If it works and you're happy with it, why rock the boat? That said, I wouldn't expect significant performance differences between them as they should have relatively similar fill-rate and bandwidth characteristics, and while the 9600 supports DX9, it's going to be bottom-rung for most DX9 games.

Hmmm.... I will only be using the 9600 with games up to about 2001. And the 9600 runs all this good enough.
I can play NFS in 1024x768x32 and UT99 in 1280x1024x32.

It was only if the GF4 have more power than R9600, I would go hunting for that.

If you're in Windows 9x the Radeon 9600 (or any other Radeon) will not support table fog (the driver version that fixes this is only available for 2000 and higher). The 9600 also won't support palletized textures. Otherwise I'm not aware of any big glaring issues going with the Radeon. If you're in 2000 or XP you can run much newer drivers that will even allow you to hack things like transparency AA and temporal AA (iirc).

obobskivich wrote:

and while the 9600 supports DX9, it's going to be bottom-rung for most DX9 games.

The bottom rung for DX9 is the FX series, which have no business doing DX9 in the first place even if they technically support it. A 9600 (atleast the 9600 XT I had) ran games just fine for its expected price point and release date. I got a free copy of Half Life 2 with it and it ran it well.

fyy wrote:

The bottom rung for DX9 is the FX series, which have no business doing DX9 in the first place even if they technically support it. A 9600 (atleast the 9600 XT I had) ran games just fine for its expected price point and release date. I got a free copy of Half Life 2 with it and it ran it well.

Radeon 9550/9600 is the bottom-rung ATi DX9 part, and for many early DX9 games is the listed minimum requirement, alongside either the GeForce FX 5700 or 5900 series. There are a handful of SM2.0/DX9 games that both can handle (e.g. Halo, Tomb Raider: AoD, Gun Metal, The Sims 2, etc), but for the most part DX9 gaming is better left to newer and more powerful cards, and the blood feud between R300 and NV30 is better left in the past.

Bloodfeud??? 😳 Can't recall it at all.
The only computer-thing I had in my head in the mid-00's was building computers that customers choose to put together.
We only tested for incompatibility, on the level of "Will it run", not benching parts up against each others.
When I came home, I personally did'nt care for computers at all. Quite understandable, in my situation.
As we were expected to build 12 to 15 computers a day, pr. person. Doing the build, mem-test and see if XP could install.
Then wipe the HDD, using a program called "Del-Part" and pack the machine back in the ATX-Case-box.
And all parts were retail packed... I was furthermore expected to answer all phone-support (2 to 4 calls an hour) and answer
all email support during the morningtime. Plus those 12 to 15 computers. All custom made....
Workhour's that I was paid for, was 8 hour's a day. 9am to 5pm. Pretty demanding and stressing.

Yeahh... I had absolutely no time to read up on nVidia/ATI feud... Computer's sucked big time for me, from 2003 to 2006.

(Did I mention, that I was expected to do at least one repair a day, as an extra part of my contract, and help in the shop,
when there were more customers than the two sales-person's could handle)

brostenen wrote:

Bloodfeud??? :-O Can't recall it at all. The only computer-thing I had in my head in the mid-00's was building computers that cu […]
Show full quote

Bloodfeud??? 😳 Can't recall it at all.
The only computer-thing I had in my head in the mid-00's was building computers that customers choose to put together.
We only tested for incompatibility, on the level of "Will it run", not benching parts up against each others.
When I came home, I personally did'nt care for computers at all. Quite understandable, in my situation.
As we were expected to build 12 to 15 computers a day, pr. person. Doing the build, mem-test and see if XP could install.
Then wipe the HDD, using a program called "Del-Part" and pack the machine back in the ATX-Case-box.
And all parts were retail packed... I was furthermore expected to answer all phone-support (2 to 4 calls an hour) and answer
all email support during the morningtime. Plus those 12 to 15 computers. All custom made....
Workhour's that I was paid for, was 8 hour's a day. 9am to 5pm. Pretty demanding and stressing.

Yeahh... I had absolutely no time to read up on nVidia/ATI feud... Computer's sucked big time for me, from 2003 to 2006.

(Did I mention, that I was expected to do at least one repair a day, as an extra part of my contract, and help in the shop,
when there were more customers than the two sales-person's could handle)

🤣 That's EXACTLY how i imagined it when several people asked me to come work in their shop in the late 90's! I refused because it was my hobby and when i was waiting in line in a shop i hated the people in front of me that had stupid questions. Hey, i didn't know everything but some people were plain stupid..... i knew it would ruin my hobby when i started working there.
Building computers is fun when doing it relaxed and you can take your time for getting to know the hardware and it's options. There is no fun in having to build a dozen a day...

I still remember a guy that accused the store of fraud because they had sold him a pentium2 system while it should be a pentium3 just because windows still recognised the p3 as a p2.... after opening up the case and showing the guy the text on the cardridge of the slot1 p3-450 he STILL didn't believe them and said they altered the text! Thank god i was helped by another guy and could leave the store by then.....

Those stories.... Hehe. I got a couple my self here.

There was this dude, who wanted to buy a machine for his daughters confirmation (you know the christian, when children say yes to christianity), and we asked him if he wanted it with WinXP on it. He said that he had bought one in advance, and did not want to "waste" the extra money.
(When we sold a computer installed with XP, we updated it completely for the customer)

Now...
Two hours later, he went back and postulated that we sold him a machine with virus and gay porn on it.
We took it back in the shop and replaced the harddrive for him. Just to make shure, telling him that we did no such thing,
He came back a couple of hours later, demanding a new drive, because (as he put it) did not install a new fresh unused.
We changed it in front of him, braking the seal on the antistatic, and making shure he saw every single thing.
Then he came back yelling that we have ruined his machine, because we still have not gotten rid of gay porn.
And that his daughter needed the machine for sunday and he did not have time for this.

We talked with him, and after making him believe that the harddrive was in no way the reason for this issue.
He concluded that we have installed it on purpose in the bios or in the ram. (what a dick, he was)
And we just took the machine back... And boy did we make a discovery....
Remember that he said that he had bought a WinXP. Right.

Not only was the XP a pirated edition, it was pre SP1 and he just installed the programs and used it on the internet.
This was in a time of WinXP SP2. Sooo.... Of course he got all kind of ill shit on the machine.

I was researching this question last night. The site below directly compares them. I have a 9600 from back in the day. It replaced a 9500 Pro in my Shuttle XPC for noise reduction (the 9600 is fanless), the first time I downgraded graphics power. A dark day.
http://www.ultimatehardware.net/048.htm

the 9600 is probably a lot better for AA/AF

but this particulars 9600 is a little weak, 400MHz memory and 325 core... the 9600XT for example was 500/600, so a ti 4600 is probably faster.

also, I think most 9600s wont run in agp 3.3v

nah a Ti 4600 is about the same speed as a Radeon 9600 non pro.

candle_86 wrote:

nah a Ti 4600 is about the same speed as a Radeon 9600 non pro.

if you look at this old review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1095/4

the ti 4600 is a clear winner overall, only with AA/AF things are different, but that's a 9600 PRO (400/600).

SPBHM wrote:

if you look at this old review http://www.anandtech.com/show/1095/4 […]
Show full quote

candle_86 wrote:

nah a Ti 4600 is about the same speed as a Radeon 9600 non pro.

if you look at this old review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/1095/4

the ti 4600 is a clear winner overall, only with AA/AF things are different, but that's a 9600 PRO (400/600).

I'm agree with you
During 2003 and 2004 a lot of company like Sapphire, GeCube, Powercolor, Asus etc made some cards that they sold like Radeon 9600Pro or even 9600XT but they have TSOP memory with 4-5ns so they worked at 400-450mhz.
One example is the Sapphire Radeon 9600pro EZ Advanced (I have used it for few months years ago, and it had TSOP hynix at 4ns) so they were Radeon 9600LE 🙁
Real 9600pro and XT used BGA memory at 600mhz 😉
So if I were you, I would use a TI4600

Ohh my... This escalated pretty quickly. 😁 😁
I just wanted to know if I can get more muscle-power out of an GF4-TI4200 compared to my Radeon9600 on Win98SE. 😉

EDIT:
All I want to do, is to mount the card. Install the drivers and go gaming. What the choose, what to choose?
I do not want any FX5XXX line of cards. My FX5200 just don't run NFS-Porche-2K without any tweaking.
And tweaking is what I really don't want to do just to get one single game running.

brostenen wrote:

Ohh my... This escalated pretty quickly. :-D :-D I just wanted to know if I can get more muscle-power out of an GF4-TI4200 compa […]
Show full quote

Ohh my... This escalated pretty quickly. 😁 😁
I just wanted to know if I can get more muscle-power out of an GF4-TI4200 compared to my Radeon9600 on Win98SE. 😉

EDIT:
All I want to do, is to mount the card. Install the drivers and go gaming. What the choose, what to choose?
I do not want any FX5XXX line of cards. My FX5200 just don't run NFS-Porche-2K without any tweaking.
And tweaking is what I really don't want to do just to get one single game running.

On win98SE is better to use geforce 4 TI 😉

Radeon 9600XT is comparable to GF4 Ti4600, except with DX9 support.

As has already been mentioned, the Radeon cards don't support table fog or palletized textures. The GF6 is like that as well.

I ran both 9600XT and GF4 Ti4600 cards for years, but for different purposes.

The 9600XT was in my HTPC and excelled at its task. It's an extremely low-power and cool-running card, so it was perfect for my HTPC. I actually removed its HSF and installed a Zalman ZM50HP passive heatpipe cooler. It never overheated even when running the occasional game. I've often wondered if that same cooler could be adapted to fit a Voodoo 3 3000.

I use the GF4 Ti4600 cards in my legacy Win9x PCs where they also excel at their tasks. They are power-hungry and hot-running cards, but much better for gaming. The v45.23 drivers just work for 99% of everything without any messing around.

I know we've got Radeon fans here on VOGONS, but my experience is that the drivers just plain suck for Win9x. They seemed a bit better for WinXP, but there are also much better video card choices for XP as well. Even the Omega Radeon drivers were inferior to GeForce drivers. I eventually switched to a 7900GS in the HTPC.

There's no good reason to run a Radeon card in a Win9x machine; the GF4 and FX alternatives are far superior.

KT7AGuy wrote:

Radeon 9600XT is comparable to GF4 Ti4600, except with DX9 support. […]
Show full quote

Radeon 9600XT is comparable to GF4 Ti4600, except with DX9 support.

As has already been mentioned, the Radeon cards don't support table fog or palletized textures. The GF6 is like that as well.

I ran both 9600XT and GF4 Ti4600 cards for years, but for different purposes.

The 9600XT was in my HTPC and excelled at its task. It's an extremely low-power and cool-running card, so it was perfect for my HTPC. I actually removed its HSF and installed a Zalman ZM50HP passive heatpipe cooler. It never overheated even when running the occasional game. I've often wondered if that same cooler could be adapted to fit a Voodoo 3 3000.

I use the GF4 Ti4600 cards in my legacy Win9x PCs where they also excel at their tasks. They are power-hungry and hot-running cards, but much better for gaming. The v45.23 drivers just work for 99% of everything without any messing around.

I know we've got Radeon fans here on VOGONS, but my experience is that the drivers just plain suck for Win9x. They seemed a bit better for WinXP, but there are also much better video card choices for XP as well. Even the Omega Radeon drivers were inferior to GeForce drivers. I eventually switched to a 7900GS in the HTPC.

There's no good reason to run a Radeon card in a Win9x machine; the GF4 and FX alternatives are far superior.

I agree with basically all of this.

Random thought after posting in another thread: if pixel shaders and such aren't really a consideration, why not just get a GeForce 2 or 4 MX? You could run 45.23 or whatever old drivers you want, performance is good, image quality is good, and they work equally well in Windows 98 and XP depending on your needs. They also tend not to run very hot (some GF2s don't even need heatsinks), I've never encountered a loud one (unless it has a broken fan), and they're cheap. AFAIK should have no problems with table fog, palletized textures, etc either.

obobskivich wrote:

Random thought after posting in another thread: if pixel shaders and such aren't really a consideration, why not just get a GeForce 2 or 4 MX? You could run 45.23 or whatever old drivers you want, performance is good, image quality is good, and they work equally well in Windows 98 and XP depending on your needs. They also tend not to run very hot (some GF2s don't even need heatsinks), I've never encountered a loud one (unless it has a broken fan), and they're cheap. AFAIK should have no problems with table fog, palletized textures, etc either.

I like my GF4 Ti4600 cards because they're complete overkill for anything I'll ever throw at them on a Win9x system. It's the american way, don't ya know. I hear they're also the best for Splinter Cell! 🤣

Seriously though, I look at legacy video cards in a very black/white sort of way:
Low-end to Mid-Range performance with Voodoo/GLIDE compatibility
High-End performance without Voodoo/GLIDE compatibility

If I'm going to sacrifice GLIDE compatibility on the altar of performance, it better be for a seriously kickass card. The GF4 Ti4600 and FX 5900/5950 are precisely such cards. I think it might be because I like late-90s flight sims. It seems like I've been talking about EF2000, EAW, RB3D, and EEAH/EECH alot lately.

Anyway, to keep things semi-on-topic:
I think the only game that ever gave me trouble with v45.23 drivers was TRON 2.0. The v56.64 drivers got it running correctly.

It also seems like there's been alot of talk about Quadro cards lately. Now I'm curious about the Quadro4 980 XGL, but too cheap to spend the money so I can experiment with one.

brostenen wrote:

I just wanted to know if I can get more muscle-power out of an GF4-TI4200 compared to my Radeon9600 on Win98SE. 😉

Your Radeon 9600 is the stronger card. Stick with that if you've had good luck with it.

brostenen wrote:

All I want to do, is to mount the card. Install the drivers and go gaming. What the choose, what to choose?
I do not want any FX5XXX line of cards. My FX5200 just don't run NFS-Porche-2K without any tweaking.
And tweaking is what I really don't want to do just to get one single game running.

Man, I know what you mean. Both are strong cards. I've always had better luck with the GeForce cards, but you and I are playing very different games. If you've had good luck with the Radeon cards and like them, then I suggest you switch to a 9800XT. It uses the same drivers and software as the 9600, but it's a much more powerful card.

brostenen wrote:

Don't really miss anything. Was just wondering if I can get a better system.
All these numbers are just too technical for me.
I can't make any sence in all this when stuff gets too technical like this.

Get a Radeon 9800XT and you'll be very happy with its performance. 😀