Reply 22600 of 27649, by fosterwj03
I bought this PCI GeForce FX 5200 (256MB, 128-bit bus) for my overkill Windows 95 build last week. While it isn't a great card for DX9, I found it the best (i.e. fastest) PCI video card that I've tried so far still fully compatible with Windows 95 and DirectX 8 (and below). I used the GeForce 45.23 drivers for Windows 9x because they were the last drivers that provided the Nvidia control panel within Windows 95.
I needed a PCI or PCI-E video card because I'm shooting for a fast single-core CPU as the primary driver for this build. Here are the specs:
- Gigabyte GA-P75-D3 (Intel B75)
- Intel Core i7-2600K (3.8GHz Boost Clock on a Single Core)
- 8GB G.Skill DDR3 1600MHz
- PNY GeForce FX 5200 PCI (256MB, 128-bit Bus)
- Sound Blaster Live! Value
- D-Link DFE 500-TX 10/100 Network Adapter
- Startech PCI-E 7-Port USB 1.1/2.0 Adapter
- Rosewill RC-212 SATA Adapter
- Generic 64GB SATA2 SSD
- 2x Generic DVD-RW Drives
- Windows 95 OSR 2.5
Windows 95 OSR 2.5 runs really well on this platform, and I haven't encountered any major compatibility issues with the FX 5200 so far. I can run MDK 2 at 1080p (16-bit color mode) with over 60 FPS, and Unreal Tournament runs well at 1080p in both DirectX and OpenGL modes. Jedi Knight 2 oddly won't run in 16-bit color mode (it crashes if I don't select 32-bit color), but it runs buttery smooth at 1280x1024 (32-bit color). It's also nice to see the fog effects in Thief 2. I got a score of 6422 in 3DMark 2000 with the FX 5200 which is nearly double the score I got with an overclocked Radeon 9000 PCI (64-bit bus).
The passive heatsink on the FX 5200 gets pretty hot, though. I think I need to invest in an active cooling kit for the card.
This has turned into a pretty sweet build, and it brings back a lot of memories from installing and using Windows 95 back in the day. This is the kind of hardware I wish I had back then.