VOGONS


First post, by assortedkingdede

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I was looking into buying a Nvidia GeForce 2 MX200 AGP but I am unsure about compatibility, I am using a motherboard with AGP V1.0 (1x/2x) and the card seems to have the 3.3V connectors but I just want to make sure there is not something I am missing. I have attached a picture of the card for comparison. Any info will help. Thanks!

geforce.png
Filename
geforce.png
File size
183.5 KiB
Views
844 views
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 1 of 14, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Hi. Yeah that card will work with any AGP slot. Nvidia had compatibility with 3.3v AGP up to GeForce FX 5xxx. Some GeForce 6200 cards are as well.

Useful link
http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

Reply 2 of 14, by bofh.fromhell

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

GF2 MX 200 is a very solid choice for a late 90's gaming system.
Performance equal to a GF DDR.
Near perfect hardware compatibility.
Low power consumption means its safe to use on those picky SS7 motherboards.
A huge list of drivers to use depending on what games you wanna play.
Fanless design means a quiet card, tho preferably you should look for a card with a heatsink.
And cheap enough that if the worst happens it doesn't really matter.

Also note that the Quadro 2 MXR is basically the same card.

Reply 3 of 14, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
assortedkingdede wrote on 2022-06-18, 04:25:

I was looking into buying a Nvidia GeForce 2 MX200 AGP but I am unsure about compatibility, I am using a motherboard with AGP V1.0 (1x/2x) and the card seems to have the 3.3V connectors but I just want to make sure there is not something I am missing. I have attached a picture of the card for comparison. Any info will help. Thanks!
geforce.png

Similar to what's already been mentioned. Compatibility of this card should be good. GF2 MX200 can make use of relatively old drivers (this card has pretty good driver compatibility and thus, in theory, good compatibility with games), the card has very low power consumption (which can make this card work in the few AGP slots which have issues with power delivery) and the GF2 MX200 should performance wise be roughly equal to a TNT2.

In short, it's perhaps literally the slowest NV GF card ever made (TNT2 level of performance while running way cooler) but it should work in virtually any AGP slot. It would make for a great AGP testing card for instance, so even if you later replace it, this card will still have its use or at least this is how I look at it.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 4 of 14, by The Serpent Rider

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

In short, it's perhaps literally the slowest NV GF card ever made

No. That would be GeForce 256 SDRAM 64-bit... with 16 Mb VRAM.

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

Reply 5 of 14, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-06-18, 11:44:

In short, it's perhaps literally the slowest NV GF card ever made

No. That would be GeForce 256 SDRAM 64-bit... with 16 Mb VRAM.

There was the ASUS V6600MX/32M, but at first glance this card seems to still not be slower than TNT2 (though the difference will probably be very small).
This card is 64bit however.

Some other cards featuring 16MB are described here Geforce 256 SDR Guillemot 3d Prophet with 16Mb of ram but all these seem to be 128bit.
Do you have any more info on this?

EDIT: My guess for the slowest GF card might go to some more obscure limited-run (and perhaps barely sold) card.
I remember a while ago I was looking for more info on the GF2 MX-100 (a supposedly 32 bit version of the GF2 MX-200 which is already a cut down version), but it appeared to never have been made. Not sure if that's a bad thing per se, it might still have been interesting from a curiosity PoV or something.

One other contender might be a castrated GF1 or GF2 MX-200 with absurdly low (memory) clocks, seeing how the cards back then were generally speaking mostly memory starved and card manufacturers tended to want to make card variants sporting slower (because perhaps older spare stocks of) memory chips.
In the end, when going for these more niche and less well documented variants, it's hard to tell definitively what the slowest GF ever was. It's also kind of an irrelevant question perhaps. The GF1 "MX" variants may have the benefit of slightly better driver support for older games, even if the difference was like less than a year compared to GF2 MX-200.

Last edited by Tetrium on 2022-06-18, 16:45. Edited 1 time in total.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 6 of 14, by bloodem

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I for one have this Colorful GeForce 256 (32 MB / 64 bit), and... yeah, it's SLOW compared to my other 128 bit models (and I'm not even gonna mention the DDR models, they're in a completely different universe). I would say that in many cases it's very similar to a TNT2 M64.
You can easily tell which cards have the full 128 bit memory bus and which are gimped: 64 bit cards of this era have only 4 memory chips instead of 8.

Attachments

  • 1.jpeg
    Filename
    1.jpeg
    File size
    439.93 KiB
    Views
    720 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
  • 2.jpeg
    Filename
    2.jpeg
    File size
    407.51 KiB
    Views
    720 views
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception
Last edited by bloodem on 2022-06-18, 16:45. Edited 1 time in total.

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 7 of 14, by The Serpent Rider

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Tetrium wrote:

There was the ASUS V6600MX/32M, but at first glance this card seems to still not be slower than TNT2

It's very bad actually: Re: Are GeForce 256 DDR cards that rare?

The sheer existence of 16 Mb 128-bit card just gives room for speculation. Some noname manufacturers from China/Taiwan probably made one. They certainly did some cards that shared TNT2 M64 and MX200 designs of dubious quality.

Added:

bloodem wrote:

You can easily tell which cards have the full 128 bit memory bus and which are gimped: 64 bit cards of this era have only 4 memory chips instead of 8.

Jokes on you! I have that "gimped" card with 128-bit memory bus (see above) =P

64 bit cards of this era have only 4 memory chips instead of 8.

Eh, no. Yours have enough pins on memory chips for 128-bit bus. It matches Hercules Kyro II 32 Mb, for example, which also had 4 Samsung chips.

Last edited by The Serpent Rider on 2022-06-18, 16:54. Edited 1 time in total.

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

Reply 8 of 14, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
bloodem wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:42:

I for one have this Colorful GeForce 256 (32 MB / 64 bit), and... yeah, it's SLOW compared to my other 128 bit models (and I'm not even gonna mention the DDR models, they're in a completely different universe). I would say that in many cases it's very similar to a TNT2 M64.
You can easily tell which cards have the full 128 bit memory bus and which are gimped: 64 bit cards of this era have only 4 memory chips instead of 8.

I just made an edit, but would perhaps have been better to have made a new reply instead.

I have seen pics of these cards before. I assumed these were 128-bit like the ones with more memory chips.

Sadly I don't have a single GF1 card.

If these cards are really as slow as TNT2-M64 then these were really kinda terrible cards, higher power dissipation with none of the benefits.
Still I'd assume these cards would still outperform TNT2-M64 if only because of the superior GPU.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 9 of 14, by bloodem

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:44:
bloodem wrote:

You can easily tell which cards have the full 128 bit memory bus and which are gimped: 64 bit cards of this era have only 4 memory chips instead of 8.

Jokes on you! I have that "gimped" card with 128-bit memory bus (see above) =P

Wow! That's... weird. So your card is an 128 bit card even though it has 4 memory chips, and mine (which is almost identical) has a 64 bit bus? My mind is blown right now... 😁

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:44:

Eh, no. Yours have enough pins on memory chips for 128-bit bus.

You're right! I guess some of those are not connected on mine... 🤣

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 10 of 14, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:44:
It's very bad actually: Re: Are GeForce 256 DDR cards that rare? […]
Show full quote
Tetrium wrote:

There was the ASUS V6600MX/32M, but at first glance this card seems to still not be slower than TNT2

It's very bad actually: Re: Are GeForce 256 DDR cards that rare?

The sheer existence of 16 Mb 128-bit card just gives room for speculation. Some noname manufacturers from China/Taiwan probably made one. They certainly did some cards that shared TNT2 M64 and MX200 designs of dubious quality.

Added:

bloodem wrote:

You can easily tell which cards have the full 128 bit memory bus and which are gimped: 64 bit cards of this era have only 4 memory chips instead of 8.

Jokes on you! I have that "gimped" card with 128-bit memory bus (see above) =P

64 bit cards of this era have only 4 memory chips instead of 8.

Eh, no. Yours have enough pins on memory chips for 128-bit bus.

I already made an edit with some speculation on my part 😜

TLDR: Depending on what manufacturers ended up doing to the cards they produced, who knows what obscure castrated designs may be floating out there 😋

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 11 of 14, by bloodem

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Tetrium wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:53:

I already made an edit with some speculation on my part 😜

TLDR: Depending on what manufacturers ended up doing to the cards they produced, who knows what obscure castrated designs may be floating out there 😋

Damn edits! 😁
Yeah, sounds plausible, especially for cards that look like ... uhm... this. 😁

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k

Reply 12 of 14, by The Serpent Rider

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
bloodem wrote:

You're right! I guess some of those are not connected on mine..

I think you should double-check with RivaTuner.

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

Reply 13 of 14, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
bloodem wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:56:
Tetrium wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:53:

I already made an edit with some speculation on my part 😜

TLDR: Depending on what manufacturers ended up doing to the cards they produced, who knows what obscure castrated designs may be floating out there 😋

Damn edits! 😁
Yeah, sounds plausible, especially for cards that look like ... uhm... this. 😁

But don't forget, looks can be deceiving 😜

It's always been tricky trying to determine the exact specs by just looking at a card from this era, and the jungle of confusing nomenclatures didn't exactly help for that matter.
Most of the well known and common cards can usually be correctly identified this way, but definitely not some of the more obscure ones.

In the end it's probably best to benchmark and try to make sense based on that data instead.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 14 of 14, by bloodem

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-06-18, 16:57:

I think you should double-check with RivaTuner.

I could, but I tested it a few years ago and it was almost as slow as a TNT2 M64, so never thought about it since.
I might give it another try just for fun. 😁

1 x PLCC-68 / 2 x PGA132 / 5 x Skt 3 / 9 x Skt 7 / 12 x SS7 / 1 x Skt 8 / 14 x Slot 1 / 5 x Slot A
5 x Skt 370 / 8 x Skt A / 2 x Skt 478 / 2 x Skt 754 / 3 x Skt 939 / 7 x LGA775 / 1 x LGA1155
Current PC: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Backup PC: Core i7 7700k