A bit of an update: I got my hands on a GeCube RADEON 9250, and I intend to put it in this rig. The card is AGP 8x, but it has 3.3 V key, so it will probably work. (That is, if it's not fried. Got it from a computer at my workplace, that had a horrible death: power supply fried, motherboard fried; CPU, RAM and video card not tested yet; HDD and DVD working ok).
I also managed to get more SDRAM (2x64 Mb)

Sounds like you're building a rig for high res. SVGA games and early 3D games?

One of the goals I set for this one is to run Jedi Knight 2.
Also, I wanted to have an intermediary computer between the Pentium 200MMX and the modern Athlon X2 that I have.

Forget about JK2 on a k6-2 (Especially with a Rage video card). Trust me

However it should be fine and dandy if it were a P2 450 or P3 500, with a Geforce2 in there.

leileilol wrote:

Forget about JK2 on a k6-2 (Especially with a Rage video card). Trust me

However it should be fine and dandy if it were a P2 450 or P3 500, with a Geforce2 in there.

CPU wise he'll be fione but agree that the Rage card will be too weak

Ran JK2 with a Pentium 100mhz + 2x Voodoo 2 in SLi with perfect smoothness/framerate

Amigaz wrote:

Ran JK2 with a Pentium 100mhz + 2x Voodoo 2 in SLi with perfect smoothness/framerate

JK2 isn't JK though
i've also done the same and had horrible framerates, and 10 minute loading times (!)

leileilol wrote:

Amigaz wrote:

Ran JK2 with a Pentium 100mhz + 2x Voodoo 2 in SLi with perfect smoothness/framerate

JK2 isn't JK though
i've also done the same and had horrible framerates, and 10 minute loading times (!)

I'm hoping he's refering to this game http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/star-wa … ces-ii/techinfo

If he intends to run http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/star-wa … ii-jedi-outcast he must be crazy

😁 I might be crazy; The game went well on a Celeron 600 with 32 Mb TNT2 M64 I had until 4 years ago, although with low-to-medium details.
Then it runned at max details on my next system, Celeron 1200 with 128 Mb ATI Radeon 9250; If you read my second post, you'll find out I got a similar videocard for this system. So it might run the game at medium settings after all.
😁 I might be mad, but there is method in it!

Another update; I got a 8.4 Gb Seagate HDD. The system is almost complete. All that I require now are 2x128 Mb SDRAM (That's what the mainboard's manual says it's the maximum supported size).

Latest update... I won a bid for a Voodoo 2, and I think i'll put it in this rig.
Was around 20$.

I don't really consider JK2 all that retro. You are best off with modern hardware for it. When the game first came out I had the original Radeon DDR and a Duron 1000. It didn't run all that great. The game benefits a lot from a graphics card with some modern oomph so you get good filtering and AA.

BTW, good texture filtering didn't show up until Radeon 9700 and GF4. Older Radeons can't do trilinear filtering at the same time as anisotropic filtering so you'll see distracting texture mip-map borders (bilinear filtering). GF3 is too slow IMO. Radeon 9700+ or a GeForce FX 5900+ will give you power enough to run 4X antialiasing and anisotropic and about peg at 60 fps. Radeon 9700+ have better antialiasing unless you get a GeForce 6+ and enable gamma corrected AA.

On the other hand, for JK1, you should probably look for a Voodoo5. That card gives you excellent backwards compatibility with DX5/6/7 and Glide games along with the ability to force superb 4X AA. It has the grunt to run 4X AA with older games. Newer cards and even non-Voodoos from the era will usually have various issues with those old games.

I recently beat Jedi Knight 1. I played it with a mix of cards, including Voodoo5 and GeForce FX. Voodoo 5 looks better than GeForce FX in this game because its antialiasing is superior and its 16-bit output is about as good as you can get because of a post filter in the card's DAC.

swaaye wrote:

its 16-bit output is about as good as you can get because of a post filter in the card's DAC.

i disagree, I use the Kyro2 for the "i can only game this in 16bpp" situations and that really has the best dithering of any card i've seen. ymmv though

Hmmm interesting. Well I am pretty sure that a Voodoo3-5 will get you better quality than with most cards. 3dfx's boasts about that "22-bit" quality weren't for naught; they actually do some nifty stuff to the 16-bit output to make it look better than other cards of the time. Certainly a tough thing to judge unless you see some REALLY bad quality like a Rage 128 or the crap that comes out of the current DX10 cards when you ask them to do 16-bit 3D.

swaaye wrote:

IMO. Radeon 9700+ or a GeForce FX 5900+ will give you power enough to run 4X antialiasing and anisotropic and about peg at 60 fps. Radeon 9700+ have better antialiasing unless you get a GeForce 6+ and enable gamma corrected AA.

Don't know about the 5900, but my 9800 Pro definitely does not have the power to run 4xAA with Aniso enabled - tested it with NFS: Porsche, and the framerate drops often to about 30 fps, in some situations even lower. (Even with only 2xAA it will often be to slow to have constant 60 fps).

I've never tried Porsche Unleashed. But with JK1, I guarantee it would hold 60 fps. 😀 Same with NFS3/4.

But yeah, upon thinking some more, I'm not sure what to expect from JK2 with 4X AA + AF and a R300-based board. It has been awhile since I used one.

I have enough power to run it on my current PC (Athlon X2 4200+, 2 Gb DDR II, ASUS HD 3650 v/c, factory overclocked). As a matter of fact, I was running it with 4X AA @1024x768 even on my previous main rig (Sempron 2600+, 512 MB DDR, Palit GeForce 6200, 128 Mb, 128-bit). I want to see how it will run on the rig I am building now.
As far as I recall, it went well on the Celeron 1200/Radeon 9250 I had until june '05. 1024x768, without AA, maximum details.
I am not using a higher resolution because of my CRT monitor. 85 Hz@1024x768, 60 Hz@ 1280x1024. I guess nobody likes a flickering image.

My Voodoo 2 has arrived, but I'll test it tomorrow. Had a busy day today, got an Elpina VXPro II (M558) mobo and tested it, and tried without success to revive another Elpina TXPro (M560).
Unreal and Halflife on a Pentium 233MMX, with 64 Mb EDO, Matrox Millenium should be a good test for my Voodoo. If everything is OK, I'll put it in the K6-2/500 system.

Voodoo 2 tested with Unreal and Halflife on a Pentium 200MMX, 64 Mb EDO, 2 Mb Matrox Millenium. Everything is ok, so it will stay in the K6-2 rig, alongside Radeon 9250.

Sadly, my SuperSocket 7 mobo has died. I'll try to revive it by re-flashing the BIOS, and if it won't work I'll start searching for another AT/ATX MVP3 mobo.