GPU-Z legacy OS and older graphics card support

[debs3759]

I'm setting up a software library and bench test setup for testing some older graphics cards. I note that officially, the latest version of GPU-Z that supports Windows 2000 is 0.4.6, and no version states that it uses will work on older versions of Windows. Will any older versions work under Win 95 (or better still Win 3.11 with Win32S)?

Also, is there a resource anywhere to tell me what cards other than ATI/AMD/NVidia can be detected? I understand from browsing the forum that some S3 cards are supported, but don't know which ones. I also have not found a record of any other cards being supported, so wonder if they actually are or not.

I know for a lot of my older cards I will need older software to do my testing, but would like to use GPU-Z for as much as possible. I want to be sure of what it can do before I start searching for other solutions

 

[Matrox-Matrix]

Hi,

I`m using lots of older PCs, too. E.g. one with an Intel Celeron (Mendocino) @ 533MHz and a Matrox MGA G200 AGP graphics card. My OS on this machine is Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 Standard Edition. Unfortunately, GPU-Z does not recognize the Matrox-GPU.

 

[W1zzard]

There are no plans to support anything older than Windows XP.

No support for Matrox either, until they step up and provide some documentation how to detect things.

Few S3 cards are supposed from back when I had a contact window to the company.

 

[debs3759]

Thanks W1zzard. I can identify most chipsets visually, and with a combination of FCC website, archive.org and a few other sites I can identify a lot of legacy cards. Now all I need is a few more apps for fully testing some of the more obscure chipsets

 

[smeezekitty]

I use GPU-Z version (I think) 0.3.4 on Windows 2000 on a 486 machine. It partially detects really old cards like S3 Virge / Matrox but it is limited

 

[debs3759]

Thanks smeezekitty, it's useful to have an idea what else will work. I'm building a small library of apps to test with old cards. Far from having a complete list yet though

 

[smeezekitty]

deb,

Some more info: I confirmed GPU-Z 0.4.3 works well on Win2k. There is a chance it might work with KernelEX but
it is pretty hit or miss. Here is 0.4.3 on a 486 with an S3 Virge and W2K: http://postimg.org/image/kbxyxne7b

It detected it but not completely right (151 THz memory clock??)

I suggest trying AIDA64. There is a limited free edition and it works all the way back to Windows 95
Windows 3.1 is much harder because of the limited software support. I stopped using 3.x on my vintage machines for that reason
Your best bet would probably be to try to find a DOS utility for those machines. Norton system info can often detect the really old stuff

Another option is a bootable Linux distro like Damn small linux can usually identify obscure hardware. It needs a system that boots from CD though (late pentium and newer)

Another place you might go is Vogons.org and over to their "Marvin" section. They are very knowledgeable about old hardware
and and identify a lot of things from 8088 era all the way up through the P4 era

 

[debs3759]

Love the memory speed in your screenshot. 151381 MHz (that's 151 GHz, not THz, but would still be impressive)!

I will be trying Win 3.11 on a small HD on the 486, but will also be trying Win 95 (OSR2) and NT4. Trying a small Linux distro does make sense though and I may try that as I'm sure it can't be hard to find distros with support for older hardware.

I have vogons bookmarked, will check them out when I get my test benches set up (still buying test hardware so it may be nearer to Christmas).

Thanks for the suggestions.