ut I found a working Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800SE 128MB DDR AGP

That's Radeon 9500 Pro PCB board, which is limited to 128-bit wide memory bus and 4 pixel pipelines. Personally I would just wait for a proper 9700/9800 card, there's still plenty of them around the globe. Or at least properly unlockable 9800SE with 256-bit bus.

The 128-bit 9800SE is about as fast as a 9600 Pro, or roughly 55% of a 9800 Pro. Depending on the speed of your CPU as well as the resolution at which you wish to run your games, that may or may not be enough.

If you have a 1GHz PIII, say, and run your games at 1024x768, a 9800SE or 9600 Pro should be more than enough; just get whichever is cheaper in your area. 😀

Thanks Steve ..
already on order so obviously I'll try it ..but will keep aneye open for a 9800 pro that wont break the bank..
There are some on fleabay ..but mostly in the US ..and as usual ..the shipping is the killer.
cheers

I was lucky and able to track down a Geforce 6800GT AGP and Nvidia Geforce FX 5950 AGP for a about $150 delivered total. Both needed a good clean and repaste, but I do that for most cards I buy anyway.

This sort of stuff takes some time to find a good deal for unfortunately.

These are pretty nice performing cards, with the 5950 having better drivers for windows 9x.

didn't think the via694 would be so troubled, its quite usable and much more stable than the previous 693, except that it may require a lot of tweaking and still a bit slower than intel815 even when tuned to the max.

Vipersan wrote:

Keep in mind everything works ..up until I install the graphics drivers for the card ..
reboot and as soon as I pass the login dcreen ..it goes blank and the monitor goes to sleep.

I had the same problem with a 6600 (non GT), on a Aopen AX6C motherboard (Intel 820 chipset). Didn't try AGP 2X, but I guess it would work...

As soon as the driver loaded, the signal was lost (monitor went to sleep). Tried a few different versions of Forceware, and was able to reach the desktop with the oldest one (with support for 6600), but then it went black again...

My MX440-8X works without any issues on the same motherboard (but it's very slow... 64-bit memory 😵 ).

The 6600 works perfectly on a newer motherboard (Abit IS7-E2, Pentium 4).

found this one in france..
please tell me it is the correct version ..
rgds
VS

If it is the one I think it is, then it seems to be the correct version

canthearu wrote:

If it is the one I think it is, then it seems to be the correct version

Thanks buddy ..
It is a practical buy .on account of it's European location ..
ie ..no silly shipping or import charges.
rgds
VS

maybe a fan mod possible ??

Yeah, I don't see why a mod would not be possible.

I'll have to have some benchmark battles against you 😀

canthearu wrote:

Yeah, I don't see why a mod would not be possible.

I'll have to have some benchmark battles against you 😀

Something to look forward to ...if I ever get this build finished..
🤣
😀

Reading this thread relives some memories I had with my Asus CUV4X-DLS. AGP was a nightmare. I kept pushing it and pushing it, just like you. Trying different cards and various schemes to get it to work until the motherboard said enough was enough and refused to turn on. I really wrenched on the damn thing back in the day.

For VIA boards, I have had AGP success with those based on VIA Apollo Pro 266T. The MSI-branded board is the best and can seem to handle most AGP cards I install, in 4x mode too. The other board based on the same chipset, is from SuperMicro, and on that board it seems that anything more advanced than a GeForce 4 causes some stability problems, but only if I am trying to use more than 512 MB of RAM. So for 3 GB of RAM, I stick with a GeForce 4 MX.

For the VIA MVP3, the general consensus seems to be to stick with Voodoo cards if you are going to use the AGP slot. This advice has worked well for me. I tried to force a FIC 503+ based on the mvp3 chipset, just like I did with the CUV4X-DLS, until the board that the board said enough was enough.

A 9600 Pro on a P3 ~1 GHz is actually something I had some trials with.

Test system:

• Running a P3 933EB (7x133),
• 9600 Pro 128 MB (200 MHz Core, 200 MHz/400 DDR memory),
• 256 MB PC133 CL3 RAM

Boards:
Gigabyte A-6VX7B-4X (Via KT133/Apollo Pro 133A)
Asus CUSL2-C (Intel i815E)

The 9600 Pro is a card with 8x AGP support, both boards tested are limited to AGP 4x
Tested with Catalyst 6.2 (last official) and Catalyst 6.3 (can be installed over the older one)

Did some tests regarding AGP speed and apeture size.
The VIA chipset allows for AGP 1x, 2x and 4x and apeture size of 32 MB, 64, MB and 128 MB
The Intel chipset allows for AGP 2x and 4x and apeture size of 32 MB and 64 MB

Did the majority of tests with Aquamark, as it is a fairly short test and can be run in all those configurations without taking weeks. But some runs with different 3Dmark releases are in as well.

In short, the difference in all cases was around 15.0% at max. (Compared AGP 1x with 32 MB and AGP 4x with 64 MB) The chipset alone made a difference of around 10% and the switch from Catalyst 6.2 to Calatyst 6.3 did more than the change between AGP 2x and AGP 4x

Not sure how much the card is held back by the (in comparison) slow CPU. But it clearly is.

feipoa wrote:

I have had AGP success with those based on VIA Apollo Pro 266T. The MSI-branded board is the best and can seem to handle most AGP cards I install, in 4x mode too. The other board based on the same chipset, is from SuperMicro, and on that board it seems that anything more advanced than a GeForce 4 causes some stability problems, but only if I am trying to use more than 512 MB of RAM. So for 3 GB of RAM, I stick with a GeForce 4 MX.

I'm envious of that 266T - it seems really cool for a late P3 build. Interesting that the MSI works so much better than the Supermicro.
I'm pretty happy about getting a Shuttle AV18 with the Apollo Pro 133T, but I haven't done much with it yet. I hope it's AGP works out okay. Despite VIA's reputation, I still find myself more interested in their late P3 chipsets than the i815.

For the VIA MVP3, the general consensus seems to be to stick with Voodoo cards if you are going to use the AGP slot. This advice has worked well for me. I tried to force a FIC 503+ based on the mvp3 chipset, just like I did with the CUV4X-DLS, until the board that the board said enough was enough.

I had an MVP3 Tyan S1590 when I got my first AGP card back then. It was a struggle at first, but the solution for me was 2 things.

First, the Tyan has a weird quirk that requires USB enabled in the BIOS in order for AGP to function. Without doing that, I'd just get a black screen as soon as Windows booted with the AGP drivers loaded. This was not well documented, but I finally found it in an FAQ on Tyan's web site. With USB enabled, that problem went away.

Second was instability. I needed to use an older version of the VIA 4-in-1 driver that had a "safe mode" install option which effectively forces AGP 1X mode. This made it stable, and the performance impact was practically zero. I never had any trouble with AGP after that (my card back then was a Geforce2 MX).
In recent times I've been doing some occasional testing with that motherboard, so maybe I'll run into something but I haven't yet. The Riva 128 ZX, Matrox G400, and Geforce2 MX have all worked fine. nVidia's driver performance is hilariously inconsistent between versions, but stability remains good. I've just stuck with the same VIA driver throughout.

I've never used AGP on other MVP3 boards so I don't know if I'm just lucky. Today my only other such board is an FIC VA-503+ which I've still never tested. I ought to set it up sometime.

=============
Before I figured out AGP on that Tyan board, returned the AGP card and decided to settle for a PCI version of the Geforce2 MX. Nobody had them in stock, so I found a web site for some new company called "eVGA" who were selling them directly through their web site. I had never heard of them, but the way they wrote about their products on their web site helped put me at ease that they were probably competent. I was close to ordering one.
But then I found that FAQ entry about quirk #1 above, so I bought another AGP card from the recognized old brand name "Hercules". No need to order from that "eVGA" outfit.. they'd probably be bankrupt in 6 months anyway.

The goofiness with USB enabling doesn't surprise me. I remember something similar with onboard NIC. I'm looking forward to someone figuring out the VA-503+. I bought one of those boards "new, refurbished" from FIC and all the goofing around with AGP cards killed it, just like the CUV4X-DLS. For the record, which version of the 4-in-1 did you settle on for the Tyan board? I have an MVP3-based Tyan S1598C2 with 2 MB L2 cache setup with a Voodoo3 to avoid the AGP mess.

feipoa wrote:

For the record, which version of the 4-in-1 did you settle on for the Tyan board? I have an MVP3-based Tyan S1598C2 with 2 MB L2 cache setup with a Voodoo3 to avoid the AGP mess.

I just checked my notes, and on my current install I've been using VIA 4-in-1 version 4.17 installed in "Normal" mode (not Turbo). I didn't experiment with newer versions, I just used the same version that I had used back in the old days, since I knew it worked.

Back in ~2000, the reason I used that version was because it had the "Normal" vs "Turbo" option. Whatever the current version was at the time didn't have that option.
It's possible that later drivers fixed the issue I had encountered, and I think I've also read about some kind of registry tweaking that can be done, but I've never tried any of that. Once I found a setup that worked with v4.17, I just stuck with it.

Edit:

feipoa wrote:

I'm looking forward to someone figuring out the VA-503+. I bought one of those boards "new, refurbished" from FIC and all the goofing around with AGP cards killed it, just like the CUV4X-DLS.

Did you use any high powered cards on the VA-503+ ?
Sometime back I looked at the 3.3V setup on my copy of that board and noticed that it provides all onboard 3.3V power from an onboard regulator, even when using an ATX power supply. The 3.3V pins of the ATX connector aren't used. I don't know how much it can handle, but if the right combination of parts were used, especially with a high powered video card, I think that board is probably susceptible to blowing out it's 3.3V regulator.

But that certainly isn't relevant to the CUV4X-DLS though.

Vipersan wrote:

Well ..the bench test ran to completion in 640 x 480 AGP2x So looks like the graphics card is ok ..and the issues are either wit […]
Show full quote

Well ..the bench test ran to completion in 640 x 480
AGP2x
So looks like the graphics card is ok ..and the issues are either with the mobo ..or drivers..
I'm thinking mobo.
rgds
VS

3dmark99 is more like a CPU benchmark then a GPU benchmark.

On a nvidia geforce 4 mx440, pentium III 1ghz.

Shamino, v4.17 is really old. I think the oldest VIA 4-in-1 I use is v4.35.

I no longer recall every video card I tried on the FIC, but I am pretty sure that the most advanced was an ATI Radeon 8500DV.

The radeon 9800pro arrived ...
Some drivers installed on a new install of 98se..
Hyperion drivers installed and direct-x 8.00
reset the bios defaults ...and ran up 3dmark 99 ...
it runs very briefly ..often either freezing or crashing out back to win98.
I have tried with 256mb ram ..and 512mb ..
same thing.
Now I'm suspecting either the 9800 ...the CUV4x mobo ..or agp slot or settings ..
I have got further with the 9600 8x agp card used previously in this thread.
Can someone advise ...
what to try ..?
aperture settings ..
driver versions that are confimed working with the 9800 pro
bios changes I might make etc.
I do hope it's not a hardware issue.
rgds
VS
@canthearu ..I assume we have more or less the same setup now ..
can you list what is in your system ?

Hmm, I have:

Acer S61 motherboard (Aopen MX64 https://www.anandtech.com/show/444)
1ghz Pentium-III Coppermine CPU
512meg RAM
Nvidia Geforce 4-440MX or Nvidia Geforce 4-4200ti
160gig hard drive
Sound Blaster Live Value
NEC USB 2.0 card.

Later versions of the S61 bios do not let you set 4x AGP. It is more or less abandoned by these boards.

I can try dropping a 9600 Pro in my box, see how it runs.