DOS Days

ATi 3D Rage II Series (1996-1997)

ATI 3D Rage II (1996)

Summary

Introduction

Following ATI's 3D Rage chip released in April 1996, the 3D Rage II followed just five months later. Having had huge success with its first generation, the 3D Rage II series are considered 2nd-generation, and comprise the following variants:

• 3D Rage II - first version of the chip, launched in Sep 1996. PCI only.
• 3D Rage II+DVD - added hardware MPEG decompression and further optimised 2D and 3D performance. PCI only.
• 3D Rage IIc - the budget version, released alongside the Rage Pro. AGP only.

Like the 3D Rage before it, all 3D Rage II chips have an ATi Mach64 GT core for 2D graphics, but added more 3D features and approximately twice the 3D performance. Here's a comparison of the 3D Rage II range compared to the original 3D Rage:

New 3D features in the 3D Rage II included a 16-bit Z-buffer and support for 4-bit and 8-bit palletised textures, but like the Matrox MGA Millennium, it did not have bilinear filtering or alpha blending capabilities.

The integrated RAMDAC ran at 170 MHz but ATi were also able to screen for qualification at 200 MHz, which they offered to OEM customers as an option. At launch, ATi claimed the 3D Rage II had 20% better 2D performance and twice the 3D performance of the earlier 3D Rage chip, with up to 26 MPixels/sec. Not having their own fabrication plant, ATi used a number of external chip fabricators for the 3D Rage II, including SGS Thomson, NEC and UMC, and later on, TSMC.

The first graphics card from ATi to feature the new 3D Rage II chip was the Xpression+ PC2TV (model number 109-37900-00), which launched at the same time as the chip in September 1996 with a street price of $219 in 2 MB form. It was bundled with special versions of MechWarrior 2 and WipeOut, and a few other apps aligned with the TV and video aspects of the card. This card also featured ATI's home-grown NTSC/PAL encoder chip called ImpacTV. This 28-pin PLCC chip communicated with the 3D Rage II using the ATI Multimedia Channel (AMC) interface. Its core ran at 55 MHz with the EDO memory ran at 60 MHz. Another version of Xpression+ PC2TV came with the faster SDRAM type of memory that ran at 70 MHz. The next card to arrive with a 3D Rage II chip was Xpression+, also in 1996 - basically the same but without the ImpacTV, the same core clock (aka pixel clock) but it had super-fast SGRAM memory that ran at 66 MHz. It also came bundled with MechWarrior 2. These cards were the only ones to use the first iteration of the 3D Rage II chip.

The 3D Rage II+DVD arrived in February 1997. It still had the same 55 MHz core and memory speeds were either 60 or 66 MHz . These cards got an enhanced RAMDAC that now ran at 200 MHz and MPEG-2 (DVD) video acceleration. It was designed to run best with 83 MHz SGRAM memory with its block write feature, but also came on cards designed for the older EDO DRAM as a cheaper option.

3D features of the +DVD include perspectively correct texturing, video texturing, Gouraud shading, 16-bit Z-buffering, bilinear and trilinear texture filtering, Direct3D texture lighting, alpha blending, and fog.

The first card to use the 3D Rage II+DVD was ATi's All-in-Wonder with a list price of $329 and a street price of $290. The All-in-Wonder card won PC Magazine's Editor's Choice in June 1997. It came with analogue TV out, built-in video capture capabilities and an onboard TV tuner. You could opt for a 2MB EDO card upgradable to 4 MB, or 4 MB EDO out of the box, both of which supported up to 1600 x 1200 non-interlaced resolution, or 1280 x 1024 in 16.7 million colours on the 4 MB version. Refresh rates as high as 200 Hz were possible at some resolutions.

The 3D Rage IIc was the last of the 3D Rage II series, coming out about a year after the first 3D Rage II, in April 1997. Like the 3D Rage Pro that launched alongside it, it added support for the then-new AGP bus. It was the budget offering, performing similarly to the S3 Trio3D or S3 ViRGE/GX2. The 3D Charger was the first card available to use this chip and was available with either 4 MB or 8 MB EDO memory for the PCI bus, or 8 MB EDO only for the AGP bus (I believe this was ATI's first AGP card).

The 3D Rage and 3D Rage II series all support DirectX 5.0, but the 3D Rage II also came with drivers for Argonaut BRender and Criterion RenderWare APIs. OpenGL 1.0 support was also available via software drivers only (no hardware OpenGL).

Supported Graphics Modes

The original 3D Rage II chip supports resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. The table below outlines the vertical refresh rates available at each resolution:

The 3D Rage II+DVD also supports resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 but with its 200 MHz RAMDAC it could achieve higher vertical refresh rates.

2D Display Modes & Refresh Rates Resolution 256 colors 65k colors 16.7M colors EDO DRAM 1MB 2MB 1MB 2MB 4MB 1MB 2MB 4MB 640x480 200 200 120 200 200 90 200 200 800x600 160 200 90 160 160 120 120 1024x768 100 150 100 100 75 1152x864 85 120 85 85 60 1280x1024 100 70 47 1600x1200 76 SGRAM 640x480 200 200 200 200 200 160 200 200 800x600 200 200 160 200 200 160 160 1024x768 150 150 150 150 120 1152x864 120 120 120 120 85 1280x1024 100 100 75 1600x1200 76 76

3D Display Modes Frame Buff. Screen Res Color Depth Front Buffer Back Buffer Z Buffer Txture W Z Mem. W/O Z MB X x Y BPP MB MB MB MB MB 2 512 x 384 16 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.88 1.25 2 640 x 480 8 0.29 0.29 0.59 0.83 1.41 2 640 x 480 16 0.59 0.59 0.59 0.24 0.83 2 800 x 600 8 0.46 0.46 0.92 0.17 1.08 4 640 x 480 16 0.59 0.59 0.59 2.24 2.83 4 640 x 480 32 1.17 1.17 0.59 1.07 1.66 4 800 x 600 16 0.92 0.92 0.92 0.92 2.17 8 1024 x 768 32 3 3 1.5 0.5 2 8 1280 x 1024 16 2.5 2.5 2.5 0.5 3

Memory

All chips in the earlier 3D Rage series were designed with a 64-bit memory pathway, but the 3D Rage II bettered its older brother with its support for three different memory types that were prevalent at the time: the original EDO DRAM that the earlier 3D Rage could only use, but also SGRAM and SDRAM which ran at up to 83 MHz, in capacities from 2 MB up to 8 MB. If SGRAM or SDRAM were used, memory bandwidth rose from 320 MB/sec to 664 MB/sec.

In summary, these are the memory types and their speeds used by the 3D Rage II series:

• 3D Rage II - EDO (60 MHz), SDRAM (70 MHz) and SGRAM (66 MHz)
• 3D Rage II+DVD - EDO (60 MHz) and SGRAM (66 MHz or 83 MHz)
• 3D Rage IIc - EDO (60 MHz) and SDRAM (83 MHz)

All ATI 3D Rage II cards max out at 4 MB on the card itself. On some cards (3D Xpression+, 3D Rage II), the 8 MB (or 6 MB on 2MB boards) is reached through the installation of a 2 MB or 4 MB SGRAM memory expansion daughterboard (Part # 109-34600-10), so if you're looking for a 6 or 8 MB card they don't exist - you need a card and the memory expansion daughterboard to get the full capacity.

Others like the 3D Xpression+ PC2TV and some 3D Charger cards came with SOJ sockets to expand the onboard memory.

Cards based on the 3D Rage IIC chip were not expandable, since these were sold as the budget offering.

Bear in mind also that the memory on the ATI 3D Rage II series is split between 2D video [frame buffer] memory and 3D memory for textures, so more memory doesn't necessarily mean higher resolutions or colour depths in Windows.

Ports

In addition to the standard 15-pin DSUB for analogue video output, some 3D Rage II cards also supported TV-out via S-Video and composite connectors. Most also include the AMC (ATi Multimedia Channel) interface port. For those cards that provided audio/video inputs, these also came in the form of S-Video and Composite connectors on the backplate.

Switches

The ATI Rage II series are fully Plug & Play, so no hardware configuration / jumpers / DIP switches need to be set.

The Video BIOS

Cards that used the 3D Rage II series had many versions of video BIOS, most of which are shown in the table below:

Upgrades and Successors

The 3D Rage II series was succeeded pretty soon, late 1997, with the 3D Rage Pro chip, which was first used on the ATI All-in-Wonder Pro and ATi Xpert@Play cards, both of which employed SGRAM memory. In 3D operations, these 3D Rage Pro cards turned out to be quite a bit slower than those using the new nVidia RiVA 128 (cards like the Diamond Viper 330 and Canopus Total3D 128V), but was faster than other rivals including the Matrox Millennium II, 3dfx Voodoo Rush, and S3 ViRGE DX and GX. Boards that had 8 MB of video memory faired even better at resolutions of 800 x 600 than at 640 x 480 with similar performance to the 3D Labs Permedia 2.

ATi was a solid proponent of the new AGP architecture, and their early AGP cards like the ones mentioned were much more full-featured in this regard, utilising much of what AGP could offer to gain a performance advantage over PCI-based rivals. The 3D Rage Pro cards used the new industry-standard SODIMM memory socket for expansion and retained the AMC connector for peripherals such as standalone TV or DVD cards.

The 3D Rage Pro also included an impressive amount of Microsoft's DirectX 6.0 Direct3D features compared to other cards at the time, plus support for OpenGL 1.1.

Reception

The ATi 3D Rage II arrived about the same time as the S3 ViRGE/GX, and both competed in the very crowded early 3D market in 1996. In most regards the ATi chip achieved higher frames per second in gaming compared to the S3, even with just 2 MB of memory onboard. With 4 MB or more, this gap would be even wider.

The 3D Rage II+[DVD] arrived in 1997, and with it a slight boost in 3D performance over the 3D Rage II, with apparently a 30% improvement in small triangle performance. Also with the + was a boost in memory speed, up from 60 MHz to 83 MHz if you had SGRAM. ATi's advertisements as the time claimed the 3D Rage II+DVD could achieve over 2x as many MPixels per second fill rate as the S3 ViRGE (the original, not the GX), and over 1.5x that of a Matrox Mystique. In reality, filtering quality on the 3D Rage II series was poor and this hit frame rates if the feature was enabled in games.

By 1997 there were other cheap 3D cards that could achieve better fps performance, such as the SiS 6326, and if you wanted the best of the best this year, you would have opted instead for a card based on the first nVidia chip, RiVA 128 with its 128-bit memory - even in PCI form it was about twice as fast as the original ATi 3D Rage II. A closer match in performance was ATi's All-in-Wonder 128.

These days if you are looking to buy one of these cards for gaming, you have two choices: PCI or AGP. If it's a PCI card, avoid all 2 MB cards and those with a 3D Rage II or 3D Rage IIC chip. Instead, aim for a full-featured 4 MB SGRAM-based 3D Rage II+DVD (check the memory is 83 MHz too), and if possible, one with a 2 MB or 4 MB memory expansion daughterboard, though these are more rare. For AGP, you have no choice as only the 3D Rage IIC cards came in AGP form. If possible get a 4 MB SDRAM one of these, which was the maximum.

Images

The cards shown in this section illustrate the various models of card with a variety of memory ICs and BIOS ICs.

Rage II 4 MB card (109-37100-00) (1996):

	Model and Part #: ATi 3D Xclaim, 109-37100-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II, dated Week 44, 1996 RAM: 4 MB SGRAM (4 x Samsung KM4132G271 100-pin QFP, 83 MHz) BIOS Chip: 28-pin DIP "PCI mach64-VR 113-37101-114" This ATI 3D Xclaim from 1996 has solder pads only for memory expansion. It has a 15-pin DSUB for video out, plus TV-out and S-Video in ports.

Rage II 2 MB card (109-38200-00) (1996):

	Model and Part #: 3D Xpression+, 109-38200-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II, dated Week 44, 1996 RAM: 2 MB SGRAM (2 x Samsung KM4132G271 100-pin QFP, 83 MHz) BIOS Chip: 28-pin DIP "PCI MACH64 GT 113-38204-101" This ATI 3D Xpression+ card from 1996 has memory expansion headers. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Rage II 4 MB card (109-38500-00) (1996):

	Model and Part #: 3D Xpression+PC2TV, 109-38200-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II, dated Week 44, 1996 RAM: 4 MB SDRAM (8 x Hitachi HM5241605-15 SOJ, 66 MHz) BIOS Chip: 28-pin DIP "PCI MACH64 GT 113-38500-101" This ATI 3D Xpression+ PC2TV card from 1996 has memory expansion via 4 additional SOJ sockets (populated on this card). It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Rage II+DVD 4 MB card (109-38600-00) (1996):

Model and Part #: ATI All-in-Wonder, 109-38600-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II+DVD, dated Week 10, 1997 RAM: 4 MB EDO (8 x Mosel-Vitelic V53C16258HK 40-pin SOJ 40ns) BIOS Chip: 36-pin PLCC "ALL IN WONDER 38601 101" This ATI All in Wonder card from 1996 has no memory expansion headers. Being an All-in-Wonder though, it does have the TV tuner module and the ImpacTV chip, and on the backplate you get the S-video and composite in ports, plus S-Video and TV-out (coax?) out in addition to the standard 15-pin DSUB for SVGA video out.

Rage II+DVD 2 MB card (109-38800-00) (1996):

	Model and Part #: ATi 3D Charger, 109-38800-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II+DVD, dated Week 49, 1997 RAM: 2 MB EDO (4 x Mosel-Vitelic V53C16258HK 40-pin SOJ 35ns) BIOS Chip: 36-pin PLCC "3D CHRGR 38806 101" This ATI 3D Charger card from 1996 has available SOJ sockets for 4 EDO memory chips. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Rage II+DVD 4 MB card (109-38800-00) (1996):

	Model and Part #: ATi 3D Charger, 109-38800-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II+DVD, dated Week 49, 1997 RAM: 4 MB EDO (4 x VIS VG264265BJ 40-pin SOJ 40ns) BIOS Chip: 36-pin PLCC "3D CHRGR 38804 100" This ATI 3D Charger card from 1996 has no memory expansion, with all chips soldered-in. It has the 15-pin DSUB for video out as well as ImpacTV for video out via S-Video and composite.

Rage II+DVD 4 MB card (109-38800-20) (1998):

Model and Part #: ATi 3D Charger, 109-38800-20 Main Chip: 3D Rage II+DVD, dated Week 9, 1998 RAM: 4 MB EDO (8 x TMTech T224162B 40-pin SOJ, 83 MHz) BIOS Chip: 32-pin PLCC "3D CHRGR 38806 101" This late ATi 3D Charger from 1998 has no memory expansion option (not even solder pads). One thing that's strange is that the memory chips are marked "83 MHz", which I thought was only available on the later Rage IIc cards with SDRAM. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Rage II+DVD 2 MB card (109-40100-00) (1996):

	Model and Part #: ATI 3D Rage II, 109-40100-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II+DVD, dated Week 4, 1997 RAM: 2 MB (2 x 100-pin PLCC) BIOS Chip: 28-pin DIP "3D RAGE II+ 113-40101-100" This ATI 3D Rage II card from 1997 has memory expansion headers. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Rage II+DVD 4 MB card (109-40100-00) (1996):

Model and Part #: ATI 3D Rage II, 109-40100-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II+DVD, dated Week 44, 1997 RAM: 4 MB SGRAM (4 x Fujitsu MB81G83222 PQFP, 100 MHz) BIOS Chip: 28-pin DIP "RAGE II+ 113-40110-100" This ATI 3D Rage II card from 1997 has no memory expansion headers but does have solder pads for them. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Rage II+DVD 2 MB card (109-40600-00) (1997):

	Model and Part #: ATI 3D Rage IIC PCI, 109-40600-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage II+DVD, dated Week 53, 1997 RAM: 2 MB EDO (4 x 40-pin Hyundai HY514264B 60ns SOJ) BIOS Chip: 28-pin DIP "3D CHARGER 113-40602-100" This ATI 3D Rage IIC PCI card from 1997 has memory expansion headers. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

ATI-264VT4 4 MB card (109-40600-10) (1998):

	Model and Part #: ATI 3D Rage IIC PCI, 109-40600-10 Main Chip: ATI-264VT4, dated Week 22, 1998 RAM: 4 MB EDO (4 x 40-pin Mosel-Vitelic V53C818HK 40ns SOJ) BIOS Chip: 36-pin PLCC "RAGE2C PCI 40606.102" This ATI 3D Rage IIC PCI card from 1998 has no memory expansion headers, and unlike most cards here, only has solder pads for the AMC interface. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Rage IIc 4 MB card (109-48300-00) (1998):

	Model and Part #: ATI 3D Rage IIC AGP, 109-48300-00 Main Chip: 3D Rage IIc AGP, dated Week 20, 1998 RAM: 2 MB EDO (4 x VG264265BJ 40-pin SOJ, 40ns) BIOS Chip: 32-pin PLCC "RAGE IIC 48304 101" This ATI 3D Rage IIC AGP card from 1998 has no memory expansion headers. It has only the 15-pin DSUB for video out.

Downloads

After installing the ATI version 5.21 or 5.24 driver into Windows 98, certain fonts may appear blocky/corrupt. Occurs most frequently with higher colour depths (16-32 bpp). To work around the problem, disable Win98 "Font Smoothing" (Control Panel -> Display Properties -> Effects -> Smooth edge of screen fonts).

The 3D Rage II series were pin-compatible with the original 3D Rage, and all had the ATi mach64 2D core, so most drivers for mach64 will also work with 3D Rage II cards.

For AGP cards, Windows NT 4.0 drivers require Service Pack 3 to be installed.

Click on an icon in the table below to download the fille.