The reality is that any solution other than "Build a second tower" or "Buy a PCI Voodoo5 or alternate graphics card" is needlessly complex.

The V5 and a "powerful" PCI card are a 4th option.

Use the V5 in win98 with the PCI adapter disabled, and the PCI card in another OS with the V5 disabled.

May work.

fitzpatr wrote:

The reality is that any solution other than "Build a second tower" or "Buy a PCI Voodoo5 or alternate graphics card" is needlessly complex.

True - I've known that from the beginning though, thats the status quo right now. But as more and more people become interested in older graphics hardware and retro pc building, I expect this sort of thing will come up more and more. So maybe there is a different way?

slivercr wrote:

The V5 and a "powerful" PCI card are a 4th option.

Use the V5 in win98 with the PCI adapter disabled, and the PCI card in another OS with the V5 disabled.

May work.

That's a smart idea having two OS installations, each one with an alternate graphics card disabled. Not sure about getting a PCI graphics card though, doesn't solve the bandwidth issue, and as far as I know most PCI graphics cards aren't really that fast.

Qjimbo wrote:

slivercr wrote:

The V5 and a "powerful" PCI card are a 4th option.

Use the V5 in win98 with the PCI adapter disabled, and the PCI card in another OS with the V5 disabled.

May work.

That's a smart idea having two OS installations, each one with an alternate graphics card disabled. Not sure about getting a PCI graphics card though, doesn't solve the bandwidth issue, and as far as I know most PCI graphics cards aren't really that fast.

How fast do you need? AFAIK the fastest PCI card that supports win98 is GF6200, and GT430 is among the fastest PCI cards regardless of OS support.

lazibayer wrote:

How fast do you need? AFAIK the fastest PCI card that supports win98 is GF6200, and GT430 is among the fastest PCI cards regardless of OS support.

I had no idea there was a plain PCI graphics card that new! That definitely changes things, might be a good solution to get the best of both, even if it doesn't work in Win98, I can use XP as the secondary OS. I can't find the plain PCI version for sale anywhere though, though I found someone talking about it with ubuntu so it must exist.

Qjimbo wrote:

1) AGP Switch/Selector
Some way of toggling between the AGP card being used at power-off. There's nothing like this that exists to buy.

😐 ... 😵 ... 🤣

OK. So just for funsies.

You could take an AGP extension cable to extend the slot up to a riser card.

At this point, you could create a PCB with two AGP slots. You could google around for riser cards to get an idea for components you might need. You may also look to riser cards for parts, although perhaps you can purchase an AGP slot from an electronics place. I've never looked.

You are tasked with at least (and I am making broad generalizations and assumptions) -
1: Creating a PCB to support two slots of the appropriate slot type depending on your motherboard
2: Putting some caps on your voltage lines - and AGP has a lot of voltage lines & provide enough power (appropriate voltage) despite the "extras" after the AGP slot.
3: Rigging up a switch circuit to only power the appropriate card
4: Keeping your bus from getting too much noise
5: Use/Mod a case that could use two cards. Possibly use a board that normally has a riser card anyway and design your own riser/PCB as mentioned in #1
6: Dual boot OSes

So... pretty simple. 😁

Qjimbo wrote:

lazibayer wrote:

How fast do you need? AFAIK the fastest PCI card that supports win98 is GF6200, and GT430 is among the fastest PCI cards regardless of OS support.

I had no idea there was a plain PCI graphics card that new! That definitely changes things, might be a good solution to get the best of both, even if it doesn't work in Win98, I can use XP as the secondary OS. I can't find the plain PCI version for sale anywhere though, though I found someone talking about it with ubuntu so it must exist.

You will be looking for a while for a GT430 in PCI. The generally only pop up once a month or so on eBay. And when/if you find one it will probably not be very cheap.

The easier option is to use a PCI to PCIe x1 adapter and a PCIe riser cable with a power plug. You'll just have to mount the adapted card somewhere else.
Adapter:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Startech-com-Pci-To-P … 1-/253153189362
Riser cable:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-Extention-Cable … ex/322495476871

That way, you can use pretty much any newer card you want to. The bandwidth available for the card will suck, but it will still be fast enough for what you need it for.

Edit:
The PCI to PCIe adapter cards use the same exact chip to do the conversion as the "high end" PCI cards do.

CkRtech wrote:

:neutral: ... :dead: ... :lol: […]
Show full quote

Qjimbo wrote:

1) AGP Switch/Selector
Some way of toggling between the AGP card being used at power-off. There's nothing like this that exists to buy.

😐 ... 😵 ... 🤣

OK. So just for funsies.

You could take an AGP extension cable to extend the slot up to a riser card.

exthalf.jpg

At this point, you could create a PCB with two AGP slots. You could google around for riser cards to get an idea for components you might need. You may also look to riser cards for parts, although perhaps you can purchase an AGP slot from an electronics place. I've never looked.

caacbhlr1u37m_l.jpg

You are tasked with at least (and I am making broad generalizations and assumptions) -
1: Creating a PCB to support two slots of the appropriate slot type depending on your motherboard
2: Putting some caps on your voltage lines - and AGP has a lot of voltage lines & provide enough power (appropriate voltage) despite the "extras" after the AGP slot.
3: Rigging up a switch circuit to only power the appropriate card
4: Keeping your bus from getting too much noise
5: Use/Mod a case that could use two cards. Possibly use a board that normally has a riser card anyway and design your own riser/PCB as mentioned in #1
6: Dual boot OSes

So... pretty simple. 😁

A friend and I actually designed one of these a few years back. We never got around to getting the PCBs made but we had the exact same idea (using jumpers though).

Wish I still had those EAGLE files...

Wish I still had those EAGLE files...

Aww man! That would sure save some time...

CkRtech wrote:

:neutral: ... :dead: ... :lol: […]
Show full quote

😐 ... 😵 ... 🤣

OK. So just for funsies.
...
So... pretty simple. 😁

Oh yes, so simple! haha! 😎

I did see those ribbon cables and something along those lines crossed my mind, but obviously a custom PCB is quite far outside my expertise.

x0zm_ wrote:

A friend and I actually designed one of these a few years back. We never got around to getting the PCBs made but we had the exact same idea (using jumpers though).

Wish I still had those EAGLE files...

Interesting. Jumpers would work, since that would be trivial to wire up to a pole switch on the case.

cyclone3d wrote:

You will be looking for a while for a GT430 in PCI. The generally only pop up once a month or so on eBay. And when/if you find o […]
Show full quote

You will be looking for a while for a GT430 in PCI. The generally only pop up once a month or so on eBay. And when/if you find one it will probably not be very cheap.

The easier option is to use a PCI to PCIe x1 adapter and a PCIe riser cable with a power plug. You'll just have to mount the adapted card somewhere else.
Adapter:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Startech-com-Pci-To-P … 1-/253153189362
Riser cable:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-Extention-Cable … ex/322495476871

That way, you can use pretty much any newer card you want to. The bandwidth available for the card will suck, but it will still be fast enough for what you need it for.

Edit:
The PCI to PCIe adapter cards use the same exact chip to do the conversion as the "high end" PCI cards do.

Very interesting, thanks! I've see the adapters that do the reverse, it never even occurred to me there would be something to do PCI motherboard->PCI-E card.

A really interesting fact is that the chip is a two way converter. The same chip is used for both adapters.

Makes no sense why the PCI card in a PCIe slot adapter is way cheaper than the other way around.

cyclone3d wrote:

A really interesting fact is that the chip is a two way converter. The same chip is used for both adapters.

Makes no sense why the PCI card in a PCIe slot adapter is way cheaper than the other way around.

That is interesting! And yeah, I guess the pricing is all supply and demand rather than actual production cost.

It appears that the adapter does work decently well with PCIe graphics cards, based on the reviews on newegg.

The adapter runs at 133MB/sec, so a slower 1x PCIe mode (250MB/sec), which concerned me at first, but then I found this page where someone did some speed tests comparing PCIe x1 with x16, apparently the difference is surprisingly little, if the card has plenty of VRAM.
http://arstech.com/install/cms-display/ste_spdtst1.html

So I thought - everything looks great, but then I found this thread: Jaton 9500GT PCI BENCHMARKS/REVIEW
i486_inside seems to think that running a fast graphics card on the PCI bus causes a lot of lag and slowdown, as on many boards it is crowded with other things, such as hard drive I/O, so this is concerning to me. If the PCI bus was completely standalone, then we might have a solution, but I don't know if there are any motherboards with a fast separated PCI bus and a universal AGP slot.

EDIT: Closest thing I could find to a "priority" PCI slot was this Orange Communications PCI slot on the MSI K8N Neo2

Not AGP though so doesn't solve the issue, but might be something for Voodoo 5 PCI users, not sure if it works any better than regular PCI.