VOGONS


First post, by aaronkatrini

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Hi all ,
Getting inspiration from the latest philscomputerlab videos on YouTube got myself a thinclient for lightweight retrogaming. I have a thinclient with a Amd Geode Nx 1500 and 1gb of Ddr400.
I was thinking about upgrading the graphics compartment, since it has a PCI slot.
Searching carefully on eBay I found some options and was asking if anybody can give an advice on what to choose:
1. Already own Matrox g550 - need to order a Dms59 adapter to test it
2. Already own Matrox g450 - currently using but performance is crappy
3. EBay : Nvidia Quadro Nvs 280 - 19euros
4. eBay : Nvidia Quadro Nvs 100 - 16euros
5. EBay : Nvidia fx 5500 - 25euros
6. EBay : radeon 7000 - 15euros.

Since the radeon 7000 is a local listing and I can get it in about a week as opposed to the nvidia fx5500 that comes from China and usually takes 6-8weeks , plus the radeon is cheaper and has passive cooling (silent is good for me), I'm very tempted by it. What do you thing is better ? And by how much?Thanks in advance!

Reply 1 of 32, by The Serpent Rider

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Radeon 7000 performance at best can be compared to GeForce 256 SDR. With some benefits like free trilinear filtering (performance drop is negligible).

Already own Matrox g450 - currently using but performance is crappy

Actually Matrox G450 PCI is a great overclocker. You easily can reach G400MAX level of performance or even more.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 2 of 32, by Putas

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Radeon 7000 outperforms G450, but not by much. FX 5500 would be big leap (more so if it is 128 bit one). But those prices are not nice. By the way NVS280 is pretty much same chip as 5500.

Reply 3 of 32, by aaronkatrini

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Thank you for your support! 😀
@The Serpent Rider ,WOW! I didn't know that I could over clock matrox cards, will definitevly will look into it better, maybe I'll post some results here on the forum.
@Putas , yes the fx5500 is of the 128bit variant (with 256mb of vram), but is one of those shady Chinese ones, which you don't know what parts they use and what BIOS mods it has. I've read somewhere online that those perform worse than well known brands.

For now I'm going to test the g450, and see what performance I can get with over clocking, I'll try to find an adapter so I can try the g550 as well.

Reply 4 of 32, by The Serpent Rider

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Those chinese FX5500 PCI perform bad due to very low VRAM closkspeed (266mhz vs 400mhz default). Probably 5ns (400mhz) memory is still installed, so you potentially can fix low performance with overclocking too. Unfortunately I don't have one and not 100% sure if they overclockable to 400mhz or more.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 5 of 32, by dr.zeissler

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Go for a R7000-PCI, a R9000-PCI or a R9250-PCI.

- Much better image-Quality.
- Win3x svga-drivers works (so 256colors!)
- R9250 with 256MB do have 128Bit Memory-Interface.

- R7000 DX7 Shaderpipeline not usable in DX/OGL (only works with the R7500 techdemo)
- R9000 DX81 Shaderpipeline 1.3?
- R9250 DX9 Shaderpipeline 1.4

Doc

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 6 of 32, by Putas

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dr.zeissler wrote:
Go for a R7000-PCI, a R9000-PCI or a R9250-PCI. […]
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Go for a R7000-PCI, a R9000-PCI or a R9250-PCI.

- Much better image-Quality.
- Win3x svga-drivers works (so 256colors!)
- R9250 with 256MB do have 128Bit Memory-Interface.

- R7000 DX7 Shaderpipeline not usable in DX/OGL (only works with the R7500 techdemo)
- R9000 DX81 Shaderpipeline 1.3?
- R9250 DX9 Shaderpipeline 1.4

Doc

Uhm.
Image-Quality depends on particular card.
9250 with 256 MB do not have to be 128 bit.
Pixel shader of 9000 is also 1.4

Reply 7 of 32, by matze79

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If you want decent Quality, get a Radeon 7000 PCI Mac Edition and Flash a PC Bios.
You even get DVI with it.

There are cheapo Radeon PCI Cards with only 32bit memory bus also..

And the PCI FX5500 have bad image quality specialy the ones listed on Ebay with the Silver cheapo cooler.. and mine ran very unstable (P3 1,4Ghz..)

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board

Reply 8 of 32, by aaronkatrini

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First of all, thank you very much for all the feedback and support!
There are many options that I'm considering right now but it seems my choices are limited for the fact I live in Europe (Italy) and is very difficult if not impossible to get some of these cards. I searched through all eBay, even international listings for cards with PCI interface. I went through all wikipedia graphic cards list and marked all those PCI and searched them one by one and all I could find in a reasonable (sub 30 euros) and all i could find were those listed in the first post.
If anyone knows any listing going now and ships to Italy please let me know !
I was watching PixelPipes on YouTube the other day where he bought some mistery Graphic cards from some company called VisionTek. And on one of these mistery boxes he got a Radeon 3450 PCI and he was so disapointed, and I was like , "dude I wish I had that !"
So I went to this website and found they did this "Sale/Promotion?" where they sold a random PCI graphics card for 5$ , but they dont ship outside USA! ;(
@The Serpent Rider, yeah I heard that too but I don't believe they over clock great, otherwise the Chinese would have done that themselves.
As of overclocking the G450, I'm having a hard time. The Matrox official tool version 50204 is the only that shows a dial to change the clock (from 0-20?), but the system hangs and needs a reeboot if I apply any of those (0-20). The other tool from Liew Khong Jye, shows all the settings but even 1mhz change makes the colors on the screen "freak out" and a restart is needed. Any suggestion ?
@ Dr.Zeissler , thanks for the suggestion but I cannot find any radeon rather than the 7000 😀
@ Putas , the radeon is from what it seems on the picture a Sapphire variant .
@ Matze79, do you have one of those Chinese fx5500? Is it just like the one that Phil's computerlabs have? What is your experience? I'm very curious to know from an expert point of view

Reply 10 of 32, by aaronkatrini

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Just want to let everyone know that the Radeon 7000 is a bad graphis card.
I had the chance to try it out from a friend and the 3d gaming experience was awful. At least with Wolfenstein Return to the Castle. I had better gaming experience with the Matrox G450...

Reply 12 of 32, by Errius

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Comparing a 32 MB Millennium G450 to a 64 MB Radeon 7000, both PCI, the R7000 is about 20% faster in 3DMark2000 and about 90% faster (i.e. nearly twice the speed) in 3DMark2001 SE.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 13 of 32, by lost77

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Maybe your friend had a slow version of the card. Some Radeon 7000 were clocked quite a bit lower than others, also wasn't there versions with 32-bit memory access?

Anyway I wouldn't want to play RTCW with either of those cards.

Reply 14 of 32, by aaronkatrini

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It was a sapphire version, I don't have it at hand but I can borrow it again. It said 64mb on the back. However I tried different drivers but somehow only one managed to install catalyst control center. And no one of the drivers would make Gpu-Z start.
Performance was laggy with rtcw and from benchmarks I got :
G450 - 3dmark 2000 = 2055, 3dmark 2001 = 715
Radeon 7000 - 3dmark 2000 = 1923, 3dmark 2001 = 639
I cannot explain these results.

Reply 15 of 32, by Baoran

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I thought geforce cards would be always a better choice in retro gaming because of better drivers and compatibility. That is why I have been pretty much ignoring radeon cards I have when building PCs.

Reply 16 of 32, by matze79

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if you have bad experience with Radeon 7000 you have gotten a 7000 LE or VE which sucks.
Or using a slow CPU.. i played Quake 3 on K6-2 400 with the Radeon Mac Edition (Flashed).
But with reduced details due to slow CPU (66Mhz FSB)

https://youtu.be/7lTbTFY56ZE
AMD K6-2 400Mhz, 586TX3 Gigabyte, 64Mb RAM, Radeon 7000 PCI 32Mb,
EWS64XL Soundcard ISA fromTerratec with 18Mb RAM.

Only the Original Radeon and Radeon 7000 (renamed Radeon) is good.
And the 7500 brings T&L is also a valid choice. but is not avaible as PCI Version.

Also stay away from MX4000 GeForce 4 PCI Cards, they avaible with 32bit Interface and dog slow and have driver issues.
The 6200A-LE also is heavy crippled .

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board

Reply 17 of 32, by swaaye

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Radeon 7000 (originally Radeon VE) has half the 3D hardware of the original Radeon and no T&L. However it has more sophisticated display hardware. Original Radeon's other name is 7200.

Radeon LE is a budget Chinese version of original Radeon with lower clocks and disabled HyperZ functions. HyperZ functions could be enabled by registry but were sometimes defective. Eventually the drivers just enabled it by default, causing visual artifacts if it was defective. ATI drivers FTW.

7500 is die shrink of original Radeon that launched with 8500 and clocks at up to 290 MHz vs 143-200 MHz range of original Radeon. Competitive with GF2 Ti/Pro. It also clocks asynchronously with RAM, which original Radeon could not do. And I noticed it has more levels of anisotropic filtering selectable in control panel.

Reply 18 of 32, by aaronkatrini

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Yes, it was a Radeon 7000 VE PCI!!!
That is why it is so slow. I managed to try it on another system and this time Gpu-Z managed to show up. It said : Radeon 7000 Ve Family, Rv100, 180nm, 64Mb DDR 64bit, Core 150mhz, Memory 150mh, Rops/tmus = 1/3.
I managed to benchmark it on my secondary/retro pc with 192mb sdr and AMD Duron 700mhz and I got:
3dmark 2000 - 1862
3dmark 2001 - 895
And in my Thinclient (AMD geode nx1500 + 1gb ddr400) which is faster :
3dmark 2000 - 1923
3dmark 2001 - 639
I got to exchange it for a fx 5200 agp and now I can swap the G450 and the 7000 Ve anytime i like, however I won't for now since the G450 is giving better performance.
Every body thank you very much for your help! I couldn't have it figured out why!