VOGONS


First post, by mkubiak402

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i have decided to keep my ppro I need help locating or advice on a video card to look for it. my first though is a gforse2 440mx but i know i can fined some thing nicer and with a little more kick.
right now i have a ATI 9100pro 64mg it is getting around 27-FPS on Quake III arena patch 1.32 default 640x480 and 24.5 800x600
Quake II is getting @ 800x600 17.7sec 39.0 FPS
games like Star Wars Pod Racer give me an error no 3D accelerator but will run if i have Windows 98 but has artifacts on the screen..
over all i think the ATI 9100pro just stinks

system specs are
Windows 2000
2x Pentium pro 200mhz 1mg cash
1gmb system ram
2x 40gig hard drives
cd/dvd RW
250mg Zip
ect......

DOS 6.22 FIC-486-VIP-IO AM486-DX2 66Mhz 64mg
Win98se MS-5169 AMD K6-III+ 450 @ 550Mhz 512mg Voodoo 5 5500.
Win98se GA-6VXE7+ Intel Pentium III 750 512mg Voodoo 5 5500.
Win XP MS-6712 AMD Athlon Xp 2700+ 2gb 6600GT

Reply 1 of 11, by ODwilly

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FX 5500 pci, Radeon 7000 pci would not be bad and has OK compatibility/performance and is cheap. Voodoo 3 pci would be awesome, get lots of Glide compatibility and work with a lot of games but if you are not patient can be spendy. I would not use anything newer than the FX series for Nvidia, nor newer than the Radeon 8000 series for ATI.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 3 of 11, by Ozzuneoj

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I think a Pentium Pro is going to be a huge limitation on just about any graphics card from after 1998. Games aren't going to care that you have two of them either. Anything post 1998 is going to be somewhat limited on that CPU.

To put it into perspective, the original Voodoo Graphics was top dog when the Pentium Pro was current. Your Radeon 9100 has 20 to 40 times the fillrate and 10 times the memory bandwidth of the Voodoo. There's no way it is limiting the Pentium Pro.

I'd try the Geforce 4 MX and use some older drivers, as the 9100's newer (and likely less polished) drivers are likely causing you problems with older games. Also, use an older version of DirectX... 7.0a is probably your best bet. Still I wouldn't expect too much in games like Quake III. Keep in mind that people had much lower standards for frame rates back then too. 39 in Quake II would have been considered pretty decent for a 200Mhz CPU. I played it on a 400Mhz PII.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 4 of 11, by nforce4max

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You built a very nice top spec system there but sadly pentium pro systems are just not very good for most games from the period so people either stayed with their socket 7 systems or waited for slot 1. Swapping the card out might not get the fps that you want but I wouldn't worry too much and just build another rig as most socket 8 builds are just for fun and bragging rights. Got several smp rigs so I know how it goes 🤣, if you can get some 50ns edo it will give the rig a little boost but not a whole lot.

Besides the lower performance with 16bit code the memory bandwidth for smp systems held them back a bit.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 6 of 11, by dirkmirk

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For the record, I found better dos performance with a Geforce FX5200/5500 but either way its not going to make much difference what video card you use in windows because the cpu is so underpowered.

The only real solution is to get a Pentium 2 overdrive 333 cpu, I can run Quake 3 at around 30-35fps at 1600x1200 looks great, if your not nostalgic sell both of your 200/1meg cpus and buy a single overdrive CPU to reduce costs, theirs no benefit in dual cpus for gaming.

Reply 7 of 11, by Ozzuneoj

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dirkmirk wrote:

For the record, I found better dos performance with a Geforce FX5200/5500 but either way its not going to make much difference what video card you use in windows because the cpu is so underpowered.

The only real solution is to get a Pentium 2 overdrive 333 cpu, I can run Quake 3 at around 30-35fps at 1600x1200 looks great, if your not nostalgic sell both of your 200/1meg cpus and buy a single overdrive CPU to reduce costs, theirs no benefit in dual cpus for gaming.

At that point I'd say just use the Pentium Pro system with an older video card and sound card and use it for older (pre-1997) games exclusively. You could find someone's old P4 based clunker for cheap\free on craigslist that will handle post-1997 games MUCH better with much less hassle.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 8 of 11, by archsan

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I was searching "Pentium Pro + Monster 3D" yesterday and found this:
http://www.ixbt.com/cpu/ppro_games.html

They overclocked the Pentium Pro to 233. Compared cards are Riva128, Voodoo1/2/Banshee on the PPro and G200 on PII and K6-2.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)

Reply 9 of 11, by mkubiak402

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ok well ill just shoot for a gforse2 400mx
the main reason i don't like the AIT 9100 is driver incompatibility in windows 2000 i get a lot of 3D errors

DOS 6.22 FIC-486-VIP-IO AM486-DX2 66Mhz 64mg
Win98se MS-5169 AMD K6-III+ 450 @ 550Mhz 512mg Voodoo 5 5500.
Win98se GA-6VXE7+ Intel Pentium III 750 512mg Voodoo 5 5500.
Win XP MS-6712 AMD Athlon Xp 2700+ 2gb 6600GT

Reply 11 of 11, by mkubiak402

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h-a-l-9000 wrote:

Sure that not Windows 2000 is the reason? It's only one step after NT4 which was completely useless for 3D gaming. Games were made for Win9x at the time.

The AIT 9100 "works" in windows 98 but it has bad artifacts when running in 3D
i run my AGP geforse2 400mx in windows 2000 it works fine... with the AMD K6

DOS 6.22 FIC-486-VIP-IO AM486-DX2 66Mhz 64mg
Win98se MS-5169 AMD K6-III+ 450 @ 550Mhz 512mg Voodoo 5 5500.
Win98se GA-6VXE7+ Intel Pentium III 750 512mg Voodoo 5 5500.
Win XP MS-6712 AMD Athlon Xp 2700+ 2gb 6600GT