Keep in mind P3-1400S may hold back even a Ti4200 in some games. Also keep in mind 82.69 which is like the only driver that works with 7 series is really bad, ok for going for a 3dmark record, but very unpleasant for actually playing games

Sorry to the poor people using this forum as a reference and see so many threads seeking the same answer... I'll see if I can wrap up the Nvidia situation in one go.

First of all, AGP is your only route if you (as already mentioned) want to do more than run benchmarks.
Anything newer than an fx5900 isn't directly supported by 45.23 Geforce drivers, which are the gold standard for Win98; they came out just before the release of the fx5900xt/zt; those examples are an .inf edit away though as they use the same NV35 chip.

This page is very useful to figure out model differences, clocks, bus widths... Anything before August 2003 will be the easiest route for drivers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_ … rocessing_units

The 45.23 drivers are still available directly from Nvidia, you can open as an archive/compressed file and inspect nv4_disp.inf to see which cards/chips are fully supported without any bother.
https://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_45.23.html

Bear in mind that even a GF3 ti200 is likely overkill for most situations, that card generates a tiny amount of heat and DOS compatibility is superb.
GF 4 ti4200 also a great choice as is the FX5700 if you can get them cheap.
Biggest overkill without sacrificing compatibility in Win 98 is an FX5900 ultra but you likely won't find a good deal; the regular FX5900's lower clocks are more of a help than a hindrance for heat and it still has a 256-bit bus.
All FX cards get 8x anti-aliasing but the lowest end cards are shown up by the ti4200 for performance and 4x AA isn't slumming it.

Nearly all well used cards of this generation have tiny worn out fans by now. The good aftermarket solutions are no longer made and you'll likely have to make a compromise on either cost, noise or appearance unless something of quality drops in your lap for free.
New Arctic Accerero S2 boxes still pop up on ebay and if needed, a slim 120x15mm Noctua fan can be carefully zip tied to take up 3 slots including the card. Those will likely cost you the same as a good FX5900 but will be effective, likely quieter than your other components and you don't have proprietary fans to try (and fail) to source years later.

Finally, capacitors... I wish I had paid more attention to this when purchasing. They are the most likely element of a card to fail. The uglier through-hole caps are easiest for home users to replace with a soldering iron. Don't let this be a big deal but if everything else is equal, avoid surface mount caps unless you're a dab hand with a heat gun and tweezers.

God Of Gaming wrote:

Keep in mind P3-1400S may hold back even a Ti4200 in some games. Also keep in mind 82.69 which is like the only driver that works with 7 series is really bad, ok for going for a 3dmark record, but very unpleasant for actually playing games

BFG apparently also released 82.16 which supports the 7800GS. You could easily modify the INF file to support the other 7xxx series as well.
Geforce 7900 GS AGP Windows 98

The fastest nVidia AGP card is the 7950GT.

Edit:
There are also modified 81.85 and 93.71 drivers out there for Win9x that support the 6/7 series and possibly G80 8 series (768MB models do not work.. probably due to Windows 98SE memory limitations)
https://msfn.org/board/topic/97786-geforce-67 … win98me-by-zak/

cyclone3d wrote:

BFG apparently also released 82.16 which supports the 7800GS. You could easily modify the INF file to support the other 7xxx series as well.

That didn't work for my 7900 GS, neither did another 81.98 that was also supposed to work but didn't, only 82.69 did in my case, and Im not too happy with its stability and compatiblity.

bergqvistjl wrote:

I have an Asus TUSL2-C motherboard that has an AGP 4x slot, running Windows 98SE. What is the fastest GeForce card that will work in this configuration? A GeForce 6 series card, or will a GeForce 7 card work?

Gf6/7 dont have some features for older games like 8bit textures or fog table. I guess the main problem are the driver too new and start breaking the games.
Also dont use card with 512mb. Even Phils stated to use GF6/7 for win XP.

"Even" Phils?
Yes, GF6/7 usage in Win98 is absolutely irrational, the main cause is not GPU architecture but newer drivers. And in one case the optimal fastest card in Win98 is still 7800GS. It's not ideal but compromise. What's the case? It is: you want dual boot 98+XP, you want as fast as possible in XP, you want as compatible as possible in 98, you DON'T want two video cards in one system.
I have found that 7800GS model is working perfect with 77.72 9x driver. All you need is to manual force install it as Ti4800 or FX5800 Ultra for example. The card will work with the features of chosen model but faster. At the same time you'll got full GF7800 speed+features in WinXP. Remember that it should be 7800 256mb model. 7900/7950 won't work with 77.72 driver.
And: if your machine is Win98 only - in this case GF6/7 is absolutely irrational. Take GF4/FX and enjoy with best 4x.xx drivers series!

My previous answer is long and logical. Next is short and direct:
Last Win9X official driver is 81.98, officially supports all GeForce 6 models except 6800GS. 7 series is not supported.

^ do you know if 7800 GTX (256mb) would work with that 77.72 driver? I see one for sale locally for 15 euros and I wonder whether to upgrade my 7900 GS to it

God Of Gaming wrote:

^ do you know if 7800 GTX (256mb) would work with that 77.72 driver? I see one for sale locally for 15 euros and I wonder whether to upgrade my 7900 GS to it

Well, if the driver works with the 7900GS then it should definitely work with the 7800GTX.

it does not work with my 7900gs, 82.69 was the only driver I was able to make it work with, and its pretty buggy and unstable

Here is another modded set that maybe supports the 9xxx cards as well. Really doubt they will work though:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/nv8269.php

Some 7800GS are using G70 chips, some G71 chips. All stripped down to 16 pixel pipelines / 6 vertex pipelines / 16 TMUs / 8 ROPs from the default 24 pixel pipelines / 8 vertex pipelines / 24 TMUs / 16 ROPs.

Forceware 77.72 was the first release to support G70 whether 7800GTX or 7800GT or 7800GS. It doesn't matter if you install your card as 7800GTX, FX 5800 or 4200 Ti. The driver gets the right settings for G70 automatically. Forceware 82.69 works with G71, but many people have reported bugs and other issues.

NVIDIA has never supported the GeForce 7 series on Win98/ME, so 6800 Ultra is the fastest card with official support. Although it has no clue about fog table emulation and 8-bit paletted textures which are 3Dfx legacy stuff mandatory for some DirectX 5 and earlier games. If you need these, then GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is the fastest card you can have.

Btw - why all GPU databases show 8 ROPs for GF 7800 GS?
I think it makes no sense at all, I would end up much slower than NV40... which it really isn't. And also fillrate tests suggest there are 16 ROPs, just like every other G70/71 card.

3dmark 03 -> fillrate single / fillrate multi

GF 6800 Ultra -> 3376 / 6053
GF 7800 GS -> 3048 / 5857
GF 7800 GT -> 3612 / 7784

Some screenshot to confirm above statement :

Not sure how you can get olny 8 ROPs with G70's full 256-bit memory bus...

agent_x007 wrote:

Some screenshot to confirm above statement :
Not sure how you can get olny 8 ROPs with G70's full 256-bit memory bus...

This is 7900GS (G71) with 16 ROPs. NVIDIA said only 7800GS featured 8 ROPs. If it had 16 ROPs, pixel and texel fill rate could be about the same if memory bandwidth wasn't a limiting factor.

I've once ran with the same motherboard and OS along with 512mb memory, just go with a GF3 Ti500 like i did... its more period correct and the system will thank you for it.

Im thinking of using radeon 8500 with my tusl2-c, its period correct as well, and its faster than gf3, and has some interesting unique features too. Problem is cant find one for a good price

The full radeon 8500 is on par with the GF4 ti4400... either way, its still faster than the GF3 series videocards.

It's faster, but when it came out, you would have been using it with PIII 1266S, P4 2.0 or Athlon 1400C, so it's fairly correct combination with this board. And even if its held back, you would just use its power to run higher resolution and force AA and AF. BTW with some of the oldest drivers I've read it can do 128X anisotropic filtering, and I'm quite curious to see how that looks. But the only two 8500s on ebay are overpriced to hell..