I dont know about 2K/XP at the moment, but Rage Pro / Rage128 Pro have 3DNow drivers for Win9x and if Catalyst 6.2 has it, then older Catalyst versions should also have it. You can test OpenGL 3DNow with Quake2.

Quake2 3DNow with ATi Rage Pro / Rage128 Pro and how to get small performance boost with your 3Dnow! CPU and ATi card.
1. Use ATi Rage Pro / Rage128 Pro driver that has 3Dnow support (i think any DX6.0 driver or newer ones).
2.Extract the AMD Quake 2 3DNow! patch to your Quake 2.
3.Start Quake 2. Under the video options menu, choose 3DNow! OpenGL as your rendering device (not OpenGL or 3Dnow! 3dfxGL).

3DNow! is a CPU extension explicitly used by applications for optimization. In most cases you won't even know it, like the jpeg loader in MAX-FX engine stuff (3DMark, Max Payne). There's also some that detect it to identify 3DNow but don't really use it, like Quake3.

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 07:22:

3dfx and Nvidia had certain support, Nvidia just before 20.x detonators, so the last drivers SHULD BE 12.90.
As a consequence I should be limited to a certain range of gpus.
Am I right?

Nvidia Geforce3

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 07:22:

If so, is there a 12.90 driver for XP?

https://disk.yandex.ru/d/1VP4xZJu2I3yMQ

leileilol wrote on 2025-06-08, 11:20:

3DNow! is a CPU extension explicitly used by applications for optimization. In most cases you won't even know it, like the jpeg loader in MAX-FX engine stuff (3DMark, Max Payne). There's also some that detect it to identify 3DNow but don't really use it, like Quake3.

So at the end of the day, all discussions related to 3Dnow and vga drivers are nonsense?
The fact that older drivers work better on ss7 is just because of less overhead?

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 15:22:

leileilol wrote on 2025-06-08, 11:20:

3DNow! is a CPU extension explicitly used by applications for optimization. In most cases you won't even know it, like the jpeg loader in MAX-FX engine stuff (3DMark, Max Payne). There's also some that detect it to identify 3DNow but don't really use it, like Quake3.

So at the end of the day, all discussions related to 3Dnow and vga drivers are nonsense?
The fact that older drivers work better on ss7 is just because of less overhead?

From 3DFX Voodoo2 + Q2 AMD patch you cant say its nonsense, same its with regular OpenGL vs 3DNow OpenGL. 3DNow came from DirectX 6.0 for D3D. Of course its related to your CPU and there are VGA drivers with SSE and 3DNow support, but also other software must support it, will it be game/application or OS. SSE does not work out of the box with DOS/Win95, but there is fix for this. I see it like older driver has less overhead + 3dnow/sse support, example DX5 vga driver does not have 3DNow support, but DX6 one has.

SSE for DOS/Win95 (simd95)
https://github.com/JHRobotics/simd95
or
SSE for DOS/Win95 (sse)
http://falcosoft.hu/dos_softwares.html#sse

leileilol wrote on 2025-06-08, 11:20:

3DNow! is a CPU extension explicitly used by applications for optimization. In most cases you won't even know it, like the jpeg loader in MAX-FX engine stuff (3DMark, Max Payne). There's also some that detect it to identify 3DNow but don't really use it, like Quake3.

afaik it even caused issues with 2008's Mass Effect,
AMD CPUs until the Phenom II line had 3dnow!, but Bulldozer ditched support, so mass effect would detect AMD CPU and try to use 3dnow! on Bulldozer making the game have some weird bugs that have to be patched to this day if you are trying to play mass effect 1 (original) with a Ryzen CPU,
not sure about the extent of 3dnow! usage or benefit in such a game,

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 15:22:

So at the end of the day, all discussions related to 3Dnow and vga drivers are nonsense?

https://phantom.sannata.org/viewtopic.php?p=685160#p685160

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 15:22:

The fact that older drivers work better on ss7 is just because of less overhead?

When developing the drivers, the slow operation of the memory subsystem on SS7 was taken into account.

SPBHM wrote on 2025-06-08, 16:57:

AMD CPUs until the Phenom II line had 3dnow!, but Bulldozer ditched support.

last AMD APU processor supporting 3DNow! is the A8-3870K
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-A8-Ser … 870WNZ43GX.html

SPBHM wrote on 2025-06-08, 16:57:

afaik it even caused issues with 2008's Mass Effect,
AMD CPUs until the Phenom II line had 3dnow!, but Bulldozer ditched support, so mass effect would detect AMD CPU and try to use 3dnow! on Bulldozer making the game have some weird bugs that have to be patched to this day if you are trying to play mass effect 1 (original) with a Ryzen CPU,
not sure about the extent of 3dnow! usage or benefit in such a game,

Not exactly, read this.

As far as I'm concerned, being an owner of an AMD K10 based CPU for the last 16 years, 3DNow! is just useless. Whatever advantages it may had in an era long gone are easily obtainable through raw brute force. Single-threaded performance is what matters with old games. My brother used to have a cheap 2012 non-gaming Intel based laptop with integrated Intel GPU as well, that laptop obliterated my 2009 gaming desktop with AMD Phenom II X4 920 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (used to have Radeon HD 4890) in Drakan: Order of the Flame (a 1999 game using 3DNow!).

The test scene was an Islands singleplayer level with doubled drawing distance, my desktop struggled with FPS in low 40s at most while the laptop ran it at smooth 60 FPS.

Today, lack of SSE 4.2 and AVX is apparent on that CPU. Would be more useful than 3DNow!.

Takedasun wrote on 2025-06-08, 17:06:

https://phantom.sannata.org/viewtopic.php?p=685160#p685160 […]
Show full quote

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 15:22:

So at the end of the day, all discussions related to 3Dnow and vga drivers are nonsense?

https://phantom.sannata.org/viewtopic.php?p=685160#p685160

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 15:22:

The fact that older drivers work better on ss7 is just because of less overhead?

When developing the drivers, the slow operation of the memory subsystem on SS7 was taken into account.

Ok from the Russian link I can understand that if we are talking about dx6 or dx5 games, 3Dnow has a positive impact.
I guess that in dx7 or dx8 (or 9 if I want to suffer), the best thing to do is to find the fastest gpu that will work on the motherboard and forget about synthetic benchmarks…

In fact, 3dmark2000 gives me worse results on Ati 9500 than on 9250 (same drivers).

And forget about 3Dnow

UCyborg wrote on 2025-06-08, 19:17:

Today, lack of SSE 4.2 and AVX is apparent on that CPU. Would be more useful than 3DNow!.

You can use newer CPU-s in older OS with 3DNow! support in mind, older apps / games and OS dont care about SSE4.2, it just how you look at things.

I have plans to use AM3/AM2/SocketA CPUs with Win9x:
AMD Athlon II U170 2GHz (singlecore) 20W
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Athlon … 70UEAK13GM.html
or this
AMD Athlon 64 2650e 1.6GHz (singlecore) 15w
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-A ... PBOX).html
or this
AMD Geode NX 1500 1GHz (singlecore) 9W
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Geode%2 … L1500FGC3M.html

Here i am never gona use SSE4a or 64bit, let alone missing SSE4.2 instructions @ U170 or older CPUs. Phenom II is great with 3DNow! support. 😀

No.
The whole point was to get the best from this SS7 platform.

Mamba wrote on 2025-06-08, 19:55:

The whole point was to get the best from this SS7 platform.

Best GPU what i like for AMD K6-III is Geforce3 + 7.76 and maybe 12.90 is also good driver for it,
it should have all, Table fog, 8 bit palleted textures and EMBM.

Win9x is better for AMD K6-III, why WinXP, dualboot maybe?

For unknown reasons win98se is unstable with my motherboard

marxveix wrote on 2025-06-08, 20:02:

Best GPU what i like for AMD K6-III is Geforce3 + 7.76 and maybe 12.90 is also good driver for it,
it should have all, Table fog, 8 bit palleted textures and EMBM.

You have piqued my curiosity. Can you please run Quake 3 Demo001 at 1024x768x32bpp all options maxxed, first with 12.90 and then with 45.23? I want to see how much 3DNow really makes a difference in FPS.

mockingbird wrote on 2025-06-08, 21:53:

marxveix wrote on 2025-06-08, 20:02:

Best GPU what i like for AMD K6-III is Geforce3 + 7.76 and maybe 12.90 is also good driver for it,
it should have all, Table fog, 8 bit palleted textures and EMBM.

You have piqued my curiosity. Can you please run Quake 3 Demo001 at 1024x768x32bpp all options maxxed, first with 12.90 and then with 45.23? I want to see how much 3DNow really makes a difference in FPS.

I have had ATi cards at the moment in my K6-2+ machine, but i have Gerorce2 MX400 64MB and Geforce 3 TI200 64MB @ static free bag.
I may try it some day, but i dont want say any real time when i do it, Thank you!

marxveix wrote on 2025-06-09, 00:00:

mockingbird wrote on 2025-06-08, 21:53:

marxveix wrote on 2025-06-08, 20:02:

Best GPU what i like for AMD K6-III is Geforce3 + 7.76 and maybe 12.90 is also good driver for it,
it should have all, Table fog, 8 bit palleted textures and EMBM.

You have piqued my curiosity. Can you please run Quake 3 Demo001 at 1024x768x32bpp all options maxxed, first with 12.90 and then with 45.23? I want to see how much 3DNow really makes a difference in FPS.

I have had ATi cards at the moment in my K6-2+ machine, but i have Gerorce2 MX400 64MB and Geforce 3 TI200 64MB @ static free bag.
I may try it some day, but i dont want say any real time when i do it, Thank you!

Which card?
Win98se?

mockingbird wrote on 2025-06-08, 21:53:

I want to see how much 3DNow really makes a difference in FPS.

Back in the day, the difference was noticeable on Voodoo 2 cards, at least with that AMD optimized build of Quake 2. Relevant Anandtech article.

As I recall, that optimization worked best when pairing a K6 CPU with a Voodoo 2. Older and newer Voodoo cards couldn't benefit as much. I don't own the necessary hardware, so I can't test this myself, but maybe someone else could replicate Anandtech's findings.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-06-09, 08:35:

Back in the day, the difference was noticeable on Voodoo 2 cards, at least with that AMD optimized build of Quake 2. Relevant Anandtech article.

As I recall, that optimization worked best when pairing a K6 CPU with a Voodoo 2. Older and newer Voodoo cards couldn't benefit as much. I don't own the necessary hardware, so I can't test this myself, but maybe someone else could replicate Anandtech's findings.

Thanks! I may just do this with my upcoming K6-III+ build.