Probably a Ti4600/4400.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NVidia-GeForce-4-Vide … HoAAOSwLyVZv~um

Got a 4600, it was my first choice. Probably should have mentioned that 😀

The question was more that I don't know much about that era and wasn't sure if there was a better option performance-wise. I know the 9700/9800 kills this thing in raw speed but wasn't sure if the ATI driver lottery hurt it in anyway for my purposes.

Or should I go for just whatever newest AGP card I can find and just go with that since DX8 was still somewhat relevant?

Ah, I'm probably not the best person to answer that. Never messed with ME/2000. Though I think all Catalyst XP drivers are compatible with 2000, and there are certainly some rock-solid ones to choose from there, but regarding ME, I have no idea. My guess would be NVIDIA would be the better choice there for stable drivers.

Im a Radeon 8500 guy personally. Works geeat with 6.2 Catalyst legacy drivers.

What's the reason to have 2 different systems DX8.1 & 9.0 ?

Personally I would just install DX9.0 and add a Radeon 9800 PRO or XT on this machine as your CPU was released around the same time ... Most if not all DX8.1 games should be compatible anyway..

To be honest, I'm questioning my build philosophy right now.

The original plan was to build around the hardware I already had, and limit to whatever DirectX version the video cards were fully compliant with. However, that was before I had a fuller understanding of just how DX works...

I have my own rig built with both win Me & XP dual boots system, so maybe I can answer ur question more properly.

If u want a solution of all-purpose-around card with both powerful performance and best compatibilities for DirectX 5.0 to pre-DX9.0 games, the best choice is the Geforce FX series, especially the FX5700 & FX5900 series,

Geforece FX series is compatible with all features of DX from 5.0 to early 9.0, plus great support with OpenGL, and it has great official driver support from win9x to XP, and some excellent third-party drivers will provide more feature with relatively better image qualities such as omega series.

Yes, I know that GF4 series can have such duty done concerning to pre-DX9.0 games, but FX series are much more powerful like a wild beast in pre-DX9.0 games, which means u can apply higher AA and AF effects levels into the games to gain better image qualities even with pretty aged games in a quite low resolution such as 640x480. Voodoo is a kind of must have for old games from DX5.0~DX6.0 era, but it can be emulated by some software.

But no single graphic card is perfect. GF series do have some compatibility problems with some games, such as Metal Gear Solid 2, which will be run perfectly only on ATI cards even with the latest official patch. So if u want a card to run DX 7.0~8.1 games, Radeon 8500 and 9X00 series (especially 9500~9800) are excellent alternative choices, they do beat the GF cards with much more powerful performance(8500 > GF3, 9X00 > GF4 & GF FX) if u find out the proper drivers, and ATI cards have better support on HDTV-output (u can enjoy the games on ur old TV) which is really a weak point on Nvidia cards (only S-video available) before the release of GF 6 series, but on the other hand, they do have compatibility problems with early DX and OpenGL games due to lack of some key features.

Oh, almost forget that if u just want a Nvidia card to run DX7 ~ pre-DX9 games, AGP version of GF6 series (especial GF 6600~6800) are also the great choices. They are in lack of a key feature for DX5.0~6.0 games but not really a big problem for DX7.0~9.0 games. And HDTV-output could be found functional on GF6 series.

BTW, do not try those graphic cards in PCI-E interface or with more than 256MB graphic ram if u wish to enjoy ur games in win9x/me, it is very troublesome and lack of official driver support for those new features on such old OS.