Have you considered a Voodoo4? Or if you want something more powerful, a GeForce2 MX (200 or 400) ?

I had a Voodoo 5 5500 at one point, but i'm pretty sure a Geforce 2 is still faster. I have an old GF2 MX400 but the 2D picture quality isn't that great compared to my Matrox G400 😒.

Voodoo5 5500 is similar to a GeForce 256 DDR in speed. With OpenGL games, you ideally want NVIDIA. But of course lots of old games are Glide or designed for 3dfx's D3D and so Voodoo5 is often a no-brainer.

I'll probably use a Voodoo2 add-in card for those old Glide games alongside whatever main graphics card i go with. What about a Kyro II based card?

Kyro II is mostly a curiosity. It doesn't have advantages AFAIK but it definitely has quirks.

Personally I would go for a GeForce 3-5. You get some nice new improvements post GeForce 2, like usable anisotropic filtering and MSAA. Combine that with Voodoo2 and you've got a practical setup with lots of good features.

Would a Geforce 3 be ok with a 3.3V AGP 1.0/2x slot? Will it also be ok with a 650Mhz PIII, or should i upgrade it to 850Mhz? My motherboard uses the Intel 440BX chipset with an early AGP 1.0 (1x, 2x) slot, so i'm not sure if this will cripple a GF3?

Cheers 😎

swaaye wrote:

Personally I would go for a GeForce 3-5. You get some nice new improvements post GeForce 2, like usable anisotropic filtering and MSAA. Combine that with Voodoo2 and you've got a practical setup with lots of good features.

I've been using a GeForce2 in my PIII and have been impressed with the quality of the SVGA output. Do later GeForce cards lose this VESA compatibility?

badmofo wrote:

I've been using a GeForce2 in my PIII and have been impressed with the quality of the SVGA output. Do later GeForce cards lose this VESA compatibility?

What Geforce 2 and PIII are you using? I have a Geforce 2 MX400 here (Inno3D) and the 2D picture quality isn't as good as my Matrox G400 or 3dfx Voodoo 3 😒 .

It's an Ultra. But by 2D are we talking windows desktop, or 2D games? Within windows, anything above 800X600 looks nasty - bland and blurry. But within SVGA games, etc, it's beautiful. Great colours and very crisp - but then I guess these are much lower resolutions!

I have some other GeForce 2's here (GTS, etc) and I was thinking I might see if they could handle 1024x768, but I'm using a 16" CRT, so 800X600 suites me fine for now.

badmofo wrote:

It's an Ultra. But by 2D are we talking windows desktop, or 2D games? Within windows, anything above 800X600 looks nasty - bland and blurry. But within SVGA games, etc, it's beautiful. Great colours and very crisp - but then I guess these are much lower resolutions!

I have some other GeForce 2's here (GTS, etc) and I was thinking I might see if they could handle 1024x768, but I'm using a 16" CRT, so 800X600 suites me fine for now.

I'm talking about the Windows desktop and 2D games. I mainly use mine at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 (depending on what monitor i'm using at the time)... Both the Voodoo 3 and Matrox G400 have good 2D quality at all resolutions compared to my GF2 MX400. I'm thinking maybe it's down to it being an MX card or maybe the picture quality differs between GF2 manufacturers?

I was thinking about getting a 64MB Geforce 2 GTS/Ultra, but not if the image quality is bad above 800x600 😒

Some of the GeForce 256/2/3 cards are built cheaply/poorly and that's what causes the blurry output signal. It was a problem with the manufacturer of the particular card, not of NVIDIA.

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Would a Geforce 3 be ok with a 3.3V AGP 1.0/2x slot? Will it also be ok with a 650Mhz PIII, or should i upgrade it to 850Mhz? My motherboard uses the Intel 440BX chipset with an early AGP 1.0 (1x, 2x) slot, so i'm not sure if this will cripple a GF3?

You can run anything prior to GeForce 6 in a 3.3v slot.

swaaye wrote:

Some of the GeForce cards are built poorly and that's what causes the blurry output signal.

So i'm guessing it's best to stick with well known brands then 😀. My GF2 MX400 is manufactured by Inno3D, which imo is a cheap brand and was not very well known back then (at least in the UK).

I've been looking at a couple of 64MB Geforce 2 cards on feebay, but i can't really tell what model they are... They use green heatsinks on both the core and memory (along with a black fan for the core). The listing shows part numbers 'NV886.0 rev A' and also 'NV886.0 rev C'... They both look the same and from what i can gather they are either GTS or Ultra cards (reference or OEM?).

EDIT: they look very much like the Visiontek Geforce 2 Ultra with the green heatsinks and TV-out... I've also seen a couple of OEM (HP, Compaq, Gateway) versions that look very similar too! Maybe it's a stock/reference nVidia card?

PowerPie5000 wrote:

I've been looking at a couple of 64MB Geforce 2 cards on feebay, but i can't really tell what model they are... They use green heatsinks on both the core and memory (along with a black fan for the core). The listing shows part numbers 'NV886.0 rev A' and also 'NV886.0 rev C'... They both look the same and from what i can gather they are either GTS or Ultra cards (reference or OEM?).

EDIT: they look very much like the Visiontek Geforce 2 Ultra with the green heatsinks and TV-out... I've also seen a couple of OEM (HP, Compaq, Gateway) versions that look very similar too! Maybe it's a stock/reference nVidia card?

yeah i believe what in your picture to be a reference geforce2ultra, most likely made by visiontek, and its also on my wanted list(have seen a few of them but mostly in poor condition).

noshutdown wrote:

yeah i believe what in your picture to be a reference geforce2ultra, most likely made by visiontek, and its also on my wanted list(have seen a few of them but mostly in poor condition).

Is this going to be better than a Radeon 7200 or 7500? It seems image quality is an issue with quite a few GF2 based cards... Do you think the Radeon 7200/7500 will have better image quality? They're probably overkill for my PIII rig anyway!

PowerPie5000 wrote:

noshutdown wrote:

yeah i believe what in your picture to be a reference geforce2ultra, most likely made by visiontek, and its also on my wanted list(have seen a few of them but mostly in poor condition).

Is this going to be better than a Radeon 7200 or 7500? It seems image quality is an issue with quite a few GF2 based cards... Do you think the Radeon 7200/7500 will have better image quality? They're probably overkill for my PIII rig anyway!

in term of speed, the geforce2 ultra is a lot faster than the 7200, and slightly behind the 7500. it could be a bit excessive for your cpu, especially its power consumption can stress your agp2x slot. a geforce2 gts or r7200 may be a more balanced choice.
when talking about image quality, some nvidia have poor 2d image just because they were cheaply built, but that should not be a problem for a highend reference card.

noshutdown wrote:

PowerPie5000 wrote:

noshutdown wrote:

yeah i believe what in your picture to be a reference geforce2ultra, most likely made by visiontek, and its also on my wanted list(have seen a few of them but mostly in poor condition).

Is this going to be better than a Radeon 7200 or 7500? It seems image quality is an issue with quite a few GF2 based cards... Do you think the Radeon 7200/7500 will have better image quality? They're probably overkill for my PIII rig anyway!

in term of speed, the geforce2 ultra is a lot faster than the 7200, and slightly behind the 7500. it could be a bit excessive for your cpu, especially its power consumption can stress your agp2x slot. a geforce2 gts or r7200 may be a more balanced choice.
when talking about image quality, some nvidia have poor 2d image just because they were cheaply built, but that should not be a problem for a highend reference card.

Maybe i'll take a gamble and go for the GF2 in the photo above... I'm not expecting the image quality to rival my Matrox G400 Max, but it'll certainly be faster when it comes to 3D! Many people also say it's only the genuine 'Built By ATI' and not the third party 'Powered By ATI' cards that have the best image quality.

One last thing... Does the GF2 still handle DOS games ok? Both the Voodoo 3 and Matrox G400 are brilliant for DOS!

Hot damn I love this site - just the other day I was wondering about 2D on a GeForce2, and here's a thread discussing exactly that!

noshutdown wrote:

PowerPie5000 wrote:

noshutdown wrote:

yeah i believe what in your picture to be a reference geforce2ultra, most likely made by visiontek, and its also on my wanted list(have seen a few of them but mostly in poor condition).

Is this going to be better than a Radeon 7200 or 7500? It seems image quality is an issue with quite a few GF2 based cards... Do you think the Radeon 7200/7500 will have better image quality? They're probably overkill for my PIII rig anyway!

in term of speed, the geforce2 ultra is a lot faster than the 7200, and slightly behind the 7500. it could be a bit excessive for your cpu, especially its power consumption can stress your agp2x slot. a geforce2 gts or r7200 may be a more balanced choice.
when talking about image quality, some nvidia have poor 2d image just because they were cheaply built, but that should not be a problem for a highend reference card.

A GeForce2 Ultra should be a lot faster than a Radeon 7500. It should be closer to a Radeon 8500LE.

GF2U vs Radeon 7500

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=124&card2=239

GF2U vs Radeon 8500LE

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=124&card2=23

Amd don't forget that the Radeon drivers that cover cards from this time period suck and the nVidia ones rock so the GF2U would be even faster taking drivers into account.

sliderider wrote:

A GeForce2 Ultra should be a lot faster than a Radeon 7500. It should be closer to a Radeon 8500LE. […]
Show full quote

A GeForce2 Ultra should be a lot faster than a Radeon 7500. It should be closer to a Radeon 8500LE.

GF2U vs Radeon 7500

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=124&card2=239

GF2U vs Radeon 8500LE

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=124&card2=23

Amd don't forget that the Radeon drivers that cover cards from this time period suck and the nVidia ones rock so the GF2U would be even faster taking drivers into account.

thats only about theoretical specs. in real life, all nvidia cards prior to geforce3 suffer from unoptimized z-buffer usage, overdrawing of hidden surfaces, and less efficient RAM controller, which wasted most of its fillrate and memory bandwidth and lead to a lower efficiency.

for ati, these problem were addressed as early as in the rage128 cards, but for nvidia they persisted until geforce3, and the solution was advertised as "lightspeed memory architecture" with geforce3.

and yes, while ati's drivers do suck, the 7500 is still able to edge out the GF2U in real life performance. its the same case as the mx440, whose theoretical specs were far below the GF2U(but with its defects addressed), can edge out the 7500.