NO WAY! The older ones sort of work!

From x86-secret, both of the 2.05.20.02.00 versions actually give a display over DVI. The image is a bit wobby looking though, and for whatever reason it will not function beyond VGA mode in Windows 98SE. Every time I reboot it says there is a problem with the display settings and no matter what I change it does it again after reboot.

Soooo... yeah. Who knows. The DVI problems are definitely starting to look like a BIOS issue. Perhaps even a BIOS + TMDS encoder problem.

If anyone has any other TNT2 Ultra models that may have a different BIOS version, or possibly even a card with functional DVI output, please post here. If we could get a copy of your BIOS (dump it with nvflash 3.18 from this page) that would be amazing! It looks like Creative and Hercules TNT2 Ultra models both have empty spaces on the PCB for DVI outputs and a TMDS encoder, so it's possible the BIOS on those cards may support DVI.

I did find this page with ELSA Erazor III related stuff . The website says that the BIOS package is 3.01.00, but I just tested it and it actually found my card and updated it from 3.04.09 to 3.05!

... sadly, it didn't change the DVI issue at all. System still refused to POST with DVI connected. 🙁

EDIT: Interesting note... if I hook this card up to a Dell 1907FP via DVI, it works fine until it gets to Windows. At that point it is stuck in 16 color mode and complains about the display settings. HOWEVER... installing the ELSA Erazor III driver from here allows it to work as expected in Windows. The kicker: If I then yank the DVI plug out of the 1907FP and plug it into my 2001FP, it displays 1280x1024 perfectly fine!! As long as I don't do anything that would cause the system to re-check the EDID info (for example, restarting), then it seems to work basically fine.

It's really too bad... the DVI output seems to work fine, it is just very picky about EDID and drivers. When just using the VGA connection, the card works flawlessly and doesn't have any of these quirks. Honestly, this is an awesome card as it is. The VGA output is crystal clear and it runs perfectly fine passively cooled, so you don't have to listen to a dying 25 year old fan. Being able to compete with a Voodoo3 and also run (with proper drivers) in Windows 3.11 makes for a pretty interesting card.

EDIT2: Also, just to make 100% sure Elsa wasn't doing any shenanigans with the clock speeds on this Ultra, I just ran 3dMark 2000 on it (with a PIII 850) and scored 3512. I then dropped in a Diamond V770 Ultra and it scored 3501! So it is safe to say that this is performing exactly as a TNT2 Ultra should, even if it is passively cooled. 😀