Hi. Thank you for the replies.
I am dual booting with 7 right now (forgot to...see the relevance), so I can certainly run post XP games with the same system.
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A little fun - the card does work (with various shadow/light horizontal line artifacts) as long as it's completely off; if the device is disabled it will work and it works in safe mode. Just looks like crap and drawing is obviously very slow.
I decided to put in the next best card I have - well, technically I have a 9800 PRO that would be just the thing, but this is an 1156 system, no AGP. Next best card is...a Trio 64V+ 🤣
And it's surprisingly better than a cruddy 1280x1024 image. With that, I could watch Youtube videos in the small player, but framerate couldn't keep up in full screen. Plus the image was messed up. With the Trio, it tops out at 1024x768x16 which I don't mind (it's just not native) but, uh, I can watch high resolution video in full screen. And it looks pretty good. And I can scroll pages decently. I could actually use this thing as long as I keep it 2D. Pretty funny.
Hwinfo reports it's got 2MB EDO at 60Mhz and the chip is 135Mhz, really cooking now. Say whatever the hell you want about S3, they built some top quality adapters, just bulletproof, and they just work. As long as you stay in 2D. :p
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I've reviewed the replies and the data, and I think I want the GTX 750 Ti. It's got an incredible 60W TDP (the 460 is 160W). Synthetic benchmarks say it's almost 100% faster in 3D and 25% faster in 2D. That's what I'm talking about.
Due to the low TDP, it's known for being a quiet card. There are several amazing (to me) options for this card - almost all used. First there is the Palit KalmX. There's no fan. Just like the old days. This probably can do - and I am so impressed, with nVidia and with Palit for having the courage to do it - but reviewers mentioned it may need "airflow" such as a case fan. I sort of understand, you can't suffocate it, but I don't want the card to overheat while I'm playing a game, break, and so on. Probably wouldn't happen but reviewers were nervous. So this 70C or whatever, full load could get worse over time. Thermal compound isn't invincible.
There are several third party choices that either feature large, low speed fans, or special editions where the fans can be made even less noisy. Believe it or not I looked at this data when I bought my large GTX460. Technology got better even if the world hasn't...
The other one which was pointed out to me is the Asus Strix edition. It's basically an OC'd card (which I care nothing about or for) but, of course, it's the one with the feature that turns the fans off when the temperature is below I think 55C. Why is the one that generates the most heat (I think it's 75W) the one with the silent fan feature? Damned if I know. Why do economy cars not have sound insulation, but the quiet cars all have gas guzzling motors? Because fuck me, that's why. Anyway. This Strix. Not entirely clear if it's software based as seems likely. One user mentioned a PCB switch (oh god yes). Also hard to get.
One on Amazon is going for $210 with shipping. It was only $160 new! And that was a couple of years ago. One went in Australia for not too much, maybe only $110US, postage uncertain. Does not ship here. I offered that he invoice me the $62AUD shipping if I bought it and he ignored me. Then I found this misclassified one (as a non Strix) going for $100. I also saw a couple of Palits.
I prefer not to deal with background services applying settings at startup. So I tried and more or less failed, reading the so called Strix manual to discover how the silent feature works other than that the Asus program has a profile for it, which obviously works. In some operating system or other. I verified the non Strix card had XP support. Then I bought the card. Then I found the Strix page (I was concerned someone else would buy the card - happened to me with a Palit I wasn't sure about) which hilariously starts at Vista up. Even for drivers. So, I don't know. The utility exists for XP too (a somewhat older version). I don't know if it's Strix specific. Would be just damn perfect if the Strix version isn't able to go in silent mode for XP, what a pain in the ass. I even had to double check driver support - yeah, even though they don't list the utility (or any driver) for XP under Strix, definitely has nVidia driver support.
So I'll see how it goes. I tried installing the Vista utility here and it worked. It won't load - I don't know what this world's coming to when a Trio64V+ without DirectX makes the Asus overclocking utility complain about ...dlls? (that sounds like a Vista/XP issue). Won't go further until I have the card. Then I shall see. And maybe report here about it. Can't be worse than the GTX460!