Can't comment on the performance of an M64, but looks like its DOS compatibility is excellent.

A V1 vs a V2 on a Pentium MMX is a bit tricky. There are games (namely Quake 1/Quake 2) where a V2 will give a significant difference over a V1 (1.5-2 times). It will also give you an option to run some games at 800x600 instead of 640x480. However, there are lots of games where a V2 will only give you maybe extra 4-5FPS because the CPU is too slow for them. You can check here to see what I mean.

I would argue that a V2 is not necessary for a machine like this unless you can get a good deal on it and you want to make sure that you get the most out of your CPU. Or maybe you plan upgrading to Pentium 2 later on.

I am actually in the exact same boat and considering a similar upgrade from my integrated S3 Trio64+. My build is a socket 5 with a pentium 200 mmx overdrive currently getting 127 fps in 3D Bench and have contemplated putting in a different 2D card but don't know if it will really affect performance. I have a matrox millennium that I threw in there that gave me about 122 and also had stutter in games like Jazz Jackrabbit but have heard that other revisions of the card fixed that (I have a revision A and currently have on order a revision B of the millennium). I also purchased a bulk dell M64 that would not output video but have another on order.

I have a voodoo 1 in this system too and you should be able to use it just fine with the m64 for glide games (at least that was going to be my plan). I will hopefully find out on Tuesday.

Out of curiosity what are your benchmarks on your system in it now with your S3?

jheronimus wrote on 2020-06-21, 14:30:

Can't comment on the performance of an M64, but looks like its DOS compatibility is excellent.

A V1 vs a V2 on a Pentium MMX is a bit tricky. There are games (namely Quake 1/Quake 2) where a V2 will give a significant difference over a V1 (1.5-2 times). It will also give you an option to run some games at 800x600 instead of 640x480. However, there are lots of games where a V2 will only give you maybe extra 4-5FPS because the CPU is too slow for them. You can check here to see what I mean.

I would argue that a V2 is not necessary for a machine like this unless you can get a good deal on it and you want to make sure that you get the most out of your CPU. Or maybe you plan upgrading to Pentium 2 later on.

i have heard about that and maybe generally thought that with a card with more than 4mb of vram might improve where it feel like it being held back

i am keeping this build for 640 x 480 and no intention of going higher in this build

mbliss11 wrote on 2020-06-21, 15:32:

I am actually in the exact same boat and considering a similar upgrade from my integrated S3 Trio64+. My build is a socket 5 with a pentium 200 mmx overdrive currently getting 127 fps in 3D Bench and have contemplated putting in a different 2D card but don't know if it will really affect performance. I have a matrox millennium that I threw in there that gave me about 122 and also had stutter in games like Jazz Jackrabbit but have heard that other revisions of the card fixed that (I have a revision A and currently have on order a revision B of the millennium). I also purchased a bulk dell M64 that would not output video but have another on order.

I have a voodoo 1 in this system too and you should be able to use it just fine with the m64 for glide games (at least that was going to be my plan). I will hopefully find out on Tuesday.

Out of curiosity what are your benchmarks on your system in it now with your S3?

i could wait to hear back about that from and see what your results are

what benchmarks for this build would work best in dos 6.22/win 3.11 and win95

Use Phil's computer lab dos benchmark utilities:

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/dos-benchmark-pack.html

It has a bunch of them on there. Use option 2 for 3dbench 1.0c and if you'd like you can upload your other benchmarks as well

First off yes you can pair the Voodoo with any graphics card you wish, So don't worry about that side of things 😀

Windows I'd think its a good card with stronger D3D performance then then the S3
For dos I doubt you'll notice much real world difference in performance, benchmarks scores may improve if that matters to you.
In any case the TNT will move any bottleneck over to the CPU.

The only drawback is possibly image quality but this is true with both cards as neither were made in house so quality depends on the manufactures

mbliss11 wrote on 2020-06-21, 15:32:

Out of curiosity what are your benchmarks on your system in it now with your S3?

here are the benchmarks for my build with the s3 card and each o.s. i have installed

Win 95
3d bench (faster pcs) - 145.2
chris 3d benchmark - 220.8 (132.4 fps)
chris 3d benchmark (640x480) - 66.6 (39.9 fps)
pc player benchmark - 51.3
pc player benchmark (640x480)- 20.6
doom max details (faster pcs) - 1011 realtics
quake timedemo - 969 frames, 21.2 seconds, 45.8 fps
quake timedemo 360x480 - 969 frames, 50.6 seconds, 19.2 fps
quake timedemo 640x480 - 969 frames, 23.7 seconds, 40.9fps

dos 6.22 (pure dos)
3dbench (faster pcs) - 153.2
chris 3d benchmark - 218.8 (131.3 fps)
chris 3d benchmark (640x480) - 67.9 (40.7 fps)
pc player benchmark - 51.2
pc player benchmark (640x480) - 20.7
doom max details (faster pcs) - timed 2134 in 964 realtics
quake timedemo - 969 frames, 20.6 seconds, 47.0 fps
quake timedemo 360x480 - 969 frames, 49.6 seconds, 19.6 fps
quake timedemo 640x480 - 969 frames, 23.0 seconds, 42.2 fps

win 3.11
3dbench (faster pcs) - 147.9
chris 3d benchmark - 218.3 (131.0 fps)
chris 3d benchmark (640x480) - failed (VESA not found)
pc player benchmark - 50.1
pc player benchmark (640x480) - fails to run
doom max details (faster pcs) - timed 2134 gamestics in 988 realtics
quake timedemo - 969 frames, 35.1 seconds, 27.6 fps
quake timedemo 360x480 - 969 frames, 74.9 seconds, 12.9 fps
quake timedemo 640x480 - 969 frames, 34.2 seconds, 28.3 fps

i understand most but not all of it and also in win95 i normally play quake with GLQuake with my voodoo 1 - not with the s3 card

chinny22 wrote on 2020-06-22, 09:40:

First off yes you can pair the Voodoo with any graphics card you wish, So don't worry about that side of things :) […]
Show full quote

First off yes you can pair the Voodoo with any graphics card you wish, So don't worry about that side of things 😀

Windows I'd think its a good card with stronger D3D performance then then the S3
For dos I doubt you'll notice much real world difference in performance, benchmarks scores may improve if that matters to you.
In any case the TNT will move any bottleneck over to the CPU.

The only drawback is possibly image quality but this is true with both cards as neither were made in house so quality depends on the manufactures

ok thank so i can keep my voodoo 1 in - for the games that can use it

so tht 2 m64 - pci version would be good choice for this build or is any better ones that wouldn't be overkill and slow because of my cpu but also keep the dos compatibility for pure dos stuff (since the s3 card has got excellent dos compatibility)

I'd wouldn't worry about it, you are always going to have a bottleneck somewhere, personally I like the CPU t be the limiting factor in the build.
If you already have the M64 I'd just go with that as its the cut down version it wont be long till it starts been the limiting factor on faster systems.

Hang on, just noticed you have Win 3.11!
Alot of people here have reported the official Nvidia drivers are very unstable. I'm not sure if using the Windows generic SVGA driver is a work around?

Check the graph on this post for other options, you'll find most have come in both AGP and PCI variants.
Re: S3 Virge DX 4MB vs Matrox Mystique 4MB

You will have to check cards dos comparability though as things like the Rage while having good windows score have alot of dos comparability issues.
(doesn't matter if you dont play those games though)
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

chinny22 wrote on 2020-06-22, 13:50:

I'd wouldn't worry about it, you are always going to have a bottleneck somewhere, personally I like the CPU t be the limiting f […]
Show full quote

I'd wouldn't worry about it, you are always going to have a bottleneck somewhere, personally I like the CPU t be the limiting factor in the build.
If you already have the M64 I'd just go with that as its the cut down version it wont be long till it starts been the limiting factor on faster systems.

Hang on, just noticed you have Win 3.11!
Alot of people here have reported the official Nvidia drivers are very unstable. I'm not sure if using the Windows generic SVGA driver is a work around?

Check the graph on this post for other options, you'll find most have come in both AGP and PCI variants.
Re: S3 Virge DX 4MB vs Matrox Mystique 4MB

You will have to check cards dos comparability though as things like the Rage while having good windows score have alot of dos comparability issues.
(doesn't matter if you dont play those games though)
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

ok kl is worth going for it for d3d games in win95

my mobo in this build doesn't have agp, only pci and isa

there is few games i use in win 3.11 but none are 3d and any dos games, i use pure dos without any windows and they are mostly 2d where the voodoo card can put up the slack on the odd 3d title that supports it

win 95 is mostly for those early 3d games that run poorly or doesn't look good or doesn't run at all in dos

i manage to find

nvida tnt 2 M64 PCI - 16mb and 32 mb versions
ATI 3D Rage Pro PCI - 8mb

i know the ati is closer to when my cpu was originally released but nae sure about it as reading reviews and youtubes video of people saying the early rage series wasn't good compared to nvidia or even 3dfx at the time

also seeing that for some tnt 2 cards, that a pentium 2 is a min requirement but that for agp versions and cant find anything in the pci versions

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2020-06-23, 11:36:

i manage to find […]
Show full quote

i manage to find

nvida tnt 2 M64 PCI - 16mb and 32 mb versions
ATI 3D Rage Pro PCI - 8mb

i know the ati is closer to when my cpu was originally released but nae sure about it as reading reviews and youtubes video of people saying the early rage series wasn't good compared to nvidia or even 3dfx at the time

also seeing that for some tnt 2 cards, that a pentium 2 is a min requirement but that for agp versions and cant find anything in the pci versions

My guess is that they wanted to have people install the cards in P2 and faster as slower systems probably didn't really benefit as much from an upgrade to a TNT2. Or that they simply added this requirement since systems slower than a P2 typically wouldn't have an AGP slot anyway.

There is a difference between the TNT2 and the TNT2 M64 though. My guess is the PCI version should work fine when it comes to the hardware you intend to use.

Tetrium wrote on 2020-06-23, 12:52:

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2020-06-23, 11:36:

i manage to find […]
Show full quote

i manage to find

nvida tnt 2 M64 PCI - 16mb and 32 mb versions
ATI 3D Rage Pro PCI - 8mb

i know the ati is closer to when my cpu was originally released but nae sure about it as reading reviews and youtubes video of people saying the early rage series wasn't good compared to nvidia or even 3dfx at the time

also seeing that for some tnt 2 cards, that a pentium 2 is a min requirement but that for agp versions and cant find anything in the pci versions

My guess is that they wanted to have people install the cards in P2 and faster as slower systems probably didn't really benefit as much from an upgrade to a TNT2. Or that they simply added this requirement since systems slower than a P2 typically wouldn't have an AGP slot anyway.

There is a difference between the TNT2 and the TNT2 M64 though. My guess is the PCI version should work fine when it comes to the hardware you intend to use.

ok thanks and what is the diffenrent between TNT2 AND TNT2 M64 and would 32mb or 16mb be overkill and won't get the full benefits of it or go for 8mb

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2020-06-23, 13:06:

[ok thanks and what is the different between TNT2 AND TNT2 M64 and would 32mb or 16mb be overkill and won't get the full benefits of it or go for 8mb

Basically the M64 has half the memory bandwidth of a "full" TNT2 but for your system I doubt it will matter.
More memory will reduce the likelihood of texture swapping (moving texture's from faster cards ram to the system)
This is good as on the PCI bus this is more drastic then AGP.
Although how much this matters on a P133? probably not a great deal.

I'd play it safe and go for 16MB but if 32MB isn't much more then why not?

chinny22 wrote on 2020-06-23, 16:37:

Basically the M64 has half the memory bandwidth of a "full" TNT2 but for your system I doubt it will matter. More memory will re […]
Show full quote

Robhalfordfan wrote on 2020-06-23, 13:06:

[ok thanks and what is the different between TNT2 AND TNT2 M64 and would 32mb or 16mb be overkill and won't get the full benefits of it or go for 8mb

Basically the M64 has half the memory bandwidth of a "full" TNT2 but for your system I doubt it will matter.
More memory will reduce the likelihood of texture swapping (moving texture's from faster cards ram to the system)
This is good as on the PCI bus this is more drastic then AGP.
Although how much this matters on a P133? probably not a great deal.

I'd play it safe and go for 16MB but if 32MB isn't much more then why not?

this build use to have a p133 , i upgraded to p200 mmx a while back 😁 (the max this mobo supports)

ok dokey i could get both or all three (even the ati card) eventually and see what works best and maybe sell off what doesn't work but this a help aswell to know and get an idea and the price different between the 16mb and 32 mb is not that bad (depends if offer is accepted) other wise there is bit of a different but the 16mb and ati 8mb card cost pretty the same

My cards came in - I was able to get a modest improvement in dos 3dbench (132 up from 127) and it has worked very well with all games that I have tried with it on my system. If you are going to be playing around with other old systems it never hurts to have a stack of hardware on hand for benching and testing. I am definitely going to keep it in and use it in conjunction with my voodoo. Was able to run 3dmark99 for the first time on this machine since it has a capable 3d card in it. I did notice that the card got pretty toasty.

mbliss11 wrote on 2020-06-23, 18:17:

My cards came in - I was able to get a modest improvement in dos 3dbench (132 up from 127) and it has worked very well with all games that I have tried with it on my system. If you are going to be playing around with other old systems it never hurts to have a stack of hardware on hand for benching and testing. I am definitely going to keep it in and use it in conjunction with my voodoo. Was able to run 3dmark99 for the first time on this machine since it has a capable 3d card in it. I did notice that the card got pretty toasty.

ok thanks, will give it a try when i decide and get one the cards i mentioned and i will aware that will get warmer but it shouldn't be too bad as the cpu i have has its limts what games i can play 😁

i got my hands on the TNT2 M64 32mb pci version and been trying loads of different drivers versions and what works best with my dos/windows 95 setup for d3d games (not 3dfx compatible games)

after trial and error and reinstalling windows 95 a number of times because of glitches and dll errors and couple of times affecting windows system files (some my own fault 😒)

i finally found a version of the "latest" drivers that plays nice with this setup which was version 6.31

playing with properties settings and gamma and nvida system tray icon gives me no errors with dll files and can see a performance and graphic increase (from s3 virge dx, should i say duh 🤣)

versions after 6.31 drivers does give me errors with nvqtwk.dll file when messing with properties settings but still works enough just not getting the full benefits

any version after 44.23 and the "latest" whql certfied drivers (71.84) from nvida website gives errors with nvcpl.dll (as i imagine that because it support windows 98 onwards better than windows 95) technically it works with windows 95 but not getting full benefits

i think this will work fine but will try and number of games i own see if there is any further to say

oh and dos games i have tried had no issues that i can see and the final windows 3.11 drivers are "buggy" with "3d games" but 2d games games, no issues that i noticed

big massive thanks to philscomputerlab website for all the drivers versions and coolbits reg file 😁

That's awesome! Glad it worked out! I will check out those drivers with my M64 as well and see how they fair. I cannot remember which I used when I installed mine however none of the additional settings worked when I tried to adjust anything in the control panel.

On another note I have decided to go with another upgrade for the socket5 and acquired a powerleap upgrade kit with a few AMD CPU's that i am going to try out (K6-2 400, K6-3 400 and K6-2+ 450). The adapter and some of the chips should be arriving today interested to see the performance gains that this will provide with the M64. Been having a lot of fun hacking this thing up to boost its performance up to the max!