Savage chipset work ok?

[sTyLeS]

Will a S3 Savage IX 8MB AGP video card work well enough to play most MAME games. I know everything is handled in the emulator which uses processor power and currently doesn't take advantage of video hardware. But I was wanting to know if anybody used this specific card and what their thoughts were on it?
Thanks!

[tom61]

1. What OS?
2. What type of monitor?

I used to have a Savage 4 based card, it had graphics curruptions under Windows. There are no new drivers for it to fix problems, as S3's rights have been bought out three or four times. Last I checked Sonic Blue had them, and were kind enough to put drivers on there download page for it (and all are pre-XP drivers, though there are beta drivers on the net for XP and Savage cards).

[sTyLeS]

I was thinking WindowsXP, but may go down to 2000.
This Savage card has an S-video out, so was planning on a 25" TV.
Anyone also attempted TV out with a Savage card?

[tom61]

The Savage I had (made by Diamond) had pretty good TV-out, better than my current Geforce 2 MX400.  Manufactures could choose what  TV-out chipset they used, so YMMV.

In Windows 2000 I had to off acceleration completely, otherwise random text was unreadable under Windows.

Hardware stretching under Mame worked under 98 and XP with this card (not in 2K, since I had to turn acceleration off).

[sTyLeS]

Thanks for the tip about Win2000. I'll give it the full test in a couple different OS's just to see which has best support. And for only $10, I at least thought it would be worth testing out, especially for the TV-out support.
I'll post my findings if I determine any specific support or quality issues for others wondering about an inexpensive tv-out solution.
Thanks again.

[sTyLeS]

Well, I went ahead and tried out the Savage IX card with WindowsXP. No issues whatsoever. I downloaded the latest drivers from here http://ranger.s3graphics.com/swlib/290-298drv/, granted they're from April 25th, 2002. Still looked nice and clean on my 17" LCD, and the games that I tried out played without any issues. I still have yet to try the s-video out, but I have high hopes for it.