Cheap card without signal buffers. Also AT motherboards may have problems with 3.3v PCI cards.

Motherboard's bios issue. This card does have buffers.

Try S3 Virge DX or cirrus logic GD-CL5436 or 30.

Cheers,

https://technical.city/en/video/GeForce4-MX-440-8x

I think the AGP on socket 7 would only be compatable with 2x tops due to power supply if not 1x but 8x cards run on mostly socket 370 and possibly Slot II chipsets faster access more voltage support i cannot comment about AMD though i steered away from them in those days.
I would be enclined to try an AGP card from the late 90's such as a SiS gpu which are not as sought after but good for 2 to 16mb vram I have seen them online.
But if your socket 7 motherboard has an AGP Arpeture memory adjustment a card within its maximum would prevent almost all bugs.

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-07-26, 08:05:

https://technical.city/en/video/GeForce4-MX-440-8x […]
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https://technical.city/en/video/GeForce4-MX-440-8x

I think the AGP on socket 7 would only be compatable with 2x tops due to power supply if not 1x but 8x cards run on mostly socket 370 and possibly Slot II chipsets faster access more voltage support i cannot comment about AMD though i steered away from them in those days.
I would be enclined to try an AGP card from the late 90's such as a SiS gpu which are not as sought after but good for 2 to 16mb vram I have seen them online.
But if your socket 7 motherboard has an AGP Arpeture memory adjustment a card within its maximum would prevent almost all bugs.

Nvidia Gforce 4 MX PCI

so Nvidia Gforce 4 MX PCI on socket 7 system (233 MMX)
and NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440-8x an AGP
But wants to boot and not for a ton of retro dollars?
Well, Sis6326 both PCI and AGP avail new 😁
since both PCI and AGP mentioned thus socket 7 period correct.
I'm pretty sure both AGP an PCI can run together for multi monitor use.
(Done so myself)

I don't have AGP board. My MoBo is Asus TX97-LE (Only PCI and ISA) What will be decent VGA for DOS and Win98? Voodoo3? ATI? I want to play Blade Runner on win98.

dank0 wrote on 2021-07-27, 07:37:

I don't have AGP board. My MoBo is Asus TX97-LE (Only PCI and ISA) What will be decent VGA for DOS and Win98? Voodoo3? ATI? I want to play Blade Runner on win98.

nVidia, 3dfx and S3 generally have best DOS compatibility.

Win98 performance is best on nVidia (or 3dfx depending on title)

If you can find and afford a Voodoo3-3000 PCI it would be an excellent choice, but failing that a TNT(2) or Gf2MX PCI (or Gf4PCI)would be cheaper and at least as fast.

One tip though with nVidia cards on very old systems: don't underestimate driver overhead. Use the oldest driver that gives you the compatibility you need. That's an argument for the TNT(2) as opposed to Gf4MX: the latter is the faster chip, but needs newer, heavier drivers - and that 233MMX won't benefit from the faster GPU anyway.

I understand what are you saying . How about to get Pentium II or Pentium Pro Mobo?

Not Ati 😀

My recommendation would be for one of these:
S3 Trio/Virge 2D card + 3dfx Voodoo 2
PROS: great balance of compatibility and performance for such a PC, very good performance at higher resolutions in all period correct games, including those that support multitexturing. Granted, the Pentium MMX 233 is not a very powerful CPU, but it does benefit in some games from faster cards. I have a Pentium MMX overclocked @ 292 MHz, and it's surprisingly fast when paired with a Voodoo 2 - games like Unreal are actually extremely playable (playable by "retro" standards 😁 )
CONS: the Voodoo 2 can be quite expensive nowadays, image quality is usually worse because of the whole passthrough cable situation + the fact that Voodoo 2 cards inherently have lower output quality, not to mention that S3 cards are also a hit & miss when it comes to image quality.

3dfx Voodoo Banshee PCI
PROS: great image quality, great compatibility - albeit not as good as the Voodoo 2 when it comes to old Glide games, you don't need an additional 2D card, performance is better than that of the Voodoo 2 in single textured games (but it's not that important, those games run great on Voodoo 2 as well), the card can be cheaper (~$60) if you're willing to wait & hunt for it.
CONS: performance is worse than Voodoo 2 in games where that actually matters (multitextured games that apply both a texture and a lightmap like GLQuake, Quake 2, Unreal, etc). In GLQuake, for example, the Banshee bottlenecks a Pentium MMX 233 even at 640 x 480 (and when the CPU is overclocked, the card becomes a bottleneck at 512 x 384).

S3 Trio/Virge 2D card + 3dfx Voodoo 1
PROS: perfect compatibility with early DOS Glide games, it has a "period correct cool factor" to it, the price can also be quite low if you're willing to hunt it down over a longer period of time.
CONS: performance is quite poor, additional 2D card is needed, the Voodoo 1 is a serious bottleneck for a P MMX 233 - it's more suitable for Pentium 166 or older, image quality is even worse than that of the Voodoo 2.

3dfx Voodoo 3 2000/3000 PCI
PROS: great image quality, no additional 2D card required, performance is top-notch in any game (as long as the Pentium MMX is also up to the task), suitable for an overkill Pentium MMX build
CONS: VERY expensive and rare, the card will be severely bottlenecked by a Pentium MMX (even when overclocking the CPU) - but this can be both a good and a bad thing depending on how you look at it, compatibility is not that good (there are some old Glide games that refuse to work with it and there's no known workaround).

That's... about it. As you can see, all my recommendations revolve around 3dfx cards, and there's a reason for that. 😀 Yes, there are some nVIDIA TNT/TNT2 PCI cards that will also work well with a Pentium MMX with the right driver, but unless you get very lucky those are also quite rare, expensive, & since they don't support Glide... MUCH less compatible for the 1996 - 1998 timeframe, so might as well just go with a Voodoo and be done with it. 😀

Bloodem thank you for the nice write up. I will look for both of your recommendations - S3 / Voodoo2 or Voodoo 3. I am living in china and those cards are not so ridiculous with price (they are also not that easy to find like voodoo 1 or 2)

how about Voodoo Banshee ?

dank0 wrote on 2021-07-27, 11:45:

how about Voodoo Banshee ?

A good choice. Performance is less than a Voodoo 3, but DOS VESA support is equally good and it's a good match with a Pentium MMX. Only problem is that PCI Banshees are rare, most are AGP.

dank0 wrote on 2021-07-27, 11:45:

how about Voodoo Banshee ?

I wrote about it too, you must have missed it. 😀

dank0 wrote on 2021-07-27, 11:33:

Bloodem thank you for the nice write up. I will look for both of your recommendations - S3 / Voodoo2 or Voodoo 3. I am living in china and those cards are not so ridiculous with price (they are also not that easy to find like voodoo 1 or 2)

You're welcome. 😀 If prices in China are lower, then yeah, go for it! Even a Voodoo 2 would be great.

oh I missed it, sorry bloodem. I am actually thinking to get super socket 7 and load it with AMD K6 and get AGP port, its easier to find AGP cads than PCI