Voodoo 1, Banshee, Matrox G200/G450, S3 Savage 4, TNT2 M64.

Which OS? DOS, 3.11, 9x, NT, Linux? Depending on which it is for driver reasons, maybe something like a GeForce 2 MX 200 or a 3D Rage Pro. I see MX 200s going for like $10 on eBay from a quick look -- buy it now, as well, no snipers or anything. Same with the Rage, which is a lot closer in time (1997) to the Riva 128.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-11-10, 15:12:

Voodoo 1, Banshee, Matrox G200/G450, S3 Savage 4, TNT2 M64.

These are all good options. Not sure how cheap the Voodoo's are these days.
Cheaper than a V2/V3 I'm sure. But even a Banshee or a Velocity 1000 are more expensive than they shoule be.

Walk down the right street and people will probably throw a M64 at your though.
Maybe not a PCI, but the AGP ones are like VD.

Rage Pro and derivatives are super cheap, but very shitty for 3D in general. ATi were very adamant to implement double-buffered Vsync in Direct3D at all times, without performance to back it up, even in period correct games. So enjoy constant dips form 60 to 30 fps or from 30 to 20/15 fps, due to how double buffering works. It's worse when you have slow CPU.

If you intend to run Windows 3.1x, don't take a GeForce.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-11-10, 19:57:

Rage Pro and derivatives are super cheap, but very shitty for 3D in general. ATi were very adamant to implement double-buffered Vsync in Direct3D at all times, without performance to back it up, even in period correct games. So enjoy constant dips form 60 to 30 fps or from 30 to 20/15 fps, due to how double buffering works. It's worse when you have slow CPU.

I feel like that depends on the games being played and the OS still though. I have an integrated 3D Rage Pro in my Dell PII system that I mostly use for mid-late DOS games (like, Alone in the Dark and later) and software (GrafX2 mostly), and it does decently well at that. However, I'm pretty sure my RAM stick is dying -- it's supposed to be 128MB but only reports to be 96MB. And it is only one stick. So I can't really say how much of it being awful at running the Half-Life Alpha is the GPU's fault, the dying RAM's fault, or the fault of Half-Life.

Definitely would believe that the 3DRP isn't a particularly good card, but for some use cases I feel like it could be enough. Like, 3.1 or really early 95-era 3D games.

Yes I should have specified that this would be for Win 95/DOS. It’s hard as it’s gotta be PCI.
The motherboard doesn’t have AGP.
I’d love to have a voodoo 1, but there’s no such luck for a cheap one as there’s none on eBay from within Australia, and the ones that are on eBay are AU$200+ with postage from overseas.
Any TNT/GeForce card with PCI is a similar story.

BurntOutElectronics wrote on 2022-11-10, 23:59:

Yes I should have specified that this would be for Win 95/DOS. It’s hard as it’s gotta be PCI. The motherboard doesn’t have AGP. […]
Show full quote

Yes I should have specified that this would be for Win 95/DOS. It’s hard as it’s gotta be PCI.
The motherboard doesn’t have AGP.
I’d love to have a voodoo 1, but there’s no such luck for a cheap one as there’s none on eBay from within Australia, and the ones that are on eBay are AU$200+ with postage from overseas.
Any TNT/GeForce card with PCI is a similar story.

They do pop up I got my Riva128 PCI from QLD so save a search on eBay and keep checking it, same for Voodoo1s. Just a point though anything with 3DFX on it is going to be crazy expensive even if bought locally so I cant recommend going that route unless you are willing to eat the 3DFX tax.

I also got a TnT2 M64 PCI from NSW, another card you should save a search for as they do appear from time to time.

None of the PCI cards will be cheap, even locally, Im not sure why but PCI GPUs on eBay have stupid prices usually way more than their AGP versions .

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-11, 00:51:

They do pop up I got my Riva128 PCI from QLD so save a search on eBay and keep checking it, same for Voodoo1s. Just a point thou […]
Show full quote

BurntOutElectronics wrote on 2022-11-10, 23:59:

Yes I should have specified that this would be for Win 95/DOS. It’s hard as it’s gotta be PCI. The motherboard doesn’t have AGP. […]
Show full quote

Yes I should have specified that this would be for Win 95/DOS. It’s hard as it’s gotta be PCI.
The motherboard doesn’t have AGP.
I’d love to have a voodoo 1, but there’s no such luck for a cheap one as there’s none on eBay from within Australia, and the ones that are on eBay are AU$200+ with postage from overseas.
Any TNT/GeForce card with PCI is a similar story.

They do pop up I got my Riva128 PCI from QLD so save a search on eBay and keep checking it, same for Voodoo1s. Just a point though anything with 3DFX on it is going to be crazy expensive even if bought locally so I cant recommend going that route unless you are willing to eat the 3DFX tax.

I also got a TnT2 M64 PCI from NSW, another card you should save a search for as they do appear from time to time.

None of the PCI cards will be cheap, even locally, Im not sure why but PCI GPUs on eBay have stupid prices usually way more than their AGP versions .

Thanks for that, I’ve added the saved search’s now.

On a side note, what are peoples thoughts on those “new” ati rage XL 8mb cards on eBay?

They don't work in all motherboards, I think there was another post about them, Socket 7 maybe too old.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-11-10, 19:57:

Rage Pro and derivatives are super cheap, but very shitty for 3D in general

What about Rage 128, though? I have a notebook with an integrated one (Thinkpad A22p) and it runs DX7 games very well.

Don't know if there are any affordable PCI versions out there, though...a lot of pretty cheap Apple PCI cards, which could maybe flashed to work on a Windows PC?

mwdmeyer wrote on 2022-11-11, 02:55:

They don't work in all motherboards, I think there was another post about them, Socket 7 maybe too old.

Yes I have heard that they don’t have a 5v to 3.3v regulator on the card so older 5v PCI slots won’t work but I’ve seen simple workarounds online. The cards are very cheap and I would modify it if the motherboard in my computer only does 5v PCI.

How does the performance of this card compare to others? I know the chip was low end in 1999

Rage 128 is fine, but driver overhead is probably a bit too high for P133. That's also true for Rage Pro.

Radeon 7000 is a good one. Also 7500 if you can find one.

Quadro2 several around here have had luck with

Socket 7 mobos are very picky about video cards. Don’t try anything newer than gf5 or radeon 9xx0 and use the oldest driver you can

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-11-11, 03:47:

Radeon 7000 is a good one. Also 7500 if you can find one.

Quadro2 several around here have had luck with

Socket 7 mobos are very picky about video cards. Don’t try anything newer than gf5 or radeon 9xx0 and use the oldest driver you can

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll add them to the list to look out for.
A 7000 would be pretty new, having a quick look its got the same amount of vram as my P1 has normal ram 🤣

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-11, 00:51:

Im not sure why but PCI GPUs on eBay have stupid prices usually way more than their AGP versions .

Because of cases like in this thread.
There simply aren't enough PCI TNT's and GeForces to populate all the Socket 7 boards.

There are 3 solutions.

1. Look for a cheap PCI GeForce/TNT. Don't search for "TNT PCI", search for "TNT" instead and have a look at the pictures. Often the people who put those on Ebay don't know what the slot is named. Sort by date and check every 2 or 3 days. Eventually a PCI one will pop up for cheap. And if you're lucky you're the only who recognizes it.
2. Look for a cheap Voodoo. If you search for "Voodoo" or "3dfx", everything will be expensive. But sometimes you can find Voodoo cards between garbage. Got 3 this way.
3. Get yourself a S3 Trio64 for your Socket 7 system and use it for 2D only. Then look for a cheap AGP board and get yourself a cheap AGP GeForce. Easiest and fastest way.

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-11-11, 09:05:

Because of cases like in this thread. There simply aren't enough PCI TNT's and GeForces to populate all the Socket 7 boards. […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-11-11, 00:51:

Im not sure why but PCI GPUs on eBay have stupid prices usually way more than their AGP versions .

Because of cases like in this thread.
There simply aren't enough PCI TNT's and GeForces to populate all the Socket 7 boards.

There are 3 solutions.

1. Look for a cheap PCI GeForce/TNT. Don't search for "TNT PCI", search for "TNT" instead and have a look at the pictures. Often the people who put those on Ebay don't know what the slot is named. Sort by date and check every 2 or 3 days. Eventually a PCI one will pop up for cheap. And if you're lucky you're the only who recognizes it.
2. Look for a cheap Voodoo. If you search for "Voodoo" or "3dfx", everything will be expensive. But sometimes you can find Voodoo cards between garbage. Got 3 this way.
3. Get yourself a S3 Trio64 for your Socket 7 system and use it for 2D only. Then look for a cheap AGP board and get yourself a cheap AGP GeForce. Easiest and fastest way.

It seems to cover pretty much all the older pci gpus, even the newer unified shader pci gpus are affected.

Might be like you say the sellers see pci and confuse it with pcie and price them as such.

That said, fx5500, gf6200 and 8400gs cards in pci can be had for pennies but none of them will post in a socket 7 board.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-11-11, 03:47:

Radeon 7000 is a good one. Also 7500 if you can find one.

Quadro2 several around here have had luck with

Socket 7 mobos are very picky about video cards. Don’t try anything newer than gf5 or radeon 9xx0 and use the oldest driver you can

If the drivers for Rage128 are too heavy for the P133 CPU, won't Radeon 7xxx make it even worse?

Yep.