Usually the Nvidia MX cards are cheap. MX4000. Or maybe a MX420 or 440. None of them are DX8. The S3 Virge PCI cards can sometimes be found cheap and those are more time appropriate.

Also i agree. Right now, it seems that prices on a lot of older hardware whether its PC related or console gaming seems to be rising. Very annoying.

Trank wrote:

Usually the Nvidia MX cards are cheap. MX4000. Or maybe a MX420 or 440. None of them are DX8. The S3 Virge PCI cards can sometimes be found cheap and those are more time appropriate.

Also i agree. Right now, it seems that prices on a lot of older hardware whether its PC related or console gaming seems to be rising. Very annoying.

The drivers however require at least a Pentium for the Geforce4 MX series

I just got a tnt2 32mb pci card for like 7$ shipped on ebay.
Keep your eye out and search by part numbers, your find a card for cheap.

That's being said I'd by a Virge

Forgot about the drivers thing. True. Just go for a Virge.

Or Trio64. Or a Cirrus Logic GD5440/5460. Or late trident cards (9440). Or an ALG2302. Here, this might help:

DOS PCI Video Card Compatibility and Benchmark tests

This build is more to demonstrate the capabilities of a vintage system. I am trying to remove certain barriers from it to make it perform more to the motherboards limitations, and not some of the other things attached to it. To this end I am going to add a CF to IDE adapter with a 4 gig 30 mb/s card. 64 more megs of ram, and I was hoping for a somewhat newer gpu.

That being said the virge isn't too bad, and I may end up going with that option.

twood1130 wrote:

This build is more to demonstrate the capabilities of a vintage system. I am trying to remove certain barriers from it to make it perform more to the motherboards limitations, and not some of the other things attached to it. To this end I am going to add a CF to IDE adapter with a 4 gig 30 mb/s card. 64 more megs of ram, and I was hoping for a somewhat newer gpu.

That being said the virge isn't too bad, and I may end up going with that option.

Then you should look for a Voodoo 2 card to go with the virge. It's the best performing 3d card on the platform. Glide games run faster then software games on a 486. Banshee cards will only run on late 1996 486 boards, and to my knowledge the same applies to TNT2 PCI cards. Also, nvidia and ATi cards require MMX capabilities for 3D (as far as I know) unlike 3dfx cards witch will happily run on a 486.

Of course, a v2 is wasted on a 486 since most games will get an average of 25 fps in glide with a V2. Descent and Carmageddon are playable, but GL_quake suffers slowdowns in open areas. It's still playable, but a pentium offers a much better experience.

kanecvr wrote:

Banshee cards will only run on late 1996 486 boards, and to my knowledge the same applies to TNT2 PCI cards. Also, nvidia and ATi cards require MMX capabilities for 3D (as far as I know) unlike 3dfx cards witch will happily run on a 486.

This board has the SIS 496/497 chipset, which I understand to be one of the most capable 486 chipsets.

My first priority is GUI acceleration, and 1024*768 @32-bit color.

What games it can play afterword is all a bonus.

If its mainly for GUI acceleration, you might want to reconsider ATI. PCI Rage cards usually go for 10-15 shipped. DOS game compatibility isn't that great though.

A bit of an update,

I attempted to use two different cards, with various results.

A matrox g200 quad gpu card, and the aforementioned fx5200.

Initial setup of the 5200 went well, and did output video in windows. However it will not operate without the older mach 64 installed. Not sure why.

The matrox card is an interesting device, having 4 matrox g200 gpus on the card to drive 4 screens, however it appears to be messing with the memory map, and won't enable due to a lack of memory resources. (memory addresses not ram, I assume. It will also not boot without the older mach64 in place.

Interesting results anyway.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STB-Systems-Nitro-3D- … Y8AAOSwi0RX1OYp you can still find em for good prices.

I Bought these Yesterday, likely they would be gone by now anyway though. I don't think the seller realised the bottom one was a PCI Banshee card. I hope that is
just dust and not corrosion in the Virge DX memory slots. $45 AUD delivered.

twood1130 wrote:

A bit of an update, […]
Show full quote

A bit of an update,

I attempted to use two different cards, with various results.

A matrox g200 quad gpu card, and the aforementioned fx5200.

Initial setup of the 5200 went well, and did output video in windows. However it will not operate without the older mach 64 installed. Not sure why.

The matrox card is an interesting device, having 4 matrox g200 gpus on the card to drive 4 screens, however it appears to be messing with the memory map, and won't enable due to a lack of memory resources. (memory addresses not ram, I assume. It will also not boot without the older mach64 in place.

Interesting results anyway.

The motherboard will not recognize the G200 and 5200 as video cards - this is why it won't post with them alone.

Is there some reason for these prices, or am I looking in the wrong place?

It's almost as if right now there's an emerging market for "retro" (shudders) 90's gaming computers.
I wouldn't doubt there's a forum somewhere almost completely dedicated to the genre. 😉

Imperious wrote:

I Bought these Yesterday, likely they would be gone by now anyway though. I don't think the seller realised the bottom one was a PCI Banshee card. I hope that is
just dust and not corrosion in the Virge DX memory slots. $45 AUD delivered.

Nice. I've found a lot of really really awesome deals on rare PCI cards, especially Voodoos that way. I got my PCI V5 5500 in a lot of mixed as-is parts for around $40 last year. I replaced one or two SMD caps and it works great. Same with my Quantum 3D Raven PCI (16MB Banshee)... it was hanging out shyly on the edge of one picture in a lot of mixed cards. I almost missed it because I was distracted by the SBPro2 CT1600. Again got that lot for a fraction of its value.

Looking for video cards, without searching for "PCI" seems to be the ticket. With patience, they turn up eventually.

98SE on a 486? oh god.

twood1130 wrote:

I am trying to build a 486 98se system...

CelGen wrote:

Is there some reason for these prices, or am I looking in the wrong place?

It's almost as if right now there's an emerging market for "retro" (shudders) 90's gaming computers.
I wouldn't doubt there's a forum somewhere almost completely dedicated to the genre. 😉

What? Are you serious?
If this is true, then we'd better find out where they are and then nuke the entire site! From orbit! 😈

SRQ wrote:

98SE on a 486? oh god.

I am actually a college student, and I make an effort to rescue old computers from the loading docks before they end up getting recycled. (if they are interesting anyway). I am also part of the cyber security club.

When I found this computer, it had been used as recently as 2008 for some sort of lab equipment. It sported 32 megs of ram, and windows 98, rand a little bogged down, but still booted and operated fine.

I added 64 megs of ram yesterday to improve performance. At startup I now have 50 megs free! Now I am waiting for the CF to IDE adapter. At which point for cyber security club functions we may put linux on it, and see if being really old makes a computer safer.

Another recent find is an 486slc computer(same board as: Alaris Leopard Rev C 486SLC2 (MR-BIOS???)). The power supply is dead, but a cursory glance indicates a few things.

Only 2 out of the 4 30 pin sockets have simms, meaning a max of 8 mb of ram.
A 40-mhz Green Math 4C87SLC FPU
Lots of 9 pin serial ports, and a giant micro-controller card sporting a motorola 68000.
The contents of the hard drive include windows 95. (indicating a 16-bit processor running on windows 95)

How it actually performs will have to wait until I get an ATX to AT converter. However there is a recurring trend of using the wrong OS on campus for these lab computers. I would assume it was for network compatibility.