LGR - Vintage Computer Pickups - Sound/Video Cards, MSX
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Henrik
The Matrox Millenium was 1mb, upgradeable to 4mb by use of the expansion-bus.
There was also a Matrox Millenium II which had 2mb, upgradeable to 8mb, in much the same way.
The main focus of the card was to produce high quality 2d resolutions and was considered one of the best in that regard at an affordable price.
Matrix also released a lower-cost card at this time: Mystique, which was similar to the S3 Virge cards.
Finally, at the turn of the century, Matrox also gave the 3DFX a run for its money with the M3D-card at half the price, which came with 2mb and lacked any kind of output. The card had to rely on the cpu for doing rendering to your regular graphics card, which really affected the framerate.
However, if you had a Pentium II 266Mhz (with the 100Mhz memory bus) or faster, alternatively a dual Pentum MMX system at 233Mhz or more, both the 3DFX and the M3D would perform much the same on Windows NT 4. 0 (Windows 96 & 98 lacking multiprocessor support.
There was also a less known quirk about the M3D: if you put two cards in the same system and ran Windows NT 4. 0, the M3D on the highest priority PCI slot would actually use the memory of both cards, enabling much higher resolution without drop in framerate.
So is the Matrox Millenium II worth getting? I'd say: definitely if you want that crisp 24bit 1600x1200-120hz resolution on your trusted CRT-monitor! :-D
Thanks for a great review!
reply
The Matrox Millenium was 1mb, upgradeable to 4mb by use of the expansion-bus.
There was also a Matrox Millenium II which had 2mb, upgradeable to 8mb, in much the same way.
The main focus of the card was to produce high quality 2d resolutions and was considered one of the best in that regard at an affordable price.
Matrix also released a lower-cost card at this time: Mystique, which was similar to the S3 Virge cards.
Finally, at the turn of the century, Matrox also gave the 3DFX a run for its money with the M3D-card at half the price, which came with 2mb and lacked any kind of output. The card had to rely on the cpu for doing rendering to your regular graphics card, which really affected the framerate.
However, if you had a Pentium II 266Mhz (with the 100Mhz memory bus) or faster, alternatively a dual Pentum MMX system at 233Mhz or more, both the 3DFX and the M3D would perform much the same on Windows NT 4. 0 (Windows 96 & 98 lacking multiprocessor support.
There was also a less known quirk about the M3D: if you put two cards in the same system and ran Windows NT 4. 0, the M3D on the highest priority PCI slot would actually use the memory of both cards, enabling much higher resolution without drop in framerate.
So is the Matrox Millenium II worth getting? I'd say: definitely if you want that crisp 24bit 1600x1200-120hz resolution on your trusted CRT-monitor! :-D
Thanks for a great review!
reply
Johan
The Matrox Millenium was an awesome card. It was actually very tolerable in installing 2 Matroxes or 1 Matrox and another one, to generate the dual screens. Awesome card. A lot of cards i have too, including a variety of the Trident TVGA8900 and 9000, but also the Mwave modem. The one i have runs 33. 6kbps. One of the nicest cards i have is a Dialogic D4/PCI, which has 4 RJ11 ports. To come back on the SB16: there are PNP versions for ISA-slots and at that time a whole bunch of people couldn't believe ISA could be PNP, yet i had the proof. Also notable mentions in my collection: OTI VGA 077, Terratec DMX Fire 1024, Creative 3D Blaster Banshee, Creative Vibra16 and even some cards which had a VESA local bus (VLB. Cool hardware: )
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The Matrox Millenium was an awesome card. It was actually very tolerable in installing 2 Matroxes or 1 Matrox and another one, to generate the dual screens. Awesome card. A lot of cards i have too, including a variety of the Trident TVGA8900 and 9000, but also the Mwave modem. The one i have runs 33. 6kbps. One of the nicest cards i have is a Dialogic D4/PCI, which has 4 RJ11 ports. To come back on the SB16: there are PNP versions for ISA-slots and at that time a whole bunch of people couldn't believe ISA could be PNP, yet i had the proof. Also notable mentions in my collection: OTI VGA 077, Terratec DMX Fire 1024, Creative 3D Blaster Banshee, Creative Vibra16 and even some cards which had a VESA local bus (VLB. Cool hardware: )
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Zucadragon
I'm not Jaap, but you have to hold the A a little longer, like you'd imagine a room of German congressmen all agreeing on something at the same time -YAH! - Only then -YAHp-
We've got an MSX 2 at home here, with a whole ton of games, so when I saw -MSX- in the title I was immediately interested. Man, I've played all those games, it's a shame that's Kings Valley 2, still a good game, but the first one was better: D
Also, Jaap, jij bent de man!
PS: We got a lot of old stuff here, computer related and consoles and things, I don't think I can convince the family to part ways with it, but if you want to see, I'd love to make some good photos of it! If not, that's fine too of course.
reply
I'm not Jaap, but you have to hold the A a little longer, like you'd imagine a room of German congressmen all agreeing on something at the same time -YAH! - Only then -YAHp-
We've got an MSX 2 at home here, with a whole ton of games, so when I saw -MSX- in the title I was immediately interested. Man, I've played all those games, it's a shame that's Kings Valley 2, still a good game, but the first one was better: D
Also, Jaap, jij bent de man!
PS: We got a lot of old stuff here, computer related and consoles and things, I don't think I can convince the family to part ways with it, but if you want to see, I'd love to make some good photos of it! If not, that's fine too of course.
reply
Stefan
That thing at -7: 05 could be a Mouseport Card.
Have the same port on an ATI MACH32 ISA Card. So your guess with 'some kind of serial connection' isn't wrong.
The Matrox Millenium was one of the best PCI cards of the Time. 3D Acceleration was useless for games but you'd want that card for a Voodoo Setup because of the Amazing 2D Quality (doesn't filter too much and makes the picture blurry.
And the Ports you put your Finger on was for Memory Upgrades. And the Rainbow Runner Video Editing update Module. Rather Rare but should be amazing for the time.
reply
That thing at -7: 05 could be a Mouseport Card.
Have the same port on an ATI MACH32 ISA Card. So your guess with 'some kind of serial connection' isn't wrong.
The Matrox Millenium was one of the best PCI cards of the Time. 3D Acceleration was useless for games but you'd want that card for a Voodoo Setup because of the Amazing 2D Quality (doesn't filter too much and makes the picture blurry.
And the Ports you put your Finger on was for Memory Upgrades. And the Rainbow Runner Video Editing update Module. Rather Rare but should be amazing for the time.
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Nonflying
AWE32 was one of my longest serving sound cards. Then isa slots disappeared and the really good linux support didn't help it anymore. I never had the Yamaha daughter board for it either (xg50) I liked the voodoo1 card by diamond as well but the loopthrough cable added extra noise especially if on a bigger monitor. GLquake was awesome. Matrox millenium had great X support as well so it was the go to card for a long time for linux/bsd heads. If only getting new hw would mean as much as back then.
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AWE32 was one of my longest serving sound cards. Then isa slots disappeared and the really good linux support didn't help it anymore. I never had the Yamaha daughter board for it either (xg50) I liked the voodoo1 card by diamond as well but the loopthrough cable added extra noise especially if on a bigger monitor. GLquake was awesome. Matrox millenium had great X support as well so it was the go to card for a long time for linux/bsd heads. If only getting new hw would mean as much as back then.
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satanclaw
The daughterboard slot on the Matrox Millennium is for Video memory expansion, I had a total of 6 mb on mine I believe, 2mb on board, and 4 on the daugterboard, it could support up to 6mb for a total of 8! I believe. It only had 2d acceleration, very limited 3d acceleration, if any, compared to the Matrox Mystique, that came out at about the same time it sucked, the Mystique had true 3d acceleration. I compensated by having two Diamond Monster 3d 2 Voodoo 2 12mb in SLI: D
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The daughterboard slot on the Matrox Millennium is for Video memory expansion, I had a total of 6 mb on mine I believe, 2mb on board, and 4 on the daugterboard, it could support up to 6mb for a total of 8! I believe. It only had 2d acceleration, very limited 3d acceleration, if any, compared to the Matrox Mystique, that came out at about the same time it sucked, the Mystique had true 3d acceleration. I compensated by having two Diamond Monster 3d 2 Voodoo 2 12mb in SLI: D
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Sorren
You'll likely have a difference of opinion on Quarantine but Ross Scott from Accursed Farms reviewed Quarantine on his show Game Dungeon. He said he loved the music, but the thought the game had some unrealistic expectations on you given the odd manner of control. He also said he'd love to see it remade with some better mechanics. The footage he showed definitely seemed like a cool game though it did seem like timed bumper car races mixed with twisted metal & Doom.
reply
You'll likely have a difference of opinion on Quarantine but Ross Scott from Accursed Farms reviewed Quarantine on his show Game Dungeon. He said he loved the music, but the thought the game had some unrealistic expectations on you given the odd manner of control. He also said he'd love to see it remade with some better mechanics. The footage he showed definitely seemed like a cool game though it did seem like timed bumper car races mixed with twisted metal & Doom.
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Super_Sonic_88
I actually just figured out what that card at 06: 50 is! Turns out, I actually have a serial cable with 2 of the standard connectors, but with an additional connector that is basically a -Mini-Serial- of sorts. Also on some of the earlier Apple Macs the serial interface used the same miniDIN connector to save space, but I believe it is compatible with PC-serial.
Thanks for continuing to make great videos, cant wait for a new LGR Thrifts episode!
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I actually just figured out what that card at 06: 50 is! Turns out, I actually have a serial cable with 2 of the standard connectors, but with an additional connector that is basically a -Mini-Serial- of sorts. Also on some of the earlier Apple Macs the serial interface used the same miniDIN connector to save space, but I believe it is compatible with PC-serial.
Thanks for continuing to make great videos, cant wait for a new LGR Thrifts episode!
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Ryan
That card you have no idea what it is. you thought might be for video authoring. I had a really old 80086 computer many year ago as my first computer. That computer had a controller card for the mouse with port that looked like that one you showed. So I did some Googling. it turns out that is an 8-pin mini din port used for game controllers and track balls (and I had a mouse. So it's either a game controller card or mouse card or both.
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That card you have no idea what it is. you thought might be for video authoring. I had a really old 80086 computer many year ago as my first computer. That computer had a controller card for the mouse with port that looked like that one you showed. So I did some Googling. it turns out that is an 8-pin mini din port used for game controllers and track balls (and I had a mouse. So it's either a game controller card or mouse card or both.
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Stefan
That Rage 3D Card is actually an 8Meg Card.
4 Meg onboard with another 4meg over the SO-DIMM socket.
And it is SGRAM -> Synchroumous Graphics RAM, so pretty awsome for that time.
And probably best of the class of what ATI had at the time.
As for the Matrox Millenium:
That really is a 2meg card.
The connectors on the card are either for memory upgrade or for the Matrox Rainbow Runner video editing thingy.
reply
That Rage 3D Card is actually an 8Meg Card.
4 Meg onboard with another 4meg over the SO-DIMM socket.
And it is SGRAM -> Synchroumous Graphics RAM, so pretty awsome for that time.
And probably best of the class of what ATI had at the time.
As for the Matrox Millenium:
That really is a 2meg card.
The connectors on the card are either for memory upgrade or for the Matrox Rainbow Runner video editing thingy.
reply
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