I hate you so much. I WISH I had a 9800XT just laying around...

If you would use 9800XT, you can use this "guide" to determine, which drivers you want to use.

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, quick test.

FFXIhealer wrote:

I hate you so much. I WISH I had a 9800XT just laying around...

To be fair, I had it in a system but I recently tore down 8 of the 13 machines I had running and it was in one of them. Just trying to determine which is better option for my Windows 98 machine to play games / software from 97 - 2002/2003.

I would go for the TI4600.

I found Geforces the most compatible for windows 98SE, theirs situations where a 9800XT makes more sense like running FARCRY but would you seriously run that game on a windows 98 system? Getting into games like Doom3 or Half Life 2 need windows XP where the 9800XT would kick its ass.

I guess their would be benefit for games like Medal of Honour/Mafia/Max Payne if you pumped up the resolution and AA settings to the max.

Otherwise I don't think theirs much point, the 9800XT is a legendary card that is better suited for a period correct windows XP system IMO!

There are definitely compatibility benefits with the geforce. Especially with most OpenGL games. Game developers used NV most of the time. There are games that use proprietary features.

ATI has no fog table support. Shadows of the Empire will look awful for example.

On the other hand, the 9800 has much better anti aliasing and texture filtering. And is considerably faster of course.

It depends on what you're aiming for I suppose.
For older titles, the Ti4600 is probably the best in terms of compatibility, and performance is not bad either.
But if you aim at games from the 9800XT's heyday, there will not be any compatibility problems at all. On the contrary, the 9x00 series was the standard for development in the early days of DX9/SM2.0, since it was the first available, and way more capable than the later GeForce FX series. Not to mention that a Ti4600 is a DX8-class card to begin with, and doesn't even have SM2.0.

So if you want to be playing games like DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Halo... the 9800XT is by far the best choice.

AA on R300 is very good no doubt, but in AF quality NV25 is superior (angle independent). But the truth is the performance hit is so big it can be used only in (very) old games.

FFXIhealer wrote:

I hate you so much. I WISH I had a 9800XT just laying around...

Lucky me I got two of them, first one cost me like $20 shipped and the other was only $8 but had to oven bake. Nice cards but the cooling isn't up to par at least in my part of the world that absolutely roasts during summer.

Smack2k wrote:

Which would you recommend for a Windows 98 PC with a P3 1.2 GHZ proc? I realize the 9800XT may be hampered by the slower proc but for overall gaming from 96 - 2001/2 Which for best graphics performance, compatibility? Also which drivers would you recommend for the choice?

I was set on the 4600 but started thinking about the 9800 XT I have lying around so figured I'd ask!

The 4600 was the ultimate card of it's day. The whole Ti4 series was awesome, even the 4200. Dx8 only of course, but the best for that gen.

You will need to compare GEforce FX5950 Ultra, as that is the card from nVIDIA that match up the performance of Radeon 9800XT, as the GF 4 series will ge blown from Radeon 9xxx series...
Bcuz as now the GF 4600 (and that is not even TI4800) compared to 9800XT is no match for it at all..

squiggly wrote:

The 4600 was the ultimate card of it's day.

The same goes for the 9800XT. But the 9800XT was a generation ahead of the 4600 😀