Antique93 wrote on 2026-02-13, 08:39:

Actually, I thought the Radeon x series of cards also supported only the latest Catalyst 6.12 drivers. Since it released a bit earlier, would the x800xt AGP support older drivers than PCI-E cards from the same series?

No, Catalyst 4.11 simultaneously introduced driver support for the AGP and PCI-e X700/X800/X850 cards along with PCI-e X300/X600 cards.

DEAT wrote on 2026-02-14, 11:36:

Antique93 wrote on 2026-02-13, 08:39:

Actually, I thought the Radeon x series of cards also supported only the latest Catalyst 6.12 drivers. Since it released a bit earlier, would the x800xt AGP support older drivers than PCI-E cards from the same series?

No, Catalyst 4.11 simultaneously introduced driver support for the AGP and PCI-e X700/X800/X850 cards along with PCI-e X300/X600 cards.

Are there any benefits with going for older Catalyst versions? I haven't heard if the latest Catalyst being as buggy as the nvidia drivers were.

Also, what's your opinion on getting a nVidia 7xxx series card? Would it be unusable in Windows 98?

Antique93 wrote on 2026-02-16, 11:43:

Also, what's your opinion on getting a nVidia 7xxx series card? Would it be unusable in Windows 98?

Some people, including those on this forum, use them successfully and leave good reviews. However, judge for yourself:
GeForce 4 - perfect compatibility: minor issues are completely fixable (Later note: NOT really, my mistake)
GeForce FX (except 5700, 5700VE, 5700 LE, 5700 Ultra) - slightly worse compatibility: very good 3X.XX series drivers are unavailable, and font issues in some games can be fixed to varying degrees.
GeForce FX 5700, 5700VE, 5700 LE, 5700 Ultra - slightly worse compatibility: very good 4X.XX series drivers are unavailable.
GeForce PCX - even worse compatibility: good 5X.XX series drivers are unavailable.
GeForce 6 - significantly worse compatibility: 8-bit paletted texture support has been removed, and models with 512 MB of video memory do not work or require an unofficial Windows patch.
GeForce 7 - compatibility is even worse: there were no official drivers, only the 8X.XX series, which are buggy, were unofficial.

Are the new cards worth it, considering that with each new driver series release, compatibility with games under Windows 9x generally gets worse?

GeForce 4 - perfect compatibility: minor issues are completely fixable.

GeForce 4 also has font issues, which are not fixable without texel alignment option and it works only on GeForce 2 or lower.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2026-02-17, 20:40:

GeForce 4 - perfect compatibility: minor issues are completely fixable.

GeForce 4 also has font issues, which are not fixable without texel alignment option and it works only on GeForce 2 or lower.

Oh, my mistake. For some reason, I thought GeForce 2 had no issues at all, and the 4 Series's were fixable. But it looks like you're right, perfect compatibility was lost after GeForce 2.

Since I realized I kinda rambled on and on about offtopic stuff in my previous posts, I'll try to keep my posts on the short side(or at least keep them more on topic).

I managed to find a Asus p4v800d-x motherboard for sale. It has the VIA PT880 Ultra chipset with DDR1 RAM and both an AGP and PCI-E x4 slot(it's a full x16 physically, but electrically it's only x4).

I had an idea to put a random mx440 or similar card with DVI for maximum compatibility in the AGP slot and to then fill the PCI-E slot with the pcx5750 (assuming it doesn't run into compatibility issues due to the x4 slot) for use in games that need more "oomph" than the mx440 can provide.

Would it be a good idea to base a system on that mobo?

Will I get driver conflicts for running 2 nvidia cards?

If driver conflicts are an issue, alternatively I could build a system using any random AGP 478(or 775/754/939/AM2) board and pairing it with the AIW x800xt AGP card I got from my storage and a PCI fx5200/nvs280 for titles that the ATi card isn't compatible with.

Another reason I'm considering this voars is because I've read that only Via chipsets(out of the available "modern" chipsets) are able to have sound over DDMA via PCI cards in DOS, but although this Via southbridge is too new for this to work, it's still listed as somewhat supported. This might turn out to be a red herring though.