appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-12, 08:05:

Personally, on anything below a 2000+ I go with a Radoen 8500/9100. For 2500+ and beyond, the 9700/9800 are no brainers. With Socket 754 I go with an X800 or an X1950. I don't like nVidia much if you couldn't tell. 😁

I have a lot of Nvidia cards for some reason. 😀

Although, I'd totally get behind an ATI 9600XT in an Athlon XP 2000+.

I used with my AXP with OC at 2-2.2Ghz from a GF2 MX to a GF 6800 until 2004, also had a Radeon 9500"PRO"with it, I think realistically that card was the better match for it, it runs HL2 pretty well, but not perfect like x800 would... 9600 is easier to find and I think pretty cheap, just make sure you don't get something with slow ram.

but I was running 1024x768 mostly.

my last nvidia card was a GF4 Ti4200 ^^

imi wrote on 2020-02-12, 12:52:

my last nvidia card was a GF4 Ti4200 ^^

Mine was a GeForce 2 (Pro or Ti, can not remember for sure). I bought a GeForce 3 Ti200 to benchmark against the Radeon 8500 at one point but never used it regularly, sold it off soon enough. I haven't used an nVidia GPU or an Intel CPU since 2001. Clean for 18 years now, feels great.

I recently benchmarked HL2 2187 build under Win98 and WinXP on my overkill build with X800 XT, and even though under 98 it was ok-ish, I did notice, that performance under XP was miles better, then on 98, with same exact specs. And also, I did run it on super fast CPU for 98, which wasn't bottlenecking my GPU.
When I tried some benchmarks with my Sempron 2200+, it was bottlenecking even Radeon 9700, with X800 it would be even worse.

The Source Engine of HL2 runs well on GF6600GT / ATI X8x0 or better - the R9x00, GF4MX (DX7), GF4x00 (DX8) or GF-FX Series are too weak for this DX9 game.
The CPU should be a Barton 2500+ or better the 3200+ (with 333MHz FSB), if you are fixed with this MB.
You should consider enough RAM >1GB

With this Hardware you should be able to play HL2 constant over 30fps in 1024x768, which should be fine for normal single player gaming. For HD resolution take a better graphics card like GF6800Ultra, GF7800 or ATI x1950

From my quick benchmarking session, I wouldn't have a problem with playing on my X800 XT even in 1600x1200. But that requires CPU which is up to the task (that's definitely not AXP 2000+) and also playing under XP, not 98, under which performance tanks quite hard. Oh and also using old build of HL2, since current builds are much more resource hungry (even though they still works fine under XP).

I had a 1700+ in 2003 with a 9700 PRO. Believe me, it's not the processor that is the bottleneck (talking about period software, of course).

I mean, "whatever you can cram into AGP" is pretty much it, but you can't beat the refinement of a 9700 PRO. I had a 9800 PRO too, from warranty. Mostly interchangeable, except the 9800 is loud.

I used the 9800 PRO until 2007. Didn't have any troubles with it as far as performance, though by that time it wasn't a beast, it was just a...just good.

After some recent benchmarks, I'm pretty sure, that it is a processor, which is bottlenecking rest of the system. Otherwise I don't know, why would GF4Ti 4200 be as fast in 3DMark 99MAX and 2000 (and faster in Q3A), as Radeon 9700.
Re: My second retro PC - Socket A Win 98 build

Perhaps, it was a long time ago, but I think that's lightweight rendering. Actually play something with your quality turned on, your AA and AF et cetera. That slows rendering down. Or maybe it's linear, I don't know. I used the same card on a 3200+, so as I say it was a long time ago and perhaps I remember wrong.

I should be receiving more potent Athlon XPs sometime this or next week (Thoroughbred 2700+ and Barton 3000+), so I will be testing the cards again. Also in the same package, there will be Radeon 9600XT, so I'll adding it into testing as well.

hwh wrote on 2020-04-20, 23:04:

Perhaps, it was a long time ago, but I think that's lightweight rendering. Actually play something with your quality turned on, your AA and AF et cetera. That slows rendering down. Or maybe it's linear, I don't know. I used the same card on a 3200+, so as I say it was a long time ago and perhaps I remember wrong.

As promised, I replaced my CPU for Athlon XP 3000+ with Barton core and you can clearly see from following results, that Sempron 2200+ was bottlenecking my Radeon 9700 like crazy. Nothing beside CPU was changed. So CPU bottleneck on that slower Sempron was a very real thing.
Re: My second retro PC - Socket A Win 98 build

Voodoo5 5500. Or an FX5900U.

Voodoo 5 5500 OR FX5900U? For Half Life 2? Voodoo 5 was launched in 2000 and even then it was DESTROYED by GeForce 2 GTS.
FX 5900U is a 2003 card and also quite bad for Half Life 2.
Still, the CPU itself is not exactly suitable for HL2 😀
I would go with a cheap Core 2 Duo setup and a GeForce 8800 GT. These should be quite easy to find and very cheap.
Or, just buy it on Steam and you also get the free Half Life 2 Update with improved graphics. Works on Windows 10 like a charm.

Any FX card in HL2 should for all intents and purposes be considered a DX8 card. With (forcefully) enabled DX9 path, you'll get approximately 1/3 performance of DX8 mode, which is just unplayable.
And that V5 5500 doesn't even need commentary...

bloodem wrote on 2020-04-23, 11:12:

I would go with a cheap Core 2 Duo setup and a GeForce 8800 GT. These should be quite easy to find and very cheap.

Yeah, I mean, I would go for XP as an OS anyway. My testing showed me, that even though you can run HL2 under 98 (with old build), it's definitely not recommended, since you're getting free performance boost with XP.

Also I rechecked OP, and fisher wanted to play also GTA SA, and that's not working under 98 anyway. So XP it is :)

> Voodoo 5 5500 OR FX5900U? For Half Life 2?

I thought the question was for an Athlon XP 2000+...