DOS Days

Matrox MGA Ultima Plus / Ultima Plus 200

The MGA Ultima was a consumer-oriented card, rather than the premium Impression series. As such it used their MGA-I (Matrox Graphics Architecture) chipset instead of the MGA-II.

Released 1993
Bus VESA Local Bus or PCI
Chipset MGA-I (Atlas)
Standards Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA
Memory 2 MB VRAM (upgradable to 4 MB)
Ports 15-pin DSUB (video out)
26-pin VGA Feature connector
RAMDAC Texas Instruments PTVP3020
Part # -
FCC ID -
Price At launch: $599 (Ultima VLB), $999 (Ultima PCI), or $999 (Ultima Plus PCI)
See Also MGA Ultima, MGA Impression

Ultima Plus was the same as Ultima, though designed to replace the Impression Pro card (for high-resolution Windows applications in 24-bit colour such as 2D CAD work). Unlike Impression, Ultima cards sacrificed the 3D accelerator for very high performance in 2D at high resolutions (up to 1600 x 1200 x 16-bit colour depth) and high refresh rates (66 Hz). The fastest supported refresh rate at 1600 x 1200 was 80 Hz. The Texas Instruments RAMDAC clocked at 175 MHz. Its core clock ran at 33 MHz on the PCI variant and 50 MHz on the VLB variant.

Owners could purchase a 2 MB VRAM add-on for $250.

A later variant called the MGA Ultima Plus 200 came with a faster 200 MHz RAMDAC, which allowed 1600 x 1200 x 16-bit at 76 Hz refresh rate, or 100 Hz refresh rate if the resolution was reduced to 280 x 1024.

Windows performance of both the Ultima Plus and Ultima Plus 200 was exceptional. A buyers guide in 1994 quoted the Ultima Plus: "If you want the fastest Windows video card you can buy, consider the Matrox MGA Ultima Plus. Offered in both VLB and PCI version, the Ultima Plus has the innovative 64-bit chip design that pushes Windows to its limits.... The Ultima Plus has impressive Windows performance and delivers the best 24-bit color performance in Windows by far. It is among a few video cards that supports 1600 x 1200 resolution."

It was slow, however, when running DOS applications.

 

Board Revisions

I have no board revision information for the MGA Ultima Plus series.

 

Competition

 

 

In the Media

"When you are working in 24-bit color at high resolutions, you need all the speed you can get. You are also probably willing to pay for it. Matrox Graphics' MGA Ultima Plus (VLB, $699; PCI, $749) throws its powerful 64-bit MGA accelerator chip and 4 MB of VRAM design at your acceleration bottlenecks. The result is one of the fastest cards we have seen. The MGA Ultima Plus features a strong driver suite (including Matrox Graphics' excellent DynaView CAD drivers and support for on-the-fly mode switching) plus a host of utilties and additional drivers. Keep your eyes peeled for new memory technologies that should further enhance this already excellent product."     
PC Magazine, January 1995

 

 

Setting it Up

I have no information on configuring the MGA Ultima Plus series of cards.


Downloads

Operation Manual
(missing)

Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

Original Utility Disk
(missing)

Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

Video BIOS ROM
(missing)

Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

 

More Pictures