That FX5200 won't even run Morrowind decently, not to mention Oblivion. Max Payne and Id Tech 3 engine games like Jedi Outcast are not too picky, Radeon 9550 and 9600 series graphics cards are usually not too expensive and do the job, but give up on mid-to-late 2000s games. Maybe an X700 or 6600GT for more horse power, those are generally also on the cheap side.

If you want to optimize for W98 than Ti4200 and FX5700 series graphics cards are the price/performance/compatibility champions, but those are getting expensive these days and you give up on DirectX 9 so they are very limiting in XP.

Imho W98 and XP don't really mix well. If you want things from the time frame of Oblivion, just use a dedicated XP rig otherwise you'll have an underpowered GPU. Especially on a budget.

If you would give up on 98 what XP only cards would be the nice price per performance then? Edit: I'd say my budget is 40 ish.

Linkintime wrote on 2022-04-23, 21:20:

If you would give up on 98 what XP only cards would be the nice price per performance then? Edit: I'd say my budget is 40 ish.

Strongly depends on where you live. Also AGP is very limiting. The most common late AGP card is probably the 7600GT. Still not a powerhouse for late XP.
If you go for a PCI-e graphics card instead, then late 2000s budget cards are cheap and abundant. Something like (in order of performance):

GT240; 9600GT; 9800GT; GTS250
or
HD4670; HD5670; HD6670; HD5700/6700

For me AGP is best suited for Win98 builds which the FX5200 isnt a bad choice for.
As RandomStranger said, even the latest AGP cards will hold back a XP build and you loose backward compatibility with 9x titles.
But if you want a XP build for Nostalga or whatever, then get the most powerful card your budget allows for

A WinXP/Win98 dual boot system is possible (I have a few of these), but a compromise will be necessary.

There are two ways of doing it:

1. Using only one video card, in which case there is only one option, really: an ATI Radeon X800 / X850 XT. It doesn't need to be an AGP card - in fact, it's better to get the PCI Express variant, in which case you can use it with very powerful CPUs such as a very late Core 2 Duo (E8400 - E8600), or even a Core i5 2500K.
By going down this path, you will have an ultra overkill Windows 98 PC, which will run all games at multiple hundreds of FPS, while also being very capable for early WinXP (most games up to 2004/2005 will work just fine).

2. Using two video cards (something like a GTX 750TI / GTX760) for Windows XP and a a PCI video card for Windows 98 (like a 3dfx Voodoo 3 PCI or a GeForce FX5200/5500 PCI).
Of course, this will mean that you'll have to find a motherboard that has enough standard PCI slots to fit the secondary video card and a Win98 friendly sound card (doable for systems based on Intel P67 / Z68 or older). Another requirement is for the motherboard to support both AHCI and compatible mode (you will need to use the compatible mode for such a build), and it must also offer the option of choosing which graphics card to initialize first (PEG/PCI). One such motherboard (which ticks all the boxes) is the Asus P8P67.
Anyway, such a system can be difficult to pull off (properly), but it can be done, and it will be very capable in both WinXP and Win98 (though, in Win98, it will be much slower than what you get with option #1 - so depending on what games you want to play and at what resolution, option #2 might not be suitable for you).

Having said that, as others have mentioned, it's much easier/fuss-free to go with two separate builds (one for Win98 and another one for WinXP).

I would get Nvidia GeForce 4 or FX (in that order) for P4 and use it with Windows 98 and early Windows XP games. It would be a waste to use only Windows 98 as the CPU is much more powerful than needed. It's exactly the same category as Athlon XP rigs - not sufficiently powerful for the whole Windows XP era.

As for Riva TNT2, you can sell it to someone with a K6-2 rig.

I have an old fm2 motherboard with an a10 5800k apu. I could it looks as if there are xp drivers for it. I might run that bad mama jama for late xp and set the other one up as 98 se and early xp. Maddness!

My such win98se/winxp system has Athlon64 FX-60 and Geforce FX 5950 ultra. most important thing for me was to find socket 939 motherboard that still has win9x drivers for all the devices on the motherboard.

Well, you are in a pickle indeed. As I see it, you have two choices:
1. Get rareish and potentially expensive components that are win98 friendly - a radeon x800xt agp / 6800gt agp as anything newer does not have official win98 drivers - or add a voodoo 3 / geforce 2 pci like another user recommended. This can be a good route if you're willing to spend a bit and wait for the right cards to come around

2. Lower the scope of the build a bit. Morrowind is ok on a fx 5900 or even a radeon 9600 witch are not quite rare or very expensive, but Obligion is pushing it... I couldn't enjoy oblivion back in the day until I got a hold of a 7900GT, and that card doesn't have official win98 drivers. There was an unofficial driver pack floating around, but I found it buggy af.

The problem is that there is a huge gtaphic cards performance gap between 2003 and 2005. Dx 8 cards do not do well in 3dmark 2003 or games from that period, and neither do most early dx9 cards (fx 5xxx / radeon 9xxx).

Linkintime wrote on 2022-04-23, 21:01:

I don't want the best graphics just playable. Let others have the best of the best. I can get a 256mb XFX 128-bit fx5200 for 30 bucks but I'm not sure that'll run Oblivion very well.

Others online have commented that Oblivion runs on a GeForce 6200 in low settings, and that’s available in PCI for the stock Dell Dimension 2400. Great working card for 98 also.