Install Windows XP. Hunt down one of these:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/zotac_t … s_pci_videocard

Anthing more than a GeForce 2 MX is a major overkill on that machine. GeForce 2 MX PCI cards used to be quite common, perhaps you'll find one at a good price.

Yup and those old Geforce cards are good for DOS too.

It might be a good idea to consider a Voodoo3 however. Very useful in a retro rig.

coppercitymt wrote:

Hello There Vogons!

I picked up a nice little Toshiba People PC PC out of a thrift store dumpster, it's complete with mouse keyboard and display. Someone hardly used it. It's like new. It's got a Celeron 366Mhz 64Mb and 6gb drive and integrated graphics on the Intel 810 chip set. Scary thing is, it out runs my P III 500Mhz, so it has become my main vintage gaming rig.

So that leaves me to my question. What is the best PCI graphics card I can add to this low budget 1999/2000 computer. It lacks AGP slots.

I remember PeoplePC. They sent you a "free" computer but you had to sign up for their insanely expensive dial-up internet access. The computer wasn't even a decent computer for the time. It had to be two generations behind even the most recent mid-range PC. They would be giving out 366mhz Celerons after 700mhz P-III's had been moved down from performance to mainstream systems and the bleeding edge buyers were at 1ghz.

F2bnp wrote:

Anthing more than a GeForce 2 MX is a major overkill on that machine. GeForce 2 MX PCI cards used to be quite common, perhaps you'll find one at a good price.

They still are. You can't give them away if ebay prices are any indicator. I've seen people selling lots of 10 for $20 with free shipping already. Nvidia sold millions of them to OEMs and retail outlets.

The AGP versions of GeForce 2 cards are very plentiful, but the PCI versions are not. I imagine this is because the PCI cards really only sold to people upgrading PCI-only machines.

Some online outlets like newegg and tiger direct still carry (brand new) PCI GeForce2 MX (400) cards, but more than often you'll be paying way more than if you just got a used one. And more than often these new cards use a 64-bit DDR memory interface, making them slower compared to their original 128-bit SDR counterparts.

Personally though I'd prefer a Voodoo3 in something of that processor speed. Or even a GeForce2 MX 200 might do (which is pretty much just a TNT2 M64 with hardware T&L and other DX7 features). Anything over would just be bottlenecked by your processor.

yeah whatever, you can use a pci geforce8500gt on it. its not very common but i remember a few models were made.
but how can you say a celeron366 faster than a p3-500? are they run on the same mainboard? and are thery any benchmark results?

Thanks everyone for your advice, I can't seem to find any PCI versions of the Voodo3 or Geforce2 on E-bay. Dose anyone have any laying around they could sell me?

I remember PeoplePC. They sent you a "free" computer but you had to sign up for their insanely expensive dial-up internet access. The computer wasn't even a decent computer for the time. It had to be two generations behind even the most recent mid-range PC. They would be giving out 366mhz Celerons after 700mhz P-III's had been moved down from performance to mainstream systems and the bleeding edge buyers were at 1ghz.

Yes I did some some research online, and it was pretty low spec. It was made in mid 1999 one of the 1st ones I guess. But from what I hear those class celerons were very good CPUs and out ran PII's of the time. Because of the L2 cache. It even came freshly restored, as if someone ran the restore CD on it before donating it. I did not get/find the restore disk's so I just imaged the HDD. The integrated graphics chip set runs Quake and Quake II at 800X600 with no lagging shuddering, and on the little 15" CRT that's plenty good.

the celeronAs have 128k on-die l2 cache running at full speed, so they can sometime outperform P2 which have 512k of external half-speed cache. but thats only possible for cpus of same clock and fsb, since all celeronA are 66fsb while P2 above 350 are 100fsb, a celeron366 is no match for a P2-350, and so on.
however, if celeronAs are overclocked to 100fsb, usually 300a to 450, they would be competetive against P2 of same clock again. some celeron366 of new stepping are also capable of running at 100fsb too, that makes 550mhz.

coppercitymt wrote:

Thanks everyone for your advice, I can't seem to find any PCI versions of the Voodo3 or Geforce2 on E-bay. Dose anyone have any laying around they could sell me?

Voodoo3 PCI cards are getting rarer and too pricey.

GeForce2 MX400 PCI: search ebay item # 280795943598. You'd better look for GF4 MX PCI or GF FX PCI, though. There are plenty of these ones on ebay.

What Batracio said. 😀