VOGONS


First post, by God Of Gaming

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

after a lot of researching on what would be suitable for my retro gaming PC, and checking what's actually being sold locally, I can see those as being the most viable choices:
3dfx Voodoo3 3000 (€13) + GeForce4 Ti4200 (€8) (swapping them depending on the game)
or nglide wrapper +
GeForce FX 5500 (€5)
GeForce FX 5900XT (€10)
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra (€28)

PC has PIII 1000mhz on Asus CUSL2-C mobo with AGP Universal slot. Which choice would be the best for this? Won't really be playing anything newer than Q3 and UT99, or so old that it works perfectly on DOSBox.

1999 Dream PC project | DirectX 8 PC project | 2003 Dream PC project

Reply 2 of 48, by God Of Gaming

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

no Voodoo2 cards available locally though, I can only find a few Voodoo3 3000 cards, one Voodoo3 2000, and a Banshee. There's Voodoo2 cards on ebay, but they're pretty damn overpriced, and delivery is expensive

1999 Dream PC project | DirectX 8 PC project | 2003 Dream PC project

Reply 3 of 48, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Are there PCI versions of voodoo 3 available to you ? I think that you could just have 2 graphic cards and switch to one or the other to play directx or glide game

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 4 of 48, by God Of Gaming

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Sadly no, all of them are AGP. Can I just install drivers for both the voodoo and the geforce, and then just pull one out and insert the other?

BTW this vid is what gave me the idea of using an FX instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-w1NziFoLg

1999 Dream PC project | DirectX 8 PC project | 2003 Dream PC project

Reply 5 of 48, by clueless1

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

The FX cards get a bad rap, but they are actually really good for certain situations. the 64-bit FX5200 is faster than a GF2 MX400, but slower than a GF3 Ti200. The 128-bit FX5200 is about equal in performance to a GF3 Ti200. Both cards are fanless and run cool, so they will be silent and use less power than the Ti200. They would do good running Win98 games from 1998-2001.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 7 of 48, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

I think that Q3 and UT99 would run fine on a voodoo 3 anyways. If you don't play anything newer than 99-2000, you shouldn't really need to switch inbetween two cards every times (I don't know if that would be very reliable, expansion ports aren't designed to be touched everyday even though it's not really fragile, it may wear over time).

My pentium 2 448 with an SLI runs UT99 at 1024*768 resolution and the framerate gets lower as 35-40FPS, but I think that the bottleneck is the CPU here (and a voodoo 3 3000 would also be faster than an SLI I think). If you take a pentium 3 1000MHz, you shouldn't have "low" (I'm using quotes because back then, this was very acceptable considering how expensive hardware was) FPS as I'm getting

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 8 of 48, by clueless1

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
MrMateczko wrote:

But FX series require newer drivers, and newer drivers do not mean beter performance/stability under 98SE.

For Geforce FX cards I use 56.64 drivers with success in Win98SE. I don't have a ton of games, but I haven't had any compatibility or stability issues so far. To each his own.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 9 of 48, by God Of Gaming

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

haven't decided on anything yet, just out of curiocity, which FX card would be most suitable for the P3 1ghz? Im guessing the 5950 ultra would get plenty bottlenecked?

1999 Dream PC project | DirectX 8 PC project | 2003 Dream PC project

Reply 10 of 48, by melbar

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Hmm, a 1GHz PIII, normally with SDRAM -PC133, combined with:

geforce 5950 ultra
(475 MHz core, 1900 MPixel/s, 3800 MTexel/s, 356 MVertices/s, with 256bit DDR and 30.4GB/s)

No, would not do that. A faster PIV or XP from AMD (>2,0GHz) is much better for the Ultra.
A geforce 2 or 3 is much more time period correct and balanced with a 1GHz cpu.

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 11 of 48, by God Of Gaming

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Yes, the idea of the FX was that it's a DX9 card so nglide wrapper can be used for Glide games, that way not needing to bother swapping to a 3dfx card. If 5950 Ultra is gonna get bottlenecked this badly, how about the 5900XT? Maybe even 5600? I think I noticed someone selling an FX 5600, just forgot to mention it? The 5600 does support older drivers I believe?

1999 Dream PC project | DirectX 8 PC project | 2003 Dream PC project

Reply 12 of 48, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Dx9 isn't really useful in Windows 98. It creates more incompatibilities issues than it solves. (Only a few games that can work under 98 requires dx9)

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 13 of 48, by MrMateczko

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I had a 5600 Ultra to test the FX series myself...it was bad. Comparing to GeForce4 Ti online, it was worse, even in DX8 games, not to mention an overclocked one would destroy it!

Reply 14 of 48, by God Of Gaming

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Deksor wrote:

Dx9 isn't really useful in Windows 98. It creates more incompatibilities issues than it solves. (Only a few games that can work under 98 requires dx9)

You don't seem to understand the idea here, it's not about playing DX9 games, it's about using the nglide wrapper that requires DX9 to work. But creating incompatibility is a problem indeed. Perhaps it might be best to go with the Voodoo3 + Ti4200 plan?

1999 Dream PC project | DirectX 8 PC project | 2003 Dream PC project

Reply 15 of 48, by kanecvr

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I'd go with the voodoo 3 for the pentium 3 machine. I love the FX5950 and the GF4 Ti but they're more suited for much faster socket A or socket 478 rigs.

If you want to emulate glide you could go for a newer machine (skt a / 478 / 939 / lga775) and the 5950, but you might encounter small annoying issues in some games.

Reply 16 of 48, by MrMateczko

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Yes, I think it is the best plan. I don't like emulation, that's why I have a real 98SE rig, after many years of VPC 2007 fun.
And I bet you will use the Voodoo3 more often, or even always 😜

Reply 17 of 48, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
God Of Gaming wrote:

Yes, the idea of the FX was that it's a DX9 card

I thought it was a DX8 card.

My FX5900 (don't know which exact sub-version of the FX5900 it is) was totally incapable of running FEAR at any acceptable FPS at virtually any resolution (GF6800 was leagues ahead). I tend to see FX kinda like a GF4.
I've read pretty poor things about the FX mid-range cards also, but only ever gotten a non-highend FX card but never used it as I haven't build an FX contemporary rig since I got that card.

I do want to like FX though. They were the first cards that started using some really heavy duty GPU cooling, makes them kinda look more impressive (power vacuum cleaner 🤣).

God Of Gaming wrote:
after a lot of researching on what would be suitable for my retro gaming PC, and checking what's actually being sold locally, I […]
Show full quote

after a lot of researching on what would be suitable for my retro gaming PC, and checking what's actually being sold locally, I can see those as being the most viable choices:
3dfx Voodoo3 3000 (€13) + GeForce4 Ti4200 (€8) (swapping them depending on the game)
or nglide wrapper +
GeForce FX 5500 (€5)
GeForce FX 5900XT (€10)
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra (€28)

PC has PIII 1000mhz on Asus CUSL2-C mobo with AGP Universal slot. Which choice would be the best for this? Won't really be playing anything newer than Q3 and UT99, or so old that it works perfectly on DOSBox.

I'd get the Voodoo 3, GF4 and FX 5900XT (dunno about the FX 5500) and keep any that you end up not using in your P3 rig as spare parts 😁

Edit: FX 5950u is more high-end compared to the FX 5900XT though, but I think the latter is much more value for money and that's why I recommended the FX 5900XT. If you got tons of money, you might just get the FX 5950u since FX doesn't really get any better then this.

And if you want to learn more about these graphics cards, wiki is a nice way to get you going https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_FX_series
Another favorite of mine is Good reading for people new to retro computing which has a link to here http://www.pc-erfahrung.de/grafikkarte/vga-gr … krangliste.html

I like this list as it gives a sortable table of anything recent down to cards like Voodoo 1, it gives an indication to relative performance.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 18 of 48, by meljor

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I like voodoo's so i would say voodoo3 for the glide support. It is an ok match for a p3 1ghz, it will play a ton of games up to 1024x786.

The ti4200 might be your best choice, it is cheap and the 1ghz will be a bottleneck so you don't need anything faster. You can easily go higher resolution with this and turn on AA.

Take the fx5950 if you want the fastest. Super high resolution, a lot of AA+ AF it doesn't matter: it will always be waiting for the slow cpu to catch up.

Anandtech did reviews back in the day about these cards. For ti4200 he used an Athlon XP 2100+ cpu and for a fx5900 ultra he used a p4 3ghz cpu..... Voodoo3 was tested with a p3 500mhz.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 19 of 48, by God Of Gaming

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

ordered the voodoo3, should be here on thursday, I hope it can run all the games I need it to

1999 Dream PC project | DirectX 8 PC project | 2003 Dream PC project