DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-03, 09:37:

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-03, 06:39:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-02, 22:36:

There's a 256Mb Geforce 6800 GT card I have my eye on at the moment. This would be used for Windows XP. Would that be a good match for a Pentium 4 Northwood? Or would it be bottlenecked?

The GeForce 6800 GT came out when the Northwood was replaced by Prescott in Intel's CPU line-up, as such they were most often paired with Prescott CPUs on release. I don't think that it would be bottlenecked as you, if I remember correctly, previously mentioned in a post that the P4 Northwood we are talking about is a SL6WG, it has the same FSB as most Prescott-s (200Mhz x 4 = 800Mhz effective) and a core frequency of 3.2 GHz. As the Northwood has a 20 stage pipeline instead of a Prescott 31 stage one, single threaded performance most of the time will be faster than the performance of a Prescott with the same clocks. Most games of the time was still single threaded, so it will perform in most games as well as a slightly higher clocked Prescott. (In multi threaded application the deeper pipeline sometimes helps the Prescott as there are more "slots" to fit the Hyper-threading second thread's micro-ops and Prescott-s HT implementation has some small improvements over the Northwood-s, but for games of that era that shouldn't matter)

Just make sure the Geforce 6800 GT uses the proper slot as it has both a PCI-E and an AGP version.

Great. Thanks. 😄 There’s a lot of info there about CPUs I don’t really understand, if I’m honest. Especially the Stages.

This particular model is AGP.

If you are interested about how pipe-lining works for the basics of it even the Wikipedia articles are enough, I would recommend reading them in this order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_pipelining
Then as x86 processor nowadays are superscalar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superscalar_processor
And how it interacts with Hyper-threading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading
Obviously as it is Wikipedia it is a bit of a simplified explanation(And also anyone can edit it at anytime so sometimes it might contain not correct info) but to get the general concept it is enough.

If you have any questions because Wikipedia is not enough detailed then feel free to ask, I will try to answer the questions or give more detailed articles to look at if an explanation is too long for a forum post.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-03, 09:54:

If you are interested about how pipe-lining works for the basics of it even the Wikipedia articles are enough, I would recommend […]
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DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-03, 09:37:

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-03, 06:39:

The GeForce 6800 GT came out when the Northwood was replaced by Prescott in Intel's CPU line-up, as such they were most often paired with Prescott CPUs on release. I don't think that it would be bottlenecked as you, if I remember correctly, previously mentioned in a post that the P4 Northwood we are talking about is a SL6WG, it has the same FSB as most Prescott-s (200Mhz x 4 = 800Mhz effective) and a core frequency of 3.2 GHz. As the Northwood has a 20 stage pipeline instead of a Prescott 31 stage one, single threaded performance most of the time will be faster than the performance of a Prescott with the same clocks. Most games of the time was still single threaded, so it will perform in most games as well as a slightly higher clocked Prescott. (In multi threaded application the deeper pipeline sometimes helps the Prescott as there are more "slots" to fit the Hyper-threading second thread's micro-ops and Prescott-s HT implementation has some small improvements over the Northwood-s, but for games of that era that shouldn't matter)

Just make sure the Geforce 6800 GT uses the proper slot as it has both a PCI-E and an AGP version.

Great. Thanks. 😄 There’s a lot of info there about CPUs I don’t really understand, if I’m honest. Especially the Stages.

This particular model is AGP.

If you are interested about how pipe-lining works for the basics of it even the Wikipedia articles are enough, I would recommend reading them in this order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_pipelining
Then as x86 processor nowadays are superscalar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superscalar_processor
And how it interacts with Hyper-threading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading
Obviously as it is Wikipedia it is a bit of a simplified explanation(And also anyone can edit it at anytime so sometimes it might contain not correct info) but to get the general concept it is enough.

If you have any questions because Wikipedia is not enough detailed then feel free to ask, I will try to answer the questions or give more detailed articles to look at if an explanation is too long for a forum post.

Thanks. 😀 Yeah, I'll definitely give those a read.

I've started reading through it. Though I will need to re-read it again. Just have a lot of things on my mind at the moment. It's certainly a lot to process.

On another note, I received a deal for that Geforce 6800 GT and decided - screw it, I'll buy it.

I now have the Inno3D Geforce 6800 GT and practically all games I've tried run so much better! 😁 Most run pretty much flawlessly with everything maxed out. I've only encountered two Illegal Operation errors under Windows 98 that were random, but everything has been fairly stable so far.

The only issue I have at the moment is with Doom 3 under XP. Even with the latest GPU drivers, the timedemo stutters like crazy. I'm not talking about frame rate drops in the traditional sense, but pauses/freezes for a second or two and the FRAPS counter will display the frame rate go from 40-60 straight down to 1-10. It just fluctuates all over the place. I installed the latest update for it, too. 1.3.1. I can't imagine it's because of the RAM, surely...? I do have another 512MB I can install, but I can't see it making any difference.

And likewise, in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, I get some weird lurches with or without v-sync enabled. And with either OpenGL and Direct3D. The first game is flawless though.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-10, 20:58:

I now have the Inno3D Geforce 6800 GT and practically all games I've tried run so much better! 😁 Most run pretty much flawlessly with everything maxed out. I've only encountered two Illegal Operation errors under Windows 98 that were random, but everything has been fairly stable so far.

The only issue I have at the moment is with Doom 3 under XP. Even with the latest GPU drivers, the timedemo stutters like crazy. I'm not talking about frame rate drops in the traditional sense, but pauses/freezes for a second or two and the FRAPS counter will display the frame rate go from 40-60 straight down to 1-10. It just fluctuates all over the place. I installed the latest update for it, too. 1.3.1. I can't imagine it's because of the RAM, surely...? I do have another 512MB I can install, but I can't see it making any difference.

And likewise, in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, I get some weird lurches with or without v-sync enabled. And with either OpenGL and Direct3D. The first game is flawless though.

With Doom 3, if you are running it on Ultra then the VRAM (256Mb) might be not enough to hold all the textures, on High it should be enough as that is the recommended VRAM size for that setting.

For Serious Sam: The Second Encounter this shouldn't be an issue, I think there are no situation in that game where more than 256Mb of VRAM would be used.

A possibility is that one of the components, the CPU or GPU is thermally throttling, the Desktop Northwood's can throttle by inserting NOPs into the code stream so execution units will stay idle generating less heat, while the mobile variants had an early version of Intel's Enhanced SpeedStep technology which could directly alter the clocks the CPU is running on. For the GPU I'm not familiar with the thermal throttling behaviour of the 6800 GT, but IIRC Geforce FX had a steep drop in performance when bad thermals are detected instead of lowering the speed gradually, so it is possible that 6800 GT is thermally throttling in the same way, somebody with more experience with 6xxx series Nvidia cards can clear it up if that could be an issue.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-11, 06:24:

With Doom 3, if you are running it on Ultra then the VRAM (256Mb) might be not enough to hold all the textures, on High it shoul […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-10, 20:58:

I now have the Inno3D Geforce 6800 GT and practically all games I've tried run so much better! 😁 Most run pretty much flawlessly with everything maxed out. I've only encountered two Illegal Operation errors under Windows 98 that were random, but everything has been fairly stable so far.

The only issue I have at the moment is with Doom 3 under XP. Even with the latest GPU drivers, the timedemo stutters like crazy. I'm not talking about frame rate drops in the traditional sense, but pauses/freezes for a second or two and the FRAPS counter will display the frame rate go from 40-60 straight down to 1-10. It just fluctuates all over the place. I installed the latest update for it, too. 1.3.1. I can't imagine it's because of the RAM, surely...? I do have another 512MB I can install, but I can't see it making any difference.

And likewise, in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, I get some weird lurches with or without v-sync enabled. And with either OpenGL and Direct3D. The first game is flawless though.

With Doom 3, if you are running it on Ultra then the VRAM (256Mb) might be not enough to hold all the textures, on High it should be enough as that is the recommended VRAM size for that setting.

For Serious Sam: The Second Encounter this shouldn't be an issue, I think there are no situation in that game where more than 256Mb of VRAM would be used.

A possibility is that one of the components, the CPU or GPU is thermally throttling, the Desktop Northwood's can throttle by inserting NOPs into the code stream so execution units will stay idle generating less heat, while the mobile variants had an early version of Intel's Enhanced SpeedStep technology which could directly alter the clocks the CPU is running on. For the GPU I'm not familiar with the thermal throttling behaviour of the 6800 GT, but IIRC Geforce FX had a steep drop in performance when bad thermals are detected instead of lowering the speed gradually, so it is possible that 6800 GT is thermally throttling in the same way, somebody with more experience with 6xxx series Nvidia cards can clear it up if that could be an issue.

Oh yeah, this is with the High preset. It was set to that by default. But I’ve also tried 800x600 and 640x480 at medium quality and the same issue happens. Never had it before with this game.

As to the throttling, I’m not sure about the CPU, but this card gives me a temperature readout in the control panel. I think it idles at around 70-75, which seems a bit much, but the total throttle is about 120. I guess I can try seeing what it reaches during the timedemo.

It wouldn’t be surprising if it is throttling though. Apart from being in such a small case, it has been very hot here these past few days. And especially in this room. It’s been like an oven!

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-11, 08:26:

Oh yeah, this is with the High preset. It was set to that by default. But I’ve also tried 800x600 and 640x480 at medium quality […]
Show full quote

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-11, 06:24:

With Doom 3, if you are running it on Ultra then the VRAM (256Mb) might be not enough to hold all the textures, on High it shoul […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-10, 20:58:

I now have the Inno3D Geforce 6800 GT and practically all games I've tried run so much better! 😁 Most run pretty much flawlessly with everything maxed out. I've only encountered two Illegal Operation errors under Windows 98 that were random, but everything has been fairly stable so far.

The only issue I have at the moment is with Doom 3 under XP. Even with the latest GPU drivers, the timedemo stutters like crazy. I'm not talking about frame rate drops in the traditional sense, but pauses/freezes for a second or two and the FRAPS counter will display the frame rate go from 40-60 straight down to 1-10. It just fluctuates all over the place. I installed the latest update for it, too. 1.3.1. I can't imagine it's because of the RAM, surely...? I do have another 512MB I can install, but I can't see it making any difference.

And likewise, in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, I get some weird lurches with or without v-sync enabled. And with either OpenGL and Direct3D. The first game is flawless though.

With Doom 3, if you are running it on Ultra then the VRAM (256Mb) might be not enough to hold all the textures, on High it should be enough as that is the recommended VRAM size for that setting.

For Serious Sam: The Second Encounter this shouldn't be an issue, I think there are no situation in that game where more than 256Mb of VRAM would be used.

A possibility is that one of the components, the CPU or GPU is thermally throttling, the Desktop Northwood's can throttle by inserting NOPs into the code stream so execution units will stay idle generating less heat, while the mobile variants had an early version of Intel's Enhanced SpeedStep technology which could directly alter the clocks the CPU is running on. For the GPU I'm not familiar with the thermal throttling behaviour of the 6800 GT, but IIRC Geforce FX had a steep drop in performance when bad thermals are detected instead of lowering the speed gradually, so it is possible that 6800 GT is thermally throttling in the same way, somebody with more experience with 6xxx series Nvidia cards can clear it up if that could be an issue.

Oh yeah, this is with the High preset. It was set to that by default. But I’ve also tried 800x600 and 640x480 at medium quality and the same issue happens. Never had it before with this game.

As to the throttling, I’m not sure about the CPU, but this card gives me a temperature readout in the control panel. I think it idles at around 70-75, which seems a bit much, but the total throttle is about 120. I guess I can try seeing what it reaches during the timedemo.

It wouldn’t be surprising if it is throttling though. Apart from being in such a small case, it has been very hot here these past few days. And especially in this room. It’s been like an oven!

Well 70-75 degrees Celsius does seem to be a bit high when only idling, running the Doom 3 timedemo while checking the temperatures during it will make the thermal situation clearer, it depends on how the Video Card adjusts the fan speed, it is possible that when the 3d pipeline is not doing work it doesn't spin up the fan fully even when the temperature gets relatively high, so it is better to measure than assume.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-11, 08:38:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-07-11, 08:26:

Oh yeah, this is with the High preset. It was set to that by default. But I’ve also tried 800x600 and 640x480 at medium quality […]
Show full quote

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-07-11, 06:24:

With Doom 3, if you are running it on Ultra then the VRAM (256Mb) might be not enough to hold all the textures, on High it should be enough as that is the recommended VRAM size for that setting.

For Serious Sam: The Second Encounter this shouldn't be an issue, I think there are no situation in that game where more than 256Mb of VRAM would be used.

A possibility is that one of the components, the CPU or GPU is thermally throttling, the Desktop Northwood's can throttle by inserting NOPs into the code stream so execution units will stay idle generating less heat, while the mobile variants had an early version of Intel's Enhanced SpeedStep technology which could directly alter the clocks the CPU is running on. For the GPU I'm not familiar with the thermal throttling behaviour of the 6800 GT, but IIRC Geforce FX had a steep drop in performance when bad thermals are detected instead of lowering the speed gradually, so it is possible that 6800 GT is thermally throttling in the same way, somebody with more experience with 6xxx series Nvidia cards can clear it up if that could be an issue.

Oh yeah, this is with the High preset. It was set to that by default. But I’ve also tried 800x600 and 640x480 at medium quality and the same issue happens. Never had it before with this game.

As to the throttling, I’m not sure about the CPU, but this card gives me a temperature readout in the control panel. I think it idles at around 70-75, which seems a bit much, but the total throttle is about 120. I guess I can try seeing what it reaches during the timedemo.

It wouldn’t be surprising if it is throttling though. Apart from being in such a small case, it has been very hot here these past few days. And especially in this room. It’s been like an oven!

Well 70-75 degrees Celsius does seem to be a bit high when only idling, running the Doom 3 timedemo while checking the temperatures during it will make the thermal situation clearer, it depends on how the Video Card adjusts the fan speed, it is possible that when the 3d pipeline is not doing work it doesn't spin up the fan fully even when the temperature gets relatively high, so it is better to measure than assume.

Since installing a more up to date driver, it seems to idle at around 59-60 degrees. However, as well as the classic Nvidia Control Panel being replaced, which I'm not too happy about, Doom 3 now doesn't work properly at all. Looking on a forum thread, some suggest installed 65.73 or 61.32, but I can't seem to find those anywhere. Phil's Computer Lab doesn't appear to have them and Nvidia's site only has drivers as far back as 2011.

Did you tried running without FRAPS or monitoring software (just to see if stutters are still present) ?

agent_x007 wrote on 2026-07-11, 10:08:

Did you tried running without FRAPS or monitoring software (just to see if stutters are still present) ?

I did wonder if that could be the culprit. I'll give that a try soon; just testing something.

agent_x007 wrote on 2026-07-11, 10:08:

Did you tried running without FRAPS or monitoring software (just to see if stutters are still present) ?

Hey, looks like that was the cause. 😀 Thanks for the suggestion/reminder. Once closed, the timedemo was a lot smoother. After changing resolutions and running it, it was hanging again, but disabling v-sync and re-running it seemed to clear it up. Also, when I checked the temperature, it was still sitting around 69-70 degrees.

I was trying to find a full registered version of FRAPS so I could record the issue at 60fps, but I guess it doesn't matter now.

One thing I have noticed, particularly under Windows 98, is that it only recognises the GPU as being PCI. The AGP Texture Acceleration under Dxdiag is greyed out. I noticed that with the Geforce 4, too. And yet, I don't recall that being the case in my main retro build. I believe one game complained about it only being PCI and wouldn't load. I think it was Max Payne 2.

EDIT: Ah. I believe I'd installed an older chipset driver for the motherboard. Installed one from 2004 and that appears to have sorted it. 😀