The Matrox cards are a good choice and have amazing picture quality they also have great DOS support along with good enough performance for 98/99 era gaming, the G200 is an ok choice but the G400 would work well too as well as having a little more power under DirectX.

Radeon is not the best choice for DOS compatibility the Rage card is likely better for DOS gaming.

You could buy a TnT2 pro/ultra which is era appropriate and it would pair amazingly well with the Voodoo2 and its the setup I and many others used back in the day, it also has 32bit rendering and its DOS support is really good as well being a nVidia GPU.

so you have a choice

1 - Keep using the rage card since its DOS support is pretty good, its DirectX isn't that great though.
2 - Buy a Matrox G200/G400 which would work well for both DOS and Windows and work ok with the Voodoo2, and has superior image quality. (The 450 is an option but its newer and I dont know if it still has the same DOS support as the earlier models)
3 - Buy a TnT2 which is era appropriate, is also a great DOS/Windows card and pairs well with the Voodoo2, has 32bit rendering and is likely cheaper and easier to source than a Matrox card. (Even a TnT2 M64 would work well but is less powerful than the Pro/Ultra)

Not trying to steer you away from a Matrox card but nVidia does have more compatible drivers going for it which in the long run may mean less trouble for you.

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-25, 23:50:

My retro DOS/98SE system was originally assembled from random parts I had laying around, and not much thought was put into it. […]
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My retro DOS/98SE system was originally assembled from random parts I had laying around, and not much thought was put into it.

It’s an Asus P2B-LS with a P-II 350, but I will be changing that to a P-III 600. 64mb RAM, changing to 512mb. There is also a Voodoo2 that I plan to continue using, AWE64 Gold, Roland MPU-401 for a MT-32, etc.

Right now these are the only 3.3V AGP cards I have:

ATI All-In-Wonder Pro AGP 1/2X (3D Rage Pro, 8mb, 1997) ** in system now

ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon AGP 2/4X (Radeon 7200/R100, 32mb, 2000)

ATI Radeon 9200SE AGP 4/8X (RV280, 128mb, 2003)

But I’m not sure how great any of these actually are for proper DOS compatibility, and a 1997 ATI card is probably a bit sucky compared to other 1998/1999 parts. I was debating about getting a new era appropriate card(98 or 99) - but sadly not any of the really good and stupidly expensive ones (like Savage2000).

- Matrox G200, G400 or G450 (know this last one is 2000)
- S3 Savage4 Pro
- something else good?

My priorities would be good DOS support, good image quality (RAMDAC), and Win98 performance.

Any guidance appreciated!

If your idea of “appropriate” will stretch to 2000, Geforce 2MX cards are plentiful (in AGP). To me, “appropriate” is “could plausibly have been fitted to the system within it’s original service life”, so I’d be fine with a GF2MX in a P-II or P-III system. YMMV.

If the Voodoo3 is not a realistic option, S3 Virge (I prefer the DX) or Trio3D are great alternatives with the presumption the Voodoo2 is doing all of your 3D heavy lifting.

Check this list for best chances of meeting your DOS needs:

https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Realize I’ve posted in the wrong forum. Mod can move if desired.

I’m eyeing getting a GeForce2, but there’s so many versions. Would a GTS, Pro or TI be better? Ultra is stupid expensive. And why would I want a MX/MX400 over those 3?

If one of your cards has a DVI output, I would prefer this one because it easily can be connected to HDMI with a passive adapter.

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 18:43:

Realize I’ve posted in the wrong forum. Mod can move if desired.

I’m eyeing getting a GeForce2, but there’s so many versions. Would a GTS, Pro or TI be better? Ultra is stupid expensive. And why would I want a MX/MX400 over those 3?

I have a GTS and its a great little card, I have a MX400 as well and it too its an awesome little card, you cant really go wrong with either of them. The MX400 cards were simply cheaper versions of the GF2 and are about as good as a GF2 Pro. In your system the GPU is going to be bottle necked by the CPU so you really wont want to grab an Ultra or a GTS as you will never get full use out of it, the MX400 would be the better option here.

But if you can grab a GTS for a good price, it would leave you with wiggle room to upgrade the CPU later.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:12:

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 18:43:

Realize I’ve posted in the wrong forum. Mod can move if desired.

I’m eyeing getting a GeForce2, but there’s so many versions. Would a GTS, Pro or TI be better? Ultra is stupid expensive. And why would I want a MX/MX400 over those 3?

I have a GTS and its a great little card, I have a MX400 as well and it too its an awesome little card, you cant really go wrong with either of them. The MX400 cards were simply cheaper versions of the GF2 and are about as good as a GF2 Pro. In your system the GPU is going to be bottle necked by the PII -350 so you really wont want to grab an Ultra or a GTS as you will never get full use out of it, the MX400 would be the better option here.

The poster is upgrading to a PIII 600MHz (presumably Katmai without some kind of adapter help).

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 18:43:

Realize I’ve posted in the wrong forum. Mod can move if desired.

I’m eyeing getting a GeForce2, but there’s so many versions. Would a GTS, Pro or TI be better? Ultra is stupid expensive. And why would I want a MX/MX400 over those 3?

Get a regular/vanilla Geforce3 or a Geforce4 Ti4200 and call it a day. All of them cost about the same as regular Geforce2 (GTS) and will handily beat a Geforce2 while maintaining compatibility. You can use the much-improved AA also since you'll have GPU power to spare being limited to a PIII 600MHz.

Meatball wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:14:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:12:

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 18:43:

Realize I’ve posted in the wrong forum. Mod can move if desired.

I’m eyeing getting a GeForce2, but there’s so many versions. Would a GTS, Pro or TI be better? Ultra is stupid expensive. And why would I want a MX/MX400 over those 3?

I have a GTS and its a great little card, I have a MX400 as well and it too its an awesome little card, you cant really go wrong with either of them. The MX400 cards were simply cheaper versions of the GF2 and are about as good as a GF2 Pro. In your system the GPU is going to be bottle necked by the PII -350 so you really wont want to grab an Ultra or a GTS as you will never get full use out of it, the MX400 would be the better option here.

The poster is upgrading to a PIII 600MHz (presumably Katmai without some kind of adapter help).

Yup changed my post, forgot the P3 part. GF3s are pretty hard to find on eBay for any reasonable price unless its a ti200 at which point the GTS is better, GF4 Ti4200 are dime a dozen and could be had cheaply.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:21:

Meatball wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:14:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:12:

I have a GTS and its a great little card, I have a MX400 as well and it too its an awesome little card, you cant really go wrong with either of them. The MX400 cards were simply cheaper versions of the GF2 and are about as good as a GF2 Pro. In your system the GPU is going to be bottle necked by the PII -350 so you really wont want to grab an Ultra or a GTS as you will never get full use out of it, the MX400 would be the better option here.

The poster is upgrading to a PIII 600MHz (presumably Katmai without some kind of adapter help).

Yup changed my post, forgot the P3 part. GF3s are pretty hard to find on eBay for any reasonable price unless its a ti200 at which point the GTS is better, GF4 Ti4200 are dime a dozen and could be had cheaply.

Ti4200 would get my overall vote. It must be some kind of secret, or everyone is obsessed with the Ti4400/Ti4600. The Ti4200 is one of those "forced competition" cards NVidia releases every once in a while, that are too good for the price with which they originally competed. And they easily overclock to at or almost a Ti4400. Stick with the 64MB version, though.

Thanks for the tips! The “era appropriate” stickler in me is screaming a little bit about 2002, but if it’s still got excellent DOS support and isn’t like a decade later then what’s the big deal, right? And quality of everything is likely better, too.

And I can always pick up and swap in some other cheap card if I get a real hankering to play some DOS game that won’t work right (actually thinking of The Last Express, which I played back when it was new and amazing).

Edit: also, why stick to 64mb?

Meatball wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:30:

Ti4200 would get my overall vote. It must be some kind of secret, or everyone is obsessed with the Ti4400/Ti4600. The Ti4200 is one of those "forced competition" cards NVidia releases every once in a while, that are too good for the price with which they originally competed. And they easily overclock to at or almost a Ti4400. Stick with the 64MB version, though.

The BGA RAM on the 4400 and 4600 can have problems also, while the DIL (SOJ?) package chips on 4200s almost never has contact/spontaneous desoldering itself troubles. It's about a 50/50 shot you'll get 4600 RAM speeds or better on it though. Somewhere around here, I've got one that clocked high enough with a 2.6Ghz T-Bred to hit 20k 3dM2001SE ... the other one only seemed to like 4400 speeds though.

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:53:

Thanks for the tips! The “era appropriate” stickler in me is screaming a little bit about 2002, but if it’s still got excellent DOS support and isn’t like a decade later then what’s the big deal, right? And quality of everything is likely better, too.

And I can always pick up and swap in some other cheap card if I get a real hankering to play some DOS game that won’t work right (actually thinking of The Last Express, which I played back when it was new and amazing).

nVidia didn't change their Vesa 3.0 core until the GF6 cards so even a FX5200 would still have excellent DOS support but it sounds like you really want to sick as close to 98/99 as you can and while the 4200 is pushing it a bit its a great GPU.

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 19:53:

Thanks for the tips! The “era appropriate” stickler in me is screaming a little bit about 2002, but if it’s still got excellent DOS support and isn’t like a decade later then what’s the big deal, right? And quality of everything is likely better, too.

And I can always pick up and swap in some other cheap card if I get a real hankering to play some DOS game that won’t work right (actually thinking of The Last Express, which I played back when it was new and amazing).

Edit: also, why stick to 64mb?

VRAM is clocked at 250MHz on 64MB (I think 4ns is the default; some might be 3.8ns). 128MB is clocked at 222MHz. You don't need 128MB of VRAM, anyway, for what you're doing. You probably don't need the extra RAM bandwidth either, but between the two, I'll take the performance over quantity. In the post 2 behind this one, BitWrangler pushed a Ti4200 to near Ti4600. I'd buy that for a dollar!

It will look something like mine (note the AGP connector), …but ignore the fancy GPU and RAM heatsinks - I put those on.

What’s weird is all the TI4200 8X boards I see do have the 3.3V notch. Not sure if it is actually compatible, or if they’re one of those messed up boards with the wrong notches that let you fry them!

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 20:54:

What’s weird is all the TI4200 8X boards I see do have the 3.3V notch. Not sure if it is actually compatible, or if they’re one of those messed up boards with the wrong notches that let you fry them!

I didn't know they were all keyed the same; interesting. It may have been a cost saving measure. Unless someone on the forum verifies, I would not take the chance of destroying your card and/or the motherboard... Even then I would probably note the suggestion and still keep all 8x cards away from a 1x/2x AGP slot.

Meatball wrote on 2022-02-26, 21:54:

I didn't know they were all keyed the same; interesting. It may have been a cost saving measure. Unless someone on the forum verifies, I would not take the chance of destroying your card and/or the motherboard... Even then I would probably note the suggestion and still keep all 8x cards away from a 1x/2x AGP slot.

I read the manual for an Asus TI4200-8X card and it states “AGP 8X/4X/2X/1X complete support”. So looks like it would be okay.

Sunflux wrote on 2022-02-26, 22:08:

Meatball wrote on 2022-02-26, 21:54:

I didn't know they were all keyed the same; interesting. It may have been a cost saving measure. Unless someone on the forum verifies, I would not take the chance of destroying your card and/or the motherboard... Even then I would probably note the suggestion and still keep all 8x cards away from a 1x/2x AGP slot.

I read the manual for an Asus TI4200-8X card and it states “AGP 8X/4X/2X/1X complete support”. So looks like it would be okay.

Well, that makes life easier. Thanks for the information, also!

A voodoo3 would be an obvious choice, they're actually supposed to be rather nice DOS cards, as well.

Later Matrox AGPs are possibly not ideal for compatibility with very old DOS games but the image quality is superb.
See this chart for deatails.
ATIs or Nvidias ofthat era, all pretty good, i'd assume. One ASUS gf256 of mine used to have lousy VGA quality, though.

Availability: Professional sellers all have dollar signs in their eyes recently. It also depends how highly one values instant access or warranty.

But if you're wlling to browse a bit:
Pre-Radeon ATI, pre-Geforce Nvidia, Matrox G4xx, S3 Savage are rather abundant, just not easy to find via a simple text search, due to mostly bad listings.
(Lots of sellers who hardly manage to read the logo on the card, let alone know what they're selling. Even if it means they're basically committing fraud by incompetence. Ebay really couldn't give a toss, I checked.)

Just filter/look for APG cards of certain brands/keywords with small or passive heatsinks, there you are. They get sold all the time for 10 or less.
If you live in Europe, look for the brand ELSA, a defunct German shop. They were popular back then but apparently are less collectible.
Elsa Erazor 3 or iii, for example, are TNT2 cards that are dirt cheap.
Look for any unspecified Matrox AGP with that blue VGA connector, you probably have a g4xx for a fiver.

Good luck!