ciornyi wrote on 2024-12-31, 10:44:

Wrong , geforce mx 440 equal or faster than geforce 2 ti.

Yes and no. In 16-bit color modes GeForce 2 Ti is still faster, because it's not constrained by memory bandwidth, while having double the amount of ROPs and pixel pipes. Also GeForce 2 GTS/Pro/Ti/Ultra take lesser performance hit from trilinear filtering.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2024-12-31, 12:42:

I ended up ordering a GeForce 4 MX440. It was the same price as a GeForce 2 someone was selling, I think. Paid about £15 for it.

I did a couple of tests on my 800Mhz Pentium III system.

With a Geforce 2 GTS 32mb (64-bit apparently, even though they shouldn't exist) I got 5017 in 3DMark 99. In Unreal I got 43 FPS at 1024x768. This was using driver 5.32

With a Geforce 4 440SE (Which, again is a crap one, as it is 64-bit) it scores 4504 in 3DMark . Unreal scores the same 43 FPS, which I assume means CPU is the limitation. I had to install a newer driver for this card. I used 40.71. So it scored worse than the older card.

I then tried a Geforce 4200 (a 128-bit one) and it scores 4594 in 3D Mark 99, which is somewhere between the MX 440 SE and the Geforce 2 GTS. Unreal strangely scored the lowest of the three and only got 40FPS.

So, at least on this system, the older Geforce 2 does the best in these two benchmarks. Take these readings with a grain of salt though, as this isn't a clean install. This system has had many GPUs installed and uninstalled from it including ATI and Voodoos. Also the chipset is VIA, which I think sometimes can be a bit weird.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-02, 08:36:

I then tried a Geforce 4200 (a 128-bit one) and it scores 4594 in 3D Mark 99, which is somewhere between the MX 440 SE and the Geforce 2 GTS. Unreal strangely scored the lowest of the three and only got 40FPS.

Unreal is mostly CPU limited, so don't expect high frame rates there. Here's a period correct benchmark of a GeForce 2 GTS in Unreal Tournament on an Athlon 750, which should be comparable to your Pentium 3 800.

But that GeForce 4 Ti 4200 score is too low. Maybe something else on your system isn't configured correctly.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-02, 08:43:

Unreal is mostly CPU limited, so don't expect high frame rates there. Here's a period correct benchmark of a GeForce 2 GTS in Unreal Tournament on an Athlon 750, which should be comparable to your Pentium 3 800.

But that GeForce 4 Ti score is too low. Maybe something else on your system isn't configured correctly.

Based on that my results for Unreal aren't too far from where they should be with the Geforce 2 GTS then... But, like you say, it's heavily CPU limited so hard to tell. Kinda crazy when you consider that the recommended requirements for this game are only Pentium MMX 200Mhz. It's barely playable on such a system for me. Especially in software mode.

My Geforce 4 has arrived. I’ll give 3DMark 99 a try with the Riva TNT first and make a note of the results. Also, I need to try a different version of Fraps. I tried a 95/98 version, which was 1.2, and it was crap. Only two options that didn’t appear to do anything and the program didn’t give me any counter once in a game. I’ll try the latest version and see if it works. Hopefully it does.

As I said previously, I may have to get another PSU, though was struggling to find anything decent on eBay. At the moment it needs to be a mini ATX, but all the brands listed were unknown and there’s a lot of CIT ones, which I’ve never heard of. I understand the 3.3v and 5v rails are important for this particular CPU? And it needs at least 20A? There was a 400w with around 28A, but it’s an Ezcool and I read they’re to be avoided?

I’ll also have to look for a Pentium III 800Mhz. 1Ghz doesn’t look to be easily obtainable and they’ve gone for £100-200+, which is more than I’d like to spend.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-01-02, 12:27:

My Geforce 4 has arrived. I’ll give 3DMark 99 a try with the Riva TNT first and make a note of the results.

Whilst benchmarking may as well do 3D Mark 2000 and 2001 also.

Okay, I've downloaded 3DMark 99, 00, and 01.

Also, regarding the CPUs - I've noticed when searching for Katmai or Coppermine, there's a lot of Slot 1 CPUs listed as SL3. Such as SL3F7, XL, N6 etc. What do they mean? None of them are listed as Coppermine or Katmai, so would those even work?

S codes are just Intel's unique name for an exact processor and stepping.

Ie all sl2wb will be identical in every way.
Sl2fr might be the same speed and look the same to a user but be a different stepping or assembled in a different factory.

It means nothing. But it does make looking them up easy.

myne wrote on 2025-01-02, 15:40:

S codes are just Intel's unique name for an exact processor and stepping. […]
Show full quote

S codes are just Intel's unique name for an exact processor and stepping.

Ie all sl2wb will be identical in every way.
Sl2fr might be the same speed and look the same to a user but be a different stepping or assembled in a different factory.

It means nothing. But it does make looking them up easy.

Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying. I'll try looking this one up and see if I can find out. Otherwise, I'll try asking the seller.

EDIT: Ah-ha. It's Coppermine. 😁

Yeah, like I suspected, the latest version of Fraps is too modern and doesn’t work. Not sure which one to try. 😕

Managed to get an archive of older Fraps versions and found one that works. 😀

Also ran 3DMark 99 and 00, though haven’t bothered with 01 for now. Results are varied. Games like Half-Life stutter and fluctuate constantly. Struggles to go any higher than 40fps with the lowest in the 20s. And that’s at 640x480x16. This is with the Riva TNT.

If there is too much bottleneck with the CPU after I install the new card, then until I manage to upgrade it, games from after 98 will have to forget it. With the exception of one or two. I know Hogs of War isn’t that demanding. Will be trying that next and System Shock 2.

A thought did cross my mind with this GeForce 4 - are vxd drivers a thing? I suspect not. I just hope that isn’t going to be an issue with DOS games? Or is that more for audio?

Well, to add further to my depression and disappointment for the day, I've installed the Geforce 4, along with the drivers, and the results are much worse than I was expecting. 🙁 Seems to be a common trend whenever I've bought a new GPU.

The couple of games I've tried, the results are exactly the same, if not worse. The cinematics for Hogs of War are at a much lower frame rate than when I was using the Riva TNT, and it's even worse in the menus, as it goes as low as 10fps and below. Still within the teens during gameplay/the tutorial. And the graphics in that game are incredibly flat and not detailed at all. Both American McGee's Alice and Half-Life feel about the same, with dips into the 20s.

It could be the drivers, but I'm not holding my breath. I have the latest installed for it, which is FW 81.98.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-01-03, 20:21:

It could be the drivers, but I'm not holding my breath. I have the latest installed for it, which is FW 81.98.

Those drivers could be partially responsible for your issues. They were released in late 2005, at which time no one cared much for Win9x, as it was out of mainstream support.

Uninstall those and try 45.23 instead. You may also want to disable V-Sync while benchmarking to get a better sense of what's going on.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-01-03, 20:21:

It could be the drivers, but I'm not holding my breath. I have the latest installed for it, which is FW 81.98.

81.98 drivers are terrible. Definitely follow
Joseph_Joestar's advice and install 45.23. It's the most popular one in the retro community.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-01-03, 20:28:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-01-03, 20:21:

It could be the drivers, but I'm not holding my breath. I have the latest installed for it, which is FW 81.98.

Those drivers could be partially responsible for your issues. They were released in 2005 at which time no one cared much for Win9x, as it was out of mainstream support.

Uninstall those and try 45.23 instead. You may also want to disable V-Sync while benchmarking to get a better sense of what's going on.

Thanks for the recommendation; I'll give them a go.

As for v-sync, I actually had the reverse issue. I kept enabling it in the Nvidia Control Panel, under Global Settings and for Alice, but v-sync still wouldn't work. I've been getting tearing issues in a number of games, including Half-Life in OpenGL mode. In Direct3D, there's some serious delay and weirdness going on when moving the camera with the mouse.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-03, 20:35:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-01-03, 20:21:

It could be the drivers, but I'm not holding my breath. I have the latest installed for it, which is FW 81.98.

81.98 drivers are terrible. Definitely follow
Joseph_Joestar's advice and install 45.23. It's the most popular one in the retro community.

Okay, will do. Thanks. 😀

Also, as an aside, I've noticed whenever I've tried loading Vogon's Driver Library, either by provided links or doing a Google search, it can be incredibly unresponsive at loading. I tend to use Internet Download Manager and it doesn't respond at all. It just says it's Connecting indefinitely. The driver page only seems to work fine, along with downloads, from my bookmark.

Okay, I've managed to install the suggested drivers. I did have problems removing 81.98; it kept performing an illegal operation. Even in Safe Mode. I managed to try that Driver Cleaner mentioned in another thread and that did the trick nicely. 😁

So, yeah... 45.23 are much better. The weird issues I was getting in Hogs of War's main menu has pretty much gone. Games have still only improved marginally in performance. I would say Quake II has benefited the most. It still leaves a lot to be desired in Hogs of War, Alice, and Half-Life though. I would say it's definitely the CPU holding me back now. And will be the cause for the random stutters/hitches I occasionally get.

Hopefully once you upgrade the CPU, the performance will be what you want.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-01-04, 16:46:

Hopefully once you upgrade the CPU, the performance will be what you want.

Yeah, here's hoping. 😀 I'll most likely increase the RAM by another 128MB and replace the PSU. The maximum clock speed I can find for a Slot 1 Pentium III is around 700-800MHz. Hopefully that'll do the trick.