drew2020 wrote on 2023-06-19, 15:46:

Built a Win98 SE around Asus P3B-F, 512 MB, Slot 1 650 MHz, SB Live SB0100. I have 2 video cards Palit 9800 Pro and MX440 -8x, 128 MB. Games I'm playing MW3 and 4, Enemy Engaged Comanche vs Hokum, Blade Runner. Right now, I'm using MX440 (61.76 drivers) but was think about swapping it for the 9800 Pro. Does it make sense to do that or continue with MX440? Had some initial issues with MX440 but it got resolved with Dx7.

with a 90% chance you will get more problems than profit
- 9800 is almost guaranteed not to start at the AGP89MHz frequency, i.e. goodbye FSB133MHz
- P3B-F and BP will most likely start to go crazy under load due to the Vio module on the Asus motherboards. (a crutch for AT PSU, which they called a feature in the ATX era)

9800 is a card from another time and for other, more modern chipsets.
Yeah, even for i815

OK. Thanks.
I was under the impression that 9800 was a valid option for Win98.

GeForce4 MX440, no doubt. I recommend using an older driver instead of doing the non-sensical and annoying downgrade of the DirectX runtime library, ForceWare 61.76 for Windows 98 has quality issues.

As shevalier said, the Radeon 9800 is a card from another time and more modern chipsets.

As you already have the 9800 it would be quite easy to install it and try it out and see if it is better or worse (or will work at all) in the particular games you are playing. And support for the MX440 begins with the 28.32 driver, so you have quite a few to choose from to see which driver works best for your system and the game(s) you wish to play on it. https://www.philscomputerlab.com/nvidia-9x-gr … cs-drivers.html

drew2020 wrote on 2023-06-19, 16:56:

OK. Thanks.
I was under the impression that 9800 was a valid option for Win98.

It is. For the top end of 98 gaming, which a middling slot-1 build isn’t.

I’d stick with the MX440 or grab a more powerful GeForce 4 Ti card (4200, 4400, 4600).

Great feedback. I think for Slot 1, I'll stick with Mx but will watch ebay for Ti 4400.

There is no need in geforce 4ti honestly as you will be limited heavily by cpu anyway. Even mx440 would be cut down by cpu .To get benefits from TI's you have to get at least Athlon 1700+ or pentium 4 2.4ghz. I'd recommend stick with mx 440 or get geforce 2mx

You can always use higher resolution or add anti-aliasing on GeForce 4 Ti even on slower CPU. CPU bottleneck problem is blown out of proportion.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-06-20, 05:47:

You can always use higher resolution or add anti-aliasing on GeForce 4 Ti even on slower CPU. CPU bottleneck problem is blown out of proportion.

Does it matter when you get 10-15 fps and stutters ?

It does matter in games which are playable on particular CPU. Shocking "news", but even TNT2 M64 can be limited by PIII CPU in low resolution modes and 16-bit color.

You know, I had this exact conundrum a while back when I was trying to pick between a slower PCI-graphics card and a Radeon 9200 for a system with a slot 1-motherboard.

It's important to note that some slot 1-boards with VIA chipsets do actually support higher front-side-bus speeds with the proper AGP clock. Overclocking the AGP-port with 133 MHz FSB only occurs with the popular Intel i440BX-boards.

Secondly (and more importantly), even when I had to reduce my CPU from 1000 MHz to 750 MHz to accommodate the Radeon, it was still so much faster that it more than made up for the loss in CPU speed for 3D-games. A Radeon 9800 is so much faster than the MX440 that the two wouldn't even show up on the same chart! Depending on what games you want to play, the trade-off for going down to a 100 MHz FSB may certainly be worth it to get the Radeon 9800... and yes - it will even trounce the mighty GeForce 4 Ti 4200/4400/4600/4800. Of course if you can nab a 700-800 MHz Pentium III with a 100 MHz FSB to go with that card, you'll be merry like an elf left alone with Mrs. Santa. 😉

leonardo wrote on 2023-06-20, 10:53:

You know, I had this exact conundrum a while back when I was trying to pick between a slower PCI-graphics card and a Radeon 9200 for a system with a slot 1-motherboard.

It's important to note that some slot 1-boards with VIA chipsets do actually support higher front-side-bus speeds with the proper AGP clock. Overclocking the AGP-port with 133 MHz FSB only occurs with the popular Intel i440BX-boards.

Secondly (and more importantly), even when I had to reduce my CPU from 1000 MHz to 750 MHz to accommodate the Radeon, it was still so much faster that it more than made up for the loss in CPU speed for 3D-games. A Radeon 9800 is so much faster than the MX440 that the two wouldn't even show up on the same chart! Depending on what games you want to play, the trade-off for going down to a 100 MHz FSB may certainly be worth it to get the Radeon 9800... and yes - it will even trounce the mighty GeForce 4 Ti 4200/4400/4600/4800. Of course if you can nab a 700-800 MHz Pentium III with a 100 MHz FSB to go with that card, you'll be merry like an elf left alone with Mrs. Santa. 😉

Personally I would just use the 9800 Pro just to use the old girl before it inevitably dies like all 9700/9800 series cards did. Once it kicked the bucket I would just throw a 9600 XT in there as that card is just as famous as the 9800 Pro for stellar performance with the added bonus 9600 XT cards are far more reliable and less prone to dying.

leonardo wrote on 2023-06-20, 10:53:

It's important to note that some slot 1-boards with VIA chipsets do actually support higher front-side-bus speeds with the proper AGP clock. Overclocking the AGP-port with 133 MHz FSB only occurs with the popular Intel i440BX-boards.

There are also less common Slot 1 motherboards with Intel i815 and i820 chipsets, with 1/2 divider for the AGP clock when using 133 MHz FSB.

I know this is a old thread but i'll put my 2 cents in here.

Back in the day, my 3rd PC build was a early Socket A athlon xp 2200+. with a ATI R 8500, ran windows 98 phenomenally. Later upgraded the to the ATI 9800 pro for doom 3 and was still running windows 98 and was an amazing experience.

the 9800 on it's early drivers C4.2 - 5.2 could play all the games no problem and blew Nvidia's cards out of the water in performance.

I have a 9800 in my Win98 build - although it's an AthlonXP 2000+ so a better pair. No issues so far and runs all games from 97-2004 ish at varying resolutions.

Radeon 9xxx DVI implementation is more compatible than GeForce2's or GeForce4 MX440's one. (Though, depending on particular manufacturer of the radeon card, even that may have issues switching between full-screen and window-mode command prompt and other such things.)

I run a fast 9250 with DVI on my SLOT 1 unless i'm testing another GPU for some reason.

Just my 2 cents.

i had more success with my "ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128-bit" then "Nvidia Geforce 4 ti 4200" on my windows 98 build with Pentium 4. very fast, reliable and with ATI Catalyst 4.2 drivers it works great under windows 98, Catalyst 6.2 is more for windows XP then 9x. getting much better results in lower resolutions and playing older titles without the PC freaking out or going black screen on me. the only thing im losing from Radeon card is the legacy features like table fog and 8-bit paletted textures. im not missing much from those features since majority of the games i play don't require these features.