Bobolaf wrote on 2023-05-01, 13:47:

Can anyone recommend a graphics card for Autocad under DOS that has driver still available? I know the Matrox Mystique 220 and Millennium II did but the drivers appear no longer available from Matrox. I don't suppose anyone has a copy of these drivers or can point me at an alternative card? Thanks

In case of Matrox, is this what you're looking for?
https://archive.org/details/mga-millv1.3

Hi there! I don't know of its helpful, but there's a VESA VBE driver in the form of an ADI driver. It's called "SVADI".

I've used it in AutoSketch 3..
Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6e3FzI9Tuw

Edit: Driver attached.

songoffall wrote on 2023-05-01, 15:32:

Bobolaf wrote on 2023-05-01, 13:47:

Can anyone recommend a graphics card for Autocad under DOS that has driver still available? I know the Matrox Mystique 220 and Millennium II did but the drivers appear no longer available from Matrox. I don't suppose anyone has a copy of these drivers or can point me at an alternative card? Thanks

In case of Matrox, is this what you're looking for?
https://archive.org/details/mga-millv1.3

Vogons Drivers will have them as well. I have a Millennium in my P200 box.
https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … &menustate=12,1

Thanks for the replies. Those were the Matrox drivers I needed thank you. I will have a look at the VESA VBE ones as would be interesting to see if other cards will do the job. Thanks again

http://files.mpoli.fi/ has lots of old drivers. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afiles. … DISPLAY+autocad shows some display (and printer) driver matches for Matrox, S3 and Trident. However I can imagine that AutoCAD drivers might be hidden in driver packages that are just labelled as for "DOS" without listing which specific applications are supported, so if you have a card in mind, you could look for DOS drivers for it.

Dmetsys wrote on 2023-05-01, 20:49:

songoffall wrote on 2023-05-01, 15:32:

Bobolaf wrote on 2023-05-01, 13:47:

Can anyone recommend a graphics card for Autocad under DOS that has driver still available? I know the Matrox Mystique 220 and Millennium II did but the drivers appear no longer available from Matrox. I don't suppose anyone has a copy of these drivers or can point me at an alternative card? Thanks

In case of Matrox, is this what you're looking for?
https://archive.org/details/mga-millv1.3

Vogons Drivers will have them as well. I have a Millennium in my P200 box.
https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … &menustate=12,1

I have a Millenium in my P233 Compaq. Haven't got it working yet though 😀) but I'll get there.

doshea wrote on 2023-05-02, 08:05:

http://files.mpoli.fi/ has lots of old drivers. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afiles. … DISPLAY+autocad shows some display (and printer) driver matches for Matrox, S3 and Trident. However I can imagine that AutoCAD drivers might be hidden in driver packages that are just labelled as for "DOS" without listing which specific applications are supported, so if you have a card in mind, you could look for DOS drivers for it.

This is my experience, too. The diskettes that originally shipped with VGA cards had all kinds of drivers and DOS utilities included (monitor alignment/test pattern, refresh rate utility, RAM BIOS, video mode utility, font editor, VESA TSR etc).

GEM, Ventura Publisher, Windows 1&2, Autodesk, Generic CAD, Word Perfect, Works etc.
Drivers for about 12 different software products, in short.

Unfortunately, little of this had been preserved. It's as if people stripped the other drivers, because they saw no use for them.
Usually, merely the Windows 3.0 or OS/2 drivers are being available online most of the time.

I have a Millenium 4MB and Millenium II 8MB
Matrox PADI driver works great in AutoCAD R13 but it just shows blank screen in 3DS3/4. 3DS works with built in Vibrant SVGA driver. Vibrant has some support for older Matrox cards it seems.
My Millenium II also seems slightly broken because in 8bit high res modes I have vertical line missing every 8 pixels or so. I guess I need to buy another one.
S3 vendors bundled Panacea TurboDLD with their cards (I remember using them on Trio64, and also have them now workin on S3 Virge). AFAIK it didnt support full acceleration, for that you needed to buy upgraded version directly from Panacea.
Few other vendors also just used Panacea PADI driver.
If anyone knows any other vendors that made their own custom PADI driver I would be interested.
When Windows 95 came out everyone stopped bundling any special DOS drivers because all productivity software moved to Windows. I have never seen these drivers for stuff like radeons or nvidia cards.