 120GB SATA, YMF744, GUSpnp, Quadro2
    Newton: K6XV3+/66, AMD K6-III+500, 256MB, 32GB SSD, AWE32, Voodoo3

Reply 18 of 35, by Nemo1985

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I'm trying the 2 problematic cards in a p4 machine with sis 654 and windows xp, they are good with windows but both are unable to run 3dmark99 (it is patched to work with windows xp and I tried other cards), I saw a video on youtube where 3dmark99 is running in a windows98 pc and i740, while the g450 is compatible for sure.
For I740 3dmark says it doesn't support 3d texture, while the g450 dualhead it says it needs a direct 6 3d accelerator in order to work.
I'm wondering again if those cards are broken or what. 😠

Reply 19 of 35, by cxm717

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Nemo1985 wrote:

I'm trying the 2 problematic cards in a p4 machine with sis 654 and windows xp, they are good with windows but both are unable to run 3dmark99 (it is patched to work with windows xp and I tried other cards), I saw a video on youtube where 3dmark99 is running in a windows98 pc and i740, while the g450 is compatible for sure.
For I740 3dmark says it doesn't support 3d texture, while the g450 dualhead it says it needs a direct 6 3d accelerator in order to work.
I'm wondering again if those cards are broken or what. 😠

Try an older driver on the G450. 584 works well in 2k and XP. I don't remember the i740 working very well under 2k and XP, I would try 98 with that card.