VOGONS


Good AGP VGA

Topic actions

First post, by MatthewBrian

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Since I replaced the S478 board in my computer with an Atom board I got for free, I had forgotten about it, and today I was thinking to get it up again 😀

It is an Asus P4S333 with Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 1.6Ghz (overclocked to 2.13Ghz, which the motherboard does it automatically without messing with FSB and multipliers.

It currently has nVidia Riva TNT2 AGP 16MB which is quite old. Since I don't plan to put that machine to play with older games, could you give me any advice of good AGP VGAs which I could use in this machine?

(Older AGP VGAs are a lot here, assorted 128MB VGA can be purchased for around US$ 14 here, so it is a good way to improve the system performance 😀 )

Thank you.

Reply 1 of 45, by Mau1wurf1977

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

What's wrong with the TNT2?

What do you define as "good AGP card". What do you want to do with your graphics card?

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 4 of 45, by Jorpho

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
MatthewBrian wrote:

Since I don't plan to put that machine to play with older games

You don't expect such old hardware to play newer games, I hope.

If I'm not mistaken, there are still new AGP cards being made based on vaguely current technology. Shouldn't your question be, "what sort of older $14 AGP VGAs available around here would be good?"

Anyway, have a gander at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vga-charts-iv,893.html .

Also, Compiz is overrated.

Reply 5 of 45, by MatthewBrian

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I mean not older games such as DOS-era or early Windows games. Those machines are too fast for them and I already had an Pentium to do that.

Compiz is still lighter than Aero. My laptop with ATi RS200m won't work with Aero, but it works flawlessly with Compiz.

Reply 6 of 45, by leileilol

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Well technically you're shooting for 2006 games since you're limiting yourself to Linux, and you want that stupidly broken overrated 'compiz' novelty to work as top priority, so...

Look for an AGP Geforce8/9

apsosig.png
long live PCem

Reply 8 of 45, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I have no idea what a Compiz is (if it's linux, it's Chinese to me), but if you have a GF MX or Radeon 9600 laying around, you could use those.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 9 of 45, by swaaye

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

The open source "radeon" driver is pretty good for Radeon cards all the way back to the 7000. But if you want to run that Compiz stuff then you'll probably want a Radeon 9600 or better. This is probably what your ATI RS200 works so well with. RS200 is based on R100, btw.

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

NVIDIA has dropped support for GeForce 5 and older in their latest drivers. Using older drivers in Linux is just about impossible because they don't support the recent versions of X. There are no AGP versions of NV cards newer than GeForce 7, AFAIK. The open source "nouveau" driver has been troublesome for me.

Reply 10 of 45, by HunterZ

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

For those having trouble with Compiz: Think of Compiz as Ubuntu Linux's version of Windows Vista/7 Aero.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 on my PIII-550 with an AGP TNT2. It's not very pretty. I'm thinking of switching to a more lightweight distro.

Reply 11 of 45, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

If you're looking for a "modern" AGP graphics card, I'd recommend something like the Radeon HD 3850, 4650, or 4670. It doesn't really matter which one you choose though, as they all perform about the same. Also, I'd recommend upgrading the CPU to something within the 2.4-3.06GHz range (preferably a Pentium 4 Prescott), so the videocard doesn't get as bottlenecked. Just a warning though, those faster Pentium 4's put out a LOT of heat, so it's worth investing in a bigass cooler as well. 🤣

Reply 12 of 45, by MatthewBrian

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I already had a big cooler so I didn't worry to put a faster processor 😀 but I am worried about the power consumptions. Most Presscots uses 800Mhz FSB, which my motherboard only supports 533.

I have acquired a Radeon 9600, which is quite good (Aero and Compiz runs smoothly, so do some older games like NFS MW). But sometimes Aero crashed using this VGA, it seems because I used the drivers in its box (which is designated for Vista or older).

Thank you for all your suggestions.

Reply 14 of 45, by mr_bigmouth_502

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Chances are, a Prescott will probably work fine with your board, as I actually used to run a board with a 533MHz FSB and a 2.4GHz Prescott, and it ran pretty well. As for the video card, the Radeon HD series is much newer than the Radeon 9xxx series, so that basically means that the drivers will be newer and more up-to-date.

Reply 16 of 45, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I thought the Preshot was slower and hotter then the Northwood clock for clock?

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 18 of 45, by prophase_j

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

For you motherboard you can get the 3.06 Northwood, it's the max for a 533 bus and they work well. Don't know about running a prescott in there though. Prescott has a longer pipeline which makes branch mis-prediction more costly. This is why may seems to be less powerful clock for clock. It really depends on the application. They definitely make more heat. Your 9600 is a fine choice and will run a lot of windows stuff in to the early 2000's. If you had to upgrade I would go with a x850.

"Retro Rocket"
Athlon XP-M 2200+ // Epox 8KTA3
Radeon 9800xt // Voodoo2 SLI
Diamond MX300 // SB AWE64 Gold

Reply 19 of 45, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Personally I'd go for a Northwood. If I really needed anything faster I'd just go Athlon XP or Athlon 64. Less heat and more powerful.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!