They are really good for DOS. The Savage4 is very fast for 2d and might give you the best performance in games like quake SW (at least in DOS) and 3dbench and the like.

Windows gaming is not great. S3 drivers are notorious. More if you want to play with metal api. It is pretty neat in unreal and unreal tournament and a couple other games.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/s3-savage- … etal-api.54670/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqYyL3vsjmU

well once drivers are installed it doesn't work right, and in 3d it throws artifacts, i guess no great loss, it is an 8mb 64bit card a Diamonds Speedstar A200, now my options are Riva 128 or just use another Geforce2 MX, or try to get my M64 working

Playing Unreal with Metal API, and DOS gaming is excellent.

They are really good for DOS

They're mostly fine, but have some issues. Also they don't support VBE 3.0 or at least I've never encountered one with VBE 3.0 BIOS.

might give you the best performance in games like quake SW (at least in DOS) and 3dbench and the like

Not really. Overall, Savage 4 is slower than Nvidia in DOS.

but my TNT2 M64 artifacts so i was thinking about the Savage4

Savage 4 is more or less identical to TNT2 Vanta/M64 series of cards. Although drivers are a bit more wonky.

For what it's worth, I believe all Savage4 cards are limited to a 64bit memory bus. My experience with them is that they are a neat alternative for late 90s games, but outside of playing with S3 Metal there isn't much point in using a savage4 when a TNT/TNT2 provides a better overall experience and is generally cheaper and easier to find. They are probably similar in DOS as well.

Most people collect the best of the best leaving the oddball stuff to be recycled. I have a Savage 4 in my collection just because it is different and last of the S3 line, but it is on the shelf at the moment.

I think that Savage 4 is one of the fastest 3D cards with only one TMU. It is true that drivers are not the best but always worked for me 😀

With Fur Fighter i get slide show with Voodoo3 but that game work great with Savage 4 😀

i can't get mine to work, i did get the TNT2 M64 to work however. Though now im tempted to swap in my Riva 128 just because, but it seems a little under powered for an Athlon 700

i can't get mine to work

If it's black screen on Windows 9x boot - disable hardware mouse acceleration.

I mean wouldn't that Riva128 still be way under powered with a 700 MHz Athlon? There's a Geforce2 MX400 listed on ebay right now for 17 bucks shipped that seems like a nice pairing for that system. I'm sure you could find other cards of a similar vintage around that price as well.

DrAnthony wrote on 2021-04-27, 16:47:

I mean wouldn't that Riva128 still be way under powered with a 700 MHz Athlon? There's a Geforce2 MX400 listed on ebay right now for 17 bucks shipped that seems like a nice pairing for that system. I'm sure you could find other cards of a similar vintage around that price as well.

it is, Ive got geforce2 cards in my Athlon 1ghz and Pentium III 933, i want something diffrent 🤣, if i want a Geforce2 MX I've got another 4 in my parts bin

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-04-27, 06:24:

Most people collect the best of the best leaving the oddball stuff to be recycled. I have a Savage 4 in my collection just because it is different and last of the S3 line, but it is on the shelf at the moment.

Its not the last..
There is S3 DeltaChrome S4 and S8 for AGP, also Chrome S18, S25 and S27, Chrome 400 and Chrome 500 Series which support even MultiChrome (Like SLI) and DirectX 10.1.

I like using a Savage4 alongside a Voodoo 2 or SLI config in Pentium II systems because the Savage card is one of the better AGP cards for DOS.

It also plays a lot of Games very well, if the right Driver is choosen.

Especially UT Engine Games looked very good in S3 Metal.
And AGP Compatibility is excellent.

played a lot of Stuff on S3 Savage

matze79 wrote on 2021-04-27, 21:07:

It also plays a lot of Games very well, if the right Driver is choosen. […]
Show full quote

It also plays a lot of Games very well, if the right Driver is choosen.

Especially UT Engine Games looked very good in S3 Metal.
And AGP Compatibility is excellent.

played a lot of Stuff on S3 Savage

Yeah, if you have a vanilla Savage4 it should be faster than a Voodoo 2 in Direct3D. Even a Savage4 LT is about on par with a Voodoo 2 in Direct3D with better image quality, so it's a good idea to use it for DirectX games.

It's excellent *alongside* Voodoo2. I had mine alongside v2sli before swapping it with gf2 quadro for more power.

Yeah i also own the Diamond Stealth III S540 Savage Extreme with 32Mb, but it runs very hot!

matze79 wrote on 2021-04-28, 13:04:

Yeah i also own the Diamond Stealth III S540 Savage Extreme with 32Mb, but it runs very hot!

AGP or PCI? A PCI S540 is something I am really looking for in my collection.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-04-27, 20:57:

I like using a Savage4 alongside a Voodoo 2 or SLI config in Pentium II systems because the Savage card is one of the better AGP cards for DOS.

I have this exact setup in one of my 440BX machines.

However my card is faulty. It only works when underclocked by about 15% (someone on this forum told me how to do this). Without this, the card malfunctions with graphical artefacts on screen. Can this be repaired I wonder?

I also cannot get MeTaL to work in Unreal Tournament (in Windows 98 SE). The computer just crashes.