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GeForce4 MX 4000

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First post, by senrew

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Help me to understand this card and its limitations. From what I can gather on wiki and other boards, the reference MX 4000 is basically a higher clocked, but narrower memory bandwidth MX440. It is supposed to slot in somewhere between a 2 TI and Ultra according to Wiki.

The particular card I have is a 64-bit, 64mb PCI version from PNY.

Considering that this card is currently paired with a 933mhz PIII in my win98 box, what would the range of latest games I could play with all settings on maximum?

I'm hoping for a year range and maybe some examples that people know can be played with this setup at full settings at 1024x768 (my main resolution) or lower, as long as it's maxed out.

Reply 1 of 20, by vetz

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Everything up to and including 2003 should be good to go.

I am comparing to my friend who had a 800MHZ PIII and a Geforce 3 Ti 500. He got 6084 3Dmarks in the 2001 edition (I have 4800 with my Geforce 4 MX 440 and 1400mhz PIII-S). He had that score in 2002, and he ran all games on full back then. I haven't tested so much on my own system as I normally stick with older stuff, but everything up untill Farcry, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 (all 2004) should be good I guess. In 2003 Max Payne 2 and Call of Duty came out.

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Reply 2 of 20, by mwdmeyer

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The MX4000 PCI 64bit from my testing is almost exactly the same speed as a Geforce 2 MX. Not a full Geforce.

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Reply 3 of 20, by sliderider

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vetz wrote:

Everything up to and including 2003 should be good to go.

I am comparing to my friend who had a 800MHZ PIII and a Geforce 3 Ti 500. He got 6084 3Dmarks in the 2001 edition (I have 4800 with my Geforce 4 MX 440 and 1400mhz PIII-S). He had that score in 2002, and he ran all games on full back then. I haven't tested so much on my own system as I normally stick with older stuff, but everything up untill Farcry, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 (all 2004) should be good I guess. In 2003 Max Payne 2 and Call of Duty came out.

A GF 3Ti-500 is a lot faster than a MX4000. It's a lot faster than a 440MX so with half the memory throughput the MX4000 is going to be much slower. I don't think 2003 is going to be a reasonable target for this card to hit. I was having trouble already with my 440MX back in 2001 when games started migrating to DX8, which it doesn't support, and DX9 was already released by 2003.

Seriously, I'd not even use this card. There are plenty of cheap PCI cards that are much better.

Reply 4 of 20, by senrew

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I'd like recommendations for my specific setup if anyone can answer these off of the top of their heads.

The specific board I'm using seems to have an AGP 2x slot, but it looks like it's keyed for 3.3v. Under win98, what would the most powerful card be that I could use with this restriction?

Reply 5 of 20, by sliderider

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senrew wrote:

I'd like recommendations for my specific setup if anyone can answer these off of the top of their heads.

The specific board I'm using seems to have an AGP 2x slot, but it looks like it's keyed for 3.3v. Under win98, what would the most powerful card be that I could use with this restriction?

Radeon 9700 Pro (?) I think? Or GeForce FX? Anybody else agree? I've read that some Radeon 9800 Pro (mainly Sapphire boards) are keyed for 3.3v but not sure if they are actually usable at that voltage, at least I've never heard of anyone putting one in a 3.3v slot.

Reply 6 of 20, by vetz

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sliderider wrote:
vetz wrote:

Everything up to and including 2003 should be good to go.

I am comparing to my friend who had a 800MHZ PIII and a Geforce 3 Ti 500. He got 6084 3Dmarks in the 2001 edition (I have 4800 with my Geforce 4 MX 440 and 1400mhz PIII-S). He had that score in 2002, and he ran all games on full back then. I haven't tested so much on my own system as I normally stick with older stuff, but everything up untill Farcry, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 (all 2004) should be good I guess. In 2003 Max Payne 2 and Call of Duty came out.

A GF 3Ti-500 is a lot faster than a MX4000. It's a lot faster than a 440MX so with half the memory throughput the MX4000 is going to be much slower. I don't think 2003 is going to be a reasonable target for this card to hit. I was having trouble already with my 440MX back in 2001 when games started migrating to DX8, which it doesn't support, and DX9 was already released by 2003.

Seriously, I'd not even use this card. There are plenty of cheap PCI cards that are much better.

You had trouble in 2001? You know the GF4 series came out in 2002? 2003 might be streching it with a 933mhz for running all on maximum, but 2002 should be good imo as long as you don't turn on AA and AF. If you want that in your games get a Geforce 4 Ti card, or a FX card. Though your CPU will be a bottleneck then.

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Reply 7 of 20, by leileilol

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That and DX9 came out in 2002, and I didn't really run into any DX8.1 requiring (as in, features like Pixel shader1.4) games until like 2004. The earliest one I can remember is Deus Ex Invisible War (Oct 2003) and Splinter Cell (earlier 2003), that's when the time for obselence started to begin for the GF2/GF4MX.

I gave up my Geforce2 when pixel shader 2 started to be a widespread serious requirement for almost everything coming out after September 2005. The GF2MX and GF4MX's widespread oem/budget ubiquitousity is the reason for it all coming so late

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Reply 8 of 20, by swaaye

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I would just go for a FX 5600 Ultra or higher. There's little reason to pick an older GeForce for games, certainly not any MX card. You just cut out features and performance.

sliderider wrote:

Radeon 9700 Pro (?) I think? Or GeForce FX?

Yeah with AGP 3.3v and W9x, those are the limits. GeForce 6 and Radeon 9550/9600 (9500/9700 are older) onward are mostly 1.5v only.

Reply 9 of 20, by senrew

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There are a couple of reasonably priced 9700 pros on ebay. So, assuming I grab one of those, coupled with my 933mhz coppermine EB, what are some specific examples of turn of the century released games I may be able to play fully maxed out at 1024x768?

Reply 10 of 20, by sliderider

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vetz wrote:
sliderider wrote:
vetz wrote:

Everything up to and including 2003 should be good to go.

I am comparing to my friend who had a 800MHZ PIII and a Geforce 3 Ti 500. He got 6084 3Dmarks in the 2001 edition (I have 4800 with my Geforce 4 MX 440 and 1400mhz PIII-S). He had that score in 2002, and he ran all games on full back then. I haven't tested so much on my own system as I normally stick with older stuff, but everything up untill Farcry, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 (all 2004) should be good I guess. In 2003 Max Payne 2 and Call of Duty came out.

A GF 3Ti-500 is a lot faster than a MX4000. It's a lot faster than a 440MX so with half the memory throughput the MX4000 is going to be much slower. I don't think 2003 is going to be a reasonable target for this card to hit. I was having trouble already with my 440MX back in 2001 when games started migrating to DX8, which it doesn't support, and DX9 was already released by 2003.

Seriously, I'd not even use this card. There are plenty of cheap PCI cards that are much better.

You had trouble in 2001? You know the GF4 series came out in 2002? 2003 might be streching it with a 933mhz for running all on maximum, but 2002 should be good imo as long as you don't turn on AA and AF. If you want that in your games get a Geforce 4 Ti card, or a FX card. Though your CPU will be a bottleneck then.

I am positive. I was using a MX440 at the time when Everquest upgraded to DX8.1 and that was in December 2001. I couldn't have bought it after that date because it wouldn't have been fully supported in the number one game I was playing at the time.

Reply 11 of 20, by swaaye

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senrew wrote:

There are a couple of reasonably priced 9700 pros on ebay. So, assuming I grab one of those, coupled with my 933mhz coppermine EB, what are some specific examples of turn of the century released games I may be able to play fully maxed out at 1024x768?

Issues
1)Bioware OpenGL games run badly on Radeons and the blame is split between ATI and Bioware.
2)DOS VESA compatibility is likely poor aas with other ATI cards.
3)Lacks fog table support for old D3D games.

Otherwise, 9700 is a beast and can run games through 2005 pretty well. Best used with D3D 7+ games.

Reply 12 of 20, by senrew

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DOS isn't an issue with this particular setup. This is a pure win98 box. Anything that requires real DOS gets run in DOSbox on a machine I have just for that.

What would the equivalent (or close to) be for Nvidia, the 5950?

Reply 13 of 20, by swaaye

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senrew wrote:

What would the equivalent (or close to) be for Nvidia, the 5950?

5800/5900/5950 (Ultra is best obviously). They are great for D3D8 and older (and OpenGL). D3D9 isn't critical for a retro machine so their weak performance for that is not a deal breaker to me. But it is nice to have the superior OpenGL and retro-D3D compatibility.

Reply 14 of 20, by vetz

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sliderider wrote:

I am positive. I was using a MX440 at the time when Everquest upgraded to DX8.1 and that was in December 2001. I couldn't have bought it after that date because it wouldn't have been fully supported in the number one game I was playing at the time.

I'm sorry, but you couldn't have had a Geforce 4 MX at that time, your memory must be mistaken. Here is the Nvidia press release for the Geforce 4 series, including the MX 440. The date is 6th February 2002: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_20020205_6195.html

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Reply 15 of 20, by elianda

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Everquest first required DX8.1 installed with the Planes of Power expansion released 29th october 2002.
It required a DX8.1 compatible graphics card like Riva TNT+ or Voodoo.

As for the hardware features, even The Buried Sea Expansion* requires just a TnL capable card as Radeon 7500 / Geforce256 and I think the engine hasn't changed much since.
* Feb 2007.

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Reply 16 of 20, by sliderider

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elianda wrote:
Everquest first required DX8.1 installed with the Planes of Power expansion released 29th october 2002. It required a DX8.1 comp […]
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Everquest first required DX8.1 installed with the Planes of Power expansion released 29th october 2002.
It required a DX8.1 compatible graphics card like Riva TNT+ or Voodoo.

As for the hardware features, even The Buried Sea Expansion* requires just a TnL capable card as Radeon 7500 / Geforce256 and I think the engine hasn't changed much since.
* Feb 2007.

No, you are wrong. Everquest went to DX 8.1 with the release of Shadows of Luclin.

http://www.gamespot.com/everquest-the-shadows … review-2834230/

"The Shadows of Luclin installs off of three CDs. The expansion requires a minimum of 256MB of RAM, but 512MB is required for optimal performance. Regardless of whether you install the expansion, EverQuest now requires Microsoft's DirectX 8.1 API, which isn't supported under the Windows 95 operating system. To this end, the publishers of EverQuest are actually offering Windows 95 users a refund--these users, should they choose to stick with their operating system, will no longer be able to play EverQuest at all."

I was also still a Windows 95 user at that time and had to upgrade my OS, too. I remember it clearly because months before the release they said they were going to DX8 but in the last few weeks leading up to the release they raised the spec to 8.1 and pissed off a lot of people who not only would have had to upgrade their video card, but now they would have to upgrade their OS, too, because 8.1 doesn't work with 95. Trust me, I would not have upgraded my OS to one that supported DX 8.1 and then bought a new DX 7 video card that wouldn't have been supported.

I always suspected that Microsoft threw a lot of money at Sony to bump the spec to 8.1 instead of 8.0 so they could sell more copies of newer versions of Windows and help kill off Windows 95 which a lot of people were still happy with.

Reply 18 of 20, by sliderider

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swaaye wrote:

A friend of mine played EQ with a Voodoo2 at first. They sure cranked the requirements up a lot.

I was using a Trio3D at the very beginning. Just for laughs, I tried using it after the change to DX 8.1 and there were black boxes and missing or misplaced textures everywhere and of course the lag was unbearable. 🤣

Reply 19 of 20, by dr.zeissler

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I have a small machine equipped with a fast 1400 tualatin, the onbaord i815-intel gfx is not very good so I checked some PCI-cards.

1. Geforce MX 4000 64MB acording to everest only 32bit memory interface
2. ATI Rage Pro
3. Radeon 7000
4. Riva 128

The MX4000 is surprising fast!

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines