Living wrote on Today, 13:47:

...
all the DDR memorys are SDRAM, we just call them DDR

To be precise: they're DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Dynamic Random Access Memory) vs SDR SDRAM (Single Data Rate Synchronous etc...).

Because in DDR information in accessed on both the falling and rising edges of the clock signal.

BTW. EDO and FPM memories are also Dynamic, but in contrast to SDRAMs are Asynchronous 😉

...and dynamic ones, unlike static ones, need periodic refreshing.

Captain Obvious is always here to help 😀

zyga64 wrote on Today, 13:58:

To be precise: they're DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Dynamic Random Access Memory) vs SDR SDRAM (Single Data Rate Synchronous etc. […]
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Living wrote on Today, 13:47:

...
all the DDR memorys are SDRAM, we just call them DDR

To be precise: they're DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Dynamic Random Access Memory) vs SDR SDRAM (Single Data Rate Synchronous etc...).

Because in DDR information in accessed on both the falling and rising edges of the clock signal.

BTW. EDO and FPM memories are also Dynamic, but in contrast to SDRAMs are Asynchronous 😉

...and dynamic ones, unlike static ones, need periodic refreshing.

Captain Obvious is always here to help 😀

you just forgot to fly away

There was a short period of DX9 games were DX9 code path didn't seem to add much visually but also stomped on Radeon 9x00 class performance wise, so people running it on DX8 path on Geforce 4 were seeing 30-40fps while 9x00 was down in the teens without seeming to get much more eye candy. Might have just been one engine/publisher. I remember it because it made the FX series look just as good/bad as Radeons. However, better games/engines came out and 9x00 became far more dominant for a year or so.

Anyway, "early dx9" might play well with nothing DX9 from the era, and be better on DX8 or DX8 with DX7 feature level. Maybe there were patches and it is not seen in retrospect as it seemed to play out in a few months in I think early 2003ish.

Edit: could have been early release driver SNAFU too.

I was under the impression that you already had the Radeon card.
The 9550 is the much faster card in any regard, faster than even the 128bit MX440, let alone the 64bit one.
But if you already have the Geforce card and don't want to spend the money on the 9550 then of course that makes sense as well.

Either way don't concern yourself with compatibility. Very few games use palleted textures, in my opinion it is a zero sum concern. You are unlikely to ever run into this issue.
Table fog is a slightly bigger concern, many games do use it and it can be problematic with certain drivers under Windows 98. Not with all drivers however, many emulate it properly and AFAIK yes XP is a non concern as well.

This thread goes into more detail.
Table Fog & 8-bit Paletted Textures

Either way there are ways to get it to work if it is a problem, the trade off in performance is WELL worth a little niggling thing like this in my opinion.