Kruton 9000 wrote on 2022-07-29, 13:03:
I just want to say that your problems are not videocard hardware related.
I know it's not. The first clue was that the GeForce 2 MX had the same issue when using the same drivers. 😀
So, yeah, this is clearly (mostly) a software issue where multiple factors are involved (one of them being the drivers, the other being the DirectX version, apparently). There could also be a hardware component (namely, the actual platform), but this has not been proven yet, I'd need to test this card on many other platforms to have a definitive answer (which, truthfully, I'm very lazy and probably won't do). 😁 That's why I hope others that already have other platforms on their test benches could see how NFS Porsche behaves in a similar scenario.
Kruton 9000 wrote on 2022-07-29, 13:03:
Usually old games works better with older OSes and drivers. NFS5 was maden before Windows XP release.
Well, yeah, but - again - not the point of this investigation which specifically involves the following:
- Win98
- fast/overkill platform (one where you would want to use a faster card like the GeForce 59xx series)
- a fast card, suitable for said overkill platform (when it comes to nVIDIA, the fastest cards that are truly usable in Win98 is the FX series).
- fastest/most compatible GPU drivers
The GeForce FX series are regarded as being the last (and fastest) nVIDIA cards that still preserve a very good Win98 compatibility (because they work with older drivers, which were known to be ideal for Win98).
However, there are a lot of unknowns in this area, and there are definitely games that have issues with these cards. So far, for me personally, based on the games that I play, the Radeon X800XT/X850XT are not only a LOT faster, but more compatible. Of all the games I tested with these late Radeon cards, I haven't found a single game breaking bug. Sure, fog might be missing here and there, but that's barely noticeable. What is definitely noticeable (to me) is how NFS 5 Porsche (one of my favorite racing games of all time) is freezing with the FX 5900. 😀
Of course, this doesn't mean that the Radeon cards don't also have issues with some other games (which I'm sure they do!). And if those games mean a lot to a certain group of people, the Radeon will not be a good choice for them.
So, what I'm trying to say is that... "it's all relative", and declaring that certain cards are better than others as an axiom is very misleading. After testing hundreds of cards, I can safely say that they all have their strenghts and weaknesses and, just like with sound cards, the perfect GPU does not exist. 😀
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