The question is what you want to achieve.

If you want to stay period correct, then you can take a Matrox G400 (MAX) or a TNT2/GF256/GF2 or a Radeon and maybe combine it with a V2 (SLI could be difficult for Baby-AT, because of space). 3DFx has the best 3DNow! drivers, but you don't want a V3 for that. Maybe you still have a V4 or V5? I think the best try would be a GF2 (GTS/Pro/Ti ) with early drivers.

If you want to have the fastest combination, you only have to try and test with your portfolio and different driver versions. Later drivers unfortunately lose the 3DNow! support and have more CPU overhead.

Note that most baby AT boards provide the AGP voltage 3.3V via converters themselves and thus provide a very limited current supply for the graphics card. Many boards have problems with the power requirements of a GF256. This depends on whether the graphics card still has its own converters for 3.3V (from 5V) and distributes the load over the two rails on the AGP.
Many SS7 AT boards can be fed with an ATX power supply, which would then provide enough power on the 3.3V rail, but not all of them use the 3.3V from the ATX power supply, but their own converter.

Personally, I'm also thinking about a similar scenario right now and favor a combination of G400 MAX and V2 SLI. There are certainly faster combinations.

Isn´t used CPU a bit weak for GPU like GTS, GF2Ti or GF3? These cards IMHO needs something more powerful like PIII/Athlon/Duron.
TNT2 (Pro, Ultra) would be better option in my eyes for this build, or maybe GF2 MX(400) and GF4MX440 128bit. Personally have similar build (only with K6-2 and Ali 5) paired with Savage4 (AGP) and V3 2000 (PCI) and even for V3 2000 CPU (500MHz) doesn´t have enough power.

PC-Engineer wrote on 2022-09-03, 06:29:

The question is what you want to achieve. […]
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The question is what you want to achieve.

If you want to stay period correct, then you can take a Matrox G400 (MAX) or a TNT2/GF256/GF2 or a Radeon and maybe combine it with a V2 (SLI could be difficult for Baby-AT, because of space). 3DFx has the best 3DNow! drivers, but you don't want a V3 for that. Maybe you still have a V4 or V5? I think the best try would be a GF2 (GTS/Pro/Ti ) with early drivers.

If you want to have the fastest combination, you only have to try and test with your portfolio and different driver versions. Later drivers unfortunately lose the 3DNow! support and have more CPU overhead.

Note that most baby AT boards provide the AGP voltage 3.3V via converters themselves and thus provide a very limited current supply for the graphics card. Many boards have problems with the power requirements of a GF256. This depends on whether the graphics card still has its own converters for 3.3V (from 5V) and distributes the load over the two rails on the AGP.
Many SS7 AT boards can be fed with an ATX power supply, which would then provide enough power on the 3.3V rail, but not all of them use the 3.3V from the ATX power supply, but their own converter.

Personally, I'm also thinking about a similar scenario right now and favor a combination of G400 MAX and V2 SLI. There are certainly faster combinations.

Thanks for the reply.
As I stated in the OP I already have a k6-3+ system with a Voodoo 3, I also have a PII system with another Voodoo 3. So I am set on those.
I don't really want to blow a bunch on a Voodoo 2 SLI setup but that should be interesting when you get it done.
In the meantime I ordered a cheapish TNT2 Pro, and I probably will snag a ATI Rage128 Pro as I've never really messed with them.

Ydee wrote on 2022-09-03, 09:33:

Isn´t used CPU a bit weak for GPU like GTS, GF2Ti or GF3? These cards IMHO needs something more powerful like PIII/Athlon/Duron.
TNT2 (Pro, Ultra) would be better option in my eyes for this build, or maybe GF2 MX(400) and GF4MX440 128bit. Personally have similar build (only with K6-2 and Ali 5) paired with Savage4 (AGP) and V3 2000 (PCI) and even for V3 2000 CPU (500MHz) doesn´t have enough power.

Thanks for replying.
I have a K6-3+ @600mhz that is running a Voodoo 3 3000.
I also have a PIII 733 with a Voodoo 3 2000 (PCI vs AGP why they aren't swapped)

I am sure there is a bottleneck on the K6, I'm not too bothered by it. I used to have the 3000 in my PIII 1GHZ build. It was well enough matched, just wanted to repurpose that case.
In the meantime I ordered a TNT2 Pro and will probably snag a AIT Rage 128Pro just to play with.

Agp: I have had very good luck with radeon 9000-9800 series on ss7

My record runs were on a 9800 pro but it and ss7 agp have power issues. My radeon 9000 does pretty good though. In many of my boards.

My 9800 seems to like my freeway mobo very well

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 19:49:

Agp: I have had very good luck with radeon 9000-9800 series on ss7

My record runs were on a 9800 pro but it and ss7 agp have power issues. My radeon 9000 does pretty good though. In many of my boards.

My 9800 seems to like my freeway mobo very well

I wish I had a working 9700/9800, unfortunately I do not.
I have a Radeon 9250SE in 128bit memory bus, but I couldn't get it to work properly on the Tekram board either.

I might try to get all of the AGP cards working in the Soyo board, since it's the same chipset. Just to see how they line up.

A radeon 9700 seems like it might be a very good match for ss7 lower power draw and aux connector. Also slightly older. But still good performance.

Would be worth a try. I don’t have one to try myself though.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 19:59:

A radeon 9700 seems like it might be a very good match for ss7 lower power draw and aux connector. Also slightly older. But still good performance.

Would be worth a try. I don’t have one to try myself though.

Yeah I am sure they would perform well.
I would think that it would be a pretty notable bottleneck though, I don't think even a very fast K6-3+ can provide the bandwidth for a 9700.
But I could be wrong.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-09-05, 20:02:

Yeah I am sure they would perform well. I would think that it would be a pretty notable bottleneck though, I don't think even a […]
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Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 19:59:

A radeon 9700 seems like it might be a very good match for ss7 lower power draw and aux connector. Also slightly older. But still good performance.

Would be worth a try. I don’t have one to try myself though.

Yeah I am sure they would perform well.
I would think that it would be a pretty notable bottleneck though, I don't think even a very fast K6-3+ can provide the bandwidth for a 9700.
But I could be wrong.

I played halo all the way through on my k6-3+ at 1280x1024 on my 9800 pro.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 20:39:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-09-05, 20:02:

Yeah I am sure they would perform well. I would think that it would be a pretty notable bottleneck though, I don't think even a […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 19:59:

A radeon 9700 seems like it might be a very good match for ss7 lower power draw and aux connector. Also slightly older. But still good performance.

Would be worth a try. I don’t have one to try myself though.

Yeah I am sure they would perform well.
I would think that it would be a pretty notable bottleneck though, I don't think even a very fast K6-3+ can provide the bandwidth for a 9700.
But I could be wrong.

I played halo all the way through on my k6-3+ at 1280x1024 on my 9800 pro.

I installed Halo on my M930 with a P4 2.8/533/512, Win98, a Creative Live 5.1, one gig of DDR, and a 9800SE with Omega drivers (8 pipelines!); the more crowded areas had serious lag. Maybe because I had vsync disabled? I just bought an X800 Pro because I'm stubborn and I want to play Halo on this machine rather than one of the others I have that will play it fine as is.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 20:39:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-09-05, 20:02:

Yeah I am sure they would perform well. I would think that it would be a pretty notable bottleneck though, I don't think even a […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 19:59:

A radeon 9700 seems like it might be a very good match for ss7 lower power draw and aux connector. Also slightly older. But still good performance.

Would be worth a try. I don’t have one to try myself though.

Yeah I am sure they would perform well.
I would think that it would be a pretty notable bottleneck though, I don't think even a very fast K6-3+ can provide the bandwidth for a 9700.
But I could be wrong.

I played halo all the way through on my k6-3+ at 1280x1024 on my 9800 pro.

Oh for sure, I am sure that it works well. I'm just not sure that the 9800 Pro can really stretch it's legs with the K6-3+
For example one of my retro laptops has a 9700 Pro (mobile of course) It has a Pentium M @ 1.70ghz and seems to be a decent match.

That’s fine the 9800 pro isn’t the point, stretching the k6-3+’s legs is the point :p

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 21:17:

That’s fine the 9800 pro isn’t the point, stretching the k6-3+’s legs is the point :p

Yeah I get you.
Currently running some benchmarks on the K6-3+ 600 Soyo board to get a somparison, forcing AGP with Powerstrip.
Going to run with Radeon 7200 SDR32MB , Radeon 7500 DDR 64MB, Radeon 9250SE 128Mb (128bit), and I can throw in the FireGL 8800 (Radeon 8500) if it would be interesting?

I did these just for you. Quadro 2 Pro, 7.76, the rest is in the screen shots. The early driver is a big help - I think 3D Now support was dropped rapidly after that.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-09-05, 22:09:

I did these just for you. Quadro 2 Pro, 7.76, the rest is in the screen shots. The early driver is a big help - I think 3D Now support was dropped rapidly after that.

Awesome!

Thank you. It looks like that 112mhz bus speed it making a difference as well.
I have been busy benchmarking some Radeon cards on my K6-3+ system. 600mhz but otherwise very similar system to the k6-2+
I have had to force AGP 2x with Powerstrip
They are somewhat surprising results:

Radeon 7200 SDR 32mb:
3dmark 99 800x600x16
2522
7724

3dmark 2000 1024x768x16
2549

Radeon 7500 DDR 64mb:
3dmark 99 800x600x16
2676
7774

3dmark 2000 1024x768x16
2552

Radeon 9250SE (128bit) 128mb
3dmark 99 800x600x16
2832
7646

3dmark 2000 1024x768x16
2577

So it seems to me like I have hit a bottleneck.
So yeah, i would say the driver overhead you are talking about it a real threat. I am using 6.2 Catalyst for all of these cards.
It looks to me like nVidia with it's earlier drivers really make a big difference in performance. That and the aforementioned bus speed.

That quadro 2 is a geforce 2 the geforce 2 and 3 have some sort of weird driver thing that lets them get really high 3d mark scores.

Does this translate into games?

The GeForce 2 is a very good card for DX7 and earlier in combination with 3DNow! and suitable drivers (12.x or lower), and partly faster than some DX8 successors. It also does not put much load on the AGP, which actually makes it an ideal partner for SS7. The good benchmark results are also reproducible with Q2 and Q3. Later drivers lose the 3DNow! support, which causes the K6-2 and above to lose some performance in games, in addition to the larger overhead. ATI's support for 3DNow! was rather poor compared to nVidia or even 3DFx.

Comparison w(ith) and w/o(ut) 3DNow! support
https://www.anandtech.com/show/160/10
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd,68-3.html

So i recommend to make sure, that your Graphics card and it's drivers makes use of 3DNow!

Also interesting:
https://www.voodooalert.de/board/forum/index. … 9774#post449774

I decided to stop being a slacker and mod the chip. The result was typical, but it won't do the hoped for 672 MHz. A giveaway that this card is CPU limited is that overclocking it makes no real difference in the score.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-09-06, 21:13:

I decided to stop being a slacker and mod the chip. The result was typical, but it won't do the hoped for 672 MHz. A giveaway that this card is CPU limited is that overclocking it makes no real difference in the score.

Still a nice little performance bump.
I might try to get higher FSB settings working with my chip.
I doubt that I can hit your overall clock speed, but I might squeeze a few more out than I have now.

Currently trolling ebay for a cheapish Geforce 2 card....you have me convinced 🤣.
Anyone know if the Dell OEM ones are any count? The GTS models? Or better suggestions?

They seem to be everywhere, I seem to remember reading somewhere that they were ghostbuilt by some decent board partner. But can't remember which one.
I can't for the life of me find my old Asus Geforce 2Ti and my 256 is sadly dead 🙁