Define terrible. Just by looking at screenshots, Celeron 300 most likely won't be able to provide stable 60+ framerate in these games.

The GeForce 4 MX is available in all shapes and forms and some of them are really, really slow. According to the specs you’ve linked to your card is one of those slow versions. Based on that I wouldn’t expect performance, especially with a Celeron 300 (without L2 cache!)

Perhaps you can compare with benchmarks and results online to see if your performance matches up.

Of course make sure you have installed chipset drivers, preferably use vanilla Windows 98SE and don’t install too much programs that run in the background (in other words; don’t install crap 😜).

Using CPUMark 99 I scored 14,5 points with a Celeron 300 ‘Covington’ SL2YP.

thanks.

installed chipset drivers. same.

do i need change any bios settings maybe ?

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2026-02-19, 17:56:

Define terrible. Just by looking at screenshots, Celeron 300 most likely won't be able to provide stable 60+ framerate in these games.

games were not shmottly playable.

do Pentium 3 make things better ?

do i need make any jumper settings ? its runs at 300 mhz.

yes its maybe slow cpu but im sure it can handles games like motorcross madnes 1 , Mtm2 ..

What operating system are you using?

Also, a Celeron 300MHz with no cache is slow, but it should perform at least on par with a Pentium MMX 233MHz, and both games list a Pentium 133MHz as minimum requirements. One thing to note, however, is that at the time "minimum requirements" just meant that the game would launch and "run" somehow, but performance would probably be bad by today's standards. If you can get at least a proper Pentium II then you should have much better performance.

devius wrote on 2026-02-20, 19:59:

What operating system are you using?

Also, a Celeron 300MHz with no cache is slow, but it should perform at least on par with a Pentium MMX 233MHz, and both games list a Pentium 133MHz as minimum requirements. One thing to note, however, is that at the time "minimum requirements" just meant that the game would launch and "run" somehow, but performance would probably be bad by today's standards. If you can get at least a proper Pentium II then you should have much better performance.

using windows98 se.

yes this cpu is not even perform mmx 233. by the way on dxdiag cpu is shown as pentium 2 mmx.

cydvog wrote on 2026-02-19, 17:43:

hi.recently i made new slot 1 build. im using windows 98 , with Ford Lian BX-6VP2 , 64 MB PC100 SDRAM. 250 watts Psu. […]
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hi.recently i made new slot 1 build. im using windows 98 , with Ford Lian BX-6VP2 , 64 MB PC100 SDRAM. 250 watts Psu.

cpu is Intel Celeron Processor SL2YP 300/66 MHz.

my gpu: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/asus-v9180-se.b1859

tried both Dx 7 and Dx 8 versions . and many drivers like 45.23 , 61.76

but games like Motocross madness 1 , monster truck madness 2 runs very slowly. im sure this build enough for those games. so whats wrong ?

my gpu is agp 8x . but dont know if this mobo compatible with 8x ?

thanks for checking.

Oh my dear.
That is a Covington Celeron, means it has NO L2 cache at all.
No wonder about that terrible performance!

Perhaps you can overclock it to 450 MHz (from 66 MHz FSB x 4,5 to 100 MHz FSB x 4,5) or you get another CPU.

I have a K6-2 550, and a 440MX also run quite bad on it.
In fact, in many cases a TNT2 M64 is better ...

A few things could be going on.

First, that graphics card is not a good match for the CPU. It's not so much the motherboard that is the problem, but the fact that it's a Geforce4 MX (and being the AGP 8X version makes the problem even worse) which came out much later than the CPU, meaning it requires newer drivers that were definitely not optimized to run on lowend CPUs that were 5 years old at the time. For comparison, I have a GeForce4 MX440-8X in a Pentium III 1GHz machine and it runs great. You should try with graphics card from the era, like Riva TNT or TNT2, Matrox G200 or G400, ATI Rage 128 or 128Pro.

Second, maybe you are using software rendering in those games. If you are sure you're using Direct3D hardware acceleration, then it's the first problem for sure.

I'd first check powerstrip device info for AGP configuration :

To be more specific :
Operating mode Disable/DMA, with AGP speed and status of SideBandAdressing (SBA) and FastWrites.

agent_x007 wrote on 2026-02-21, 21:39:

I'd first check powerstrip device info for AGP configuration : https://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=236823&mode=view […]
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I'd first check powerstrip device info for AGP configuration :

To be more specific :
Operating mode Disable/DMA, with AGP speed and status of SideBandAdressing (SBA) and FastWrites.

im very newbie sorry cant get it ? changing bios settings?

i purchasing new cpu ( Pentium 3 with 500 mhz ) still games like, no one lives forever has very slow.

Are the prior two games playable now? Pentium III 500 is a huge upgrade over the Covington Celeron 300, but still not quite great for NOLF.
No One Lives Forever (and other Lithtech Engine based games) is one of the most demanding games of 2000, easily taxing even 1GHz+ CPUs paired with more powerful GPUs like the GeForce 2 GTS and Ultra. If you want to play that game with a locked 60 FPS you are looking at more powerful systems, Athlon XP and up on the CPU side and probably something like GF4 Ti 4200. 64MB RAM is also a bit on the low side, you really want at least 128MB for demanding games from 2000.

Your GPU should perform more like an original GeForce 2 MX, which is in-between the SDR and DDR version of the original GeForce 256. So, a bit faster than a good TNT2.

What other games have you tried on the system and left unimpressed with the performance?

cydvog wrote on 2026-02-26, 18:57:

im very newbie sorry cant get it ? changing bios settings?

Not changing, just checking if everything is set as it should be for optimal performance.

A video of NOLF running on a Pentium 3 667 MHz and a TNT 2 Pro, which is not so bad.
Barelly 20 fps ...
It's a pain on my K6-2 550, with TNT2 M64 or Voodoo2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnuEfM0OaAo

cydvog wrote on 2026-02-26, 19:00:

i purchasing new cpu ( Pentium 3 with 500 mhz ) still games like, no one lives forever has very slow.

Around the year 2000 games rapidly increased CPU load compared to 1998-1999, at that point CPUs from just 1-2 years ago gave "terrible" performance in more demanding games like NOLF and Deus Ex. By the time NOLF released, CPUs had reached 1.5Ghz at retail.

A geforce 4 mx440 is solidly a pentium4 era graphics card.

"Terrible" performance on a Covington / Katmai is expected.

st31276a wrote on 2026-02-27, 07:54:

A geforce 4 mx440 is solidly a pentium4 era graphics card.

"Terrible" performance on a Covington / Katmai is expected.

Please don't compare Covington with Katmai Pentium III.
The first one does not have L2 cache at all.
The latter one at has L2 cache and introduced SSE instructions and a faster FSB.
There should be a performance difference of about 4 times and with SSE optimized code even more.
However, Katmai power still may be too low for the GeForce 4 MX.