johnvosh wrote on 2021-05-02, 00:59:

candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-02, 00:55:

so the only issue game i really see is NFS:U2 its slow on cards from 2004, even the mighty x800 is slow with it, id look at an x1900GT AGP minimum

I ended up buying the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3650 512MB AGP GDDR3 card on ebay as it was the more reasonably priced card. Was CAD$70 shipped. Hopefully it will be here before the end of the month.

its not ideal, while it has shaders it's also slower than a 7600GS, its comparable to a 6800NU or 6600GT, and maybe an x800GT, in other words its not really an upgrade. It's hobbled by its ROP's, and this makes it slow

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-05-02, 12:00:

johnvosh wrote on 2021-04-27, 23:26:

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-04-27, 13:14:

How period correct do you want it or do you want best performance / bang for buck?

I was going to try and go somewhat period correct. It is running Windows XP, The motherboard was released July of 2004, the CPU was released May 2005. So could say that the motherboard and CPU were bought mid 2005. Of course my HDD is a 150GB Velociraptor and has a date of Jan 2010 on it. The monitor has a date of Dec 2006.

I was thinking something between mid-2005 to end of 2006 would probably be good for a video card...

Man, then I'd go for an X1950XTX - pretty much the best single GPU card you could get in 2006. Also pretty cheap on eBay - I had my eye on one a couple of months ago for $40...

I had a look for that one, but there really isn't any that come up. Can find some of the lesser X1950 and X1900 cards, all with 256MB though and for being in Canada, they are closer to CAD$100 plus shipping.

vad4r wrote on 2021-05-02, 12:11:

Maybe it's better to switch to a board with PCIe and a PCIe GPU, because the latest AGP cards are more expensive than the first PCIe cards with the same chips.

After rereading thru the replies, I think that it probably what I will end up doing. And after searching on ebay, pci-e cards are cheaper and easier to find then the AGP versions.

Smart move.

Cheers,

candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-02, 19:44:

johnvosh wrote on 2021-05-02, 00:59:

candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-02, 00:55:

so the only issue game i really see is NFS:U2 its slow on cards from 2004, even the mighty x800 is slow with it, id look at an x1900GT AGP minimum

I ended up buying the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3650 512MB AGP GDDR3 card on ebay as it was the more reasonably priced card. Was CAD$70 shipped. Hopefully it will be here before the end of the month.

its not ideal, while it has shaders it's also slower than a 7600GS, its comparable to a 6800NU or 6600GT, and maybe an x800GT, in other words its not really an upgrade. It's hobbled by its ROP's, and this makes it slow

For now, it should hopefully be okay. I don't want to stress the 9700 too much. I will probably use the 9700 for a Win 98SE machine. I did remove the heat sink and put new thermal paste on it. I will probably end up going to a different motherboard so I can get a card, easier to find in the PCIe version.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-05-02, 19:55:

Smart move.

Cheers,

What would you recommend for a good S939 board? I found a Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9 for a decent price, is it any good? I also found an ASUS A8N-VM CSM and an ASUS A8N5X

johnvosh wrote on 2021-05-02, 19:55:

For now, it should hopefully be okay. I don't want to stress the 9700 too much. I will probably use the 9700 for a Win 98SE machine. I did remove the heat sink and put new thermal paste on it. I will probably end up going to a different motherboard so I can get a card, easier to find in the PCIe version.

I hope you are not talking about 9700 and stock heatsink. At least make sure it's making proper contact. GPU usually sits a bit lower then surrounding shim, and thick and hard factory TIM is filling the void.
Basically, if you remove stock cooler you either de-shim the GPU or put Zalman VF700/900 or ATI Silencer on. I'd go with second option.

You've got me curious about some of ATI's AGP cards, so I tossed my x1600 Pro into my XP 2800 and im going to see how it compares to a 9800Pro then also compare it to an AGP 4350

It would be interesting to see where they stack up, because the 9800Pro and x1600 need external power, but can the HD4350 match them while using 20W

candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-02, 23:52:

You've got me curious about some of ATI's AGP cards, so I tossed my x1600 Pro into my XP 2800 and im going to see how it compares to a 9800Pro then also compare it to an AGP 4350

It would be interesting to see where they stack up, because the 9800Pro and x1600 need external power, but can the HD4350 match them while using 20W

That sounds like a fun experiment. Can't wait to see your results.

johnvosh wrote on 2021-05-02, 20:16:

What would you recommend for a good S939 board? I found a Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9 for a decent price, is it any good? I also found an ASUS A8N-VM CSM and an ASUS A8N5X

I haven't used those exact boards but I have an A8N-SLI. Based on problems I had with it, I believe that it cannot reliably support cards that draw the maximum amount of power from the video card slot (75W I believe).
Pretty much in any generation of cards, there will be one model that sits near that threshold, being the most powerful card that doesn't require auxiliary power connectors.

I was trying to run my A8N-SLI with a GT240-GDDR5, which is one of those type of cards. The motherboard was prone to abruptly power off when Minecraft was running. I don't know about other games, that's all anybody was playing on it at the time.
It was not the PSU switching off, it was the motherboard because it could easily be restarted by just pushing the power button. I tried watching temperatures in Speedfan and saw no sign of overheating to explain it.
I remember fiddling with the SLI card-thingy and believe I tried both Express x16 slots but had the same problem. I know I also had the extra 4-pin Molex plugged into the motherboard at least part of the time (even though it should be redundant with the "P4" connector).
Once I swapped the GT240 to a GT520 the problem was fixed.

I have not tried any higher powered card that uses auxiliary power connectors, but I'm guessing those would work better since they probably don't max out the 75W budget on the slot.
I don't know if the A8N-variants you listed above would share the same problem.

candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-02, 23:52:

You've got me curious about some of ATI's AGP cards, so I tossed my x1600 Pro into my XP 2800 and im going to see how it compares to a 9800Pro then also compare it to an AGP 4350

It would be interesting to see where they stack up, because the 9800Pro and x1600 need external power, but can the HD4350 match them while using 20W

Back then I upgraded from an AGP system running a 9800Pro to my first PCI-Express system running an HD4350. I picked that card because it was cheap, and based on whatever research I did at the time, I inferred it was enough to stay ahead of the 9800Pro so it would be good enough for what I was playing at the time.
It was indeed faster but that was a complete system upgrade so it wasn't a good comparison. If you can do a more controlled comparison of those cards it would be interesting.

shamino wrote on 2021-05-03, 03:54:

candle_86 wrote on 2021-05-02, 23:52:

You've got me curious about some of ATI's AGP cards, so I tossed my x1600 Pro into my XP 2800 and im going to see how it compares to a 9800Pro then also compare it to an AGP 4350

It would be interesting to see where they stack up, because the 9800Pro and x1600 need external power, but can the HD4350 match them while using 20W

Back then I upgraded from an AGP system running a 9800Pro to my first PCI-Express system running an HD4350. I picked that card because it was cheap, and based on whatever research I did at the time, I inferred it was enough to stay ahead of the 9800Pro so it would be good enough for what I was playing at the time.
It was indeed faster but that was a complete system upgrade so it wasn't a good comparison. If you can do a more controlled comparison of those cards it would be interesting.

I can but sadly the Athlon XP won't do it, the drivers crash on it, but I've got a socket 754 compaq I can test with later this week and I'll let yall know for sure. I'd test in my P4 rig that's already built, but I don't really wanna take out the 7800GS, im terrified I'd damage it somehow 🤣

So I found an ATI Radeon X800 XL 256MB to replace the Radeon 9700 Pro card. Here are the benchmark results of this card.

looks good man, I will having shoved a pair of 7950GT's on my A64 3700 you can run faster than an x800XL, at 12x10 the SLI doesn't matter but i hooked it up to a 2006 model AOC Monitor at 1920x1200 and at that resolution i notice the diffrence, it actually compares quite well to an 8800GTS 512 in preformance

So I received my Radeon HD 3650 AGP in the mail finally. Came all the way from Russia! Anyways, trying to track down a driver for XP is a pain the butt. I did find one, but when installing, it failed to install the graphics driver, so I installed it manually and restarted . Everything is fine until I go to try and load any version of 3DMark, the program just freezes at the loading screen and I have to end the program. I'm guessing that it is possibly a bad driver?

Does anyone know what the best driver version is for this card and where I could find it? Thanks!

I recall XP working with Sapphire HD3650 AGP on P4P800 and was both P4 and Pentium M back then when I had to build a set for a guy all up ready to go so they don't have to assemble it and NOT to break it in the process. This was not windows 98se.

I had it at first with pentium M taking audio input from a game on another PC which was series of audio puzzles that you would match pair of same sound then again till entire puzzle is completed, I used audio software to show audio graph as a pattern. This is a game based on famous antique film short back in 1910's of a remake game based on bullet spaceship shot from canon and landed on moon where you interact with aliens and their organic technology in order to get return to earth.

How did you find the driver for HD3650? If not, this is not trusted and have to be should taken from AMD's website.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-06-03, 00:24:

I recall XP working with Sapphire HD3650 AGP on P4P800 and was both P4 and Pentium M back then when I had to build a set for a guy all up ready to go so they don't have to assemble it and NOT to break it in the process. This was not windows 98se.

How did you find the driver for HD3650? If not, this is not trusted and have to be should taken from AMD's website.

Cheers,

I couldn't find an actual driver for XP on AMD's website. I did a google search and tried to find one that way. I think I had found it on an old forum from like 2010/2012 or so

I got it from this site... http://www.hisdigital.com/ca/download1-357.shtml

johnvosh wrote on 2021-06-03, 00:20:

So I received my Radeon HD 3650 AGP in the mail finally. Came all the way from Russia! Anyways, trying to track down a driver for XP is a pain the butt. I did find one, but when installing, it failed to install the graphics driver, so I installed it manually and restarted . Everything is fine until I go to try and load any version of 3DMark, the program just freezes at the loading screen and I have to end the program. I'm guessing that it is possibly a bad driver?

Does anyone know what the best driver version is for this card and where I could find it? Thanks!

https://drivers.dosreloaded.de/index.php?b=Gr … 2FHD3xxx_HD4xxx

You shouldnt grab AMD Driver, grab ATI Driver from Above.
Be sure to uninstall the other Driver fully before installing it.

And Patch for Driver if you hit Bluescreen Bug:

Note CSA Patch needs Visual C++ 2005 Redist.

But you should normally not encounter it as you have SSE2.

Took and did a fresh reinstall of Windows XP Home. Installed all the drivers, SP4 and then reinstalled 3DMark03 without any of the patches. Opened the program and it got to the settings. So I closed the program and installed the V360 patch and then it would freeze on the program loading screen. I uninstalled it, restarted, reinstalled the normal version and it is now just freezing. I installed 3DMark05 and 06 and they are both freezing.... I have no clue what is going on... anyone have any ideas?