Matrox

Early Cards

Started with Altair 8800 solutions in the 1970s

Moved into the PC world in the mid 1980's

PIP Series

Image Capture board 8bit ISA slot

• Matrox PIP-512 https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-pip-512

Professional Graphics Series

Clones of the IBM Professional Graphics Controller circa 1986

More information about the IBM Professional Graphics Controller here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Graphics_Controller

Drivers: https://archive.org/details/matrox-pg-series

Cards included:

• PG-640 - 2x 8bit ISA bus; NS32016 CPU and NS32C201 TCU. http://www.cpu-ns32k.net/Matrox.html https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-pg-640
• PG-1280 - ISA bus

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=106386

Also existed a Qbus card for DEC systems

TIGA Cards

TIGA 34010 Graphics coprocessor boards circa 1988

Drivers: https://archive.org/details/matrox-pg-series

• PG-641 - ISA bus; 512KB Frame buffer
• PG-1281CV/8 - ISA bus; 2MB frame buffer + 1.5MB for 34010 programming https://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/cpu/item/413-matrox-pg-1281cv-8

Also existed as Microchannel, Multibus, & VMEBus (VERSA Module Eurocard)

Magnum Series

Fixed function 8514a compatible graphics boards based on the WD95C00 & WD95C01 circa 1990

Cards included:

• MG-104 : ISA 512KB
• MG-108 : ISA 1024KB https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-mg-108
• MG-124 : ISA 1024KB faster DAC
• MG-128 : ISA 2048KB faster DAC

https://books.google.com/books?id=KjwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA59#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also existed in Microchannel variations

Hiper VGA Series

Fixed function ISA cards based on the S3 86C924 circa 1992

Cards included:

• Hiper VGA Win A - 1MB DRAM S3 86C924
• Hiper+/Win - 1MB DRAM S3 86C924

https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/matrox/hyperwin.php

Chips

By 1989, Matrox started producing cards based on their own graphics chips

Illuminator

Multi Chip professional graphics imaging capture? Uses chips named Matrox VIC/0 & VSOP/0. Cards are dated 1989 - 1994.

Cards included:

• IP-8: ISA

https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-ip-8

• Illuminator 16: ISA

https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-illuminator-16-at-a

• ILLUMINATOR PRO: ISA 4MB; 3 chip GPU

https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-illuminator-pro

Also existed in Microchannel variants circa 1989

https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/1j44zdo/old_matrox_video_card_illuminator_16mc2m/

Impression

A multi chip solution for professional CAD graphics. Chips used in this series include IS_TITAN, IS_DUBIC, IS_HELENA, and IS_ATHENA. These cards had a VRAM frame buffer and separate DRAM for GPU programming.

Cards included:

• IP-8: ISA https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-ip-8
• MGA IMPRESSION ISA: MGA II chips: TITAN & DUBIC & Helena chips w/ 3-5 MB RAM + Zbuffer
• MGA IMPRESSION VLB
• MGA IMPRESSION Pro VLB
• MGA Impression Plus: ISA; MGA IS-ATHENA chip.
• MGA Ultima Impression https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/matrox-mga-ultima-impression

Capture Cards that might be related to the impression series:

• MGA Pro 4.5MG frame buffer & 4MB DRAM - VLB
• MGA Video Pro - ISA

https://books.google.com/books?id=L39FUG-zDswC&pg=PA235&dq=MGA+Ultima&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1m9DDpMCQAxUR_8kDHTMcHqEQ6AF6BAgKEAM#v=onepage&q=MGA%20Ultima%201993&f=false

MGA Ultima

A cost reduced 64 bit accelerator chip for windows & entry level professional tasks circa 1993

Cards included:

• MGA Ultima AT - ISA
• MGA Ultima Plus - VLB
• MGA Ultima Plus - PCI
• MGA Ultima VAFC - PCI

https://books.google.com/books?id=7k7q-wS0t00C&pg=PA277&dq=MGA+Ultima+vlb&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU1pyAp8CQAxUs38kDHap7OBwQ6AF6BAgOEAM#v=onepage&q=MGA%20Ultima%20vlb&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=RjY3gFmnC8UC&pg=PA206&dq=matrox+mga+1993&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9tJb_ocCQAxUEmmoFHcYaGRQQ6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q=matrox%20mga%201993&f=false

Millennium

Millennium

Successor to the Impression series, Millennium is a capable VGA and GUI accelerator with good output quality. Its intended audience was CAD users and others who desired high-performance, high-resolution GUI acceleration and was highly-priced accordingly.

Like the Impression, it is a rudimentary 3D accelerator with support for gouraud shading. It does not support hardware texture mapping. It is not Direct3D compatible. There were a few games included with the card that interfaced with it.

Mystique

Mystique

See main article: Matrox Mystique

Matrox Mystique is a 2D/3D/video accelerator for PC. Matrox released their first Mystique on August 14, 1996. Newer versions, including Mystique 220, kept appearing until summer 1997. The videocard usually had 2-4 Mb SGRAM expandable to 8MB with a special memory add-on card. However, apart from higher resolutions, upgrading memory did not make much difference.

Mystique was oriented on mid-end consummer and business market, offering excellent 2D performance, traditional for Matrox. It also has basic 3D capabilities, delivered mainly through Matrox Simple Interface API. As for the 2D part, it's safe to say the videocard has no known flaws. The image is crisp, has fine colors. But the 3D part lacked a lot of functions, which were removed to improve overall performance. Overall, Matrox Mystique is a good choice for 2D graphics alongside 3dfx Voodoo.

Millennium II

Millenium II 8MB PCI

This chip is mysteriously similar to Mystique but it uses WRAM instead of SGRAM and this gives it higher high-resolution GUI performance. The 3D acceleration appears to be identical with even the same bugs.

It comes in both AGP and PCI versions.

G100

This was primarily a budget VGA/GUI "productivity" accelerator card. It has somewhat improved 3D hardware compared to the Mystique and Millennium II, with bilinear filtering, but it still lacks critical features like full alpha blending.

G200

Millennium G200

The G200 is Matrox's first in-house 3D accelerator with full Direct3D 5 feature compliance. It typically comes with 8MB RAM and is capable of rendering at any resolution that can fit within that. It is capable of 32-bit rendering color depth although the performance hit is considerable. It is AGP 2x compliant and can use AGP texturing.

Unreal and Unreal Tournament may display an incorrect, overly bright image. Editing the Unreal.ini and disabling multi-texturing will fix this. Z-fighting may also be a problem and enabling 32-bit z-buffer can help this.

G200's OpenGL support was very poor until years into its life. Initially a slow OpenGL-to-Direct3D wrapper was used to support a few games. Eventually a full OpenGL driver was released at around the same time as G400's. Note that the final drivers for G200 include a OpenGL driver with a bug that breaks transparent water. This is remedied with later G400 driver package that contains a G200 OpenGL ICD. Overwrite the older ICD in the Windows directory.

Retail cards were Millennium G200, Mystique G200, Marvel G200 and G200 MMS. Millennium uses SGRAM while Mystique has slightly slower SDRAM but also TV-output. Marvel features video in/out capabilities. There is also a G250 chip which was OEM-only. It is built on 250nm manufacturing instead of G200's 350nm and typically does not need a heatsink.

G400

Millennium G400 Max

The G400 was essentially an improved and upgraded G200. Main improvements include 2 rendering pipelines, 128-bit memory bus, dual VGA monitor output, Direct3D 6 compliance, and environmental bump mapping support (EMBM). It is over twice as fast as Millennium G200. The G400 Max was similar in performance to TNT2 Ultra and Voodoo3 3500.

It lacks most DVD acceleration features but has an interesting DVD Max mode for output onto the second display.

Initially the card did not have an OpenGL driver. Matrox compensated for over a year with a miniGL called TurboGL which supported mainly Quake 1/2/3-based games. In early 2000 the final OpenGL driver was ready.

Variants include the Millennium G400, Millennium G400 Max, Marvel G400, and Marvel G400-TV. There are also a number of OEM models with different specifications. Some cards come with slightly slower SDRAM instead of SGRAM.

G450

A cost-reduced version of G400 with similar performance and features. G400 Max is faster.

Retail products were Millennium G450 and Marvel G450 eTV.

G550

A Direct3D 6 GPU in practice. It does have a hardware transform and lighting unit but it is not Direct3D 7 compliant. This was only used for the Headcasting software. Performance of this card is slightly above the G400 and G450.

The retail model was Millennium G550.

Parhelia

Parhelia revision 1

Matrox's first Direct3D 8 accelerator, although it was initially advertised has having partial D3D9 capabilities. Performance is similar to a GeForce4 Ti. Initial version of the GPU has some bugs with secondary displays and also shipped with a low clock speed because of manufacturing difficulties. A later version increased clock speeds but also eliminated AGP 2x (3.3v) support.

It features a unique anti-aliasing technique called fragment anti-aliasing that provides very high quality (claimed 16X-equivalent MSAA). This technique has some caveats though, such as incompatibility with stencil buffering, and so was not further developed.

The first Matrox chip with full DVD acceleration.

It does not support Windows 9x.

Parhelia-LX

Matrox Millennium P650 Rev. B

This chip is designed to make Parhelia solutions more affordable. Key differences are:

• 128-bit memory bus instead of 256-bit
• 2 pixel pipelines instead of 4

One of the most common boards based on this logic was marketed as Matrox Millennium P650. It comes with dual DVI, 64MB of RAM and a fanless cooling system. It fairs well in period 3D-applications and games, although it will be slower than GeForce4 Ti most of the time. Like the Parhelia, these boards have no driver support for Windows 9x.

Related links

• VOGONS threads about graphics cards
• MatroX Files - site with technical information about various Matrox cards. Includes overclocking, BIOS modification, tweaks, etc.
• Gona's PCI and AGP DOS game compatibility matrix