The Geforce 3 Ti 200 is probably going to be best for DirectX 7, but the x1600 is the fastest out of the bunch I am pretty sure.

Which processor are you going to use?

X1600Pro is unsupported in Windows 9x, so your best bet is the GF3Ti for best compatibility or the FX5200 if it's the 128bit variant.

My vote would be the GF3 Ti 200.
The GeForce 4 MX440 would be a nice second choice I think, but perhaps a bit on the slow side for an Athlon XP (GF3 is already a bit slow for an AXP I think, but it should work perfectly fine otherwise).

Geforce 3 Ti 200 is a really good option for a period rig as it's got good compatibility and powerful enough for period games. On paper the 6200 is more powerful so worth a try if your looking to play later games. As Georgeman said the X1600pro does not support Win 98.

Best semi-period correct is GF3Ti200, best card of the lot is X1600PRO hands down.

dries_86 wrote:

Which processor are you going to use?

I'm using an Athlon XP 3200+ on a Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394 motherboard.

Thanks for all the replies!
It looks like there's a pretty big backing for using the GeForce 3 Ti 200, so I'll check it out today and see if it's more compatible with the games I was trying to run than the FX 5200 I had in there previously.

the 6200 is also a good choice, as long as it's 128bit (most aren't) - will give you decent DX9c support, even under win9x.

Alec M wrote:

It looks like there's a pretty big backing for using the GeForce 3 Ti 200, so I'll check it out today and see if it's more compatible with the games I was trying to run than the FX 5200 I had in there previously.

I would think the biggest problem would be performance rather than compatibility.

You can find a lot of these cards in the 2003 version of Tom's VGA Charts.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vga-charts-ii,579.html

well, he is looking for the "best" gpu for his system, and that can mean quite a few things;

-only something from his list?
-cheap?
-fast?
-from the same timeframe as the rest of the system?
-most compatible with his hw?
-focus on what DX version?

for example - the 6200 is nice because DX9c, but if he plans to play FF7 or something else that benefits from paletted textures, a 5200 would work better.

voodoo47 wrote:

well, he is looking for the "best" gpu for his system, and that can mean quite a few things; […]
Show full quote

well, he is looking for the "best" gpu for his system, and that can mean quite a few things;

-only something from his list?
-cheap?
-fast?
-from the same timeframe as the rest of the system?
-most compatible with his hw?
-focus on what DX version?

for example - the 6200 is nice because DX9c, but if he plans to play FF7 or something else that benefits from paletted textures, a 5200 would work better.

I don't think Alec M means "cheap" as he stated he already owns these cards.
Since he's looking to build a Win98 rig and his existing set is already very fast for Windows 98, he's probably looking for something to be the most compatible with.

I've had good results with my own GF3 Ti200 😀 (a Medion one).

All the GPUs on that list are AGP cards that I own.
As of the time that I posted I thought all of them worked, but it looks like the GeForce4 MX440 and ATi Radeon X1600 PRO are dead.

The only problem I've run into with the GeForce 3 Ti 200 is that it doesn't support DX7.

Also, what forceware version would people recommend I use on the GF3 Ti 200?

Alec M wrote:

All the GPUs on that list are AGP cards that I own. As of the time that I posted I thought all of them worked, but it looks like […]
Show full quote

All the GPUs on that list are AGP cards that I own.
As of the time that I posted I thought all of them worked, but it looks like the GeForce4 MX440 and ATi Radeon X1600 PRO are dead.

The only problem I've run into with the GeForce 3 Ti 200 is that it doesn't support DX7.

Also, what forceware version would people recommend I use on the GF3 Ti 200?

GF3 supports DX7, it's a DX8 compliant card and is fully backwards compatible with DX7.

appiah4 wrote:

GF3 supports DX7, it's a DX8 compliant card and is fully backwards compatible with DX7.

DX7/OpenGL games only show the OpenGL option.
I believe I saw somewhere that the highest version it has is DX6.11

that kind of version doesn't even exist - gf3 is, as mentioned, DX8 compliant, and supports all the previous versions of DX. if some application doesn't run, then it's probably a problem of the application itself.

Also the problem could be outdated directX version installed in your PC. Windows 98 comes with DX 6.1, however GF3 drivers support DX8, possibly even DX9 (I mean on software level). It has been a while last time I ran a win98 machine... but I believe when using GF3, at least DX8 (DX9 to be safe) must be installed in the PC... otherwise DirextX games won't work at all (even the DX6/7 ones).

Once I had these kind of problems when trying to run GF 7800 GS on Athlon Thunderbird (win XP machine). Forceware 275.33 installed just fine, the D3D acceleration was missing though... which could've been fixed by installing late version of DX9c... but installer refused to run on Thunderbird as it lacks SSE support. Later I've replaced the GPU for 6800 GT + older drivers and everything started working fine.

I'll try getting a new DX version.
And as voodoo47 said, I was wrong about the current version, It's DX6.1

Does anyone know how to get DX9.0c without using the dxwebsetup program?