VOGONS


First post, by Gopher666

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Ok folks so I considering getting some badboy for this boxen. This is a Tyan S2466 board with 2x Athlon MPs so it's a perfect Windows XP retro gaming.

As the manual says: 4x AGP graphics card

I had a Geforce 4200Ti in this.

Some game benchmarks on XPSP3 with 4200ti:

  • Dungeon Siege 15FPS
    COD2 30 FPS
    dio2 25 FPS
    Oppforce 59 FPS
    Morrowind 16 FPS
    Q3 90 FPS

Not bad for old games but as we start moving ahead to that Dungeon Siege2 / Sacred 2 / Half Life 2 range this card starts to be poor. Any recommendations for NVIDIA card to maximize the boards potential whilst keeping the longest range of backwards compatibility with games? (I don't want to go back to Win98SE level of games with this box just XP).

Also I looking for NVIDIA as I planning on having retro Linuxes, BSDs on this box as well and the old ATI drivers were trash and I just hate ATI in general.

Thanks

Reply 1 of 43, by Aebtdom

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I don't know how others experiences are with the socket A Amd cpu's, but mine is that the gf4 series are the perfect cardas for these cpu's up to 1280x960 ish. At this moment I run my pc with the by you so much hated ATI card, a x800GTO and my morrowind fps are the same, maybe 2fps higher. Why? CPU bottleneck. The card performs the same at any given res, no matter AA or AO.
With my GF4 TI4200 the performance drops above the 1280 res, below that. The CPU is most of the time Bottlenecked.
If you want better performance, move to x64 cpu by Amd or a intel core2. You can even get it with your ti4200 combined.

Builds:

Xp3000+ gf3 ti200 + vd2 SLI 12MB + 768MB + SB live @ WinXP & 98 Dualboot.

P2 350mhz + Diamond Viper V550 + 3Dfx Voodoo 2 12MB + AWE64 + 128MB SDR @ msdos / win98.

Reply 2 of 43, by Con 2 botones

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A geForce 6000 series is more suitable for socket 462/A in my experience.
I run a GF6600 paired with an Athlon XP 3200, plays Doom3, Far Cry, Half Life 2, Fear, etc very well (don´t have numbers right now but close to 60FPS iirc) at 1280x1024 (5:4) with nice settings. There´s a GF7800 on the way, but I suspect I won´t see much improvement (probably CPU bottlenecking it).

I would leave the GF4200ti for a Taulatin 1.4/ Thunderbird 1.4 build.

Reply 3 of 43, by foil_fresh

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i feel like the opposing force framerate should be much higher, i had an athlon xp 2200+ paired up with a radeon 9600xt on an nforce2 motherboard and almost never dipping below 100fps on the half-life engine games.

what are the speeds of your processors, do you have vsync on, and is your geforce 4 a 128 or 64mb model?

i do feel like you're limited by your mainboard for other later xp game choices, only going up to 266fsb and looks to be from 2002? xp came out in 2001 so yea theres not much of a period it will be really good at handling.

if you want to pimp out this build then the fastest ram, cpu possible and maybe even going up to a pci-e bridged AGP card might be good, like a 7600 or 6600... but if you want a good pc to run all XP titles then look into a 2009+ build (core2 or i5).

Reply 4 of 43, by Gopher666

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Thanks for the suggestions. This is not about pimping out this build by replacing the motherboard lololo. It is about finding the BEST graphic card for this board. I have other retro builds as well and as a last resort I can always just play on my Core i7 Asus ROG gaming laptop 😉

This board is really unique for me cos when I was at university I was a poor kid could never afford top notch hardware unlike these days and this was my board I bought it from abroad of course with the shittest possible cpus, they weren't even MPs cos I couldn't afford it just as I remember palomino core XPs which could be hacked with that graphite hack into MP 😁 so yeah this is absolutely an R&R project for me.

The CPUs are quite weird according to the part number and stepping code they are:

axma2800fkt4c

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Mobile% … A3000FKT4C.html

I recall 3000+ Barton when buying but didnt even look at them til now its says it's a mobile cpu 🤣 maybe thats why it says 800Mhz at start anyway its rated to 2200 MHz (real).

I think the issue rather is that not many games take advantage of 2 cpus back then also these were NOSSE2 which is just a pain in the A as SSE2 got defaulted in some of the MSVC frameworks and all programmers started building apps with it even if they don't take any advantage of it and of course those apps can't even be started so I specifically have to look for nosse2 versions 😖

Reply 5 of 43, by matze79

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Radeon HD4670 AGP, but not easy to aquire.
Even runs Fallout 3 at decent FPS on Pentium 3 Tualatin with 1,6Ghz OC 😁

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https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board

Reply 6 of 43, by Brawndo

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The best you're going to do considering you're limited by AGP and Nvidia is a 6800 GT/Ultra. Personally I wouldn't pay the premium of an Ultra considering a GT is so close in performance. The last few 6800 GTs I saw sell on ebay went for $70-$80 USD. Not sure if that's a price you're willing to pay.

It's a shame you don't like ATI. I bought an X1950 Pro AGP for my early XP system for less than a Nvidia 6800 would have cost and it offers more performance. If you want the utmost performance for late XP era games, you should consider using a system with a more modern processor and chipset.

Reply 7 of 43, by Tetrium

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Going from a Radeom 9600 to a GF7600GS provided me with a significant upgrade (CPU == Barton 3200+), but going from a 7600GS to a HD4670 was barely noticeable. This was with relatively low resolutions however because at the time I didn't have the money to get a bigger flatscreen (those were very expensive back then and I didn't have room to run it with a CRT).

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Reply 8 of 43, by chinny22

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If we are limited to Nvidia then
GF6600 or 6800 are good suggestions but attract a premium as last cards with Win98 support
GF 7600 or 7800 are also suitable and maybe a bit cheaper? or not being the last AGP cards?

and while agree they may be bottlenecked by the CPU, a fast GPU can sometimes hide a CPU's shortcomings at higher resolutions so can b worth it.

Reply 9 of 43, by shamino

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Does the AMD760MPX chipset work with bridged AGP cards? I've seen some discussion implying it has problems with them.

If those type of cards won't work, then the fastest NVidia options would be 6800GT or 6800 Ultra.
6600 and all 7000 series cards are bridged.

Reply 10 of 43, by nd22

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As far as I know bridged cards will work in boards with AMD760 chipset however this is true only for nvidia cards - HD4670 will not work on a board like the one you have.
From personal experience the highest performance and compatible with AGP 4X boards are nvidia 7600gt/7800gs video cards. Be aware that 7800gs will command a premium being the last nvidia card on the AGP bus. I would choose a 7600gt - performs within 5% of the 7800gs and it is significantly cheaper.
For Con 2 botones: geforce 7800gs provides a MAJOR boost to performance on socket 462. I would not even consider 6600gt for Athlon XP 3200 in directx 8&9 games because the performance is way to low!

Reply 11 of 43, by Tetrium

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chinny22 wrote on 2021-10-26, 09:40:

If we are limited to Nvidia then
GF6600 or 6800 are good suggestions but attract a premium as last cards with Win98 support
GF 7600 or 7800 are also suitable and maybe a bit cheaper? or not being the last AGP cards?

One potential issue with this generation of cards EDIT:referring to the 7600 gen cards ENDEDIT is the bumbgate scandal. I'm personally glad I bought 2 with the large passive heatsinks when new (which I gettomodded both with 8cm case fans to keep them running cool) but I'm more hesitent with buying any of the passive ones second hand and after all these years.
When I used my 1st 7600GS in my Palomino 2000+ rig, it wasn't able to keep cool when running the Unreal 2 campaign. This was actually what prompted me to add the case fan in the first place (later I got a second one (different brand however) which received a similar mod right away).

and while agree they may be bottlenecked by the CPU, a fast GPU can sometimes hide a CPU's shortcomings at higher resolutions so can b worth it.

Agreed 😀

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Reply 12 of 43, by The Serpent Rider

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Gopher666 wrote:

Tyan S2466 board

I think that's the main culprit.

nd22 wrote:

I would not even consider 6600gt for Athlon XP 3200 in directx 8&9 games because the performance is way to low!

6600GT is faster than FX 5900 in almost all scenarios, which is a card of choice for beefy Win9x/early XP oriented systems. It has totally appropriate performance for Athlon MP, which if far from top tier offering on this socket and especially on AMD chipset.

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Reply 13 of 43, by nd22

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With all due respect I think that we are not talking about the same thing. I have done a comparative between nforce2 and KT880 and using a geforce 6600gt there was no difference whatsoever between the 2 platforms in games and benchmarks however with 7800gs nforce2 came out on top! I tested the games using max settings only and 6600gt was incapable of running NFS U1, Far cry 1, Half life2, Doom 3 at the highest settings with acceptable frame rates - I am talking below 20 fps in FC1, under 10 in D3 just to give 2 examples!
PS: max settings = every single option turned on and the highest possible setting selected!

Reply 14 of 43, by Con 2 botones

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nd22 wrote on 2021-11-01, 09:34:

With all due respect I think that we are not talking about the same thing. I have done a comparative between nforce2 and KT880 and using a geforce 6600gt there was no difference whatsoever between the 2 platforms in games and benchmarks however with 7800gs nforce2 came out on top! I tested the games using max settings only and 6600gt was incapable of running NFS U1, Far cry 1, Half life2, Doom 3 at the highest settings with acceptable frame rates - I am talking below 20 fps in FC1, under 10 in D3 just to give 2 examples!
PS: max settings = every single option turned on and the highest possible setting selected!

It is strange that your experience and mine differ so much when it comes to the GF6600.
Just to clarify, I am using the 3200+ (400mhz bus), matching bus Gskill RAM (2GB), on a MSI KM400A-L (Via VIA KM400A chipset).

I pIay Far Cry perfectly smooth. I didn´t push it to max setting though, high seetings is what I select.
Also, I am playing on a Dell retro monitor native´s resolution of 1280x1024, not 1650x1050 or other more current resolution.
Similar experience when it comes to Half Life 2 and Doom3 iirc.

Reply 15 of 43, by nd22

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I have done an exhaustive comparative between the top 2 chipsets for socket 462: nforce2 and KT880: Socket A: Nvidia vs Via - battle of the platforms!
Everything is detailed in that thread. For example at 1027*768 6600gt can achieve some form of playable performance in Far cry 1 at max settings - that is water - ultra high, the rest of the settings set to high or the highest possible option available, AA&AF set to maximum. At 1280*1024 and beyond the situation is hopeless: 6600gt can not provide playable performance in any of the games tested.
Geforce 7800gs provided a perfectly smooth experience in all of the games tested and switched the bottleneck form the GPU/CPU to the chipset.

Reply 16 of 43, by Con 2 botones

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nd22 wrote on 2021-11-02, 11:10:

I have done an exhaustive comparative between the top 2 chipsets for socket 462: nforce2 and KT880: Socket A: Nvidia vs Via - battle of the platforms!
Everything is detailed in that thread. For example at 1027*768 6600gt can achieve some form of playable performance in Far cry 1 at max settings - that is water - ultra high, the rest of the settings set to high or the highest possible option available, AA&AF set to maximum. At 1280*1024 and beyond the situation is hopeless: 6600gt can not provide playable performance in any of the games tested.
Geforce 7800gs provided a perfectly smooth experience in all of the games tested and switched the bottleneck form the GPU/CPU to the chipset.

Oh I see...I would leave AA&AF alone with a 6600GT, or 2X each. Never would I try applying the maximum setting in that regard...maybe not even the 6800 could perform comfortably with those settings...

Reply 17 of 43, by Gopher666

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Thanks for the suggestion, I chose the 7800GS even tho my research shows there would've been still better AGP cards like:

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce … 950-gt-agp.c754

But probably wouldn't matter as the CPUs being a bottleneck in many games.

Here are my results with the rig completed using the latest driver for XP (307.83):

Some game benchmarks (1024x768) on XPSP3 with 7800GS:

3DMARK 2003 points: 5669

FarCry1 LOW/MED 15 FPS
Sacred 40 FPS
War3 TFT 40 FPS
Dungeon Siege 15 FPS
UT2004 HIGH 30 FPS
COD2 40 FPS
Morrowind 6-16 FPS
dio2 30 FPS
Oppforce 60 FPS

FarCry1 runs acceptable however with setting higher textures the more and more graphical issues coming up like this is how the game will look like 😜

20211114-221619.jpg

3Dmark also behaves interestingly it keeps throwing "COM Surogate has encountered an error blahblah" and don't start but if I start FarCry1 and quit after that it works fine 😀 it seems some graphics stuff not initialized maybe.

GPU temp doesnt go over 50C so I guess thats good.

I will try some older drivers maybe thats causing the issues see what happens (tips are welcome).

Overall games like Dungeon Siege 2 works this machine hard, Morrowind pretty much unenjoyable with as low as 5-6 fps in open world.

Reply 18 of 43, by The Serpent Rider

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You're running it on blatantly unefficient driver version. 7800GS is performance is on par with 6800 Ultra.

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Reply 19 of 43, by cyclone3d

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Morrowind is going to be very CPU limited.. A better GPU is not really going to help that much.

I have AGP versions of the 7800 GT, 7900 GS, and 7950 GT Even on a S478 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 EE (Gallatin), in XP, the 3DMark 2001 score is only slightly different between the 7900GS and the 7950GT.

For that matter, in 3DMark 2001, the FX5950U is CPU limited in Windows 98SE up to about 3.2-3.3Ghz on a Intel Core 2 Extreme 6800.

An Athlon MP setup is going to be way slower than either of those setups.

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