386SX wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:25:

Thanks for the memory refresh about T&L games, I'm trying to remember the name of that Direct3D one I'm quite sure one of the early if not the first one using T&L but I need to search a bit on those period games, I remember the player jumping and running on some sort of yellow/green planet and it was a good well known game I tried the demo back then.

Evolva?

Putas wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:39:

386SX wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:25:

Thanks for the memory refresh about T&L games, I'm trying to remember the name of that Direct3D one I'm quite sure one of the early if not the first one using T&L but I need to search a bit on those period games, I remember the player jumping and running on some sort of yellow/green planet and it was a good well known game I tried the demo back then.

Evolva?

Yes! That's it! Thanks. 😁

I suppose it was one of the early games supporting the Geforce T&L, wasn't it?

386SX wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:25:

Thanks for the memory refresh about T&L games, I'm trying to remember the name of that Direct3D one I'm quite sure one of the early if not the first one using T&L but I need to search a bit on those period games, I remember the player jumping and running on some sort of yellow/green planet and it was a good well known game I tried the demo back then.

Are you thinking of Slave Zero? I don't think that was a DirectX 7 game, but I might be wrong.
I think the first game that I saw supporting DirectX 7.0 features was MDK2. I remember that it ran and looked like crap on my K6-2 500 + Ati Rage II 😀
EDIT: never mind, it was Evolva (never played it) 😀

386SX wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:25:

I remember the jump from the K6-2 550 to a Duron 750 on a different chipset (maybe Via can't remember) and it was like night/day in Win usage but also in the same games I was used to play. At the same time I already had switched to a Point of View Geforce2 MX the original and better one imho, and it was amazing.. I didn't overclock the cpu but the gpu could reach 215Mhz easily while the vram couldn't be clocked much higher but the results were great.
I don't know if there're FPU benchmark at the same clocks of both the K6-2/3 FPU and the Athlon/Duron FPU?

I did the jump from a K6-2 500 to a Thunderbird 1333 MHz. That's the single most EXTREME jump in performance that I've ever seen and probably will ever see in my entire life with an upgrade. Initially I was on a TNT2 M64 (after finally getting rid of my ATI Rage II). Later on I also switched to GeForce 2 MX 400 128 bit / 64 MB (a very solid card), and eventually to a GeForce 3 Ti200 (another massive jump in performance, particularly for high resolutions).

As for the FPU performance, never tested it myself, but I would expect the Athlon to have at least double the FPU performance of a K6-2. These tests on Anandtech are probably good indicators of rough FPU performance.

bloodem wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:54:

Are you thinking of Slave Zero? I don't think that was a DirectX 7 game, but I might be wrong. I think the first game that I saw […]
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386SX wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:25:

Thanks for the memory refresh about T&L games, I'm trying to remember the name of that Direct3D one I'm quite sure one of the early if not the first one using T&L but I need to search a bit on those period games, I remember the player jumping and running on some sort of yellow/green planet and it was a good well known game I tried the demo back then.

Are you thinking of Slave Zero? I don't think that was a DirectX 7 game, but I might be wrong.
I think the first game that I saw supporting DirectX 7.0 features was MDK2. I remember that it ran and looked like crap on my K6-2 500 + Ati Rage II 😀
EDIT: never mind, it was Evolva (never played it) 😀

386SX wrote on 2021-07-02, 09:25:

I remember the jump from the K6-2 550 to a Duron 750 on a different chipset (maybe Via can't remember) and it was like night/day in Win usage but also in the same games I was used to play. At the same time I already had switched to a Point of View Geforce2 MX the original and better one imho, and it was amazing.. I didn't overclock the cpu but the gpu could reach 215Mhz easily while the vram couldn't be clocked much higher but the results were great.
I don't know if there're FPU benchmark at the same clocks of both the K6-2/3 FPU and the Athlon/Duron FPU?

I did the jump from a K6-2 500 to a Thunderbird 1333 MHz. That's the single most EXTREME jump in performance that I've ever seen and probably will ever see in my entire life with an upgrade. Initially I was on a TNT2 M64 (after finally getting rid of my ATI Rage II). Later on I also switched to GeForce 2 MX 400 128 bit / 64 MB (a very solid card), and eventually to a GeForce 3 Ti200 (another massive jump in performance, particularly for high resolutions).

As for the FPU performance, never tested it myself, but I would expect the Athlon to have at least double the FPU performance of a K6-2. These tests on Anandtech are probably good indicators of rough FPU performance.

About Evolva (2000 game) I only tried the demo back then but I remember it as a colourful strange but interesting game. Never played it in decades, but I think to remember someone talking about supporting the T&L as a new feature.

About the "hw jumps" oh well from a K6-2 to a Athlon 1333 it sure is a big jump! But I think I did a long jump too switching from the 80386SX-20 on Win 3.1 to the K6-2 350Mhz on Win 98. 😁 But the S3 Trio3D the computer came with, destroyed what might have been the biggest next-gen jump ever done. 😁

Yes, Evolva has T&L and also DOT3 Bump mapping, which is supported by all GeForce cards. Potentially could run decently on K6-III.

Putas wrote on 2021-07-01, 17:19:

Durons weren't great overclockers until Applebread.

I have to disagree. The original Spitfire Duron would usually overclock very well. Especially with a little voltage bump and adequate cooling. Not as crazy as the Celeron 300A but still very impressive.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-07-02, 10:16:

Yes, Evolva has T&L and also DOT3 Bump mapping, which is supported by all GeForce cards. Potentially could run decently on K6-III.

So I remembered it right and I was thinking to another supported feature and that was the DOT3 bump mapping exactly. In fact, the game graphic was quite good. I think back then beside some few games only 3DMark2000 and the Geforce "tree" tech demo supported T&L but still was an important feature. 😀

Hehe most t&l games anyway will be too slow on a K6.
At least the q3 engine based games will benefit a bit from it.

I always find G450 + Voodoo 2 SLI to be a great combination for PCI only fast K6-2 systems; it would probably work well here as well.

Interesting thread, I read it all but until now I am not sure of what to put on my Asus p/i P55T2P4 motherboard with an AMD K6-III+ 450mhz. Pity that this great motherboard supports only PCI slots here. Anyway it's the most flexible motherboard for socket 7,that's why I have this processor on it.

I think it deserve to go for a TNT2 or a TNT card. No cpu bottleneck, great DOS compatibility, nice directx 6.0 windows 98se support!

As was mentioned early in the thread, one of the best options would be a decent 2D card paired with a Voodoo 2.

Alternatively a card like the Radeon 9200 would be decent enough as well.

It doesn’t really natter too much which PCI card you choose as long as it was at least somewhat gaming capable, it should be fine. So preferably Geforce 2 onwards or Radeon 9000 onwards.
Any 3Dfx card would be great as well but they’re more scarce in PCI and certainly not cheap. (Eg. Voodoo 3 PCI)

biessea wrote on 2024-12-31, 19:36:

Interesting thread, I read it all but until now I am not sure of what to put on my Asus p/i P55T2P4 motherboard with an AMD K6-III+ 450mhz. Pity that this great motherboard supports only PCI slots here. Anyway it's the most flexible motherboard for socket 7,that's why I have this processor on it.

I think it deserve to go for a TNT2 or a TNT card. No cpu bottleneck, great DOS compatibility, nice directx 6.0 windows 98se support!

I used to use a RIVA TNT 16 MB AGP card in my K6-III+ system and then later replaced it with a TNT2 Ultra 32 MB. Can confirm that pre-geforce nVidia cards work great with the K6-III+. AGP TNT2 M64s are dirt cheap and literally everywhere, but the PCI variant is significantly more expensive and harder to find. Actually that's the same story with all vintage graphics chips from the late 90's and early 2000's. Frustrating isn't it? You either pay through the teeth for a S7 or SS7 motherboard with an AGP slot to pair it with a cheap and powerful AGP graphics chip, or use a cheaper motherboard with only PCI slots but have to pay significantly more for a PCI "budget" graphics chip.

I just checked Ebay: AGP TNT2 Ultras can be had for around $40 US. PCI TNT2 M64s cost at least $60 US for a significantly slower piece of hardware.

You can find ATI PCI cards for cheap, but I would not recommend them for a K6 based build since their drivers have no optimization for the K6 architecture leading to poor performance in 3D windows games.

You can sometimes catch Quadro NVS 50, Quadro4 NVS 100, or 400 PCI versions going for $10-$30, those are basically GF4 MX cards. MX4000 often don't go for much either.

Some other vogons have had Rage 128 do okay for them with a fast K6-2/3/+ those can be hard to find in PCI if you're looking for them specifically, but also may pop up cheap from time to time.

I see quite a few cards not specifically listed as PCI, catch them by eyeball. So searching known to have PCI chipsets without specifying PCI and running a glance down the pics might get you a catch.

3dnow wrote on 2025-01-04, 03:10:

I just checked Ebay: AGP TNT2 Ultras can be had for around $40 US.

You must have access to a different eBay compared to the rest of us. 😅

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-01-04, 06:08:

You can sometimes catch Quadro NVS 50, Quadro4 NVS 100, or 400 PCI versions going for $10-$30, those are basically GF4 MX cards. MX4000 often don't go for much either.

Some other vogons have had Rage 128 do okay for them with a fast K6-2/3/+ those can be hard to find in PCI if you're looking for them specifically, but also may pop up cheap from time to time.

I see quite a few cards not specifically listed as PCI, catch them by eyeball. So searching known to have PCI chipsets without specifying PCI and running a glance down the pics might get you a catch.

If you can find a GF2 Mx400 PCI for a good price go for it. IIRC nVidia's GF2 linup were the last with drivers that were optimized for the K6 series. From my personal experience, my TNT2 ultra outperforms my GF4 Mx440 in most late 90's 3d games when it comes to maximum framerate due to the CPU optimizations, but the GF4 performs better with higher texture quality and resolution. A Gf2 would be the best of both worlds. It's a shame that I cannot get a GF2 to run properly with the optimized drivers on my computer for the life of me; however most other vogons had no issue with GF2's on their SS7's. For me though I'm perfectly content with either a TNT2 Ultra or Voodoo 3.

3dnow wrote on 2025-01-04, 03:10:

I used to use a RIVA TNT 16 MB AGP card in my K6-III+ system and then later replaced it with a TNT2 Ultra 32 MB. Can confirm tha […]
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biessea wrote on 2024-12-31, 19:36:

Interesting thread, I read it all but until now I am not sure of what to put on my Asus p/i P55T2P4 motherboard with an AMD K6-III+ 450mhz. Pity that this great motherboard supports only PCI slots here. Anyway it's the most flexible motherboard for socket 7,that's why I have this processor on it.

I think it deserve to go for a TNT2 or a TNT card. No cpu bottleneck, great DOS compatibility, nice directx 6.0 windows 98se support!

I used to use a RIVA TNT 16 MB AGP card in my K6-III+ system and then later replaced it with a TNT2 Ultra 32 MB. Can confirm that pre-geforce nVidia cards work great with the K6-III+. AGP TNT2 M64s are dirt cheap and literally everywhere, but the PCI variant is significantly more expensive and harder to find. Actually that's the same story with all vintage graphics chips from the late 90's and early 2000's. Frustrating isn't it? You either pay through the teeth for a S7 or SS7 motherboard with an AGP slot to pair it with a cheap and powerful AGP graphics chip, or use a cheaper motherboard with only PCI slots but have to pay significantly more for a PCI "budget" graphics chip.

I just checked Ebay: AGP TNT2 Ultras can be had for around $40 US. PCI TNT2 M64s cost at least $60 US for a significantly slower piece of hardware.

You can find ATI PCI cards for cheap, but I would not recommend them for a K6 based build since their drivers have no optimization for the K6 architecture leading to poor performance in 3D windows games.

Thanks for the answer, you confirmed my thoughts.

So, I will check the market and local internet apps for tech and try to find a nice PCI card.

Now I have the Matrox G450 PCI on it, sure it will perform nice and probably the AMD K6-III+ is already a bottleneck, but who knows? Simply I don't like to use a PCI video card so time uncorrect.
I will search and try to find a TNT1/2 to put there. I always loved to have a Radeon 7200 PCI but they are absolutely expensive.

If you can find one, a PCI Voodoo Banshee would also be a nice option because it offers decent performance for most games and you get to enjoy glide games as well.

In my K6-III 450, I do have AGP so I’m using a TNT2 Ultra and a Voodoo 1. This works well and offers enough flexibility to play a wide range of games albeit, lower resolutions for glide games.