GeForce 2 Ultra? Yeah, worth keeping.

Confused UngaBunga wrote on 2023-06-28, 20:48:

Man, I wish I didn't have so many options.
Edit: sometimes I just want to buy a random retro PC without knowing the specs.
That's the closest one can get to that feeling you didn't have to worry because you were pretty much stuck with what you got. And that's what you used. Period.

Sorry if we've confused you. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, nothing to do with you or your name. Just an unfortunate string of random events. Nothing personal.

I think being selective about hardware generations in supporting software eras is the way to go. I focus on generations of hardware that overlap in features or capabilities so I can get a broad spectrum of support from purchases. Here's a loose example of what I mean:

VESA -> DX 1-6 -> DX 7-8 -> DX 8.1 -> DX 9+

That's roughly how I see different eras. Here's what I do:

Early:
VESA/DX 1-6/DX 7-8
DOS/Win98se
K6-III+
AGP 2x
Voodoo3, GeForce3

Mid:
DX 7-8/DX 8.1
Win98se
K7 or P4
AGP 4x
Voodoo5, GeforceFX

Late:
DX 8.1/DX 9+
WinXP
AM3
PCIe
AMD 280x, Nvidia 780 Ti

The point is that I skipped GeForce4 entirely because the other cards I have cover that era's capability. Maybe a similar plan around eras might help elevate some of the consternation that has emerged from your retro dilemma?

1999-2000 is a Era all of its own. Theres some overlap but not much. So theres probably 1 early area and 2 mid eras or 5 eras depending on the way you go. The late 90s era games can be way too demanding for a SS7 platform and this era is more dominated by PIII. Voodoo 5 and Geforce FX series is a good choice but has plenty of compatabilty issues. Voodoo 5 isnt at all in the same league with a FX anyways. I'm not even shure theres such a thing as a Vooodoo 5 era and Voodoo 5 isn't really a thing becasue it never had T&L which is a main feature of DX7 and 8. This era is more like Geforce 2 and Voodoo 3.

According to RivaTuner, some specific features for old games were removed after GeForce 2 and with newer drivers.

Actually you have all been extremely helpful. Although bartonxp did confused me for just a bit. Oh well that's what I get for being a UngaBunga I guess.
I think I'll be fine if I put the geforce 2 gts, together with the voodoo2 on the i865 mobo, 2.6 Northwood and 512MB DDR, also a creative Live! and I'm set. Don't expect too much trouble. And already have motoracer and red faction to test, picked up each one today, for a few cents on gog summer sale.

Edit: this all thing started because I was afraid the 32MB on the gts wouldn't be enough for some later games.

this all thing started because I was afraid the 32MB on the gts wouldn't be enough for some later games.

Well, in fact, even your bog-standard Quake 3 Arena had maps which oversaturated 32Mb memory in 32-bit color, although not by much in low resolutions and only with uncompressed textures.

Here's an example from GeForce 256 SDR/DDR comparison (courtesy of anandtech):

Notice very sharp performance drop at 1024x768. That's when AGP texturing could not help poor 32Mb cards to deal with constant memory swapping. Lower resolutions are also affected.

And here's the same test, but with GeForce DDR 64 Mb:

You can deal with it by using 16-bit color or with texture compression, where available, at the expense of texture quality.

Ok then, I'll use the geforce 4 mx460 128MB, and use the 3dfx card whenever appropriate.
Please do not give any more info, I beg you.
Or maybe the ti4200... why you do this to me?? Lol

I was confused too. I thought you were buying one but it looks like you already own them . I thought a GF3 would be the better buy. I doubt you'll notice any meaningful compatibility issues with any but since you say you'll only be gaming at 1024 then it doesn't really matter which card you pick, they'll all perform relatively the same. Given the similarities I'd still go for the most powerful card, just for piece of mind in all scenarios, except the esoteric, use the GF4 4200 Ti.

And a special thanks to Warlord for his explanation about the Voodoo5's deficiencies. I was confused but his diatribe clears everything up, why my Voodoo5 ran DX 7-8 era games so poorly. I was wondering why most of them flat out didn't run but it makes sense now since they were all stuck on one API and forced gamers to use new hardware features that developers were apprehensive about implementing. I mean it wasn't like 3dfx was still such a dominate market force at the time that companies bent their offerings in that direction to keep face with the consumer. It was all black and white, a pick your point kind of world, and you had to buy again without a transition period if you wanted to keeping playing those fancy new games. It was no different from today's market, flush with zombies, money and 13GB VRAM requirements.

Confused UngaBunga wrote on 2023-06-30, 11:34:

Ok then, I'll use the geforce 4 mx460 128MB, and use the 3dfx card whenever appropriate.
Please do not give any more info, I beg you.
Or maybe the ti4200... why you do this to me?? Lol

You have GeForce 4 MX 460 with 128Mb in your possession? I'm fairly certain that 460 was never released with that VRAM amount, but some 440 indeed were made (with dubious quality mostly).
GeForce 3 should be the most balanced option, when it comes to drivers.

Yes, I'm almost sure. Made by asus. It was in a coppermine 733 my cousin gave to me, unfortunately he removed the awe gold first, the sole reason I wanted it in the first place. Let me go check and I'll confirm.

I don't even have a 460. Asus has 64MB 64bit
No name brand 128MB 128bit
And they're both MX440 🙁
Sorry to have miss lead you.
I guess now it is a choice between the gts and the ti4200... they are both from Creative.

the MX460 was... fast, some could do like over 600MHz memory and over 300MHz core was easy,

Confused UngaBunga what motherboard+cpu are you going to use this in ? I read thru everything but did not see (but am always missing those things 🤣). That would also make a difference in which of the video cards you choose...
Something related but diff is that Gainward had a G3 Ti200 128Mb DDR that natively ran DDR at 450 (not 400), the core ran native at 200 but most OC'd to 230 or better and ram to 525... if you search their English archives it is not listed under their Geforce3 PowerPack Ti Golden Samples (i could never find it because it was sold only in Asia AFAIK <added: the 64Mb was sold in USA and Europe but not the 128mb from what little I could find)...why I mention is that on occasion they come up very cheap and are very good GF3 Ti for the money. No not quite a Ti 500 but within about 10-15% and sometimes 1/2 the price ;p
One site did a test back in : http://web.archive.org/web/20020414100858/htt … 2200xp/test.htm OK am just rambling and only reason I know is because someone was selling NOS back about 10 years ago for about $25 each, grabbed a few...

The motherboard already in the case is from asrock with intel 865 chipset, and also has extreme graphics onboard! Don't remember the model.
The pentium 4 is a northwood at 2.66ghz and 533fsb, wich mean I can easily swithc in the bios to 2.0GHz if ever needed.
Also have a "presshot" 2.8GHz with 800MHz fsb, but I'm yet to try if it runs at 1.4GHz if I lower the fsb in the bios.
Only other option would be an intel desktop boatd with 815 chipset that I could use with a coppermine 1.0GHz or a 1200Mhz celeron, but I don't see any reason for it, except if you considere P4 to be an abominable deformity unworthy of the P6 legacy.

The 865 chipset is a very good one ! Asrock boards of that era are quite good. With that one would go with the 4200 if you have it.