VOGONS


First post, by Joni

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Hi,

I bought a new case for my Windows ME build that is on my old Fractal Design Define R2 case atm and thought I upgrade the GPU also.

Motherboard is Asus P2B-VM and GPU GeForce4 MX 440-SE. Case I ordered is Fractal Design Pop Mini Silent Black.

So two questions.

My GPU only has S-Video and VGA. Is there any GPU's that is supported on Windows ME that would have better quality outputs (DVI/HDMI) as VGA quality is pretty bad on high resolutions?

Second question about USB. Motherboard does not have USB connections for front panel that modern cases have so I was wondering if there are any PCI USB cards or something so that I could get front panel USB ports working?

Reply 1 of 8, by ElectroSoldier

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Cant mount the GPU in a vertical orientation in that one.

Some of the GeForce 6200 cards have DVI out. HDMI wasnt really a thing at that point in time. Or not that I remember anyway. First card I remember to have HDMI was the 8800GTX but I could be wrong.

I think the 5900 XT, 5950 Ultra are good cards for ME, as is the X800XL, X800GTO² for real power house performance.
There is a myriad of other cards lower down the performance scale, and thus the price scale you could go with over the MX 440 you have.
You have the GeForce4 Ti series of cards from the 4200 to the 4800, then the Geforce FX range too. I liked the 5200 Ultra but the FX 5500 worked ok on the games I play too.

That case will have USB 3 so will have the USB 3 connector and Im not sure if you can adapt that to work with a USB 2.0 style header.
I doubt you will get ME drivers for any of the USB 3.0 PCI cards to get them working by just adding a PCI USB 3.0 card with a header on it, and like I said I dont know if you can adapt USB2 to USB3...
I dont see why not though, the USB2 pins will be connected.

Reply 2 of 8, by dionb

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WinME and AGP 1.0...

If you can find a Gf2GTS with DVI it would be a good match.

Otherwise not a GPU but most definitely better picture quality (analog and digital) and about the same performance: Matrox G550.

As for all the GeForce FX series, they're AGP 3.0 and won't work in a 1.0 slot. Earlier (AGP 2.0) GeForce 4 series cards will work and are available with DVI - the Gf4Ti will be completely CPU-bound though.

Reply 3 of 8, by Joni

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I had totally forgot AGP versions. I had PCI version of Voodoo 3 2000 in my Presario 2274 back in the day.

Reply 4 of 8, by Joni

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I guess Geforce4 TI would be good.

Then there is Geforce FX 5200. It has DVI, passive is + but is that compatible with AGP 1.0?

Reply 5 of 8, by Joni

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Has anyone tested FX 5200 with AGP 1.0 board?

It has AGP 3.0 and from wikipedia "3.0 added 0.8 V signaling, which could be operated at 4× and 8× speeds. (1× and 2× speeds are physically possible, but were not specified.)"

So according to that would not work. But then there's a lot of this kind of comments if you google "The GeForce FX 5200 is an AGP 8x card compatible with AGP 2x, 4x, and 8x slots"

Reply 6 of 8, by ElectroSoldier

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Sorry I missed the part that mentioned the motherboard!

If its based on the i440 chipset then the GF4 Ti is about as much as I would bother trying. That and the ATI 8500LE kind of level.

Strange to put Windows ME on that board no?

Reply 7 of 8, by Joni

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I had 98 on it before but for some reason started to use ME more and more.

This was helpfull.

https://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

I ordered GF4 Ti 4200. I also found FX 5500 from friend I'll try that while waiting for GF4.

Reply 8 of 8, by ElectroSoldier

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I only ask because I associate that age of hardware with Win95 thats all.
Its quite nice loading up some of the Win95 games on Win95.
ie. Command and Conquer for Windows 95

They will both work, but the CPU will bottleneck them because of the 100Mhz FSB of the chipset.
But that might not be a bad thing. I mean at least you will know you will be getting as much as you can out of it all.
The GF4 Ti 4200 is a solid choice and not a bad price for what it is. The FX 5500 wasnt anything to write home about on the system I tried mine on. I ended up using an X700 in it and its fine.
Nothing wrong with it, but nothing to talk about either. I would prefer a more powerful GF4 Ti series.