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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: bhtooefr on Mon, 14 March 2011, 19:51:01

Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Mon, 14 March 2011, 19:51:01
So, I'm wondering what the best bet is, as far as that goes?

The following cards are supported, between MS and Compaq's HCLs:

http://ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/services/whql/hcl/NT40aHCL.txt (the stuff listed under Display here)
http://ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/alphant/alpha_winnt_hardware_porting_list.pdf (the stuff listed under Display Adapters)

Most of this stuff is when I was still on Apple IIs and 386s, so I don't know much about these cards. Any idea what would be best, for an Alpha build I'm doing (getting a case, PSU, motherboard, CPU, and floppy drive, adding my own HDD, optical, RAM, GPU, and maybe NIC if it doesn't have one.)
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: typo on Mon, 14 March 2011, 21:39:11
i was just wondering why you would use this. other than for nostalgia. i understand if you had one, but getting one? i am just asking.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: keyb_gr on Tue, 15 March 2011, 19:40:58
AFAICS, the Compaq documents merely adds a number of CAD cards, while the standard HCL already covers the mainstream stuff.

Ultimately the ideal card depends on what you want in terms of 2D and 3D abilities (3D usually means OpenGL) and what you can get.

In the "mainstream" around 1996/1997, you typically found three different chip makers: S3, Matrox and ATI. While the latter two built cards of their own and did not sell their chips to other manufacturers, S3 was exactly the opposite. Tseng Labs had a last interesting product line with their ET6000 series, but quickly disappeared once 3D became popular. Speaking of which, 3Dlabs Voodoo add-on 3D cards were popular then.

Let me give you a quick rundown of S3 chips, about chronologically:
801: Old DRAM beast.
911: Old VRAM beast.
805: Old DRAM beast, 32 bit.
924: Old VRAM beast, 32 bit, truecolor support.
805i: 32 bit, interleaved
928: Much like 924, but fixed (or with PCI support?)
---- Here it gets interesting.
864: 64 bit DRAM
964: 64 bit VRAM
Trio32 (732): 32-bit DRAM chip with integrated RAMDAC, used on budget cards
Trio64 (764): 64-bit DRAM chip with integrated RAMDAC, used on budget cards
868: Like 864, but with video acceleration features and EDO support
968: Like 964, but with video acceleration features and EDO support
Trio64V+ (765): Like Trio64, but with video acceleration features and EDO support
ViRGE: Trio64V+ with basic 3D acceleration; 135 MHz RAMDAC
ViRGE/DX: Same but faster and with faster RAMDAC (170 MHz)
ViRGE/VX: As /DX, but for (EDO-)VRAM and with faster RAMDAC (220 MHz)

I'm not too much into vintage ATI cards but it seems like there were Mach64 varieties for both VRAM and DRAM. I think there weren't any Rage based cards in the HCL yet.

For Matrox, check their driver archive. (Hmm, not too talkative, that one. You may be stuck with first-gen Millenniums.) At that time, Millennium models used WRAM (with 170/220 MHz RAMDACs) while the lesser Mystiques had SGRAM (with 170 MHz RAMDAC, 220 MHz for the Mystique 220). Pretty advanced stuff and arguably the fastest 2D cards on the planet at the time. 3D support, while present, still was basic.

Diamond cards were S3 equipped, and the Stealth Series came with 864/964/868/968 chips, depending on DRAM/VRAM and Video designations.

Later ELSA cards also seem to be supported, at least the 968-equipped WINNER 2000PRO/X-8 (8 meg VRAM monster) is (but apparently the driver also knows the lesser S3-equipped models). Don't think you'd see those too often though, German manufacturer. Could be quite spendy then.

The #9 cards listed should all be S3-based (they later came out with a 128-bitter of their own in the Imagine 128 series but quickly went bust when 3D became the new hot thing).
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: Hak Foo on Tue, 15 March 2011, 20:36:39
Maybe it's worth starting with a parted-out machine rather than trying to find a compatible video board.  I'd be worried that even if the chipset is compatible, isn't there some x86-native firmware on most video boards-- wasn't that why you used to (in the PPC days) get "Mac versions" of some Radeon cards?
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Tue, 15 March 2011, 20:38:34
Looks like S3 support stops at the 968 and 765.

ATI stops at the Xpression 3D, which is the Mach64 that got rebranded as the original Rage.

Like you said, looks like Millenium for Matrox.

There's always the DEC cards, although they don't look that interesting.

On the workstation-class stuff... Looks like the GLoria-XXL is a Permedia2+GLINT MX. XL is S3 something+GLINT, and the L/MX is something lower-end S3+GLINT, and the Synergy is just a Permedia2?

AccelSTAR II is a Permedia 2, AccelECLIPSE II is using something E&S and Mitsubishi?

Looks like there was a dual GLINT MX card, too.

Glyder TX appears to use the older? GLINT 500TX.

Hmm. So, how good is the high-end workstation stuff? If it can be obtained cheaply enough...
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Tue, 15 March 2011, 22:01:26
And, the driver situation makes this more fun.

So, looks like ATI and S3 are dependent on bundled drivers. Not sure how good the bundled drivers are.

However, HPaq has a little gem hiding right here: http://www.compaq.com/legacysupport/digital/zips/000000JN.ZIP

That supports not only the Matrox Millenium, but also the Millenium II. Hmm...
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Wed, 16 March 2011, 06:09:59
Got a cheap Millenium II.

Found a Microsoft KB article saying that on Alpha, only the Millenium had DirectDraw acceleration support - not even the S3 or ATI stuff was accelerated. (On MIPS, only the S3 stuff is accelerated, on PPC, S3 and Matrox are accelerated.)

So, looks like Matrox is the easy choice.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: keyb_gr on Wed, 16 March 2011, 14:24:32
NT4 is not exactly DirectX territory in general (what was the highest you can get on there, 3? 5?), so I wouldn't consider that terribly important. I'd be happy with well-working GDI acceleration including offscreen support, plus OpenGL. Not sure what kind of media player I'd use.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: ch_123 on Thu, 17 March 2011, 18:42:16
You have an Alphastation, and you're running Windows instead of VMS, or even Tru64?

(http://cdn1.knowyourmeme.com/i/2626/original/doing-it-wrong.jpg?1242842328)

EDIT: I realized that you could have one of those silly Multia machines that could only run Windows NT.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Fri, 18 March 2011, 12:52:27
Fun fact of the day: Windows NT wasn't originally developed by Microsoft, it was developed by DEC. (No, this isn't one of those "lol WNT = VMS+1" posts.) And, it wasn't originally developed for i860 or MIPS.

Look up Mica and DEC PRISM.

(PRISM == a 64-bit RISC processor that was cancelled, but Alpha was based upon it. Mica == Dave Cutler's project for the PRISM's OS, intended to replace both VMS and Ultrix, which he took with him when he left DEC for Microsoft. Microsoft eventually got sued for that one, and the settlement is what ultimately brought NT (Mica) and Alpha (PRISM) (back) together.)
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: D-EJ915 on Sat, 19 March 2011, 20:35:42
Quote from: ch_123;313600
You have an Alphastation, and you're running Windows instead of VMS, or even Tru64?

Show Image
(http://cdn1.knowyourmeme.com/i/2626/original/doing-it-wrong.jpg?1242842328)


EDIT: I realized that you could have one of those silly Multia machines that could only run Windows NT.

depends on the firmware on the alphastation, you can either run NT or Tru64 but not both or the other.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Sun, 20 March 2011, 09:58:10
The machine I'm getting is an AlphaPC 164LX-based system, which can be flashed to either AlphaBIOS (ARC) or SRM firmware.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: mike on Mon, 21 March 2011, 05:53:46
Quote from: Hak Foo;312409
Maybe it's worth starting with a parted-out machine rather than trying to find a compatible video board.  I'd be worried that even if the chipset is compatible, isn't there some x86-native firmware on most video boards-- wasn't that why you used to (in the PPC days) get "Mac versions" of some Radeon cards?


Yes there's x86-native firmware in the mix. That's why AlphaBIOS has an x86-emulator, although it may possibly run into issues with some cards. If I were trying this, I'd make sure to have a graphics head as close as possible to the one supplied with the system as well as anything more exotic.

Oh! And check if the relevant system supports a serial console - because it's a lot less complex to use (from the system's point of view!), a serial console starts working a whole lot earlier in the game ... making it a lot easier to see what's going on when things go wrong.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Mon, 28 March 2011, 20:01:12
Waiting on Firefox 2.0.0.20 to start up... FX!32 is slow. (If there's an Alpha-native build, a link would be appreciated.)

Already got SP6a, IE5, and PuTTY 0.58 installed, though.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: EverythingIBM on Tue, 29 March 2011, 02:57:02
Quote from: bhtooefr;313994
Fun fact of the day: Windows NT wasn't originally developed by Microsoft, it was developed by DEC. (No, this isn't one of those "lol WNT = VMS+1" posts.) And, it wasn't originally developed for i860 or MIPS.

Look up Mica and DEC PRISM.

(PRISM == a 64-bit RISC processor that was cancelled, but Alpha was based upon it. Mica == Dave Cutler's project for the PRISM's OS, intended to replace both VMS and Ultrix, which he took with him when he left DEC for Microsoft. Microsoft eventually got sued for that one, and the settlement is what ultimately brought NT (Mica) and Alpha (PRISM) (back) together.)


Technically microsoft never even made DOS, it was all Tim Paterson. They just bought it and did a few tweaks.
I love DOS....
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Tue, 29 March 2011, 04:40:54
Huh. Once FX!32 had a chance to reprofile Firefox, it's actually pretty snappy. High CPU usage, but pretty snappy.
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: bhtooefr on Tue, 29 March 2011, 06:29:44
Until, that is, you get into JavaScript-heavy stuff, anyway... the JavaScript engine is SLOW.

(Not that Firefox 2 was known for fast JavaScript even running natively...)
Title: Video cards for DEC Alpha + NT4?
Post by: ch_123 on Tue, 29 March 2011, 17:01:05
Quote from: EverythingIBM;320506
Technically microsoft never even made DOS, it was all Tim Paterson. They just bought it and did a few tweaks.
I love DOS....


IIRC, IBM rewrote most of DOS given that QDOS was effectively unusable.