I think Thief II would probably look better on the MX 440, but the 64-bit version is not really desirable. But since you have it, you may as well test it to see if it performs well enough for you. Its a directx 7 card, so I think no point installing directx 8.1 with it.

I haven't used Radeon 9550 so can't really comment on performance, but I know Radeons are less compatible than Geforce when it comes to older Win9x games.

You list at least one game that uses the paletted fog feature (Thief 2), which will for that reason look better on the MX440. The MX440 despite being only DX7 compatible in hardware would have shipped with drivers that were already built and tested against DX8 at least, so no reason to hold back there.

For any games built with DX9 in mind, the Radeon would be better - and it should be waay faster than the MX. Hard to say for sure with all the nonsense going on at the time (128- vs 64-bit bus, SE vs non-SE, etc.)...

thanks for all the answers so for now I'm sticking to mx 440. I'll keep searching for the 128bit of the mx440, though.

The MX460 is guaranteed 128 bit, and sometimes comes up for a reasonable price. I got mine for £25 not long ago.

Get a 128bit card, or use the 9550.
Palleted textures and table fog be damned.

There are registry work arounds for the fog anyhow.
A 64bit MX card is crap.

Yeah, the 9550 is faster than any Geforce MX given it's 128bit. The 128bit MX440 is also a solid choice for Windows 98. However the 64bit version is awful. The best use case for it if it's bottlenecked by the CPU so much that the anemic bandwidth doesn't matter. Ir in cases like Fallout 2 which is a 2D game locked to something like 11fps.

PS: I have decent memories with the MX200, which is also 64 bit and generally considered crap. It's still an upgrade compared to any 90s graphics card maybe aside of the highest of high end. Cards like this imho have their place, but for a main retro rig, you'll need something with more muscle.

I'd look for a Geforce3 Ti200 or Geforce4 Ti4200. But a 128bit MX440 is a good placeholder until you find one within your budget.

AxeMan wrote on Today, 07:39:

thanks for all the answers so for now I'm sticking to mx 440. I'll keep searching for the 128bit of the mx440, though.

That's probably the best choice, especially if your CPU < 700Mhz.