jaskamakkara wrote on 2023-08-02, 05:37:

Hi guys. I am currently waiting for a system in the post and I would like some suggestions for a video card for it that supports […]
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Hi guys. I am currently waiting for a system in the post and I would like some suggestions for a video card for it that supports DVI-D out. I intend to use it for w95-98 era games.

Pentium II 400mhz
440BX mobo

The motherboard has an AGP 2x slot and some PCI slots, I was wondering what is the best one to use? I have seen some forums posts talking about problems with 440bx and AGP but nothing specific, anyone know if there are some problems here?

I am aware of (and I own some) late era 98 cards that have DVI out, but they are mostly AGP 4x or 8x cards as far as I can tell, does this matter?

I have found a Matrix Millennium G450 which has DVI out and uses a PCI, would this be ideal or is PCI too slow? Thanks for any help!

You need to make sure the AGP card you're going to use have the 3.3V key. Otherwise it cannot be plugged into your 440BX motherboard.

Some newer video cards, namely GeForce 6 series, can have ACPI resource conflict issues on Win9x which need to be mitigated by reducing AGP aperture size in BIOS. Your mileage may vary depending on your video card and your motherboard.

IIRC AGP 4x was already quite common in TNT2 era (1999), much earlier than DVI, which became prevalent after GeForce 3 era (2001-).

It would be rather rare -- if any -- for an AGP 2x card equipped with DVI (I haven't seen one personally); just pick a 4x card compatible with your motherboard. What's the specific make and model of your MB?

Thanks for the replies. I didn't realise that AGP 4X predates DVI so that's good to know. The motherboard is an Asus P2B.

I have found some geforce4 GeForce2 MX400 cards (AGP) with DVI, would that be suitable?

I just also want to make it clear that the reason I am looking for something with DVI is that I would need to connect it to a modern monitor through a DVI-HDMI cable - am I wasting my time here? I feel like it should be OK, as long as the monitor supports the resolutions I am using, right?

original ATI Radeon or ATI Radeon VE (ATI Radeon 7200 or ATI Radeon 7000), GeForces 2MX

jaskamakkara wrote on 2023-08-02, 09:40:

I just also want to make it clear that the reason I am looking for something with DVI is that I would need to connect it to a modern monitor through a DVI-HDMI cable - am I wasting my time here? I feel like it should be OK, as long as the monitor supports the resolutions I am using, right?

If you are intending to also do some DOS gaming with that system make sure your monitor supports 70Hz mode with that HDMI input. If it does only 60Hz as many do there's going to be extremely noticeable frame skipping with DOS games that expect 70Hz, like Doom.

Also early NVIDIA cards can have awful picture quality with DVI unless you use the LCD's native resolution, but I think this is also partly monitor dependant.

Babasha wrote on 2023-08-02, 09:49:

original ATI Radeon or ATI Radeon VE (ATI Radeon 7200 or ATI Radeon 7000), GeForces 2MX

Thanks, I already found some GF2 MX cards so that is definitely top of my list for now.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-08-02, 10:05:

If you are intending to also do some DOS gaming with that system make sure your monitor supports 70Hz mode with that HDMI input. If it does only 60Hz as many do there's going to be extremely noticeable frame skipping with DOS games that expect 70Hz, like Doom.

Also early NVIDIA cards can have awful picture quality with DVI unless you use the LCD's native resolution, but I think this is also partly monitor dependant.

I'm actually not intending to use DOS so at least that's not a problem, good to know though!

Yeah not much I can do about the picture quality, are there alternative cards that fare better? Would I be better off using an external scaler or line doubler or something (I'm not an expert with those devices)?

jaskamakkara wrote on 2023-08-02, 10:13:

Yeah not much I can do about the picture quality, are there alternative cards that fare better? Would I be better off using an external scaler or line doubler or something (I'm not an expert with those devices)?

There's no escaping from loss of image quality from resolution scaling, I don't think external scalers can yet work with resolutions like 800x600 and up.

I'm not sure how ATI cards fare with DVI, but with NVIDIA you might get better picture with VGA if your monitor still has one. If not you just have to hope your monitor doesn't do rubbish scaling to make it even worse.

Matrox cards are known to have fantastic picture quality, but they are slower and can have compatiblity issues with 3D games. No personal experience though.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-08-02, 10:31:

There's no escaping from loss of image quality from resolution scaling, I don't think external scalers can yet work with resolutions like 800x600 and up.

I'm not sure how ATI cards fare with DVI, but with NVIDIA you might get better picture with VGA if your monitor still has one. If not you just have to hope your monitor doesn't do rubbish scaling to make it even worse.

Matrox cards are known to have fantastic picture quality, but they are slower and can have compatiblity issues with 3D games. No personal experience though.

OK, well I can see what happens with an MX400 card - maybe it looks OK 😀

In my own naive understanding, it seems to me that a 1440p monitor would be ideal for this kind of thing since you can integer scale the image from 640x480 and 1280x720 inputs? I would think that if you only need to double or triple or lines then the scaling shouldn't be too much of a problem for the monitor?

jaskamakkara wrote on 2023-08-02, 10:49:

In my own naive understanding, it seems to me that a 1440p monitor would be ideal for this kind of thing since you can integer scale the image from 640x480 and 1280x720 inputs? I would think that if you only need to double or triple or lines then the scaling shouldn't be too much of a problem for the monitor?

So you would think, but for some damn reason monitors almost always stuff their own interpolation into the mix even with perfect integer scaling and I've got no idea why. I guess it's the usual cost saving thing as always.

NVIDIA and AMD both added clean integer scaling to their drivers few years ago partly because of that.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-08-02, 11:05:

jaskamakkara wrote on 2023-08-02, 10:49:

In my own naive understanding, it seems to me that a 1440p monitor would be ideal for this kind of thing since you can integer scale the image from 640x480 and 1280x720 inputs? I would think that if you only need to double or triple or lines then the scaling shouldn't be too much of a problem for the monitor?

So you would think, but for some damn reason monitors almost always stuff their own interpolation into the mix even with perfect integer scaling and I've got no idea why. I guess it's the usual cost saving thing as always.

NVIDIA and AMD both added clean integer scaling to their drivers few years ago partly because of that.

OK, well all I can do is try and see how it goes, I suppose! Is it the case that monitors with VGA inputs are naturally better at accepting these low resolutions, or does the connectivity not have anything to do with it? My current monitor (a 32" 1440p AOC) still has VGA and DVI and the picture seems fine in my opinion, but I have been planning to upgrade the monitor to something else in the future and I am expecting it to be very difficult to find anything with analogue inputs.

jaskamakkara wrote on 2023-08-02, 11:10:

OK, well all I can do is try and see how it goes, I suppose! Is it the case that monitors with VGA inputs are naturally better at accepting these low resolutions, or does the connectivity not have anything to do with it? My current monitor (a 32" 1440p AOC) still has VGA and DVI and the picture seems fine in my opinion, but I have been planning to upgrade the monitor to something else in the future and I am expecting it to be very difficult to find anything with analogue inputs.

I'm in no position to say anything scientific about VGA/DVI differences, but my laymans understanding is that it's all about how they are implemented, a good scaler will do a good job and a crappy one crap. DVI (and digital signal in general) does have the potential to run laps around analog VGA with image quality but only if the output is good and the scaler is up to the task, and since vast majority of people use only native resolution that scaler can be anything between vaseline surprise and eagle eye johnson.

OK, thanks for your help

A GeForce FX 5200(LE) AGP with DVI is what I use for this purpose. These cards are 2x AGP compatible, the connector is properly keyed as 2x/4x. Performance-wise, it is roughly a GeForce 2/3 equivalent but with DX8/9 features.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-08-02, 11:41:

A GeForce FX 5200(LE) AGP with DVI is what I use for this purpose. These cards are 2x AGP compatible, the connector is properly keyed as 2x/4x. Performance-wise, it is roughly a GeForce 2/3 equivalent but with DX8/9 features.

OK, thanks for the suggestion. I can't find many of those for the same price as an MX400 but this will be a decent fall-back.