Note that there is more to graphics cards than just highest performance. I agree with your list if that's the primary concern.

However, if you're also taking game compatibility into account, those picks are not the best.

Game compatibility would depend on the OS and the game (of course). Windows prior to version 3.1 didn't have a lot of game support. OS/2 doesn't either (or I should say OS/2 games don't interact with the hardware like DirectX on Windows).

My comments on DirectX performance and quality were based on my general, subjective assessment.

I didn't include DOS because of compatibility. I can make most of my cards work with DOS, but I can't say I like one more than any of the others.

I'm thinking mainly about Win9x games with regards to this: Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures

Later ATI cards support neither and the GeForce 6xxx series has no support for palletized textures. Also, there are some early games which only support Glide for 3D acceleration.

I'm afraid that I don't own any Glide-specific games, so I can't test them. Feel free to tee-up a nomination for Glide-support (Voodoo 2 or later, perhaps). Or, a combination of cards for optimal support.

A GeForce4 Ti4600 paired with a Voodoo2 SLI covers pretty much all bases in Win9x with regards to game compatibility. It will cost quite a bit though. Also, it may not have enough performance if you want to play late-era games at 1600x1200 with both AA and AF fully maxed out.

As far as DOS gaming is concerned, you might want to check this table to determine graphics card compatibility: https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

That would be pretty costly! Does the Voodoo 2 pass any resolution and refresh rate to the monitor, or just a fixed set? I've never seen it mentioned.

I have a DXR3 MPEG card with video pass-through, but it has a limited selection of compatible resolutions and refresh rates.

I have a personal preference for widescreen resolutions (if possible) so that's a factor in my setups.

fosterwj03 wrote on 2021-01-30, 19:09:

That would be pretty costly! Does the Voodoo 2 pass any resolution and refresh rate to the monitor, or just a fixed set? I've never seen it mentioned.

It's possible to hook up the GeForce directly to the monitor for normal gaming, and only use the Voodoo pass-through when playing Glide games. Those would be limited to 1024x768 since that's the maximum resolution which a Voodoo 2 SLI setup supports.

I have a personal preference for widescreen resolutions (if possible) so that's a factor in my setups.

You won't have much luck playing Win9x games in widescreen resolutions, at least not without fan-made patches. Early WinXP games often lack widescreen support as well. It didn't really became prevalent until around 2005 and later.

fosterwj03 wrote on 2021-01-30, 17:55:

List

When it comes to "best" latest hardware or fastness doesn't mean best when it comes to retro gaming or old operating systems my grasshopper. Without any concern for compatibility, and driver overhead your list is far from any list Id consider reasonable. Also 1080p is an irrelevant measurement.

It doesn't matter if you can get the fastest card installed on 95 you can find and it runs in 1080, if none of your games will run in 1080p, you can't even watch HD movies on it, and most the games you want to run don't run at all becasue the gpu is lacking 8-bit palleted texture support, good VESA compatibility with DOS games, direct3d support, table fog, and has buggy drivers with huge CPU overhead. A 6800 is a extremely poor choice.

I agree that this is all a fairly subjective assessment which is why I'd like to hear what other people think.

I have found that no one video card can satisfy all use cases which is why I don't have many duplicates in my list. I will admit that my criteria are fairly modest: does it work well with the OS, does it produce a pleasing image at desired resolutions, does it work properly with software under test, etc.

As an example, I'm running these cards on extremely fast PCs, so I can use software for video decoding (i.e. I can watch DVDs in full screen using the GeForce 6800 paired with a software decoder in Windows 95). If I had a much slower CPU (say a Pentium 133), then I would need a decoder card or a video card (with software) that could decode the video stream. It would depend on the use case.

Aa 6800 has hardware dvd decode. so does a radeon x800 you know that right. That being said DVD decode in 2021 probably isn't a use case scenario for most people. 100s of 1000s of free movies you can stream off of things like andriod TV or firestick type devices these days. Id also imagine most people rather watch a movie on a big modern television than on a computer and use a dedicated players becasue the experience is way better. That being said DVD are encoded at 720x480 or lower so watching them at 1080p is just upscaling them not increasing the quality. I just don't think you are going to get a lot of support from many people as use case for determining if something is good or not. A lowly Rage 128 has built in dvd decode since the late 90s does that make it good probably not.. So it doesnt really mean much.

I wasn't looking for agreement per se. In fact, I didn't expect it. I was hoping to hear other perspectives for potential improvements.

I would go so far as to say that many of the cards I chose for the list above aren't great or best in class in some way. But, they perform functions important to me (or function at all, in some cases) for an OS or GUI.

I gave my reasoning for why I selected certain cards to pair with certain OSs. I'd like to hear what others would do. I think Joseph_Joestar had a fantastic input for his optimal pairing (despite the expense).

Choosing "best" video card for every OS is redundant. Windows 95 is mostly used on hardware which struggle somewhat with Windows 98 SE.

There are always compromises. For something to be "best" the compromises you make cannot have cons that out weigh the pros. That seems to be the main disagreement here. Which is what both Joseph and I were getting at when we threw out a list of features that your 6800 and x800s lack.

Because you have deemed those features as not as important as being able to see video at 1080p Theres not a discussion worth having here. If we put our selfs inside your box and pick cards based on what your reasoning is than perhaps you list makes some sense.

But then again using your logic youre not really right either becasue you can run a Nvidia 7900 GTX on 98se and its been proven which is a far more powerful card than what you picked. That card also lacks all those features as we listed so in my reasoning just becasue its fastest doesn't make it best becasue the Cons out weight the pros. Win98SE - Best AGP Vs Best PCIe
https://askgeek.io/en/gpus/vs/NVIDIA_GeForce- … 800-XT-Platinum

You value a Matrox G550 which is known to be a crippled card over a G400Max a quick google search shows us that the older card beats it in benchmarks. But in your case you valued that 550 is higher than 400 as a numerical number so that it must be better.
Directx performance Graph credit phils computer lab

I suggested the G550 for use with OS/2 Warp, which doesn't use DirectX natively. It is derived from the G400-series, but I stand by it as an excellent card for OS/2. I have two G200s that I've used with OS/2 as well. They're fine with that OS as well (they use the same driver), but I prefer the qualities of the G550 subjectively speaking.

You can certainly use a G400 with OS/2 if your system has an AGP slot. The G450 comes in a PCI variant, which also works with the Matrox driver for OS/2. I suspect all of these cards would perform well with OS/2 in benchmarks.

I chose the G550 because I own one, tested it, and liked it best of my cards with OS/2. I don't have a G400 or G450 to test.

I do like some of your choices but have an issue with PCIe for Warp 3/4 and Win9x. Being that PCIe did not really become OK/stable until about 2007 with ver 2.0, picking a PCIe video card means a PCIe motherboard and most of us do not consider using a late 2000's board to run a OS from mid 90's. Just my opinion on the PCIe part and keeping with our vintage theme here. Side note: am running Win7 on a z370 with i7 8700k so am willing to run things a bit out of ordinary but think that is discussion not for here 😀

Being that PCIe did not really become OK/stable until about 2007 with ver 2.0

That's simply not true.

To be totally honest, I don't think any of those choices are ones that I have seen recommended, nor are they ones I would use in builds for those operating systems. I have no experience with OS\2 and little experience with NT, but for DOS, 3.1, 95 and 98, I would use vastly different hardware.

It definitely depends more on "What is the goal.", but ideally, there should be no serious "cons". If there are, then it likely isn't the best card for the operating system... unless of course, those cons don't stop you from reaching your "goal". I think the most common goal for retro-PC-builders when they choose an old operating system is to play games or run programs that would have traditionally been run on that operating system, because it either works best or offers the most authentic experience. Following that line of reasoning, using a PCI-Express based high end gaming card from 2004 in Windows 95 is hard to justify. How well will DirectX 8 games work at 1080P on a PCI-Express system under Windows 95, using questionable Windows 98 drivers? I doubt more than a few people in the world know... but it sounds like a nightmare to me, and there would be nothing gained versus playing those games on Windows XP, or at the oldest, 98SE.

However, using a system and a video card from the late 90s, that may be a bit newer than Windows 95 will allow you to experience Windows 95 and play "Windows 95-era" games with hardware and drivers that were designed to run on such a configuration. For example, a cheap Pentium II and a TNT2 (or Geforce 2MX, etc.), or if you need 3dfx, a Banshee or V3 (or a 2D card + Voodoo 1\2).

Making an insanely fast, maxed out Windows 98SE system is more common because by all merits, 98SE improved upon 95, so most people have no reason to use 95 except out of nostalgia or to use a system which is too slow for 98SE. Still, if someone did this, I can almost guarantee that it would only be used for games that don't work their best in Windows XP. Who wants to have the RAM and driver limitations (and instability) of Windows 98 in DirectX 8 or 9 games, when they work better on XP? I only mention this, because you mentioned lots of "pros" which I think no one would ever make use of.

If productivity applications are the goal, I don't know what to suggest. I would be even more concerned about glitchy drivers and odd incompatibilities if I was investing time into doing real work in non-gaming applications though.

There's also the potential for newer drivers to cause compatibility issues with older games.

Mainstream support for Win98 ended in 2002, extended support lasted until 2006. It's unlikely that GPU manufacturers did a huge amount of driver testing on Win98 after mainstream support expired.

I'll freely admit that I value performance quite a bit otherwise I wouldn't run OS/2 Warp on an Ivy Bridge Core i5.

I do care about software compatibility too, but I guess I focus more on hardware compatibility.

I like to push vintage software to their performance limits. I ran Windows 95 on a 50MHz 486 back in the fall of 1995, and I liked it quite a bit. But, I will not say that it performed well on that hardware. If I could have run it on a 3GHz, Pentium 3-based processor in 1995 (and could afford it), I would have. In fact, I can now!

As for the G550, I tried it with OS/2 partly to see if it would even work. I did a lot of research before purchasing it, and I couldn't find a reference anywhere when someone else used it with OS/2. I swapped it with the G200 I previously used, and OS/2 booted straight away to the GUI. The drivers even recognized it as a "G550" (I know, it's not that hard, but the Win95 drivers didn't even do that) even though the drivers were only meant to support up to the G450. The picture looked great at 1080p, 32-bit color (through an analog cable). I also liked that it freed up a PCI slot in the system, the card is passively cooled, and it's tiny. I loved it, and I would recommend this pairing if anyone else wanted to run OS/2 on a PCIe-equipped system. Based on my experience with the G200 cards, I bet all of the G-series cards would work about the same in OS/2. I just liked the G550 the best.