Zup wrote:

I've bought a Radeon 9200 PCI card, to help me in diagnose of some computers (Athlon, PIII and those things).

Have anyone tried this card in older computers? I've got a Pentium 166MMX and a 486 with PCI bus, and I'm wondering if that card could work in those computers, or if some kind of issue may arise (and damage motherboard, VGA or both).

Also, it might be funny to see a 20Mb computer with a 256Mb video card...

I really doubt that it will work. I have an extra Radeon 7000 card and one of the minimum requirements is a 450 mhz cpu.

Even if it works, it would be an overkill for a Pentium 1, whatever your purpose is.
Later PCI cards, even if they claim PCI 2.1 compatibility AND your motherboard conforms that on paper, will not even allow the PC to boot.

For example, I have a GA-AX board and neither a TNT2 PCI nor the flagship PCI card Nvidia FX 5200 work. The TNT2 seemingly lets it boot but no picture. THe Zotac FX 5200 hangs it immediately on powerup 😢

But 2nd generation Athlons and Pentium IV motherboards (any chipset) will work, no problem.

Jolaes76 wrote:

For example, I have a GA-AX board and neither a TNT2 PCI nor the flagship PCI card Nvidia FX 5200 work.

There are later nVidia PCI cards so I don't see how the FX5200 can be the "flagship". There are faster PCI cards even in the FX family that fit a PCI slot like the FX5500, FX5600, and FX5700LE.

I thought that was the last of that line of nvidia PCI cards. Does not matter a bit anyway since, you must know, you cannot "unleash" the true potential of those chips on the PCI bus, coupled with 64 bit memory... Only a fraction of it...

I thought that was the last of that line of nvidia PCI cards. Does not matter a bit anyway since, you must know, you cannot "unleash" the true potential of those chips on the PCI bus, coupled with 64 bit memory... Only a fraction of it...

It's not even close to the last.

And I'm not sure why you're saying a faster chip won't matter. Sure, any modern GPU is going to be limited by the PCI bus, but faster chips are still going to be faster up to a point... and the FX5200 is most certainly not at that limit. IMO, it was the Geforce 6200 PCI that really touched the point of severely diminishing returns... and it's considerably faster than the 5200.

Oh, and related to the OP's question, a 9250 PCI will boot and function in my 1996-vintage Mac clone... I know that's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but that Mac is of about the same vintage as your Pentium, so basing just on that I'd say there's at least a decent chance you could get a 9200 going in your machine.

I did not want to go flaming about this issue, just said it is an overkill for testing purposes. I do not how many modern PCI cards you have tested. I had 4. All of them performed miserably in comparison with their AGP siblings and rivals. (of course, they are MUCH better then many onboard VGA chips of the time.)

But the numbers speak for themselves:
(certainly you can find more conclusive realtime results)
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=631&page=4

And in MY experience, these are correct numbers. Your mileage may vary.

I wonder how a PCI 6200 would do. FX 5200 sucks regardless of bus.

swaaye wrote:

I wonder how a PCI 6200 would do. FX 5200 sucks regardless of bus.

6200 is the last PCI with a Win9x driver, but now after hearing that some later cards won't boot unless you have a certain speed CPU, I'm not sure how far back you can go with some of them. You can get Windows 98 to run on a 486 PCI board, but a 6200 may not work even though there is a Windows 98 driver for it. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you would have to have a chip at least on the fast end of the Super Socket 7/Slot 1 era for a 6200, but since SS7 and Slot 1 boards support AGP, there are better cards in the 6600 and 6800 ranges that you can use. You probably wouldn't even be able to use anything at all from nVidia with a 486 and only the earliest ATi Rage cards. I've said before that I think as far as speed is concerned anything after a S3 Virge is probably not going to show any improvement with a 486. You might get a little additional feature support, but there's going to be a hard limit as to how late you can go with the choice of video cards.

Jolaes76 wrote:

All them performed miserably in comparison with their AGP siblings and rivals.

Yes, that is true. But that's not my point. I really don't think it matters how a PCI version of a card compares to the AGP version. The only realistic cases when you'd even be looking at a PCI card are when you don't have an AGP slot available, so it would go to follow, then, that it only makes sense to compare a PCI card against other PCI cards. And compared to other PCI cards, the PCI FX5200 is still crap.

swaaye wrote:

I wonder how a PCI 6200 would do.

I don't remember exact numbers, but just a rough comparison from memory of some tests I did awhile back... in older DirectX7/8 stuff, I found the 6200 PCI was maybe 10-15% faster than a 128-bit FX5200 PCI (not the extra-crippled 64-bit one, but a "full" FX5200). In DX9, the 6200 was at least twice as fast, and the gap only got wider the newer the game was. I know for sure that the 6200 I used was a slightly overclocked version, but I believe the 5200 was as well.

Rest assured, there is also reason in comparing a semi-modern PCI card to the AGP counterpart: If you buy such a card and not an older, more versatile/compatible model (that would work in most motherboards with PCI slots) then you had been expecting some performance.

Zup,
if the card is OK you can try it safely on older boards as well,
it is not going to damage the motherboard. Worst case scenario: your computer will not boot.

I never had one of the "modern" PCI graphics cards. Most modern I have laying around is a GF2MX 200 I think?

I'm not sure if it's even much use to use such a card in a retro rig, best is indeed when you have a more modern motherboard lacking it's AGP 4x or 8x slot, and even then the newer ones will be very limited due to PCI's limited bandwidth and sharing the bus with other devices.

Jolaes76 wrote:

I did not want to go flaming about this issue, just said it is an overkill for testing purposes. I do not how many modern PCI ca […]
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I did not want to go flaming about this issue, just said it is an overkill for testing purposes. I do not how many modern PCI cards you have tested. I had 4. All of them performed miserably in comparison with their AGP siblings and rivals. (of course, they are MUCH better then many onboard VGA chips of the time.)

But the numbers speak for themselves:
(certainly you can find more conclusive realtime results)
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=631&page=4

And in MY experience, these are correct numbers. Your mileage may vary.

Those numbers don't work because you are comparing a slow FX5200 on PCI to a faster FX5600 in AGP which would be faster than the FX5200 even if you used the PCI version and a Radeon 9600 which was only available in AGP and also was faster than the FX5200 AGP. The architecture is making the bigger difference in these cases, not the bus they are being run on. In the early days of AGP 1x/2x, many cards weren't noticeably faster than their PCI equivalents like the Voodoo3, 4 and 5 cards.

You also have to take into account that the PCI cards sold after AGP became standard were for users who didn't have an AGP slot on their motherboards so they wouldn't have had any choice but to buy a PCI card. Anyone with an AGP slot wouldn't have bought a PCI card unless they needed to run a second monitor. Now they have cards that can run multiple monitors from a single slot and most motherboards have at least one PCIe x16 slot so the need for PCI video cards has been almost eliminated. It's doubtful that there will be any more.

To sliderrider:

I also wrote that you can find much better comparisons, I just did not have the time to find the one I read before. In my book, the link I pinned up is still informative. Just not the best one.

To Tetrium:
Absolutely.
These cards can be used as a last resort when no AGP/PCIe slots are available (or working).
OR if someone needs a secondary card that matches certain criteria, like having more memory and DX9c support to work better on larger displays, with non-so-demanding 3D apps, SVideo or other legacy output etc.

Jolaes76 wrote:

To Tetrium: Absolutely. These cards can be used as a last resort when no AGP/PCIe slots are available (or working). OR if someo […]
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To Tetrium:
Absolutely.
These cards can be used as a last resort when no AGP/PCIe slots are available (or working).
OR if someone needs a secondary card that matches certain criteria, like having more memory and DX9c support to work better on larger displays, with non-so-demanding 3D apps, SVideo or other legacy output etc.

Interesting, I never considered that, even though it's quite obvious!

Of course their uses for gaming will be limited (Too slow for newer games and too modern for old ones) but the advantages you named are true 🤣

I've just received the card. Yes, it's an overkill to test computers, but it was the only new PCI card I could bought.

This weekend, I'll test it on a AMD XP 2800 first, and then in the Pentium 166 and the 486/66. I know it won't work as a full 3D card (AMD and Pentium has Puppy Linux installed on them; the 486 has Windows 95), but I want to find if it works.

I have a 3d prophet 9000 64mb PCI

-On 486 computer: no boot, no post, nothink, only buzzer beeps

-On 586/pentium pro computer:
Vx board= Boot but nothing on screen
Hx board= Boot with only a litle text on screen and nothing, no post

-On Pentium II computer: Run ok!

-On k6II/3d: I don't have computer to test it, i think it can to run on super 7 board without AGP

PCI 2.2 requirement?

The P2 motherboard is a Legend V QDI Lx (i don't know if it 's 2.2, but it's 2.1 or more? )

I find PCI specs on Wiki

Spec Year Change Summary[5]
PCI 1.0 1992 Original issue
PCI 2.0 1993 Incorporated connector and add-in card specification
PCI 2.1 1995 Incorporated clarifications and added 66 MHz chapter
PCI 2.2 1998 Incorporated ECNs, and improved readability
PCI 2.3 2002 Incorporated ECNs, errata, and deleted 5 volt only keyed add-in cards
PCI 3.0 2002 Removed support for the 5.0 volt keyed system board connector

and i don't have manual of the 3d prophet 9000

Sorry for being late, but these are the results:

- AMD XP2800: No problems, as expected. That was a test to prove that the card was working.
- Fujitsu Ergopro e452 (Pentium 166MMX, 64 Mb RAM): booted without touching any jumper or BIOS option. Puppy Linux worked OK with that card.
- Siemens Scenic 4H PCI (AMD 486DX2/66, 20 Mb RAM): did not boot. After removing the card, it said that previous boot didn't finish. There is some PCI options, I've tried with PCI burst enabled and disabled (didn't work in any case). Currently I'm searching for the mainboard jumper settings (I don't know if I have to change anything).