A Ti 4200 would probably be the easiest card to find that will give you the best compatibility and speed on a system like that. A Ti 4400 or 4600 would be even better, but less common. These cards are all from early 2002 to 2003, but at some point you have to decide how much it matters to be period correct. If you wanted to be 100% period correct to October 2001, you'd have to get rid of your Tualatin 1.4Ghz anyway, since they weren't available until December 2001 or January 2002 (according to Wikipedia). Also, the Ti 4800 is a newer version of the 4600 with 8x AGP support, which your system won't make use of, so they'd be basically identical. The 4800SE on the other hand is actually slower, with the same clocks as a 4400 (plus 8x AGP).

I'd just go for a Geforce 4 Ti of some kind to get the most performance possible for the system without going too new. Just keep in mind a lot of these cards developed problems from bad fans and overheating over the years, so don't spend a lot on one unless the seller guarantees that it is tested and working. Alternative cards to look for would be the Quadro4 series. There are several models that are basically the same as the Geforce4 Ti series.

Yeah, I'll admit I cheated a tiny bit with the CPU. I figured "late 2001 - early 2002" would be okay since most people hadn't adopted XP until well into 2002. Let's say January 2002 is as late as I'm willing to go... still maybe try for a Quadro4 or a GeForce 4 Ti?

rob8086 wrote:

Yeah, I'll admit I cheated a tiny bit with the CPU. I figured "late 2001 - early 2002" would be okay since most people hadn't adopted XP until well into 2002. Let's say January 2002 is as late as I'm willing to go... still maybe try for a Quadro4 or a GeForce 4 Ti?

Absolutely.

That's what I'd do. It should have extremely good compatibility and speed with DOS and Windows 9x. In my opinion, the Geforce 4 Ti series is the last generation of video cards that feels like the "old days" when features were added with little compromise. I think the FX series is still very compatible (maybe even the same in DOS, I'm not sure) but with the sloppy DX9 support, and some of its other quirks, it feels more like the first wobbly-step into the DirectX 9 era with some sacrifices made to get there. The Geforce 4 Ti series stopped at DirectX 8, maintained compatibility with just about everything before that and had so much raw pixel-pushing power that it was ideal for getting high frame rates at high resolutions in older less high-tech games.

EDIT: Also, its worth mentioning, a higher end FX series card (5800 through 5950) would probably be great for your setup, but it is considerably newer and they are much harder to find at reasonable prices. Most are considered highly collectible.

Well alright, I'm convinced. I'm going to keep looking for a Ti 4800... I think, if I can't find one within a month or so (all I can find are SEs) I'll settle for a 4600. I'll couple that with the Intel chipset + Tualatin CPU and 512MB PC133 and I think that'll be about the baddest machine as I can build for the era. Should be fun to compare that to the Radeon system I've already got.

Edit: Okay, now I think I understand more of what you were saying. There's no reason for me to look for a 4800 since it's literally just a 4600 with 8X, which I won't be able to use anyway. So the Ti 4600 should be the ultimate GPU I'm after. I think.

I used to rely on nVidia cards for 9x gaming until someone here revealed that the image quality of similar-period ATI cards was so much better than nVidia. Now I'm hesitant to say that having two systems (one for Glide + early Direct3d, and another for later Direct3d/OpenGL) is your best bet if you're afraid of skimping out on image quality.

rob8086 wrote:

I don't see a B/S/T thread on this site,

That's because trading is against the rules on VOGONS.

Man, I almost wish you hadn't told me that.

So I've already got one build, currently with a Radeon 9800XT in it. Would you swap that for, say, a 9700 Pro, or maybe an 8500 since it was their last DirectX 8 card? Or just keep the 9800 XT? It's inarguably the better card, but I'm almost wondering if it might be better to yank that for a future XP build and go with something more appropriate to the gaming era I'm trying to play in (DOS-9x).

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

I used to rely on nVidia cards for 9x gaming until someone here revealed that the image quality of similar-period ATI cards was so much better than nVidia. Now I'm hesitant to say that having two systems (one for Glide + early Direct3d, and another for later Direct3d/OpenGL) is your best bet if you're afraid of skimping out on image quality.

It looks like the posts you linked to specifically mention pre-Geforce 4 nvidia cards as having poor texture filtering quality in some games. I remember similar discussions back in the days of the Radeon 8500 vs Geforce 3, not so much with the Geforce 4 Ti series... but its been a while, obviously.

For this system I wouldn't sacrifice compatibility with older DOS titles by switching to a Radeon. I'm sure they work fine most of the time, but they were known for having lots of compatibility issues, where as nvidia generally wasn't.

A PIII 1.4Ghz + Ti 4600 system would run almost *anything* before 2002 without any problems to speak of. The latest games will certainly run better and look better on newer systems, but you have to draw the line somewhere. We were discussing in another thread recently how far you could stretch Windows XP for the absolute ultimate performance in any game that will run on XP (this includes almost anything made after 1996 as well as many later DOS games) and I realized my Sandy Bridge i5 2500K at 4.2Ghz and GTX 970 would probably all work just fine in XP. I could always throw in my V5 5500 PCI and an older sound card (something between a Vortex 2 or X-Fi) to maintain compatibility with the oldest titles.

Anyway, the point is, you've got a good plan for a build. The best card to fit it would be a Geforce 4 Ti. It should do everything you need it to do. Anything newer will lose some compatibility with older games and will be too bottlenecked by the CPU to make much difference. If you really want the ultimate image quality in post-2000 games, you might as well just install XP on a much newer system and run the games completely maxed out to levels not possible back in those days.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

For this system I wouldn't sacrifice compatibility with older DOS titles by switching to a Radeon. I'm sure they work fine most of the time, but they were known for having lots of compatibility issues, where as nvidia generally wasn't.

This is the thing I am 100% most worried about. Most of the things I want to play are early- to mid-90's DOS and Windows titles.

You should consider building a gpu collection for this reason but that is gradually getting harder as demand increases with such a limited supply of select top tier cards as people snap them up either as spares or to horde up for later. GF3 and GF4 cards are pretty cool and there are still some around pretty cheap should you look well enough, as for GF FX they are interesting but they are not all peaches and cream.

Well I've got the 9800XT, a Voodoo 3 3000 series, and I'm working on finding a Ti 4600 now. That sucker is proving practically impossible to find.

rob8086 wrote:

Well I've got the 9800XT, a Voodoo 3 3000 series, and I'm working on finding a Ti 4600 now. That sucker is proving practically impossible to find.

Its easier to just search for Geforce4 or Quadro4 since they aren't usually marked very clearly compared to newer cards.

I have a feeling I'm going to be searching for a while. I might just downgrade the ATI machine to an 8500 (which I CAN find) and then keep my eyes peeled for a Ti 4600 in the meantime. I think I actually have a Ti 4200 kicking around somewhere, so I can always throw that in while I wait. Wish I'd have realized a million years ago what a unicorn that card would end up being.

Ah! Someone posted a clean-looking Ti 4600 on eBay this morning for $50 and I snapped it up. Pray for functionality.

rob8086 wrote:

Ah! Someone posted a clean-looking Ti 4600 on eBay this morning for $50 and I snapped it up. Pray for functionality.

I would definitely recommend taking off the heatsink and reapplying thermal paste when you get it. I have an OEM Ti 4600 that came from a high end Dell gaming system back in the day (they did exist!) and it started giving me artifacts while I was using it. I baked it in the oven, added new thermal paste and used some long screws and nuts to reattach the heatsink (the clips looked really weak) and it worked fine after that. That was probably 5 years ago though... I should test that again. 😀

I've got a tube of AS5 ready and waiting 😁

I am terrified of the idea of baking it if I have to. Feel like there's so much that can go wrong there.

rob8086 wrote:

I've got a tube of AS5 ready and waiting 😁

I am terrified of the idea of baking it if I have to. Feel like there's so much that can go wrong there.

Yeah, baking is actually not that great of an idea. I just did it to try it out. I was surprised it worked. If yours doesn't work right, definitely return it. Once you start getting into the cards from the early 2000s, repairs become extremely difficult. The components get smaller, more numerous and harder to identify, the main chip is no longer in a plastic package (die could be cracked), there's a ton of heat generated which could mean that a GPU is just plain dead and will never work again (where that was quite uncommon in the 90s).

Hopefully it just works for you. If you keep it cool it should be fine. 😀