Install w98.
Backup.
10:
Add drivers for card.
Play/benchmark
Restore from backup
swap card
If cardstried < totalcards Goto 10
Decide.

Data > opinion

I think only the Marrox G450 or the ATI 128 Pro are worth considering, the rest are far too new.

Radeon 9600 cannot be installed on an AGP 2x slot. Have you noticed that it has one less keyhole?

The ATI Radeon 9000 PRO might be the best card... similar memory speed to the 9600 & FX 5700 but in AGP 4x...

This is a true super7 board, have you considered finding a K6-2?

Besides that, these graphics cards are quite new so I second the opinion to go for either the Matrox or Ati Rage 128pro.
Stukje TNT pro or voodoo 3 would be ok as well if you have them, cpu wil be the bottlenecks any way.

waterbeesje wrote on 2025-02-22, 07:37:

This is a true super7 board, have you considered finding a K6-2?

This. A K6-2+/3+ makes much more sense. Absolutely zero point in running an AGP board and graphics card on a PMMX.

I assume the R6 is the Radeon 7200? Either use that, the G450 or the Rage128 Pro (both are of the 1999-2000 super7 relevance period). The rest of the list sounds like bad retro pc expert on youtube advice personally missing a few moore's laws to know where the leaps were.

dormcat wrote on 2025-02-22, 06:08:

Radeon 9600 cannot be installed on an AGP 2x slot. Have you noticed that it has one less keyhole?

Good catch! No, did not notice that, so it's out.

Consensus so far seems to be the Matrox or the Rage 128.

waterbeesje wrote on 2025-02-22, 07:37:

This is a true super7 board, have you considered finding a K6-2?

Besides that, these graphics cards are quite new so I second the opinion to go for either the Matrox or Ati Rage 128pro.
Stukje TNT pro or voodoo 3 would be ok as well if you have them, cpu wil be the bottlenecks any way.

Honestly, no. I was originally going to run this CPU in the Jetway J-TX98B I have (that's what I ordered it for), but it refuses to do anything with that CPU installed, but works fine with the Pentium 75 that I tested it with (pulled from the Biostar board I have).

Goal was to have a 233 MMX system, this was the first board in Canada that I found at a good price on Ebay, that's why I got it.

I do have a question about the BIOS though:

This board has a 1996 BIOS. I used the Wayback Machine and got both the AMI and Award BIOS's from it for 1998 (the ZIP files come with both the ROM files for the ITE and SMC Super IO's). They mention you can upgrade one with an AMI BIOS to the Award BIOS, but then can't go back without a programmer (which I have). Is there any benefit to going to the Award BIOS, like maybe better large drive support? Asking you because you appear to have experience with this board.

Dates on the BIOS's are:
AMI: April, 1998
Award: July, 1998

If only out of these, I'm leaning towards the Matrox.

Otherwise I'd just dig up an MX200.

RandomStranger wrote on 2025-02-22, 15:49:

If only out of these, I'm leaning towards the Matrox.

Otherwise I'd just dig up an MX200.

Yeah, would prefer to use up stuff in my stash at this juncture, hence the list of options.

I'm somewhat new to this hobby, so a large portion of what I have "in stock" is from years of basically hoarding stuff I thought might be useful in the future rather than having an intentioned purpose for it at time of collection. It's why I have lots of SCSI cards for example, but almost no white faced CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives. Resurrecting my old 486 I got when I was a teen was what set this all off.

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-22, 15:14:

Honestly, no. I was originally going to run this CPU in the Jetway J-TX98B I have (that's what I ordered it for), but it refuses […]
Show full quote

waterbeesje wrote on 2025-02-22, 07:37:

This is a true super7 board, have you considered finding a K6-2?

Besides that, these graphics cards are quite new so I second the opinion to go for either the Matrox or Ati Rage 128pro.
Stukje TNT pro or voodoo 3 would be ok as well if you have them, cpu wil be the bottlenecks any way.

Honestly, no. I was originally going to run this CPU in the Jetway J-TX98B I have (that's what I ordered it for), but it refuses to do anything with that CPU installed, but works fine with the Pentium 75 that I tested it with (pulled from the Biostar board I have).

Goal was to have a 233 MMX system, this was the first board in Canada that I found at a good price on Ebay, that's why I got it.

I do have a question about the BIOS though:

This board has a 1996 BIOS. I used the Wayback Machine and got both the AMI and Award BIOS's from it for 1998 (the ZIP files come with both the ROM files for the ITE and SMC Super IO's). They mention you can upgrade one with an AMI BIOS to the Award BIOS, but then can't go back without a programmer (which I have). Is there any benefit to going to the Award BIOS, like maybe better large drive support? Asking you because you appear to have experience with this board.

Dates on the BIOS's are:
AMI: April, 1998
Award: July, 1998

I've got this board in my stash, running a Cyrix M2 cpu. Is a great little board that indeed should not have any issues with the MMX. Could it be the vrm for split voltages is not ok? (With the MMX it was jumpered for 2,8v split voltage, right?)

waterbeesje wrote on 2025-02-22, 19:57:

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-22, 15:14:

Honestly, no. I was originally going to run this CPU in the Jetway J-TX98B I have (that's what I ordered it for), but it refuses […]
Show full quote

waterbeesje wrote on 2025-02-22, 07:37:

This is a true super7 board, have you considered finding a K6-2?

Besides that, these graphics cards are quite new so I second the opinion to go for either the Matrox or Ati Rage 128pro.
Stukje TNT pro or voodoo 3 would be ok as well if you have them, cpu wil be the bottlenecks any way.

Honestly, no. I was originally going to run this CPU in the Jetway J-TX98B I have (that's what I ordered it for), but it refuses to do anything with that CPU installed, but works fine with the Pentium 75 that I tested it with (pulled from the Biostar board I have).

Goal was to have a 233 MMX system, this was the first board in Canada that I found at a good price on Ebay, that's why I got it.

I do have a question about the BIOS though:

This board has a 1996 BIOS. I used the Wayback Machine and got both the AMI and Award BIOS's from it for 1998 (the ZIP files come with both the ROM files for the ITE and SMC Super IO's). They mention you can upgrade one with an AMI BIOS to the Award BIOS, but then can't go back without a programmer (which I have). Is there any benefit to going to the Award BIOS, like maybe better large drive support? Asking you because you appear to have experience with this board.

Dates on the BIOS's are:
AMI: April, 1998
Award: July, 1998

I've got this board in my stash, running a Cyrix M2 cpu. Is a great little board that indeed should not have any issues with the MMX. Could it be the vrm for split voltages is not ok? (With the MMX it was jumpered for 2,8v split voltage, right?)

Yeah, I ran the settings as shown in the manual, all the jumpers open except 7/8.

myne wrote on 2025-02-22, 05:29:

Install w98. Backup. 10: Add drivers for card. Play/benchmark Restore from backup swap card If cardstried < totalcards Goto 10 […]
Show full quote

Install w98.
Backup.
10:
Add drivers for card.
Play/benchmark
Restore from backup
swap card
If cardstried < totalcards Goto 10
Decide.

Data > opinion

OK, since I did DOS benchmarks, I didn't bother doing the backup and drivers steps.

TLDR: The V9750 (GeForce FX5700LE) was CONSIDERABLY faster than all my other cards in dosbench. Also, the Quake 640x480 Timedemo only ran correctly on the Matrox (11.5 FPS) and the NVidia (17.0 FPS) cards. The ATI cards ran it at 320x240.

Now, NONE of the cards would run in AGP 2x mode. CPU-Z shows it as supported (as does HWINFO) (and it was enabled in the AMI BIOS before I flashed to Award, which no longer has the option) but it's not enabled. I know this chipset has AGP compatibility issues with some cards, but I expected at least ONE of them to show up at 2x, 🤣.

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-23, 02:12:

Also, the Quake 640x480 Timedemo only ran correctly on the Matrox (11.5 FPS) and the NVidia (17.0 FPS) cards. The ATI cards ran it at 320x240.

FWIW, this is what I mean:
R6 32MB:

Rage 128 Pro 32MB:

Maxtrox G450:

NVidia FX5700LE:

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-23, 02:12:

Quake 640x480 Timedemo only ran correctly on the Matrox (11.5 FPS)

Negative. It ran at 640 x 400.

I'm not sure what that "surface cache" refers to, but looks like larger cache is required for higher resolution(s).

dormcat wrote on 2025-02-23, 18:36:

OVERK|LL wrote on 2025-02-23, 02:12:

Quake 640x480 Timedemo only ran correctly on the Matrox (11.5 FPS)

Negative. It ran at 640 x 400.

I'm not sure what that "surface cache" refers to, but looks like larger cache is required for higher resolution(s).

OK, that's weird, because dosbench lists it as 640x480, but yes, I see the Matrox ran it at 640x400, while the NVidia card ran it at 640x480, good catch, serves me right for not looking closer.

Not sure what that's referring to either (surface cache), all cards were run under the exact same DOS environment, but the cards all have lots of VRAM, so I can't see that being the constraining factor? The Matrox and both ATI's are all 32MB cards, only the FX5700LE has a lot more at 128MB.

Surface cache is the system memory Quake keeps for its one large image to draw all the textures from (it's where all the tiled texels and mipmaps live to the renderer, as the CPU pulls pixels right out of the surface cache into 3d, the video card does not have the surface cache)

leileilol wrote on 2025-02-26, 05:51:

Surface cache is the system memory Quake keeps for its one large image to draw all the textures from (it's where all the tiled texels and mipmaps live to the renderer, as the CPU pulls pixels right out of the surface cache into 3d, the video card does not have the surface cache)

Thanks for the info.