I say the virge gx for DOS compatibility and purity.

In a perfect world I'd put a voodoo 1 in this build bit you already said it is not an option.

5, 6, and (if compatible) 7 are your best all-around jack-of-all-trades, master of most options. If that Quadro NVS is free to you, and you have validated it is compatible and meets your DOS/Windows/Gaming needs - save your money and add a Voodoo 1. You're only punishing yourself by not adding it to your system, heh.

Whatever you choose, make sure you run it by Gona before finalizing:

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

In my P233MMX I am using a G200 and a voodoo1. Used to use an S3 Virge for 2D in that system but wanted improved image quality which the G200 delivered. My voodoo1, diamond monster 3d, cost me $75 in 2021 but I had to wait a while to get that price. Also purchased a pci voodoo3 for $90 in 2021 again took a long time to get at that price. I did not need the edge case dos compatibility gain of the virge as I also have 386 and 486 systems. Really, P233MMX is light weight for much 3D gaming other than early 3D and voodoo1 specific stuff, I use P3 and up more for 3D.

For dirt grade obtanium, having already decided to era-bust, the MX4000 is probably best bet. Staying closer to era, keep an eye out for PCI Banshee cards going cheap... they sometimes are... that's getting less often and they're probably gonna surge up to gasping for oxygen pricing when all the other voodoo options are consistently $200+

Free quadro, hell, give it a whirl.

edit: quick peek on evilbay suggests you might want to search for NOS SiS 6326 ... some bracketless PCI ones cheap... nice image quality, good 2D compatibility and windoze res I think, not so hot for 3D but that's not so hot in 1999ish when they were on the market, for an earlier system they're probably better than early rages, weird permedias and lagunas etc.

editII: Whoops yeah I think it's gonna be slower than a G200 still though in 3D which is kinda middle of the road, I think most stuff that will outperform it is gonna be in the spendy zone or 5 years later zone.

I’m going to try a G450 - that’s a plausible enough late-in-life upgrade for the DP4000, and I found one for $25 shipped. I’m going to stick the Quadro in for the hell of it, but it’s too far out of period to make the “real” solution, and it’ll probably be completely CPU-bound anyway.

Please let us know how the G450 performs relative to the G200 I have considered trying that myself in my P233MMX. With your G200, are you using the updated opengl ICD extracted from the G400 driver? In my system, glquake performs similarly between voodoo1 and g200.

I installed the P233MMX today, so here are some baseline results. System config is now:

P233MMX, 256MB RAM
Adaptec 2940U2W, Compaq 68GB HDD
Optiarc IDE CD on IDE primary/master
Crystal 4237 ISA sound card
Matrox G200 PCI, 16MB SDRAM, latest OpenGL ICD (1.1.3 dated 5/17/2002)
Win98SE w/unofficial SP3

Quake 2 timedemo, no sound, in FPS:

640x480x32: 18
800x600x32: 14.5
1024x768x32: 11

640x480x16: 21.5
800x600x16: 19
1024x768x16: 14

Once the G450 arrives, I re-run and update. (The Quadro caused the system to not POST, which wasn't a surprise.)

Update: the G450 is in. Quake 2 results were initially very disappointing - slower than the G200, and horribly inconsistent such that the game would run smoothly for a while, then turn in to a slideshow during combat. OTOH, it LOOKED great, with richer colors than the G200, which ended up being a clue. Apparently, the G200 can't/doesn't render the colored lighting where the G450 does, but very slowly. Apparently that's a known problem affecting some renderers (here is an example of someone seeing the issue on an R9-270x: https://github.com/yquake2/yquake2/issues/147)

So, testing with the final w9x_683 drivers direct from Matrox, final BIOS, and cl_lights=0:

640x480x32: 25
800x600x32: 24.5
1024x768x32: 22.5

640x480x16: 25.3
800x600x16: 25.5
1024x768x16: 25.3
1152x864x16: 24.5

And, I'm CPU-bound, which is fine. Overall, I'm happy with the G450 - it feels like a solid period-appropriate upgrade. I might get a bit more performance out of a GF2 MX (if I could ever find a PCI version), but the G450 is a bit more in keeping with the business-box nature of the Deskpro, and it's fast enough to meet my objective.

Nice one! And you're a more dedicated vogon'er than I.

Try as I might, unless a game is capped at 30fps, I won't tolerate a framerate below 60fps (with all or most eye-candy enabled). I can give back some on AA, AO, and AF, but that's about it.

How is the DOS performance? I have a g400 but I took it out because of some DOS games had some glitches and put it some Nvidia model. It seemed very good for productivity use though.

Imo compatibility is key rather than fps in this kind of build. But in the end it depends on what games you would like to play and what gives you enjoyment. 😀