VOGONS


First post, by Aglenoth

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What cards should i look for ?

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Pentium II 266 MHz
Diamond Voodoo Monster II 12 Mb
S3 trio 64v+ 2Mb
ESS AudioDrive 1868f
10Gb fireball HDD
256 Mb Ram
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Reply 1 of 43, by dionb

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Define 'alternative....

None of the standalone 3D cards perform as well as the Voodoo(2) or support GLide, and none could be described as 'cheap'.

If you just want 3D with performance comparible with Voodoo1 (not 2), look into an nVidia Riva128 PCI. This shouldn't cost much. But this is a DirectX card more than an OpenGL let alone GLide one. If you want that, it has to be Voodoo one way or another. Perhaps a PCI Banshee might be more affordable than the discrete cards.

Reply 2 of 43, by Aglenoth

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I have K2-6 running at 533 Mhz and I want to pair it with decent card, since Iam only using integrated 8 Mb trident which really holds the cpu back

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Pentium II 266 MHz
Diamond Voodoo Monster II 12 Mb
S3 trio 64v+ 2Mb
ESS AudioDrive 1868f
10Gb fireball HDD
256 Mb Ram
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Reply 4 of 43, by dionb

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Aglenoth wrote:

I have K2-6 running at 533 Mhz and I want to pair it with decent card, since Iam only using integrated 8 Mb trident which really holds the cpu back

Decent at what?

Your biggest performance issue with this (assumedly Via MVP4-based) system is the shared memory that the integrated Trident uses. The bandwidth it uses isn't available for the CPU, so when both CPU and VGA are being utilized (i.e. in a game) you only have half the memory performance you would with normal memory bandwidth. Exactly how hard the performance hit is differs from application to application, but 25% is a very conservative estimate. That means that your K6-2 533 is running similarly to a K6-2 400 - with a very shitty Trident VGA adapter.

*Any* PCI VGA will allow you to deactivate the integrated VGA, immediately giving you all that performance back - even if it's a crap Trident Image9750. Anything better will give you more of a boost.

But once again, specific recommendations need more info. Are you running DOS? Or WIndows 9x? Or something more exotic? And what games are you playing exactly?

Reply 5 of 43, by Aglenoth

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Its Windows 98 SE Machine 128 MB 100 Ram , I mostly want to play Quake I and II , Tombraider , and Rune if possible, my current budget is about 30 €

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Pentium II 266 MHz
Diamond Voodoo Monster II 12 Mb
S3 trio 64v+ 2Mb
ESS AudioDrive 1868f
10Gb fireball HDD
256 Mb Ram
------------------------------------------------

Reply 6 of 43, by appiah4

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Aglenoth wrote:

Its Windows 98 SE Machine 128 MB 100 Ram , I mostly want to play Quake I and II , Tombraider , and Rune if possible, my current budget is about 30 €

If you want to be period correct for 1998 and play those games you need a nVidia Riva TNT PCI or S3 Savage3D PCI.

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Reply 7 of 43, by dionb

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Quake I and II, OK. Tomb Raider, OK - but Rune is pushing it...

Rune is Windows-only and - as far as I can find out - requires a DirectX 7 video card. You're not going to get that with a period correct card, so you need to find a late (post-2001) PCI video card. Think GeForce2MX or later PCI (oddly it seems easier to find GF4MX PCI cards, but despite the relabeling they are the same card basically), or RadeonVE/7000 or later PCI.

You definitely can find these for EUR 30, just check Amibay. However they will be completely CPU bottlenecked on your system and probably will also suffer from PCI bandwidth, so I can't recommend them as in any way fitting. I'd rather sugges you drop the Rune requirement (keep that for a >1GHz P3 or Athlon system) and focus on something like a Riva 128 PCI.

Reply 8 of 43, by F2bnp

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Rune will indeed run awfully on that CPU no matter what card you install. It's based on Unreal Engine and that was a very CPU demanding engine at the time. Keep in mind that despite the megahertz disparity, your CPU is not far off of a Pentium II 266 or Pentium II 300.

Your best bet is probably a Riva TNT or TNT2 card. The Riva TNT is about on par with a TNT2 M64 and the TNT2 is about twice as fast, but you won't really be able to tell a difference with that CPU for the most part, especially if you only intend to play at low resolutions such as 640x480 and 800x600. IMO the RIVA 128 is a little slow even for this CPU, TNT is twice as fast and probably about as easy/hard to find. Not a bad choice, but still...
A GeForce 2 MX200/MX400 or GeForce4 MX420/440 would also be a nice choice because they offer T&L which could help massively in some games (MDK2 would be pretty playable for example).

On the ATi camp, be on the lookout for Radeon 7000/7200/7500 and perhaps even 9000/9200 PCI cards.

In general, just be patient and be on the lookout on eBay and Amibay, I'm sure something will come your way. Electromyne.de also has a few cards, but they are very expensive, you could use Phil's Computer Lab discount code to make it more bearable.

Reply 9 of 43, by dionb

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TNT(2) PCI would be fine, but they are anything but common. Back in 1999 those were high-end parts; if you could afford one, you wouldn't stick it into a low-end system without AGP. A few years later and GF4MX and Radeon92xx were the cheapest mainstream cards, so were far more likely to be used to upgrade old or integrated systems, so you very commonly find them with PCI connectivity, even if that severely bottlenecks them.

And without wanting to get too spammy, there's a reason I'm 100% sure there's at least one such card on Amibay well within that budget 😉

Reply 10 of 43, by F2bnp

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dionb wrote:

TNT(2) PCI would be fine, but they are anything but common.

Are you sure about this? I know the TNT2 is not common, but I'm pretty sure TNT2 M64 was somewhat common at the very least.

dionb wrote:

And without wanting to get too spammy, there's a reason I'm 100% sure there's at least one such card on Amibay well within that budget 😉

🤣 🤣 🤣
I might actually be interested in that. 🤣

Reply 11 of 43, by dionb

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F2bnp wrote:
dionb wrote:

TNT(2) PCI would be fine, but they are anything but common.

Are you sure about this? I know the TNT2 is not common, but I'm pretty sure TNT2 M64 was somewhat common at the very least.

Common as muck AGP cards, but PCI? They exist, but if they are common somewhere, that's not anywhere where I've ever been digging in the thrift shops 😉

Reply 12 of 43, by lazibayer

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dionb wrote:

Common as muck AGP cards, but PCI? They exist, but if they are common somewhere, that's not anywhere where I've ever been digging in the thrift shops 😉

Dell (and probably other big PC makers as well) used to ship their i810-based systems with TNT2 M64 PCI cards, so they do exist in large quantity.

Reply 14 of 43, by dionb

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lazibayer wrote:

Dell (and probably other big PC makers as well) used to ship their i810-based systems with TNT2 M64 PCI cards, so they do exist in large quantity.

Maybe it's a US vs EU thing. Here in NL I've never seen an OEM TNT2 M64 PCI, even though you get swamped with OEM TNT2 M64 AGP cards, frequently nVidia/Dell ones.

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Aren't there cheaper OEM voodoo cards out there OP can grab within his budget?

If so I'd love to find out where. You can easily get a Voodoo Banshee AGP for half that, or a V3-2000 AGP for about his budget, but PCI? At least in the V3 range it seems to add at least 50% on top of the price, if not more.

Reply 15 of 43, by derSammler

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Aglenoth wrote:

I have K2-6 running at 533 Mhz and I want to pair it with decent card, since I am only using integrated 8 Mb trident which really holds the cpu back

After reading this, I don't get the actual "Cheap 1998 Voodoo alternative for PCI ?" question. Why don't you just pair the Trident with a Voodoo1? Shouldn't be a problem to get one for 30€.

Reply 16 of 43, by brostenen

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How about a Diamond Viper V550 PCI? It is an TNT with 16mb Ram.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

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Reply 17 of 43, by dionb

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derSammler wrote:
Aglenoth wrote:

I have K2-6 running at 533 Mhz and I want to pair it with decent card, since I am only using integrated 8 Mb trident which really holds the cpu back

After reading this, I don't get the actual "Cheap 1998 Voodoo alternative for PCI ?" question. Why don't you just pair the Trident with a Voodoo1? Shouldn't be a problem to get one for 30€.

Because of the shared memory thing. That Trident isn't only a slow VGA controller, it's also eating up memory bandwidth for the CPU. Untill you add a PCI VGA to this system - *any* PCI VGA - that CPU is completely hobbled.

Reply 18 of 43, by cxm717

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There are some Matrox G450 PCI cards on ebay for about 18USD with free shipping, last I looked. That will be faster than a TNT/TNT2 M64. The cheapest TNT2 M64 PCI I could find there was 22USD + 16USD shipping.

Reply 19 of 43, by appiah4

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G450 PCI is an overall fantastic card but not a 1998 card..

TNT2 M64 PCIs are certainly obtainable, I'm a newbie collector and even I landed one not long ago.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.