New card rec for old PC...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eric
  • Start date Start date
E

Eric

Hi,

I'm looking to drop a new video card into one of my old PC's.

Specs:
----------
Dual-P3 (2x1Ghz)
1GB ECC RAM
AGP 2x
100 Mhz FSB (Yep, major bottleneck...)
Diamondtron 22" monitor (CRT, 0.25mm dot pitch)
WinXP Pro and occassionaly FreeBSD

What I would like to achieve is:

- Good, sharp, 2D clarity at 1024x768. This old box is mainly used as just
another Web/Email/Word Pro/etc terminal.

- Given the AGP/FSB limitations, the "break point" for 3D performance.
Games that are played on this box are mainly just old "classic" simulation
games such as Falcon 4.0, Jane's FA/18, and Papyrus Nascar Racing 4.
(Basically, older late 90's games that I still enjoy but don't want
installed on my new desktop or laptop.) I also run Microsoft Flight
Simulator 2004 (FS9) on it to network play with my new computers.

It currently still has an old UltraTNT2 (32MB) card that I dropped in it
back in '99. This old card has run for nearly seven years straight (3
years without a fan!), but its long overdue to retire in a land fill...

I don't care about brand...

Thanks!
 
Eric said:
Hi,

I'm looking to drop a new video card into one of my old PC's.

Specs:
----------
Dual-P3 (2x1Ghz)
1GB ECC RAM
AGP 2x
100 Mhz FSB (Yep, major bottleneck...)
Diamondtron 22" monitor (CRT, 0.25mm dot pitch)
WinXP Pro and occassionaly FreeBSD

What I would like to achieve is:

- Good, sharp, 2D clarity at 1024x768. This old box is mainly used as
just another Web/Email/Word Pro/etc terminal.

- Given the AGP/FSB limitations, the "break point" for 3D performance.
Games that are played on this box are mainly just old "classic" simulation
games such as Falcon 4.0, Jane's FA/18, and Papyrus Nascar Racing 4.
(Basically, older late 90's games that I still enjoy but don't want
installed on my new desktop or laptop.) I also run Microsoft Flight
Simulator 2004 (FS9) on it to network play with my new computers.

It currently still has an old UltraTNT2 (32MB) card that I dropped in it
back in '99. This old card has run for nearly seven years straight (3
years without a fan!), but its long overdue to retire in a land fill...

I don't care about brand...

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Oh,

I dug into the specs on the m/b. The AGP slot, I believe, is 3.3v.
(Pinout is showing pins 9, 16, 28, 45 being 3.3 Vcc.)

So, whatever card I get, it will need to be 3.3v.

If I did my homework correct, so far, all Nvidia AGP boards support both
3.3v and 1.5v?

ATI, I'm not sure of yet...
 
Eric said:
Oh,

I dug into the specs on the m/b. The AGP slot, I believe, is 3.3v.
(Pinout is showing pins 9, 16, 28, 45 being 3.3 Vcc.)

So, whatever card I get, it will need to be 3.3v.

If I did my homework correct, so far, all Nvidia AGP boards support both
3.3v and 1.5v?

ATI, I'm not sure of yet...
Click to expand...

Some cards are AGP8X/4X and support only 0.8V or 1.5V.

For any kind of 3D gaming the major bottleneck will be your
1GHz cpus, not your 100MHz fsb.
 
[email protected] said:
Some cards are AGP8X/4X and support only 0.8V or 1.5V.

For any kind of 3D gaming the major bottleneck will be your
1GHz cpus, not your 100MHz fsb.
Click to expand...

Thats fine. I'm not expecting to play Oblivion or anything like that.

Wiki is leading me in the right direction:

"Some of the last modern cards with 3.3 V support were the nVIDIA GeForce
FX5000-series and the ATI Radeon 9500/9700/9800(R350) (but not
9600/9800(R360))."

Comparing cards is difficult because none of the specs seem to include
voltages -- so I'm having to look at pictures of the cards to look at the
keying. (Which may not even indicate compatible voltages, anyway.)

I read from a number of sources that many of the nVidia (AGP 4/8x) support
both 3.3v and 1.5v...

Which ones? Who knows...
 
Eric said:
Thats fine. I'm not expecting to play Oblivion or anything like that.

Wiki is leading me in the right direction:

"Some of the last modern cards with 3.3 V support were the nVIDIA GeForce
FX5000-series and the ATI Radeon 9500/9700/9800(R350) (but not
9600/9800(R360))."

Comparing cards is difficult because none of the specs seem to include
voltages -- so I'm having to look at pictures of the cards to look at the
keying. (Which may not even indicate compatible voltages, anyway.)

I read from a number of sources that many of the nVidia (AGP 4/8x) support
both 3.3v and 1.5v...

Which ones? Who knows...
Click to expand...
Yes but it's not so much the voltage, but the newer AGP slot that can out a
few years back. Newer cards will not fit into this older slot. I don't
remember to much about this, but I'm sure some else will be of help. JLC
 
JLC said:
Yes but it's not so much the voltage, but the newer AGP slot that can out
a few years back. Newer cards will not fit into this older slot. I don't
remember to much about this, but I'm sure some else will be of help. JLC
Click to expand...

Hi,

From what I've put together:

AGP 1x/2x: 3.3v (Slot "A")
AGP 4x: 1.5v (Slot "B")
AGP 8x: 0.8v (Modified Slot "B")
AGP Pro: Red-headed stepchild

Without taking voltage into consideration, AGP is all backwards/compatible.
(Exception being the red-headed stepchildren: AGP Pro, AGP 64, AGX, etc)

Holding the card directly in from of your eyes (video out to the left), if
the key is on the lefthand side of the pins, then it is 3.3v. If it is
towards the right, then it is 1.5v.

If it has both key indents -- is it both 3.3v and 1.5v?
 
ATI 9100 should work in an AGP X2 slot.
The 9100 has faster memory access then the 9000/9200.
 
Eric said:
Hi,

I'm looking to drop a new video card into one of my old PC's.

Specs:
----------
Dual-P3 (2x1Ghz)
1GB ECC RAM
AGP 2x
100 Mhz FSB (Yep, major bottleneck...)
Diamondtron 22" monitor (CRT, 0.25mm dot pitch)
WinXP Pro and occassionaly FreeBSD

What I would like to achieve is:

- Good, sharp, 2D clarity at 1024x768. This old box is mainly used as
just another Web/Email/Word Pro/etc terminal.

- Given the AGP/FSB limitations, the "break point" for 3D performance.
Games that are played on this box are mainly just old "classic" simulation
games such as Falcon 4.0, Jane's FA/18, and Papyrus Nascar Racing 4.
(Basically, older late 90's games that I still enjoy but don't want
installed on my new desktop or laptop.) I also run Microsoft Flight
Simulator 2004 (FS9) on it to network play with my new computers.

It currently still has an old UltraTNT2 (32MB) card that I dropped in it
back in '99. This old card has run for nearly seven years straight (3
years without a fan!), but its long overdue to retire in a land fill...

I don't care about brand...

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Follow up to my own post...

After digging around, I found a ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (128MB) for cheap.

The 9700 series were the last of Radeons that support both 3.3V and 1.5V.

Went with ATI because I knew for sure that this card would work and I
couldn't find the nVidia cards that I knew for certain would work.
(Some of the "newer" nVidia cards might have worked, they appear physically
like they would, but it would be gamble.)

Anyway, the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro met and even exceeded my expectations...
 
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