It's a good D3D & OpenGL card for a win98 rig, spanning games from around 1997~2001. Good backward compatibility for DirectX 5-7 games, just don't use newest versions of drivers that may not support older games well. Add a PCI Voodoo1/2 for Glide and you'll have a very decent rig. What CPU/mobo you plan to pair it with?

Right know I'm between these Mobos/CPU configs:

Pentium 4 2,4ghz socket 478, Asrock P4VM8

Asus A7n8X nforce 2 , socket 462 AMD Athlon XP 3.2 CPU ( I also have an Asrock K7S41GX)

1GHz Pentium 3 Tualatin with a Soyo Sybva-133 mobo (only agp 4x)

Edit: and yes, I also have both, a pair of Diamond Monster 3DII Voodoo's 2 12mb, and a Creative 3d Blaster Voodoo 2 8mb.

copados33 wrote:

Right know I'm between these Mobos/CPU configs: […]
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Right know I'm between these Mobos/CPU configs:

Pentium 4 2,4ghz socket 478, Asrock P4VM8

Asus A7n8X nforce 2 , socket 462 AMD Athlon XP 3.2 CPU ( I also have an Asrock K7S41GX)

1GHz Pentium 3 Tualatin with a Soyo Sybva-133 mobo (only agp 4x)

Edit: I laso have both a pair of Diamond Monster 3D2 Voodoo's 2 12mb, and a Creative 3d Blaster Voodoo 2 8mb.

A 1 Ghz Tualatin? You sure you don't mean a Coppermine? 😜

Anyway, to get back to your question, personally I'd put it in the Pentium 4.
I use GF3's in my Tualatin rigs and used a GF7600 in an Athlon 3200+ rig.
But that's just my opinion, lets see what others have to say 😉

Well, any Athlon/P3 above 700~800MHz will do, actually. AGP 4X should be alright if you don't plan to go with cards later than GF 4 Ti 4400/4600. ISA + Tualatin is cool I think, but it's your rig, your call. 😀

edit:

Tetrium wrote:

A 1 Ghz Tualatin? You sure you don't mean a Coppermine? 😜

maybe he means Tualatin Celeron?

edit 2: or maybe Athlon/P3 >1.2GHz if you want to give the 4600 a decent boost http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/palitti4600/index.html

Now I'm not sure, this one here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-III-1GH … 360518762582%26

What are the differences between the tualatin and Coppermine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_III

(Also, I changed above CPU recommendation for Ti 4600)

Btw, that's a Coppermine: http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL52R.html

Tualatin is 130nm, and there is 512K L2 cache version.

I use a Ti 4200 64mb with my Tualatin 1.4GHz and it is great. The CPU is holding it back quite a bit though, the P4 2.4GHz is will squeeze the Ti 4600 IMO. You don't get DOS support on that one though, not without a lot of work anyway!

I'll go with the P4, may give the Athlon a chance too, I have to run some tests, what games are good to meassure these card/CPU combos?? the games talked on the link that archasan provided seem to be a bit old for this card and (more Geforce 3 oriented I believe, Quake 3?)

As far as I remember Athlon Xp's were the competition to Intel P4's, I don't know which one will the best option in order to stretch the time line supported by this rig.

Do I need to include any of the V2 cards on this setup, or should I stick to Direct3d only?

copados33 wrote:

I'll go with the P4, may give the Athlon a chance too, I have to run some tests, what games are good to meassure these card/CPU combos?? the games talked on the link that archasan provided seem to be a bit old for this card and (more Geforce 3 oriented I believe, Quake 3?)

As far as I remember Athlon Xp's were the competition to Intel P4's, I don't know which one will the best option in order to stretch the time line supported by this rig.

Do I need to include any of the V2 cards on this setup, or should I stick to Direct3d only?

Well, it depends a bit what you meant with Athlon XP 3.2 CPU. I presume you meant the Athlon XP 3200+ Barton CPU?
Anyway, personally I wouldn't use a Voodoo2 with anything faster then a Tualatin or a Coppermine, but most users here seem to actually prefer to use Voodoo2 SLI in very fast rigs. It's up to you what you want to do 😉

I guess that.. at the end, it all depends of the games:

Jedi Kinight 2 jedi outcast
Splinter Cell
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
Far Cry
Midnight Club 2
Warcraft 3
Call of Duty 1, 2
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Grand Prix 4
Virtua Tennis
Ghost Recon + expansions
Max Payne 2
GTA 3, Vice city
ES:Morrowind
Mafia

I'm also open to other suggestions 😁

Well, if you want to run newer games, why bother setting up retro rig 😀 I'd rather fire up some modern GTX and patch up older games to run on XP/7 as needed.

I'd only treat a GF 4 Ti and even FX 5900, as a "compatibility" card myself, that I will only use if I really have no choice but to boot up win98.

New games ? I believe almost all the games I have listed are games I used to play the most back then when I got my MSI Geforce 4ti 4600, Ghost Recon and Morrowind came bundled with the card.

Unless you're talking about running games with support for Glide, or DOS games under Windows 98 (I don't need the later and I think DOS is the only advantage that w98 has to offer over XP), DX8 games under Windows 98?? I'm a bit lost here...

I agree, would'nt you want to play Farcry at 1920X1080 etc? your system wont run Farcry well at any decent resolution

I would go the 3200XP/2.2GHZ, Im sure its a faster CPU if my memory serves me correct.

I said newer, not new. Many of those you mentioned, I'm sure that you can run them on Win XP/7. And well, how about Far Cry? Isn't it DX9?

Anyway, with 3D apps, why would you want to be using a graphics card from exactly the same generation as the games themselves, if you have access to newer better cards that can easily push them "to the max"? If it's for nostalgia then I can understand.

In other words, if your target app is Far Cry, then the whole point of setting up a "retro rig" as you said in the start, with an old card such as GF 4 Ti 4600, is moot.

Ok, then, what retro games could benefit from a 1ghz PIII + the GF4 4600 combo? or a P4 for that matter, I don't plan to build a computer just to play the games I mentioned, that's why I asked for advice in the first place, I just want to give this thing other uses beyond the casual video editing.

edit: Right now I have this card installed on a Intel Dual core setup and Windows XP, since I couldn't get the AVIVO feature to run under W7.

It's a nice card for D3D5-8 and OpenGL games. That's all there is to say really. Obviously it's not infinitely powerful though and it will choke on later D3D7/8 games if you push the resolution high enough or want FSAA and anisotropic.

Thanks, In the end I will be better using the P3 I guess, W98, and I'll also be pairing the GF4 with the SLI V2's, DX 5/7, no Farcry for now 😁

I believe I will be running both Clive Barker's Undying and No one Lives Forever maxed out on this thing.

Totally. My Tualatin 1.4GHz with a Ti 4200 runs NOLF2 just fine at 1280x1024 on High Details (30+ fps).
I wouldn't consider Athlons due to the awful chipsets. I hate them with a passion. nForce 2 seems awesome though, I'd love to get my hands on one of those sometime!

nForce 2 400 / Ultra 400 are certainly excellent. I wish the MCP-Gb southbridge with SATA + GigE had been more common. Actually couldn't care less about the NVAPU/Soundstorm with its buggy drivers.

VIA is ok by KT266A/KT333 though. KT333 is the fastest Athlon XP chipset that can run a AGP 3.3v Voodoo5.