Replace the FX5200 with a Radeon 8500/9000 for first class DirectX 8 performance is my first recommendation. Get better soundcards for both is my second; the Slot 1 system appears to have an ISA slot so you may want to go for an AWE64 for a card with DOS drivers worth a damn. If that is not an option, an Aureal 1/2 card for both or at least an SB Live! for the second system would be good.

Those were roughly my thoughts too. Both machines actually have ISA slots.

Is the Radeon 9200 any good? Seems to be a rebadged 9000 from a brief google.

Regarding sound cards - is the Audician 32 Plus a solid choice? From some reading it seems the onboard Creative chip in the Gateway, the ES1373 is essentially an onboard Ensoniq AudioPCI so I'm wondering whether that's worth replacing?

moawkwrd wrote:

Those were roughly my thoughts too. Both machines actually have ISA slots.

Is the Radeon 9200 any good? Seems to be a rebadged 9000 from a brief google.

Regarding sound cards - is the Audician 32 Plus a solid choice? From some reading it seems the onboard Creative chip in the Gateway, the ES1373 is essentially an onboard Ensoniq AudioPCI so I'm wondering whether that's worth replacing?

The 9200 is a cutdown 9000, it has half the number of pipelines; it's significantly slower, you would be better off going for a 8500LE.

Really?

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=69&card2=65

It says here they're the same... 4,1,4,4. 8500/LE are 4,2,8,4 so maybe they're worth going for over any of the 9xxx?

moawkwrd wrote:

Really?

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=69&card2=65

It says here they're the same... 4,1,4,4. 8500/LE are 4,2,8,4 so maybe they're worth going for over any of the 9xxx?

I am in the wrong here, the 8500 and 9100 are the full parts, the 9000 and its consequent revision 9200 are the cut down parts. Go for a 9100/8500 if possible, 8500LE if not, and 9200/9000 lastly. Try not to end up buying a 64-bit card (only 2 memory chips on each side is a dead giveaway).

9100 is pretty much an 8500LE. Usually they had RAM which was a touch slower than the full bore part but the core could often be clocked up.

My impression was that the 9700 replaced the 8000 series (performance cards), and the 9000/9100/92x0 were for the masses with lower performance than the 8500. Still picked up a 9000pro this weekend 😀

To the best of my recollection, for DX8 parts:
8500 > 8500LE = 9100 > 9000 > 9200 > 9250 > 9200SE.

gdjacobs wrote:

To the best of my recollection, for DX8 parts:
8500 > 8500LE = 9100 > 9000 > 9200 > 9250 > 9200SE.

That is correct except slight BIOS impeovements for 9000 made şt all but slightly faster than a 8500LE if you had the same ram soeeds. Mostly negligble stuff though. I had a 250/200 8500LELE at the time but still got better than GF3 performance by the time I upgraded to a 9600pro.

You may also want to check if your motherboard has an SB_link connector or if it has the ddma feature (depends of the chipset. If that's an i440BX, you should be good) and buy a YMF7x4. They feature perfect sbpro compatibility, a real OPL3 and under windows they support yamaha's XG synth.

Putting an AWE64 in one of them and a YMF in the other could give to both of them an interest because the midi they'll play will sound different ^^

appiah4 wrote:

Replace the FX5200 with a Radeon 8500/9000 for first class DirectX 8 performance is my first recommendation.

What makes you think the FX5200 is of lesser DirectX 8 class?

I have results for an FX5200 64-bit in a P3-933 that are slightly higher than yours. Which driver are you using? I used 56.64. Here's my results. I'm throwing in other results that are close for reference (unfortunately, I don't have a Radeon like the ones that are being talked about):
3dmark 99:
GF3 Ti200: 6990
FX5200 128-bit: 6692
FX5200 64-bit: 6506
Radeon 7200: 5382

3dmark 2000:
GF3 Ti200: 6382
FX5200 128-bit: 6222
FX5200 64-bit: 5727
Radeon 7200: 4873

3dmark 2001:
FX5200 128-bit: 4885
GF3 Ti200: 4692
FX5200 64-bit: 4208
Radeon 7200: 2851

So you can get an idea of how the 64-bit FX5200 compares to a few other cards.

clueless1 wrote:

I have results for an FX5200 64-bit in a P3-933 that are slightly higher than yours. Which driver are you using? I used 56.64. […]
Show full quote

I have results for an FX5200 64-bit in a P3-933 that are slightly higher than yours. Which driver are you using? I used 56.64. Here's my results. I'm throwing in other results that are close for reference (unfortunately, I don't have a Radeon like the ones that are being talked about):
3dmark 99:
GF3 Ti200: 6990
FX5200 128-bit: 6692
FX5200 64-bit: 6506
Radeon 7200: 5382

3dmark 2000:
GF3 Ti200: 6382
FX5200 128-bit: 6222
FX5200 64-bit: 5727
Radeon 7200: 4873

3dmark 2001:
FX5200 128-bit: 4885
GF3 Ti200: 4692
FX5200 64-bit: 4208
Radeon 7200: 2851

So you can get an idea of how the 64-bit FX5200 compares to a few other cards.

That's helpful thanks. A few hundred points more than mine in all three benchmarks.

My results are with the 45.23 drivers - I was having trouble getting the AGP to work in 4x with the QDI motherboard. I suspect a clean install may help. It's got the Apollo Pro 133T chipset so I'm using the 4.43v 4in1 drivers, but AGP is still stuck at 2x by default with nVidia drivers. It only reports 4x when I use the compatibility switch in RivaTuner.

Deksor wrote:

You may also want to check if your motherboard has an SB_link connector or if it has the ddma feature (depends of the chipset. If that's an i440BX, you should be good) and buy a YMF7x4. They feature perfect sbpro compatibility, a real OPL3 and under windows they support yamaha's XG synth.

Putting an AWE64 in one of them and a YMF in the other could give to both of them an interest because the midi they'll play will sound different ^^

How does the YMF7x4 compare to the YMF718?

Sadly here in the UK the AWE64 commands almost ridiculous prices so I'll have to keep my eye out and hope I get lucky.

Found a Radeon 9100 64MB for sale for £14 with delivery. Looks like it's 128bit with 8 memory chips (Etrontech?). Might lowball him and see if I can get it for less than £10.

Now as for the third machine, I'm not really sure what I should do with it.

It's got a Gigabyte GA-6WMMC7 motherboard with the 810AGPset chipset, 512MB of PC133 SDRAM, Intel Pentium 3 1GHz Coppermine, Excelstor 10GB IDE HDD. The floppy drive and CD-RW/DVD don't read anything so they need replacing. I'd probably want to replace the HDD too as I'm not sure I trust the Excelstor that much.

Sell it for parts or fix it up and keep it? Stick the Voodoo 3 PCI back in it? I kinda like the case. I just think the Voodoo 3 is better suited to a slower processor like the 500MHz Pentium 3 in the Gateway machine. Would it be greedy to have one machine for Dx6/Glide, one for Dx 7 and one for Dx8? 😎

Imo the YMF7x4 is pretty much like the 719 except that it has more features for windows (but still keeps all the features of the YMF719 except the wavetable header) and that's it's PCI (with really good compatibility when you have an i440BX or another chipset capable of DDMA or when your motherboard has the SB_Link connector) rather than ISA

I'm not sure if the YMF-PCI cards do WSS.

Huh, apparently not : Yamaha YMF7x4 Guide

But is it really a problem when the vast majority of games don't support it at all ?

YMF-724 is for a Win98 setup, with the need for a couple of late-era dos games (Duke3d/Doom and so on)
YMF-719 is more like for a pure Dos machine, and with the header, a nice Dreamblaster will do well for midi.
That is how I see them two cards stacked up against each other.

Vortex2 are nice too, as they can use a Dreamblaser too, hence being used for late-era Dos in a Win98 PC.
Not that I have ever had one of those, they just sound nice on recordings and a lot of people like them.

By the way...
The 724 sound so awesomme in Doom. What sort of external Yamaha midi interface does it sound like?
I remember reading something about the XG chip, delivering the same sound as one specific module.
Or do I remember wrong on this?