Pinout is the same as Sigma Designs / Realmagic:
https://old.pinouts.ru/Video/sigma_video_pinout.shtml

They pop up on famous auction sites regularly, but it's probably fastest to order a Mini-DIN 9 connector and make your own.

dionb wrote on 2026-06-18, 07:51:

Pinout is the same as Sigma Designs / Realmagic:
https://old.pinouts.ru/Video/sigma_video_pinout.shtml

They pop up on famous auction sites regularly, but it's probably fastest to order a Mini-DIN 9 connector and make your own.

I've been hunting for a couple of days on and off on Ebay for this cable, but I've never seen the cable on its own, and the only listing I've seen of one so far has visible rust damage and in a foreign country, which is a bit of a no go.
Any other sites where I could find such super-specialized vintage hardware?

If you only want to look in a single country, you're limiting yourself severely. And if you want suggestions (which tend to be very specific to particular markets), it would help if you mentioned which country would not be 'foreign' for you. I've also occasionally looked for one for my RealMagic card, but the only ones I saw were in the US and would have cost far too much transatlantic shipping for something I only vaguely want. I keep wanting to get the parts needed to make one myself (i.e. a mini-DIN 9 connector) whenever I order electronic parts, but keep forgetting...

dionb wrote on 2026-06-20, 00:16:

If you only want to look in a single country, you're limiting yourself severely. And if you want suggestions (which tend to be very specific to particular markets), it would help if you mentioned which country would not be 'foreign' for you. I've also occasionally looked for one for my RealMagic card, but the only ones I saw were in the US and would have cost far too much transatlantic shipping for something I only vaguely want. I keep wanting to get the parts needed to make one myself (i.e. a mini-DIN 9 connector) whenever I order electronic parts, but keep forgetting...

I'm in North America so at least I'm in quite a large market to dig around in. This connector is something that's very often misplaced or E-Wasted alongside its kin, so finding it is going to be a challenge.

I've found a DIY "Breakout Board" style VGA Male connector online, and there appears to be multiple 9pin adapters on sale with the odd, slightly offset 9pin mini-DIN cable available on Amazon. Would snipping the 9pin cable's female side off, breaking out all of the internal wires, and lining them up with the Male VGA breakout one wire at a time work out?
I do like how the VGA Breakout Board has screws for a friction fit so if I've mixed something up, I can just twist it out and try again.

Would this DIY solution be just as viable as the original cable? I can only hope that the Creative Breakout Cable isn't wired differently than what the Mini-Din 9pin standard appears to be.

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-23, 18:27:

I've found a DIY "Breakout Board" style VGA Male connector online, and there appears to be multiple 9pin adapters on sale with the odd, slightly offset 9pin mini-DIN cable available on Amazon. Would snipping the 9pin cable's female side off, breaking out all of the internal wires, and lining them up with the Male VGA breakout one wire at a time work out?
I do like how the VGA Breakout Board has screws for a friction fit so if I've mixed something up, I can just twist it out and try again.

Would this DIY solution be just as viable as the original cable? I can only hope that the Creative Breakout Cable isn't wired differently than what the Mini-Din 9pin standard appears to be.

Hi,

If the pin-out is the same then that would basically do the same thing as the original cable does, convert the VGA signals from their original pin-out to the 9 pin pin-out. As VGA RGB part is an analogue signal it is important for the components to have good connections between them to ensure proper signal quality, the higher the resolution and/or refresh rate the more noticeable small errors in the construction will be, at 320x200 70Hz Standard VGA resolution it could be basically made with horrible solder joints and still work fine, but if you want say 2048×1536 at high refresh rates, then a custom solution might degrade the signal quality if the solder joints are not perfect. Also while this cable is rather short so in this use case these considerations will be minimal, but when working with high frequency analogue signals the following should be also addressed: Crosstalk between the cables, impedance matching (IIRC the VGA Standard likes 75 ohms), having a grounded conductor around the signalling wires to shield from interference, but these most likely will not be significant with this length of cable.
My opinion is: It will work if the pin-out is the same, but quality at higher resolutions and refresh rates will depend on how precise the construction is, if you are an experienced solderer then I think it will not cause noticeable issues even at high refresh rates and resolutions, if your soldering tends to create bad solder joints or even simply spikes on the surface of the joint(These spikes can cause interference at high frequencies) then I think it will be mostly fine for low resolutions, but the picture quality will get lower at high resolution and refresh rate modes.

EDIT: One more detail, with normal VGA the impedance matching is done with resistors inside the monitor, but in the case of this cable I don't know if the card contains these resistors or the designers depended on something built into the cable. I would most likely consider if impedance matching is needed then the card will already have the resistors, but who knows the designers might have been creative and put the impedance matching into the cable instead of the card.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-23, 20:12:

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-23, 18:27:

I've found a DIY "Breakout Board" style VGA Male connector online, and there appears to be multiple 9pin adapters on sale with the odd, slightly offset 9pin mini-DIN cable available on Amazon. Would snipping the 9pin cable's female side off, breaking out all of the internal wires, and lining them up with the Male VGA breakout one wire at a time work out?
I do like how the VGA Breakout Board has screws for a friction fit so if I've mixed something up, I can just twist it out and try again.

Would this DIY solution be just as viable as the original cable? I can only hope that the Creative Breakout Cable isn't wired differently than what the Mini-Din 9pin standard appears to be.

My opinion is: It will work if the pin-out is the same, but quality at higher resolutions and refresh rates will depend on how precise the construction is, if you are an experienced solderer then I think it will not cause noticeable issues even at high refresh rates and resolutions, if your soldering tends to create bad solder joints or even simply spikes on the surface of the joint(These spikes can cause interference at high frequencies) then I think it will be mostly fine for low resolutions, but the picture quality will get lower at high resolution and refresh rate modes.

EDIT: One more detail, with normal VGA the impedance matching is done with resistors inside the monitor, but in the case of this cable I don't know if the card contains these resistors or the designers depended on something built into the cable. I would most likely consider if impedance matching is needed then the card will already have the resistors, but who knows the designers might have been creative and put the impedance matching into the cable instead of the card.

This "Breakout Board" VGA Male cable has apparently a solder free setup, looks like just the screw-in, pressure fit variety.

My setup for the PC I'm intending to use with this card is a moderately powerful Socket 7 motherboard, running at a maximum resolution of 800x600 at 60fps. Would ensuring that the cable is as short as I could make it help with signal quality too? I've seen the examples of the breakout cable, and they are all quite short to save space. The 9pin Mini-Din cable I've picked up is only 1.8 feet long, but I'm planning on cutting it to about 6in long.

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-25, 01:28:

This "Breakout Board" VGA Male cable has apparently a solder free setup, looks like just the screw-in, pressure fit variety. […]
Show full quote

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-23, 20:12:

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-23, 18:27:

I've found a DIY "Breakout Board" style VGA Male connector online, and there appears to be multiple 9pin adapters on sale with the odd, slightly offset 9pin mini-DIN cable available on Amazon. Would snipping the 9pin cable's female side off, breaking out all of the internal wires, and lining them up with the Male VGA breakout one wire at a time work out?
I do like how the VGA Breakout Board has screws for a friction fit so if I've mixed something up, I can just twist it out and try again.

Would this DIY solution be just as viable as the original cable? I can only hope that the Creative Breakout Cable isn't wired differently than what the Mini-Din 9pin standard appears to be.

My opinion is: It will work if the pin-out is the same, but quality at higher resolutions and refresh rates will depend on how precise the construction is, if you are an experienced solderer then I think it will not cause noticeable issues even at high refresh rates and resolutions, if your soldering tends to create bad solder joints or even simply spikes on the surface of the joint(These spikes can cause interference at high frequencies) then I think it will be mostly fine for low resolutions, but the picture quality will get lower at high resolution and refresh rate modes.

EDIT: One more detail, with normal VGA the impedance matching is done with resistors inside the monitor, but in the case of this cable I don't know if the card contains these resistors or the designers depended on something built into the cable. I would most likely consider if impedance matching is needed then the card will already have the resistors, but who knows the designers might have been creative and put the impedance matching into the cable instead of the card.

This "Breakout Board" VGA Male cable has apparently a solder free setup, looks like just the screw-in, pressure fit variety.

The attachment VGA Breakout.png is no longer available

My setup for the PC I'm intending to use with this card is a moderately powerful Socket 7 motherboard, running at a maximum resolution of 800x600 at 60fps. Would ensuring that the cable is as short as I could make it help with signal quality too? I've seen the examples of the breakout cable, and they are all quite short to save space. The 9pin Mini-Din cable I've picked up is only 1.8 feet long, but I'm planning on cutting it to about 6in long.

I have to admit that I have very limited experience with screw terminals, generally I use breadboards for prototyping(For SMD components breakout boards can be used during prototyping), and when I decided that a project is complete enough I solder the final version. My opinion is that if they made this D-SUB VGA connector with screw terminals they are confident enough that it will work with usual VGA resolutions and frequencies and 800x600 at 60Hz is a very common resolution frequency combination as well as 800x600 85Hz, based on that I think it will work with good display quality, however without actual experience with screw terminals I cannot say it with 100% confidence.

Sorry for the slightly off topic question, but it's still related to the whole output thing.
Seems like you know your way around a gpu output. I've recently picked up a STB Velocity 128 for the system I'm putting the same system as the CT7260. It's got 4MB of RAM, but it provides 32 bit color in 800x600, and provides some basic features that at least make 2D performance satisfactory for the most part.
I've been able to force NVIDIA's 4.11 drivers onto it to allow me to disable a couple of features to reduce overhead, and tacked on some extra aluminum heatsinks on the main chip and the RAM. Not sure if this is related to the driver swap, but I'm noticing some oddities in the output.

from time to time outside of 3D programs, I'm getting these horizontal jitters that appear in two separate general areas. I've been able to at least capture them in the act. There's also what appears to be a series of very faint rolling darker lines from that roll from top to bottom. Also, I've noticed that performance has actually suffered in some titles in comparison to my STB Dell Nitro 1.3 (S3 ViRGE GX) 4MB.

Is the jitter and overall performance problems due to overheating issues? If the output is this sensitive to even small changes like extra heatsinks, would the GPU input fare OK with a VGA Pass-Thru? Or, did I set this thing up incorrectly?
Also, output was captured using a mystery Chinese capture card streaming to OBS, connected to a VGA to HDMI Adapter which allows me to adjust picture settings easily.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-25, 02:26:

[...]

I have to admit that I have very limited experience with screw terminals, generally I use breadboards for prototyping(For SMD components breakout boards can be used during prototyping), and when I decided that a project is complete enough I solder the final version. My opinion is that if they made this D-SUB VGA connector with screw terminals they are confident enough that it will work with usual VGA resolutions and frequencies and 800x600 at 60Hz is a very common resolution frequency combination as well as 800x600 85Hz, based on that I think it will work with good display quality, however without actual experience with screw terminals I cannot say it with 100% confidence.

Second that. I've tried one of these before and VGA output quality was worse than my prototype with Dupont cables. It was usable for DOS text modes and 320x240 but anything above that and you get a lot of fuzzy shadowing. There's no shielding between the terminals, so this is no better than taking plain wires to connect stuff.

Better idea: get a VGA connector with cable (cut the last ~25cm off a regular VGA cable) and separate out the wires. R, G and B should be in separate shielded sheaths (each connected to the relevant ground pin). Connect (=solder) those directly to the mini-DIN terminals. That way you're shielded all the way to the connector.

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-25, 08:05:

Sorry for the slightly off topic question, but it's still related to the whole output thing. Seems like you know your way around […]
Show full quote

Sorry for the slightly off topic question, but it's still related to the whole output thing.
Seems like you know your way around a gpu output. I've recently picked up a STB Velocity 128 for the system I'm putting the same system as the CT7260. It's got 4MB of RAM, but it provides 32 bit color in 800x600, and provides some basic features that at least make 2D performance satisfactory for the most part.
I've been able to force NVIDIA's 4.11 drivers onto it to allow me to disable a couple of features to reduce overhead, and tacked on some extra aluminum heatsinks on the main chip and the RAM. Not sure if this is related to the driver swap, but I'm noticing some oddities in the output.

The attachment VGA Issues.png is no longer available

The attachment VGA Issues2.png is no longer available

from time to time outside of 3D programs, I'm getting these horizontal jitters that appear in two separate general areas. I've been able to at least capture them in the act. There's also what appears to be a series of very faint rolling darker lines from that roll from top to bottom. Also, I've noticed that performance has actually suffered in some titles in comparison to my STB Dell Nitro 1.3 (S3 ViRGE GX) 4MB.

Is the jitter and overall performance problems due to overheating issues? If the output is this sensitive to even small changes like extra heatsinks, would the GPU input fare OK with a VGA Pass-Thru? Or, did I set this thing up incorrectly?
Also, output was captured using a mystery Chinese capture card streaming to OBS, connected to a VGA to HDMI Adapter which allows me to adjust picture settings easily.

The STB Velocity 128 is a Riva 128 based card, these were low power consumption cards(According to Techpowerup at most 4 watts(https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/riva-128.c1306), passive heat sinks should keep it enough cool to work properly even in a poorly ventilated case, if you search for pictures of RIVA 128 cards most often they are without heat-sinks or have small heat-sinks. If there are overheating issues after installing heat-sinks, then the source of heat is almost certainly not from the card itself. And don't worry about "overcooling", unless really extreme solutions are used (For example liquid nitrogen, some peltier coolers) there is not really such thing as over-cooling a chip, most ICs function to a minimum 0 Celsius or -40 Celsius depending on either Consumer grade IC or Industrial grade IC, with passive cooling you cannot get beneath ambient temperature.

For me in the first screenshot, the issue looks like when fetching data from VRAM it sometimes give garbage data instead, the screenshot doesn't show the whole screen, but it seems to affect whole lines, I'm not that familiar with the internal architecture of the NV3 chip, but it might be one of those chips the fetches a whole line of data into an integrated line buffer, so it can quickly output the line after each horizontal scan. The second screenshot is weirder it seems as if pixels were shifted along the horizontal direction. But before assuming a HW issue with the card I would try it in either a different computer if available, or with a separate Windows install and different driver version.

The pixels in the first screenshot are also delayed, if you do that on a checkerboard pattern (e.g. the shutdown overlay) the alternating light/dark pixels will line up with the above and below lines causing the alternating stripes you can see.

No idea about the root cause though.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-25, 08:53:

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-25, 08:05:

Sorry for the slightly off topic question, but it's still related to the whole output thing. Seems like you know your way around […]
Show full quote

Sorry for the slightly off topic question, but it's still related to the whole output thing.
Seems like you know your way around a gpu output. I've recently picked up a STB Velocity 128 for the system I'm putting the same system as the CT7260. It's got 4MB of RAM, but it provides 32 bit color in 800x600, and provides some basic features that at least make 2D performance satisfactory for the most part.
I've been able to force NVIDIA's 4.11 drivers onto it to allow me to disable a couple of features to reduce overhead, and tacked on some extra aluminum heatsinks on the main chip and the RAM. Not sure if this is related to the driver swap, but I'm noticing some oddities in the output.

The attachment VGA Issues.png is no longer available

The attachment VGA Issues2.png is no longer available

from time to time outside of 3D programs, I'm getting these horizontal jitters that appear in two separate general areas. I've been able to at least capture them in the act. There's also what appears to be a series of very faint rolling darker lines from that roll from top to bottom. Also, I've noticed that performance has actually suffered in some titles in comparison to my STB Dell Nitro 1.3 (S3 ViRGE GX) 4MB.

Is the jitter and overall performance problems due to overheating issues? If the output is this sensitive to even small changes like extra heatsinks, would the GPU input fare OK with a VGA Pass-Thru? Or, did I set this thing up incorrectly?
Also, output was captured using a mystery Chinese capture card streaming to OBS, connected to a VGA to HDMI Adapter which allows me to adjust picture settings easily.

For me in the first screenshot, the issue looks like when fetching data from VRAM it sometimes give garbage data instead, the screenshot doesn't show the whole screen, but it seems to affect whole lines, I'm not that familiar with the internal architecture of the NV3 chip, but it might be one of those chips the fetches a whole line of data into an integrated line buffer, so it can quickly output the line after each horizontal scan. The second screenshot is weirder it seems as if pixels were shifted along the horizontal direction. But before assuming a HW issue with the card I would try it in either a different computer if available, or with a separate Windows install and different driver version.

Regarding the heat coming out of the main chip, there was already a small, odd heatsink that's prominently visible in photos of it. with a passive amount of air moving through it with the additional heatsinks, the heatsink itself is hot to the touch, but not painful.
Blowing a high speed 120mm fan loosely onto it dissipates the hot air quite thoroughly. It's still worrisome since there's little room between PCI slots, most likely temperature may not be the issue. My current suspicion is drivers.

I had noticed that I only have had these issues when I had installed the Non-Windows 98 Drivers for the STB Velocity. Maybe I could attempt a driver rollback to the windows default? Or, perhaps restoring the 128's settings be more appropriate?

dionb wrote on 2026-06-25, 08:38:

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-25, 02:26:

[...]

I have to admit that I have very limited experience with screw terminals, generally I use breadboards for prototyping(For SMD components breakout boards can be used during prototyping), and when I decided that a project is complete enough I solder the final version. My opinion is that if they made this D-SUB VGA connector with screw terminals they are confident enough that it will work with usual VGA resolutions and frequencies and 800x600 at 60Hz is a very common resolution frequency combination as well as 800x600 85Hz, based on that I think it will work with good display quality, however without actual experience with screw terminals I cannot say it with 100% confidence.

Better idea: get a VGA connector with cable (cut the last ~25cm off a regular VGA cable) and separate out the wires. R, G and B should be in separate shielded sheaths (each connected to the relevant ground pin). Connect (=solder) those directly to the mini-DIN terminals. That way you're shielded all the way to the connector.

Thankfully, I have sacrificial VGA cables that I could use to attempt this sort of thing. perhaps the breakout board could confirm the CT7260 is functional, and then I could put together a more permanent solution with solder later?

Also, by "Soldering directly onto the mini-DIN terminals", does that mean decapitating the VGA cable, and plugging each relevant wire directly into the un-cut Female Mini DIN connector?

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-25, 17:09:

[...]

Also, by "Soldering directly onto the mini-DIN terminals", does that mean decapitating the VGA cable, and plugging each relevant wire directly into the un-cut Female Mini DIN connector?

Where are you getting the mini-DIN from? My description assumed you bought a new one from an electronics supplier, so it has terminals you can solder the wires to directly. If it's a used connector, you can either solder the wires together (potentially easier, but probably worse for signal quality) or desolder the existing wires and proceed as if the connector were new.

dionb wrote on 2026-06-25, 21:59:

GroundVale284 wrote on 2026-06-25, 17:09:

[...]

Also, by "Soldering directly onto the mini-DIN terminals", does that mean decapitating the VGA cable, and plugging each relevant wire directly into the un-cut Female Mini DIN connector?

Where are you getting the mini-DIN from? My description assumed you bought a new one from an electronics supplier, so it has terminals you can solder the wires to directly. If it's a used connector, you can either solder the wires together (potentially easier, but probably worse for signal quality) or desolder the existing wires and proceed as if the connector were new.

I'm purchasing a 9pin Mini-DIN cable with male and female ends to it. Here's the exact listing in Amazon.

I believe we are all confusing each other here. I'm still quite unsure on the best way to proceed with this, cause It's clear that waiting for a real cable that can do this just isn't going to happen.

Another idea that I had was to take one of the ends of the VGA cable, breaking one of the ends apart until I could string out individual pins, and insert these pins (solder free) into the 9pin Mini DIN cable, or perhaps the port on the CT7260 directly.
Is that going in the wrong direction, here?

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-25, 08:53:

For me in the first screenshot, the issue looks like when fetching data from VRAM it sometimes give garbage data instead, the screenshot doesn't show the whole screen, but it seems to affect whole lines, I'm not that familiar with the internal architecture of the NV3 chip, but it might be one of those chips the fetches a whole line of data into an integrated line buffer, so it can quickly output the line after each horizontal scan. The second screenshot is weirder it seems as if pixels were shifted along the horizontal direction. But before assuming a HW issue with the card I would try it in either a different computer if available, or with a separate Windows install and different driver version.

OK, I think I've figured out why the Velocity 128 was doing that odd stuff. The root appears to be the "Direct3D Texture memory size" which reserves system memory to increase overall bandwidth. Since the card is residing in a PCI slot, I'm certain the extra activity shoving RAM data into and out of the limited PCI bus was causing quite a lot of instability. Lowering it to about 1-2 has allowed for smooth FMV playback which was not happening when I had increased the setting to 5+MB.
I'm still seeing those incredibly faint rolling dark sections floating from top to bottom, but they are very, very hard to notice in anything but the teal background.
I had tried to capture it in the act but the OBS compression artifacts hid them almost completely.

So, at least that mystery is solved.
I think my first order of business once I manage to get my hands on that 9pin MiniDIN setup is to attempt to crush one end of that VGA cable , separate the pins, and plug them in one by one into the Mini DIN slot.
One thing I've noticed is that there appears to be only one ground in the 9pin Pin-Out section. Am I going to need to merge the Red, Green, and blue ground cables together into one to feed into the single ground pin on the 9Pin female end?