What's wrong with the TNT2?

What do you define as "good AGP card". What do you want to do with your graphics card?

I mean a graphics card which is capable with some of the newer technologies. Linux's Compiz, for example, wouldn't run on an TNT2.

Oh can't help you with Linux 😀

MatthewBrian wrote:

Since I don't plan to put that machine to play with older games

You don't expect such old hardware to play newer games, I hope.

If I'm not mistaken, there are still new AGP cards being made based on vaguely current technology. Shouldn't your question be, "what sort of older $14 AGP VGAs available around here would be good?"

Anyway, have a gander at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vga-charts-iv,893.html .

Also, Compiz is overrated.

I mean not older games such as DOS-era or early Windows games. Those machines are too fast for them and I already had an Pentium to do that.

Compiz is still lighter than Aero. My laptop with ATi RS200m won't work with Aero, but it works flawlessly with Compiz.

Well technically you're shooting for 2006 games since you're limiting yourself to Linux, and you want that stupidly broken overrated 'compiz' novelty to work as top priority, so...

Look for an AGP Geforce8/9

Will such an old CPU really benefit from going above a Geforce 6800?

I have no idea what a Compiz is (if it's linux, it's Chinese to me), but if you have a GF MX or Radeon 9600 laying around, you could use those.

The open source "radeon" driver is pretty good for Radeon cards all the way back to the 7000. But if you want to run that Compiz stuff then you'll probably want a Radeon 9600 or better. This is probably what your ATI RS200 works so well with. RS200 is based on R100, btw.

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

NVIDIA has dropped support for GeForce 5 and older in their latest drivers. Using older drivers in Linux is just about impossible because they don't support the recent versions of X. There are no AGP versions of NV cards newer than GeForce 7, AFAIK. The open source "nouveau" driver has been troublesome for me.

For those having trouble with Compiz: Think of Compiz as Ubuntu Linux's version of Windows Vista/7 Aero.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 on my PIII-550 with an AGP TNT2. It's not very pretty. I'm thinking of switching to a more lightweight distro.

If you're looking for a "modern" AGP graphics card, I'd recommend something like the Radeon HD 3850, 4650, or 4670. It doesn't really matter which one you choose though, as they all perform about the same. Also, I'd recommend upgrading the CPU to something within the 2.4-3.06GHz range (preferably a Pentium 4 Prescott), so the videocard doesn't get as bottlenecked. Just a warning though, those faster Pentium 4's put out a LOT of heat, so it's worth investing in a bigass cooler as well. 🤣

I already had a big cooler so I didn't worry to put a faster processor 😀 but I am worried about the power consumptions. Most Presscots uses 800Mhz FSB, which my motherboard only supports 533.

I have acquired a Radeon 9600, which is quite good (Aero and Compiz runs smoothly, so do some older games like NFS MW). But sometimes Aero crashed using this VGA, it seems because I used the drivers in its box (which is designated for Vista or older).

Thank you for all your suggestions.

from ebay I would look at a ati 9800 pro or xt.

Chances are, a Prescott will probably work fine with your board, as I actually used to run a board with a 533MHz FSB and a 2.4GHz Prescott, and it ran pretty well. As for the video card, the Radeon HD series is much newer than the Radeon 9xxx series, so that basically means that the drivers will be newer and more up-to-date.

Radeon HD is better, but since I don't need to have the latest graphics (and it will cause bottlenecks on this old PC), so it is better to stick with the 9600.

I thought the Preshot was slower and hotter then the Northwood clock for clock?

I never owned a Presshott, so I never benchmarked it.

For you motherboard you can get the 3.06 Northwood, it's the max for a 533 bus and they work well. Don't know about running a prescott in there though. Prescott has a longer pipeline which makes branch mis-prediction more costly. This is why may seems to be less powerful clock for clock. It really depends on the application. They definitely make more heat. Your 9600 is a fine choice and will run a lot of windows stuff in to the early 2000's. If you had to upgrade I would go with a x850.

Personally I'd go for a Northwood. If I really needed anything faster I'd just go Athlon XP or Athlon 64. Less heat and more powerful.