Well, out of a GeForce 2 MX and a GeForce4 Ti, there really is no question - the GF4 Ti is the one to use. GF4 Ti is one of the best options period. Other than that you might want a Voodoo of some sort for games that are best on Glide.

Also, the concept of a card being "too fast" is imaginary. GF4 Ti has many advantages including bug fixes that improve image quality over older GeForce cards. That's not to say that an older GeForce isn't technically interesting of course.

I got a 4400 Ti today, but damn it it's broken!
The search continues...

If you want to target 1600x1200 or 1280x960 I would suggest a powerful GeForce FX - my 5800U has no problems with older games at 1280x960 (ones that support it at least), often with AA/AF enabled, whereas something like a GeForce 1 or Voodoo3 probably wouldn't be up to that task, even if it can technically run the game.

Yes but I'd prefer compatibility with a wide range of 1995-2000 games rather than being able to play at ultra high resolutions for that era. I'm looking for the best compatibility that would allow a step or two up in the resolution front actually. So this best compromise is a gf4 ti? 😀

GeorgeMan wrote:

Yes but I'd prefer compatibility with a wide range of 1995-2000 games rather than being able to play at ultra high resolutions for that era. I'm looking for the best compatibility that would allow a step or two up in the resolution front actually. So this best compromise is a gf4 ti? 😀

GeForce FX should be just as compatible, and supports mostly the same feature-set as the GeForce 4 Ti (with some minor changes and some improvements (e.g. PS2.0)). I've yet to run into an issue with a late-90s DirectX game and an FX (usually OS support is a bigger hang-up), Splinter Cell being the big "gotcha" but it RUNS on a wide variety of hardware just fine, it's specifically the shadowing thing that comes up as a compatibility concern (and my FX 5800 had no problems with that; my 5900XT was less flawless). I don't understand the fascination with using the slowest/oldest possible hardware in the name of "compatibility" - IMO you should be looking for the most powerful hardware that will reasonably support what you want. If you're seeking to play relatively mainstream games it probably isn't even an issue worth worrying about - get whatever is fastest and most available to you. However if you have some obscure game that's poorly supported, and requires some proprietary or static-linked feature, you will need to research and address that.

For top compatibility with 1995-1997 D3D games, you want a Voodoo of some sort. Voodoo3/5 are my preferences. Some old Glide games can require a Voodoo1/2 however. Some are strictly Voodoo1.

GeForce FX usually works fine but non Voodoo cards often have quirks. You will occasionally see issues like texel alignment problems that break up text and menus. It really comes down to even D3D games back then being designed for Voodoo.

swaaye wrote:

For top compatibility with 1995-1997 D3D games, you want a Voodoo of some sort. Voodoo3/5 are my preferences. Some old Glide games can require a Voodoo1/2 however. Some are strictly Voodoo1.

GeForce FX usually works fine but non Voodoo cards often have quirks. You will occasionally see issues like texel alignment problems that break up text and menus. It really comes down to even D3D games back then being designed for Voodoo.

Yes but would a GeForce 4 be any better or worse in this regard? 😊

Indeed if you're heavily weighting the game-play to the older side of 1995-2000, 3dfx should be a serious consideration (but again it will depend on what games you're looking at from that era). Having said that, I've not had any issues running exclusively nVidia cards for the last few years, and certainly appreciate the wider range of (good) driver options. 😀

One GF4 advantage over FX is the Splinter Cell shadow situation. But yeah usually FX is excellent for lots of oldies and I have suggested FX cards on here for many years. He owns a GF4 Ti already so might as well go with that.

Of course I'll put into a voodoo2 for glide, I've already mentioned this. My ti is unfortunately not working. 😒 Isn't there any stability problem with i440bx and much newer cards, like fx series? Don't many older games behave badly when they "see" dx9 installed with a dx9 accelerator? What about palette textures? If FX is a good choice, why not install an 6800 then, which is officially supported in 98?
I'm not interested in splinter cell 😀

swaaye wrote:

One GF4 advantage over FX is the Splinter Cell shadow situation. But yeah usually FX is excellent for lots of oldies and I have suggested FX cards on here for many years. He owns a GF4 Ti already so might as well go with that.

The "shadow thing" only matters if you want the UltraShadow (forget if that's the exact right name of it) feature; the game will actually run with shadows with that feature disabled (they just aren't quite as good - it's really a minor thing imho). And not all FX cards have issues with the shadow thing. And I consider Splinter Cell to be kind of a unique case, and one that's gotten blown out of proportion in terms of significance (at least here on vogons), to the point that I kind of regret helping to test the phenomenon at this point. 😵

GeorgeMan wrote:

Of course I'll put into a voodoo2 for glide, I've already mentioned this. My ti is unfortunately not working. 😒 Isn't there any stability problem with i440bx and much newer cards, like fx series? Don't many older games behave badly when they "see" dx9 installed with a dx9 accelerator? What about palette textures? If FX is a good choice, why not install an 6800 then, which is officially supported in 98?
I'm not interested in splinter cell 😀

GeForce 6800 doesn't support palleted textures (there's more than 1 game that this will affect too, but if you don't play anything that this matters for, this ceases to matter), requires 1.5V AGP (and afaik there is no i440 BX with 1.5V), and you can find mixed-bag reviews of GeForce 6 under Windows 9x and with very old motherboards compared to GeForce 4 or FX. 6 will also push you into considerably newer driver builds, which may/can break things with older games, and are certainly larger packages (especially as you move past 90.xx). Now having said that, I don't remember ever having any significant compatibility issues with my 6800GT either, so if you don't mind switching to a board with 1.5V support, you could go with a 6800 and never question being able to run at high resolution + high AA for the bulk of games.

The FX is a good break point for being a universal native AGP card with good backwards compatibility and performance, passable shader performance for early titles, a wide selection of drivers, a wide selection of operating system support, and so forth. This isn't to say GeForce 4 is bad - it isn't, but unless you have some obtuse game that will break on a GeForce (and if you do, it will likely break on GF4 as well, unless its something that was broken due to ForceWare 40.xx or later (where the FX will live)) there's no reason you can't be gaming at 1280x960 or 1600x1200 with an FX, whereas an older/slower card will inherently limit that.

As far as games having problems "seeing" DX9 - nothing I've ever had a problem with assuming everything is installed properly. Generally I install relatively new builds of DX on machines to prevent having to constantly update them as I install games. Old doesn't always mean "more compatible."

OP and GeorgeMan, enough theory, buy a few cards and let us know what you find best 🤣

Thing with the GF4 is that it is somewhat easier to get. FX cards can be a bit harder to find and also pricier. But a fast FX is as good as it gets in terms of performance while keeping the main compatibility boxes ticked.

Except that 6800 is native agp and supports agp 2x, I guess that you are correct obobskivih.
I will try to find a radeon 9700 or an nvidia equivalent then. 😀

Don't ignore the 5700Ultra if your getting an FX card.
I have 4 of them from ebay that I bought for 99 cents each + shipping in pristine condition.
I was actually only searching for 1 at the time 🤣 but I saw all these auctions being ignored and bid on them.

People ignore them I guess, they don't realize they are basically a QUIET 5800, and the only FX card to use DDR2 other then the 5800's.

Well, we've already established that the FX series are quite compatible but is there any "dos" games in particular that are known to have issues whilst using the FX cards?

AlphaWing wrote:

Don't ignore the 5700Ultra if your getting an FX card. I have 4 of them from ebay that I bought for 99 cents each + shipping in […]
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Don't ignore the 5700Ultra if your getting an FX card.
I have 4 of them from ebay that I bought for 99 cents each + shipping in pristine condition.
I was actually only searching for 1 at the time 🤣 but I saw all these auctions being ignored and bid on them.

People ignore them I guess, they don't realize they are basically a QUIET 5800, and the only FX card to use DDR2 other then the 5800's.

I see two issues with 5700.
-it needs newer drivers than other FX cards.
-performance is about the same as GF4 Ti.

Really I think 5900 is the way to go because of its bandwidth and fillrate helping high resolution and anti aliasing. It can also run slightly older drivers.

But 99c is not something to argue with!! 🤣

GeorgeMan wrote:

Except that 6800 is native agp and supports agp 2x, I guess that you are correct obobskivih.
I will try to find a radeon 9700 or an nvidia equivalent then. 😀

I run a 6800 on a KT333 setup occasionally. It's solid in 9x and very fast of course. I like to run 1600/1920x1200 with Quincunx via Rivatuner. A nice effect at high resolution.

9700 is a less interesting proposition though. Unless you are going to use it for DirectX 7+ games only. OpenGL issues and weak backward compatibility.

GeorgeMan wrote:

Except that 6800 is native agp and supports agp 2x, I guess that you are correct obobskivih.
I will try to find a radeon 9700 or an nvidia equivalent then. 😀

GeForce 6800 is native AGP, but other Geforce 6 are not; did I say otherwise? 😕

GeForce 6800 is however a 1.5V card, which will make it a problem with older motherboards (such as a 440BX).

I specifically avoided mentioning Radeon 9700 because R3xxs have spotty reliability (they have a nasty habit of cooking themselves to death), and the drivers and OpenGL support are...bad. 😵 The equivalent from nVidia is GeForce FX, which takes us back to where we started... 😊

AlphaWing wrote:

People ignore them I guess, they don't realize they are basically a QUIET 5800, and the only FX card to use DDR2 other then the 5800's.

If you want a low-power/single-slot/etc NV30 the QFX 1000 would be the ideal choice. They're fairly easy to find and tend not to be very expensive either. 😊

borgie83 wrote:

Well, we've already established that the FX series are quite compatible but is there any "dos" games in particular that are known to have issues whilst using the FX cards?

Taking a shot from the hip, anything that will break in general without 3dfx/S3 hardware would probably be an instant red flag, but nothing is coming to mind off-handedly as a specific example, and if we're dealing with games from the later 1990s I would expect this to be less of a problem than if we were dealing with games from the early 1990s (in which case the P3 would also be a potential problem). When I'm thinking of late 1990s I'm thinking of things like Quake, Sims, Command & Conquer, etc which will all work on a GeForce FX.

DOS is a very complicated topic because there are a zillion games and VGA / VESA support is not exactly the same across all games (to say the least). I do remember Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri had palette corruption on my FX 5900. I was able to fix it with the 3dfx VESAfix util (yes fixed a GeForce too). VESA Fix Utility Listing (for old video cards)

swaaye wrote:

DOS is a very complicated topic because there are a zillion games and VGA / VESA support is not exactly the same across all games (to say the least). I do remember Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri had palette corruption on my FX 5900. I was able to fix it with the 3dfx VESAfix util (yes fixed a GeForce too). VESA Fix Utility Listing (for old video cards)

That palette corruption was in the menus, right? Had the same problem on my Voodoo 3, even with VESAfix (in fact I couldn't get it to run without it).

F2bnp wrote:

That palette corruption was in the menus, right? Had the same problem on my Voodoo 3, even with VESAfix (in fact I couldn't get it to run without it).

I am pretty sure I had it working fine on the FX card with that TSR. It was years ago so I'm not sure if it was only the menus that were problematic.