Let us also take a moment to appreciate the R100/R200 generation's fascinating error diffusion dither of 16-bit color. These are appealing cards for your 16-bit gaming needs as long as other game compatibility issues don't surface.

I obtained an X800 Pro locally, in great condition, it looks practically new. Needless to say it was a bargain at around $35usd shipped.

I then proceeded to test it on the identical system above (Pentium E5800, 2GB)

Wow, what can I say... The results were very impressive.

The 32-bit benchmark yielded 344 FPS, and the 16-bit benchmark (both color depth and texture quality set at 16-bit) yielded a result of 452 FPS (The Radeon 9800 Pro was 260fps/300fps for reference).

I realize that the X800 is meant to compete against the 6800 and not the 5800/5900, but the criteria for the class of cards I'm testing are Windows 98 compatible cards that work with older games and support 8-bit palette textures (The 6800 needs newer drivers that don't work with many older games, and has no 8-bit palette texture support. The RV430 - X800 - supports Windows 98 and works with Catalyst 6.3 - which as far as I am aware, is compatible with older titles).

So I now bestow the crown for best Windows 98 gaming card upon the X800 series. The only caveat is that you need an AGP4x slot or better... This is not keyed for the old AGP slots.

Interesting, wonder how much of a PITA they would be on PCIe, I've got a PCIe one around somewhere and s775 and s754 boards looking for gainful employment.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-14, 02:54:

Interesting, wonder how much of a PITA they would be on PCIe, I've got a PCIe one around somewhere and s775 and s754 boards looking for gainful employment.

Good question... We're talking about a bridge chip though - I don't know that the variants with the bridge chips will work... Please report back.

PCI-E X600=x800 should be fine since unlike Nvidia cards of this era they don't have bridges and are native implmetation. The ATI drivers are quite a bit better with these cards than a nvidia 6800 series becasue the 80.xx drivers on those cards are crap. X800 is mostly overkill, I think a X600 Pro is more than enough for anything that runs on 9x just about.

Warlord wrote on 2022-01-14, 07:00:

PCI-E X600=x800 should be fine since unlike Nvidia cards of this era they don't have bridges and are native implmetation. The ATI drivers are quite a bit better with these cards than a nvidia 6800 series becasue the 80.xx drivers on those cards are crap. X800 is mostly overkill, I think a X600 Pro is more than enough for anything that runs on 9x just about.

Interesting... So RV370 and RV380 are native PCIe.

...but as for the claim that they're equivalent to the X800, I would have to disagree... Look at the fillrate difference... They're showing as equivalent in that regard to a Radeon 9600.

They're also using the less reliable DDR, whereas the X800 has GDDR3 (GDDR3 is much more reliable than GDDR or GDDR2).

mockingbird wrote on 2022-01-14, 01:57:

I realize that the X800 is meant to compete against the 6800 and not the 5800/5900, but the criteria for the class of cards I'm testing are Windows 98 compatible cards that work with older games and support 8-bit palette textures

Radeon cards do not support 8-bit paletted textures in Windows 98 (although, this is a non-issue, IMO).
They do support them in Windows XP, with certain later drivers. - I stand corrected by Joseph_Joestar 😀

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-14, 02:54:

Interesting, wonder how much of a PITA they would be on PCIe, I've got a PCIe one around somewhere and s775 and s754 boards looking for gainful employment.

Well, luckily I just finished a pretty extensive testing of a Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33 GHz (OC @ 4 GHz) + Radeon X850XT (PCIExpress) combo in Windows 98 SE (Catalyst 6.2 driver).
Have to say, I didn't encounter a SINGLE issue, a single freeze. It has been rock solid, as if it were any other typical AGP platform with 100% Win98 compatibility 😀
No motherboard drivers required!
This is the fastest Windows 98 platform that I have.

FULL SYSTEM SPECS FOR THESE BENCHMARKS:
MB: ASUS P5KPL-AM SE
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8600 OC @ 4 GHz
VGA: POWER COLOR ATI RADEON X850XT PCI Express (520MHz core / 1080MHz memory)
ONLY ONE CORSAIR 2GB DDR2 MODULE (PERFORMANCE IS 30% LOWER WITH 2 MODULES - 4 GB OF RAM!!!)
DIRECTX 8.1
NO SOUND CARD (subsequently tested an Audigy 2 ZS and it works great).

These are the results:

13DMark99 Max: 50253 / 106479
23DMark2000:   50901 3DMarks / 1810 CPU Marks
33DMark2001:   41520 3DMarks
4
5GLQuake  640 x  480 x 16: 1459.3 FPS
6GLQuake  640 x  480 x 32:  829.1 FPS
7GLQuake 1024 x  768 x 16:  504.3 FPS
8GLQuake 1024 x  768 x 32:  408.0 FPS
9GLQuake 1600 x 1200 x 16:  399.6 FPS
10GLQuake 1600 x 1200 x 32:  381.4 FPS
11
12Quake 2  640 x  480 x 16: 994.2 FPS
13Quake 2  640 x  480 x 32: 994.2 FPS
14Quake 2 1024 x  768 x 16: 991.4 FPS
15Quake 2 1024 x  768 x 32: 971.8 FPS
16Quake 2 1600 x 1200 x 16: 672.2 FPS
17Quake 2 1600 x 1200 x 32: 601.2 FPS
18
19Quake 3  640 x  480 x 16: 979.0 FPS
20Quake 3  640 x  480 x 32: 976.0 FPS
21Quake 3 1024 x  768 x 16: 795.5 FPS
22Quake 3 1024 x  768 x 32: 675.6 FPS
23Quake 3 1600 x 1200 x 16: 531.0 FPS
24Quake 3 1600 x 1200 x 32: 456.5 FPS
25Quake 3 1600 x 1200 x 32: 382.3 FPS (MAX TEXTURE DETAIL + TRILINEAR TEXTURE FILTER)
26
27MDK2  640 x  480 x 16: 1091.77 FPS
28MDK2  640 x  480 x 32: 1085.72 FPS
29MDK2 1024 x  768 x 16:  833.13 FPS
30MDK2 1024 x  768 x 32:  659.69 FPS
31MDK2 1600 x 1200 x 16:  431.21 FPS
32MDK2 1600 x 1200 x 32:  392.11 FPS
33MDK2 1920 x 1440 x 16:  370.81 FPS
34MDK2 1920 x 1440 x 32:  324.62 FPS
35
36Unreal  640 x  480 x 16: AVG 693.48 FPS / HIGH 1318.09 FPS / LOW 340.76 FPS
37Unreal  640 x  480 x 32: AVG 670.17 FPS / HIGH 1248.49 FPS / LOW 325.66 FPS
38Unreal 1024 x  768 x 16: AVG 633.59 FPS / HIGH 1173.88 FPS / LOW 332.65 FPS
39Unreal 1024 x  768 x 32: AVG 591.08 FPS / HIGH 1044.44 FPS / LOW 310.30 FPS
40Unreal 1600 x 1200 x 16: AVG 464.26 FPS / HIGH  667.95 FPS / LOW 277.77 FPS
41Unreal 1600 x 1200 x 32: AVG 377.42 FPS / HIGH  574.50 FPS / LOW 226.90 FPS
42Unreal 1920 x 1440 x 16: AVG 339.86 FPS / HIGH  493.96 FPS / LOW 208.85 FPS
43Unreal 1920 x 1440 x 32: AVG 283.37 FPS / HIGH  442.44 FPS / LOW 165.73 FPS
44
45Expendable  640 x  480 x 16: AVG 756.78 FPS / HIGH 909 FPS / LOW 611 FPS
46Expendable  640 x  480 x 32: AVG 755.57 FPS / HIGH 909 FPS / LOW 611 FPS
47Expendable 1024 x  768 x 16: AVG 736.35 FPS / HIGH 876 FPS / LOW 617 FPS
48Expendable 1024 x  768 x 32: AVG 735.71 FPS / HIGH 874 FPS / LOW 616 FPS
49Expendable 1600 x 1200 x 16: AVG 544.47 FPS / HIGH 653 FPS / LOW 489 FPS
50Expendable 1600 x 1200 x 32: AVG 525.28 FPS / HIGH 629 FPS / LOW 458 FPS
51Expendable 1920 x 1440 x 16: AVG 424.15 FPS / HIGH 493 FPS / LOW 356 FPS
52Expendable 1920 x 1440 x 32: AVG 385.51 FPS / HIGH 456 FPS / LOW 325 FPS

Games that I tested (and they all work without a hitch):

1- GLQuake
2- Quake 2
3- Quake 3
4- MDK2
5- Unreal
6- Unreal Tournament
7- Expendable
8- Need for Speed 3 Hot Pursuit
9- Need for Speed High Stakes
10- Need for Speed Porsche
11- Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2
12- Nocturne
13- GTA 3
14- GTA Vice City
15- Final Fantasy 7 (with 1.02 Riva 128 patch, because Radeon cards DON'T have 8-bit paletted textures support in Win98)
16- Prince of Persia 3D
17- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
18- Re-Volt
19- Tomb Raider 3
20- Tomb Raider The Last Revelation
21- Tomb Raide Chronicles

I tested the platform in MS-DOS and, as you would expect, performance is through the roof. Also, haven't encountered scrolling issues (and tested various games like Jazz Jackrabbit, Prehistorik)
Furthermore, when disabling the CPU L1 cache, performance at 4 GHz is equivalent to ~ 486 DX-33 (which is great). Reducing the CPU frequency (FSB & multiplier) allows you to reach 386 DX-33 equivalent speeds.
Sadly, I didn't have time to test any sound cards, but I have a feeling that this is where my MS-DOS luck will run out. 😁

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-14, 10:21:

Radeon cards do not support 8-bit paletted textures in Windows 98 (although, this is a non-issue, IMO).
They do support them in Windows XP, witch certain later drivers.

I think you mean table fog here, which is properly supported from Catalyst 7.11 and onward under WinXP.

Paletted textures aren't supported on Radeon cards, even in that case.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-14, 10:47:

I think you mean table fog here, which is properly supported from Catalyst 7.11 and onward under WinXP.

Paletted textures aren't supported on Radeon cards, even in that case.

I actually thought that some WinXP Catalyst 7.xx drivers also supported paletted textures (besides fog table), but, yeah, seems that I was wrong. Thanks for the heads-up!
Anyway, what I said before stands: this is probably a non-issue for most people. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-14, 10:53:

I actually thought that some WinXP Catalyst 7.xx drivers also supported paletted textures (besides fog table), but, yeah, seems that I was wrong. Thanks for the heads-up!

We have a report here from someone using an ATi card on WinXP. The FF8 menu screenshot with washed out colors indicates missing paletted texture support. I might do some more comprehensive tests of my own at some point, since I now have a Radeon X1300 as well.

Anyway, what I said before stands: this is probably a non-issue for most people. 😀

Agreed.

While I was looking into paletted textures, I actively searched for games where using a card which doesn't support them makes a visible difference. So far, Final Fantasy 8 is the only one that I found. There may be others, especially among various console ports, but I'm guessing it won't be an issue for most mainstream titles.

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-14, 10:21:

Well, luckily I just finished a pretty extensive testing of a Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33 GHz (OC @ 4 GHz) + Radeon X850XT (PCIExpress […]
Show full quote

Well, luckily I just finished a pretty extensive testing of a Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33 GHz (OC @ 4 GHz) + Radeon X850XT (PCIExpress) combo in Windows 98 SE (Catalyst 6.2 driver).
Have to say, I didn't encounter a SINGLE issue, a single freeze. It has been rock solid, as if it were any other typical AGP platform with 100% Win98 compatibility 😀
No motherboard drivers required!
This is the fastest Windows 98 platform that I have.

Thanks for that, woweee total overkill 🤣... I think I might just stick with a 775 Celerunt or something though because a quarter of those numbers sounds adequate.

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-14, 10:21:

Well, luckily I just finished a pretty extensive testing of a Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33 GHz (OC @ 4 GHz) + Radeon X850XT (PCIExpress) combo in Windows 98 SE (Catalyst 6.2 driver).

Show off! 😀

Quake 3 640 x 480 x 16: 979.0 FPS Quake 3 640 x 480 x 32: 976.0 FPS Quake 3 1024 x 768 x 16: 795.5 FPS Quake 3 1024 x 768 […]
Show full quote

Quake 3 640 x 480 x 16: 979.0 FPS
Quake 3 640 x 480 x 32: 976.0 FPS
Quake 3 1024 x 768 x 16: 795.5 FPS
Quake 3 1024 x 768 x 32: 675.6 FPS
Quake 3 1600 x 1200 x 16: 531.0 FPS
Quake 3 1600 x 1200 x 32: 456.5 FPS
Quake 3 1600 x 1200 x 32: 382.3 FPS (MAX TEXTURE DETAIL + TRILINEAR TEXTURE FILTER)

Which demo is that? DEMO001 or Four?

I tested the platform in MS-DOS and, as you would expect, performance is through the roof. Also, haven't encountered scrolling issues (and tested various games like Jazz Jackrabbit, Prehistorik)
Furthermore, when disabling the CPU L1 cache, performance at 4 GHz is equivalent to ~ 486 DX-33 (which is great). Reducing the CPU frequency (FSB & multiplier) allows you to reach 386 DX-33 equivalent speeds.
Sadly, I didn't have time to test any sound cards, but I have a feeling that this is where my MS-DOS luck will run out. 😁

I'm doing something similar to this, but with good sound compatibility... And that platform would be my QDI Platinix 2 with a P4 Northwood 2.6 and 3GB of PC133 SDRAM. The Platinix2 has SB-Link... Now I don't think it's going to be faster than my KT7A with a 2Ghz or so Barton, but I don't know how the KT133A's southbridge is going to play with a Vortex2, while I have nothing to worry about on an Intel system.

A bit offtopic, but I had x850xt in an a64 3200 system running about 240fps, 270 with fast ram and 408fps with e5800, 1080p all maxed.

So with p4, you can go a bit lighter gpu if you ment x800 series as similar, p4 gonna bottleneck it.

Dolenc wrote on 2022-01-14, 20:18:

A bit offtopic, but I had x850xt in an a64 3200 system running about 240fps, 270 with fast ram and 408fps with e5800, 1080p all maxed.

So with p4, you can go a bit lighter gpu if you ment x800 series as similar, p4 gonna bottleneck it.

Yessir... Hope to keep the P4 for late 90s gaming and DOS gaming... The E5800 system is the screamer for later titles that do in fact benefit from the overkill (Jedi Academy, for example). The Yamaha cards work with the SB-Link, still working on the ESS Solo though.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-14, 10:47:

I think you mean table fog here, which is properly supported from Catalyst 7.11 and onward under WinXP.

7.11 is probably my favorite choice for old Radeons. But after 7.11 the OpenGL driver changes drastically and loses some support for oldies.

Unfortunately if I remember right DVI aspect ratio scaling doesn't appear until later drivers.

mockingbird wrote on 2022-01-14, 15:24:

Show off! 😀

I'm not, I just love to benchmark! 😁
Also, I really enjoy jumping from very slow to very fast platforms. A week ago I tested two 486 systems, so you can imagine the feeling I had when I switched to this beast. 😁

mockingbird wrote on 2022-01-14, 15:24:

Which demo is that? DEMO001 or Four?

That's Quake 3 patch 1.32 running demo "Four".

mockingbird wrote on 2022-01-14, 15:24:

I'm doing something similar to this, but with good sound compatibility... And that platform would be my QDI Platinix 2 with a P4 Northwood 2.6 and 3GB of PC133 SDRAM. The Platinix2 has SB-Link... Now I don't think it's going to be faster than my KT7A with a 2Ghz or so Barton, but I don't know how the KT133A's southbridge is going to play with a Vortex2, while I have nothing to worry about on an Intel system.

P4 is terrible when it comes to speed flexibility. There's no way of reaching 386 / 486 speeds, because even when disabling the L1 cache, the Netburst architecture is still too fast.
The most flexible platform when it comes to large speed flexibility and excellent compatibility (including DOS sound), would be an Athlon XP "Thoroughbred" running on a KT600 motherboard like the Asus A7V600-X.
This is my most used retro PC, which ticks all the boxes.

KT133A / KT266A boards are also very nice and compatible as well (the Vortex 2 works perfectly), but in my experience the lower Athlon XP multipliers don't work on these (at least I haven't found any KT133/266 boards on which Thoroughbreds can run at 500, 600 MHz).
On the other hand, on the Asus A7V600-X, all CPU multipliers work, L1 and L2 cache can individually be disabled from the BIOS menu, ACPI Throttle also works very well (it doesn't work nearly as good with Intel chipsets), allowing you to reach basically any speed: slow 286, fast 286, slow 386, fast 386, slow 486, fast 486, Pentium (MMX), K6-2, Pentium 2, Pentium 3, etc

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-15, 10:31:

KT133A / KT266A boards are also very nice and compatible as well, but in my experience the lower Athlon XP multipliers don't work on these (at least I haven't found any KT133/266 boards on which Thoroughbreds can run at 500, 600 MHz).

The 5x multiplier works fine on my Abit KT7A using an unlocked Thoroughbred 1700+. I downclock it to 500 MHz (5x100) quite often when playing speed sensitive games.

I'm using the latest official BIOS though. From what I gather, modded BIOS versions change the lower multipliers to something like 15x in order to accommodate faster CPUs, which is why I avoid them.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-15, 10:49:

The 5x multiplier works fine on my Abit KT7A using an unlocked Thoroughbred 1700+. I downclock it to 500 MHz (5x100) quite often when playing speed sensitive games.

I'm using the latest official BIOS though. From what I gather, modded BIOS versions change the lower multipliers to something like 15x in order to accommodate faster CPUs, which is why I avoid them.

Very nice! The Abit KT7A is an awesome and rare board, though... especially considering that it also has an ISA slot. 😀
On the KT133/KT266 boards that I tried (latest one being the Shuttle SpaceWalker AK32A), when forcing a lower multiplier the boards wouldn't even post (even though that same CPU is unlocked and works fine with other KT400/KT600 boards). Now, from what I've read, these CPUs aren't exactly "unlocked", at least not the lower multipliers, so it's up to the motherboard to "unlock" them.
On the bright side, the AK32A is still a very nice, fast and perfectly stable board. So... at least there's that. 😀

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-15, 10:52:

Very nice! The Abit KT7A is an awesome and rare board, though... especially considering that it also has an ISA slot. 😀

Yeah, unfortunately, it's pretty hard to come by nowadays. I only have it because I kept my old 2001 rig and upgraded it over the years.

The ISA slot is the icing on the cake, providing superb DOS sound compatibility. Using Throttle and SetMul, this system can cover an incredible range of speed settings. If anyone's curious, check the link in my signature for more details.

Now, from what I've read, these CPUs aren't exactly "unlocked", at least not the lower multipliers, so it's up to the motherboard to "unlock" them.

Early Thoroughbred CPUs (released up to a certain production week) should be fully unlocked, regardless of the motherboard. I apparently have one of those.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-15, 11:03:

Yeah, unfortunately, it's pretty hard to come by nowadays. I only have it because I kept my old 2001 rig and upgraded it over the years.

I wish I had done the same. Unfortunately, 2 decades ago I was forced to sell my old rig, so that I could afford a new one...

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-15, 11:03:

The ISA slot is the icing on the cake, providing superb DOS sound compatibility.

Yeah, pretty awesome! My go-to sound card for the Athlon XP builds is the Yamaha YMF7x4. Even though it's a PCI card, it works incredibly well on these late VIA chipsets (with the DSDMA TSR). In fact, out of all the DOS games that I play, there is only one game that fails to start (because of DSDMA): Jazz Jackrabbit. One day I'll need to dig a little deeper, see if I can find any workaround to this problem, because it's really bugging me. 😁

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-01-15, 11:03:

Early Thoroughbred CPUs (released up to a certain production week) should be fully unlocked, regardless of the motherboard. I apparently have one of those.

Oh, OK! That would explain it, then. The thing is... I also tested with what should be a pretty early Thoroughbred 1700+ (year 2002 / week 36), but on my KT133/KT266 boards I get no post with lower multipliers. The same CPU works great on the KT400/KT600 boards that I have.