If I look at the high end of W98 GPU's, I can buy a Ati 9600XT or a Gefore 4 TI4200 locally for 50 or less. Would those be a good choice to do all the 2D stuff, all the old and new stuff, and have the Voodoo2 SLI to do the Glide stuff in between? Or any thoughts against such a choice in my system (P3 733 coppermine, 512 MB RAM, DX9).

I know that at AGP4x I will not get the full potential out of those cards, but that is not the purpose here (I have a 2010ish XP system that runs circles around it anyway). The purpose is to get full potential out of the P3 W98PC that this is.

Any preference of one over the other, or alternative choice?

Next thing you'll end up doing is upgrading the CPU... it always goes this way 😀

IMO the cards you've mentioned are good. From compatibility point of view i'd prefer nvidia, but that's just me. I also do not use 2d stuff all that much so can not say anything about that. If you do not mind newer you can also take a look at GeForce FX cards - the system will still make sense - upgrading the videocard without replacing whole system is a common thing.

Something like FX5200 may be a good dirt cheap option to try, it is low end card which is often slower than older cards, but is also fast enough for many games from time period you've mentioned, has great compatibility and should be nearly free.

I had been thinking about the cpu, but I think I'll leave it at 733; the old games run stable and the Voodoos icecold. And the mobo only goes to 866 anyway.

I can buy an MSI fx5200 for 10. Now, the price difference with 40-50 for the other cards is small in absolute terms. Would I be leaving a lot of performance on the table going with the fx5200 instead of the aforementioned high end cards? According to this video (which is not my system; if you'd run a heavy game CPU bottlenecked it's a different story of course) between 50% and 100% better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kzlih1X6J4

So I'll think I'll splash out on the Geforce Ti. It does fit the theme of the "slightly reasonable best of the best" like the Voodoo2 SLI and 512MB RAM do in this W98 PC. Would the Ti make the Voodoo's obsolete in this system? myeah, for D3D and generally the newer games it would. But the Voodoo's are still a feast of performance and compatibility for the Glide stuff.

Yes, FX5200 is slower. But, especially if you find 128bit version, it is not bad and can run older games quite well. I mentioned it because IMO it is a good option for older games - cheap, abundant and great compatibility. Very few AGP cards are so easily available.

At least where i live GF4Ti are not very common and are somewhat pricey, especially in good/tested condition with working cooler etc. If you can get one - that's good and will work very well in this system.

Also 4200 is kind of "low end" itself, among GF4Ti series. There are also 4400 and 4600. Those are even less common and more expensive.

You can also take a look at other FX series cards, there is always something like FX5900/FX5900XT which IMO are one of the better cards for 98 in general because of combination of performance and compatibility, but probably too much for your CPU.

4400 and 4600 are very hard to find and expensive here. 4200 is far more common and reasonable. FX5200 is found everywhere.

I have installed a (whitish beige) multi card reader. It works! Now I have a front usb port.

I just realized this took up all 3.5" bays, so I don't know where I'll put the second sata drive. I might tape it somewhere. Or mcgyver something. Or don't install it.

You could always put it in 5.25 bay if you have a free one, this adapters are very common and easy to get.

Nope, crowded house...

I'll fabricate something in the space below the 3.5" bays.

Question about the cpu voltage:

P3 coppermine 733, should run at 1.7V. Motherboard jumpers are set right for this cpu.

The BIOS reports about 1.64V. Is this normal, is this an issue? I can't find any place in hard- or software where I can change this value anyway.

Slight variations like this are fine. It can be either the measurement itself is not completely accurate or the voltage is indeed lower, but it should not be an issue either way.

In fact when you have a way to set voltage going slightly lower on purpose often works well, as it reduces amount of heat. As long as the system remains stable that is.

A system with so much stuff, along with that plextor drive, would have been so fancy back in the day. Nice.

I didn't manually install Via chipset drivers as I had to install the Audigy before anything else, and after that the Via 4in1 or Hyperion drivers (namely the AGP driver) caused a black screen in W98.

However, device manager shows 4 Via chipset drivers of the right name for my chipset. Microsoft drivers. So...W98SE already has the right Via drivers built in?

Or would I be better off reinstalling everything again and trying the Via 4in1 before the Audigy? I have no idea if things are running optimal or not at the moment. It is stable.

Is AGP working? IIRC you need to install the drivers for it to work, otherwise it will be in "pci mode", degrading performance. IIRC one indication if it is working or not you can see it in dxdiag on display tab.

Dxdiag says on display 1: "AGP texture acceleration: not available". But I don't think that's the AGP identifier we're looking for here. No other mention of pci or agp on this page.

Everest says: bus type: agp 4x @ 4x.

That"@ 4x" makes me assume all is well?

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-06-08, 13:32:

Dxdiag says on display 1: "AGP texture acceleration: not available".

Yep, that's it. It should be "enabled" or something. You can also see it in utilities like aida or powerstrip in more detail, but dxdiag is indication enough.

In aida/everest look in motherboard/chipset/north bridge, not in display/gpu.

Sandra thinks my pci speed is 53mhz, get a fire extinguisher. So yeah, those tools aren't flawless.

I'll reinstall everything once more when the Ti4200 arrives. Hopefully it will take the 4in1 drivers then.

3dmark99 does report the rage128pro as being on an agp bus, for what it's worth.

Yep, the utilities absolutely are not perfect. On my system aida for some reason considers KT333 to be KT400 and proceeds to complain that AGP 8x is supported, but not enabled...

Strangely enough i did not have issues with via drivers, nvidia drivers and audigy2zs on this system. I added audigy after i've been using the system for a while so everything has been already installed like via drivers, usb drivers, etc. Which i know is not recommended, but i followed that guide for audigy anyway and everything installed as it should.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-06-08, 13:58:

3dmark99 does report the rage128pro as being on an agp bus, for what it's worth.

Yeah, it is a bit weird. Hardware is functioning correctly obviously. It is OS which does not have necessary drivers to use it properly, that's why some tools will display that everything is good, while stuff is not working properly.

IIRC aida/everest shows issues in north bridge section.

The rage128 pro (16mb 64bit version) is reporting ever so slightly fastzr than the voodoo2 12mb SLI in 3dmark99, both 800x600x16.

3dmark would not be a Glide test, so I think this is realistic?

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-06-06, 06:24:

I had been thinking about the cpu, but I think I'll leave it at 733; the old games run stable and the Voodoos icecold. And the m […]
Show full quote

I had been thinking about the cpu, but I think I'll leave it at 733; the old games run stable and the Voodoos icecold. And the mobo only goes to 866 anyway.

I can buy an MSI fx5200 for 10. Now, the price difference with 40-50 for the other cards is small in absolute terms. Would I be leaving a lot of performance on the table going with the fx5200 instead of the aforementioned high end cards? According to this video (which is not my system; if you'd run a heavy game CPU bottlenecked it's a different story of course) between 50% and 100% better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kzlih1X6J4

So I'll think I'll splash out on the Geforce Ti. It does fit the theme of the "slightly reasonable best of the best" like the Voodoo2 SLI and 512MB RAM do in this W98 PC. Would the Ti make the Voodoo's obsolete in this system? myeah, for D3D and generally the newer games it would. But the Voodoo's are still a feast of performance and compatibility for the Glide stuff.

i use an msi fx5200 128mb 64bit and its a good performer for win98 heres my benchmark
Re: 3dmark99 MegaThread
this is under win xp under win98 the 3dmark score is over 12000

i watched that video you linked and those arent really the kind of games you'd play on an fx5200, the only one i play out of the lot on my sytem is halflife, the 128mb 64 bit cards are great for games up to about 2001/2002 you should be able to have upto 60fps+ in some games, anything after you'd be looking at lower settings 800x600 or 640x480 and frames around 30fps, if you can get the MSI card that cheap it wouldn't be a waste of money. though if you are using a 733 cpu you probably wont be playing many games after 2002 as the more popular games seem to require a minimum of a 1GHZ cpu.

also after installing windows the chipset drivers should be the first thing you install, only install 1 version of the driver, installing 2 different versions can cause problems as there is something in each driver that conflicts (think it related to AGP/fastwrite if i remember right) anyway it will mean having to start over with a fresh win 98 install.