DesktopDynamite wrote on 2023-05-16, 02:53:

Will the CPU be a bottleneck for the GeForce card ?

Depends a bit on the game, but generally yes. With that setup, you will be CPU limited for any resolution below 1280x1024.

There's an easy way to test this. Run the Quake 3 time demo in 640x480 and 1280x1024. If you get the same result in both resolutions, then you are CPU limited.

Of course the CPU will be a bottleneck. But, the system still might do what you want it to. I'd try it out and see if you're happy with it. Keep your eye out for a cheap 800MHz or better CPU.

No, it won't be a bottleneck, because you can apply anti-aliasing and high resolution.

Depends on what you are trying to play, but in general I would say that your 500mhz katmai will fall off really hard long before the GPU will become much of a problem. That doesn't mean your build is poorly balanced, only that your GPU is more capable than your CPU.

For anything released 2002 or earlier neither should be a problem. Between 2002-2003 the katmai is going to start feeling its age. The ti 4200 should be good up through at least 2004 era games.

I would consider getting a 600mhz katmai CPU. They should still be cheap and easy to find. If your motherboard supports a 112mhz or 133mhz FSB you can also try overclocking your current CPU.

The P3B-F is a High-End Slot 1 Mainboard with inofficial FSB133 support, so it's a shame to use a Katmai on this board...

I would look for a Coppermine based PIII, for example a PIII 700 with 100 MHZ FSB, could be overclocked to 133MHZ = 933MHz if you want to safe money, or you get a real 1GHz PIII Slot 1 or Socket 370 with a Slotket for a good money.

The earlier Asus P2B is more interesting for a Katmai PIII. Exception: You could use a PIII 450 Katmai and overclock it on the P3B-F to 600MHz = 133MHz FSB.

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2023-05-17, 11:36:

The P3B-F is a High-End Slot 1 Mainboard with inofficial FSB133 support, so it's a shame to use a Katmai on this board...

I would look for a Coppermine based PIII, for example a PIII 700 with 100 MHZ FSB, could be overclocked to 133MHZ = 933MHz if you want to safe money, or you get a real 1GHz PIII Slot 1 or Socket 370 with a Slotket for a good money.

The earlier Asus P2B is more interesting for a Katmai PIII. Exception: You could use a PIII 450 Katmai and overclock it on the P3B-F to 600MHz = 133MHz FSB.

It's not that simple with katmai 450 as cash could be bottleneck to overclocking.

Katmai 450 with later core stepping (kC0) should run fine with 600MHz with the default 2,00V voltage or maybe 2,05V. The earlier Katmai stepping (kB0) could need more voltage and also the L2 cache modules could be the limiting factor. There is a tool named "WCPUL2" from h-oda for L2 Cache Latency settings, if the L2 Cache is the problem.

Many people have used a PIII 450 back in the day and overclocked it to FSB 133, because this was the cheapest option for i440BX FSB133 overclocking in the year 1999/2000.

From Wikipedia:
A notable stepping level for enthusiasts was SL35D. This version of Katmai was officially rated for 450 MHz, but often contained cache chips for the 600 MHz model and thus usually can run at 600 MHz.

if the CPU is a bottleneck that's it for the whole game, while with a graphics card you can often use game video options to amend requirements downwards a little

however that's only a concern for games that really should have more than a p3 500

When i bought a new ti 4200 i had an Athlon xp 1600+, Anandtech did his review of the card with a 2100+ so yeah.... Pretty big bottleneck.
Anything 1000mhz and lower you can easily get by with a GeForce 2 gts.

But I like the overkill. I use mij GeForce 2 gts with a k6-3 cpu and GeForce 4 cards with p3 Tualatin 1400. A lot of games run fine, you just do not get the most out of the card.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2023-05-16, 18:10:

For anything released 2002 or earlier neither should be a problem. Between 2002-2003 the katmai is going to start feeling its age.

i think that's a bit optimistic, though it depends what kind of framerate you can tolerate, but my general rule for the 90s and early 2000s is that a top end PC of its year will play every release from the following year fine. games that are two years newer than the machine will also run fine if they aren't overly demanding, otherwise they can be played with some compromises of varying degree. anything newer than that, usually PCs were already outdated by then, with some exceptions like 4 year old dx2/66s running duke nukem 3d. you could also name '94 p90s playing starcraft and fallout 2 in '98, but those games weren't considered as pushing new technical boundaries.

i've once tested nfs hot pursuit 2 from 2002 on a piii 1100/ti4200 and it definitely ran quite slow, worse than expected, but a 30fps cap would have probably helped. likewise, ut2003 from the same time played about good enough to sample the game but just isn't very enjoyable on 1ghz machines. turning down details will actually help the CPU bottleneck a bit by reducing draw calls and such but then you might have been better off just playing older releases instead.

Definitely a big bottleneck, but it gets you started.
It's easy enough to upgrade the CPU later on.
Or barring that, building a faster platform for the Geforce 4 later, and throwing a TnT2 or something in with the PIII.

Just put some fast CuMine or Tualatin with modified adapter and you are good to go.

I have a ti4600 on my 1000Mhz coppermine and that is also cpu bottlenecked clearly on my system and ti4600 is only like 20% faster than ti4200. If cpu bottleneck bothers you it might be good idea to get even faster cpu than mine in my opinion.

How much faster do you think a Ti4600 should be compared to a Ti4200?

smtkr wrote on 2023-05-29, 21:51:

How much faster do you think a Ti4600 should be compared to a Ti4200?

That is what I just said. ti4600 is about 20-25% faster than ti4200 depending on the game so if like in my case if there is still cpu bottleneck with 1000Mhz P3 then it seems logical that with a gpu that is only that much slower there is definitely going to be a cpu bottleneck with 500Mhz one.

gerry wrote on 2023-05-17, 15:12:

if the CPU is a bottleneck that's it for the whole game, while with a graphics card you can often use game video options to amend requirements downwards a little

however that's only a concern for games that really should have more than a p3 500

This is how I think and why typically I build my rigs with a bit of GPU power in reserve.
I know games are getting everything they can out of the CPU and nothing else is holding it back (excluding drivers, etc)

I used a GF4 4200 and also a GF3 200 on a pentium 3 933, both bottlenecked pretty hard, i just couldn't put up with the fact that i couldn't run deus ex above 25fps with both cards, the CPU couldn't take it, then games more appropriate for the GPU like Nolf 2 lags and drops quite a bit of frames, i would go for a P4 or athlon XP.

iraito wrote on 2023-05-31, 07:53:

I used a GF4 4200 and also a GF3 200 on a pentium 3 933, both bottlenecked pretty hard, i just couldn't put up with the fact that i couldn't run deus ex above 25fps with both cards, the CPU couldn't take it, then games more appropriate for the GPU like Nolf 2 lags and drops quite a bit of frames, i would go for a P4 or athlon XP.

Thanks for your answer. Too bad it is not very encouraging . I do not have one of the above mentioned gforce cards yet but I was about to get one of them soon. I will be the future owner of p3 800 MHZ System in june that I want to turn into a Voodoo 2 Sli and Geforce system. As my main direct 3d card I wanted to use either a geforce 2, 3 or 4. Or maybe one of the mx440 cards.

The GF 4 was recommmended to me as the maxium card I could go for win 98 p800 mhz system.

But reading such stuff that even p3 933 mhz could bottleneck such cards is not very encouraging fora future p3 800 mhz owner. But thanks for sharing your first hand impressions.

retep_110 wrote on 2023-05-31, 08:02:

Thanks for your answer. Too bad it is not very encouraging . I do not have one of the above mentioned gforce cards yet but I […]
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iraito wrote on 2023-05-31, 07:53:

I used a GF4 4200 and also a GF3 200 on a pentium 3 933, both bottlenecked pretty hard, i just couldn't put up with the fact that i couldn't run deus ex above 25fps with both cards, the CPU couldn't take it, then games more appropriate for the GPU like Nolf 2 lags and drops quite a bit of frames, i would go for a P4 or athlon XP.

Thanks for your answer. Too bad it is not very encouraging . I do not have one of the above mentioned gforce cards yet but I was about to get one of them soon. I will be the future owner of p3 800 MHZ System in june that I want to turn into a Voodoo 2 Sli and Geforce system. As my main direct 3d card I wanted to use either a geforce 2, 3 or 4. Or maybe one of the mx440 cards.

The GF 4 was recommmended to me as the maxium card I could go for win 98 p800 mhz system.

But reading such stuff that even p3 933 mhz could bottleneck such cards is not very encouraging fora future p3 800 mhz owner. But thanks for sharing your first hand impressions.

Oh no worries, it saddens me a bit that you feel the disappointment but i myself learned the hard way how easily you can bottleneck a system.
For this reason i was planning to start a thread where i will post benchmarks for all kinds of games on a wide variety of systems, i think that's one of the biggest things missing right now in the retro PC community, a vast amount of data on a really (and i mean REALLY) vast variety of games at different settings and resolutions, people usually bench the usual 10 games but cult stuff like deus ex? not a benchmark anywhere (and i tried for a whole year to find even just one)

I can tell you that any generic P4 or athlon XP would serve your GPU really well, so keep that in mind for a future build.