What would this forum be without the monthly "best Win98 video card" thread 🤣

Don't see the big difference between these choices... the only benefit of GFFX over GF6 is probably table fog support. With these Nvidia cards it's more important to pick the right driver and maybe even stay on an older DirectX version. Voodoo3 is better than Voodoo2 SLI in any respect if you don't intend do play DOS Glide games but you will need to change primary VGA in the BIOS each time.

Gotcha on the Voodoo 3, and the 2 PCI slots being consumed is an annoyance with the Voodoo2 (anybody need a pair?), but I wasn't necessarily seeking the "best" card, more along the lines of the 6800 giving me anything that the fx iterations won't -- or vice versa, considering my planned usage. I'm over the whole "retro-ness" thing on this PC and just want something that will suffice for me, and cause the others in the household minimal drama when they dig into my old PC game library and just HAVE to play something on it.

Naturally I wouldn't expect better legacy compatibility from a newer card, but obviously you'll have more performance for AA/AF at high resolutions with that 6800 card.

I just found this interesting site btw, might as well post here instead of opening a new topic: http://zp.amsnet.pl/cdragan/wizard.php

Table fog always seems to come up first when legacy compatibility is discussed, so I checked RasterCaps.FOGTABLE. It lists ATi cards until X1900 as supported, and even GF9 for Nvidia. I looked at the HD 3000 on my notebook in AIDA64 and even there it's checked 😳 but of course all of this is only theoretical if it doesn't work in actual games 😀

Indeed! Sometimes, too many choices are a bad thing...that's how we all of the sudden wind up with 5+ different retro computers.

7cjbill2 wrote:

Indeed! Sometimes, too many choices are a bad thing...that's how we all of the sudden wind up with 5+ different retro computers.

That has happened to me before not that I regretted it but learned a lot, it helps to just have the cards on hand and one good rig to use them all with.

Too bad it doesn't have 9x drivers, does have xp though.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-ZT-40605-10L-Ge … =p2054897.l4275

WDM drivers started with w98, but it's a matter of xp api/dlls not being present in 9x I imagine.

The Geforce fx5900 and fx5950 are nice cards.
They have a bit better "old game" compatibility than the Geforce 6xxx series.
I see them as the optimal DX7/DX8 cards.

But for a dual boot with XP the Geforce 6800 Ultra would be my first choice 😀
You can play most of the DX9 games on that machine if you install another 512mb ram.

Skyscraper wrote:

The Geforce fx5900 and fx5950 are nice cards. They have a bit better "old game" compatibility than the Geforce 6xxx series. I se […]
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The Geforce fx5900 and fx5950 are nice cards.
They have a bit better "old game" compatibility than the Geforce 6xxx series.
I see them as the optimal DX7/DX8 cards.

But for a dual boot with XP the Geforce 6800 Ultra would be my first choice 😀
You can play most of the DX9 games on that machine if you install another 512mb ram.

My 3570k@4ghz, integrated gpu@1.3ghz, and memory@pc2000 has GPU stats of 2.6 gpixels, 5.2 gtexels & 32gb/s bandwidth, making it faster than a 5950 ultra, stats wise, and benches faster than an a64 4000+ with sli'd 6800 ultras.

ih8registrations wrote:

My 3570k@4ghz, integrated gpu@1.3ghz, and memory@pc2000 has GPU stats of 2.6 gpixels, 5.2 gtexels & 32gb/s bandwidth, making it faster than a 5950 ultra, stats wise, and benches faster than an a64 4000+ with sli'd 6800 ultras.

You wont get much use of that machine in Windows 98 though.
No drivers.

Skyscraper wrote:

ih8registrations wrote:

My 3570k@4ghz, integrated gpu@1.3ghz, and memory@pc2000 has GPU stats of 2.6 gpixels, 5.2 gtexels & 32gb/s bandwidth, making it faster than a 5950 ultra, stats wise, and benches faster than an a64 4000+ with sli'd 6800 ultras.

You wont get much use of that machine in Windows 98 though.
No drivers.

I'd just run 32bit XP which drivers are directly available for, but could also play around to try to get the WDM drivers to work in 98.

Well, I may just table the idea for a while since I've got some other irons in the fire and since I have a fairly suped-up PIII system attached to the big monitor for most GLide games.

That system is better used with XP anyway and a lot of games do work that normally get used under 98.

ih8registrations wrote:

Too bad it doesn't have 9x drivers, does have xp though.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-ZT-40605-10L-Ge … =p2054897.l4275

Can't for the life of my understand the purpose. If my MoBo has no AGP or PCIe, this card cannot live up to the hardware. If my MoBo DOES have AGP and/or PCIe, I'll get a card with that architecture. I guess it's good for multi-monitor uses, that's it, but still, most modern cards have multiple outputs. Curious. Best thing I can't think is people upgrading server boards.

Good for comparing CPUs across platforms, from 486 to present.

Wow, bizarre. 64 bit PCI?

7cjbill2 wrote:

ih8registrations wrote:

Too bad it doesn't have 9x drivers, does have xp though.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-ZT-40605-10L-Ge … =p2054897.l4275

Can't for the life of my understand the purpose. If my MoBo has no AGP or PCIe, this card cannot live up to the hardware. If my MoBo DOES have AGP and/or PCIe, I'll get a card with that architecture. I guess it's good for multi-monitor uses, that's it, but still, most modern cards have multiple outputs. Curious. Best thing I can't think is people upgrading server boards.

GT430 isn't so powerful that PCI chokes it off that much. They have a GT610 out now and there was a GT520 before that. You're not going to be gaming with these cards, anyway. They are meant for running a second monitor or as a cheap alternative to integrated video. They are also good for PhysX cards.

sliderider wrote:

7cjbill2 wrote:

ih8registrations wrote:

Too bad it doesn't have 9x drivers, does have xp though.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZOTAC-ZT-40605-10L-Ge … =p2054897.l4275

Can't for the life of my understand the purpose. If my MoBo has no AGP or PCIe, this card cannot live up to the hardware. If my MoBo DOES have AGP and/or PCIe, I'll get a card with that architecture. I guess it's good for multi-monitor uses, that's it, but still, most modern cards have multiple outputs. Curious. Best thing I can't think is people upgrading server boards.

GT430 isn't so powerful that PCI chokes it off that much. They have a GT610 out now and there was a GT520 before that. You're not going to be gaming with these cards, anyway. They are meant for running a second monitor or as a cheap alternative to integrated video. They are also good for PhysX cards.

GT430 is the strongest of the three. It's double the texel rate of my overclocked 3570k's iGPU, but only a third of the memory bandwidth(if only they had gone with 128bit, which is still only 2/3 bandwidth of what I have.)

ih8registrations wrote:

GT430 is the strongest of the three. It's double the texel rate of my overclocked 3570k's iGPU, but only a third of the memory bandwidth(if only they had gone with 128bit, which is still only 2/3 bandwidth of what I have.)

A 9500GT PCI is even more powerful than GT430. They're getting a bit hard to find now, though.

Higher pixel and bandwidth, lower texel. I'm thinking the way to do it would be to get the fastest AGP card and match it with a PCI-e version, compare pii? iii to present. Fastest AGP is the Radeon 3850(10 10 53), 4670(6 24 12.8/16/28.8/32), other? (pixel texel bandwidth)

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/agp … inosaurs.96305/

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4670/