nVidia graphics cards: Anyone familiar with their older models (GF2, MX4000,etc)

[The Pentium Guy]

I'm not too familiar with older style hardware, but can someone briefly list the order (better-worse) in which the old nVidia graphics cards performed, along with a ROUGH estimate of the year?

Particularly I'm interested in the Geforce2, MX4000, and the MX4400.

If you're wondering why, I released a beta (or "alpha" becuase it was bascially distributed amongst developers) of my game and I'm trying to determine some sort of minimum requirement for the game at this point in development, so I'll need a rough ideas about which graphics card is better than which, etc.

Thanks in advance,
-The Pentium Guy

 

[biostud]

I'm not sure but I think MX400 < GF2 <= MX440, but they were pretty close.

I don't think they had the extra zero

 

[Farmer]

Lets see, pulled from the nVidia website(yeah, you'd never think to look there) listed in ascending performance per series, because there were several instances where next generation cards did not perform better than older gen cards (i.e., Gfc4 MX vs. Gfc 3) I made up all the dates:

nVidia RIVA TNT2 normal/M64/Pro/Ultra '98
Geforce 256 (1) '99
Geforce 256 Ultra (DDR) '00
Geforce 2 MX, ascending numbers
Geforce 2 GTS, Pro, Ti, Ultra
Geforce 3 Ti-200, normal, Ti-500
Geforce 4 MX, ascending numbers (did not perform as well as Ti-500)
Geforce 4 Ti, ascending numbers 4200-4800SE
GeforceFX (5) asending numbers 5200 to 5950 Ultra
Geforce (6) 6200-6800 Ultra '04
Geforce (7) 7800 GT - GTX '05

I still remember when I bought my Geforce 256 DDR (32MB was a lot of RAM, and $200 was extremely expensive for a vid card), nVidia did really quick R&D cycles, so the GFC2 was out in months.

 

[imported_Kiwi]

About nVidia's cheapest, and longest-sold video cards, the MX's:

Actually, the MX 4000 is much more "current" than any other of its siblings. The MX 200 was first, roughly 1999, maybe 2000. It was weaker than the better GF's, such as the GTS. The MX 400 came next, and the integrated version was the MX 420. It was STILL weaker than a GTS card. Any GF 3, of any Ti number, blew all of the MX's into the weeds. The MX 440 stayed around longest, from 2001 to 2003, more or less. No matter that NVidia had renamed the MX as a "GF4", it never was, not really. The last of the older generation MX was the MX 460, but both the 440 and the 460 have the reputation of being more potent (probably not by much) than the MX 4000 that followed them.

All of them remained basically GF 2 technology, with limited improvements along the way. There were more powerful GF2's such as the GTS's named, but they were replaced quite quickly by the GF3's, which in turn were soon displaced by the "real" GF4's.

nVidia RIVA TNT2 normal/M64/Pro/Ultra '98
Geforce 256 (1) '99
Geforce 256 Ultra (DDR) still 1999, I think
The first nVidia chip set was never called the "GF1", just the GeForce.
Geforce 2 MX, ascending numbers
Geforce 2 GTS, Pro, Ti, Ultra

There was a GF3 Ti-300 also
Geforce 3 Ti-200, Ti-500

I've never seen any LE's, Pro's, or Ultra's of the GF3's.
Geforce 4 MX, ascending numbers (did not perform as well as Ti-500)

Not only the Ti's, but the better GF2's beat them.

Geforce 4 Ti, ascending numbers 4200-4800SE
GeforceFX (5) asending numbers 5200 to 5950 Ultra
Geforce (6) 6200-6800 Ultra '04
Geforce (7) 7800 GT - GTX '05

I have a Ti 500, Ti 4200, and FX 5900, all in daily use to this day.

 

[biostud]

GF4MX400 > GF2 GTS > GF2MX400

 

[Farmer]

Kiwi:

Really? I always thought nVidia called the 1st gen GFCs Geforce 256s.

I currently own a Geforce256 Ultra and an FX5200.

 

[Oyeve]

I only had a Geforce 256 DDR and once made the mistake of buying a Geforce 4MX 440 which quickly went back to the store and got a Geforce 3 ti-200. After that I went ATI because I was having a lot of problems with too many games at the time. But the Geforce 256 DDR card I got was the ASUS deluxw one, with VIVO and some funky 3d glasses that only worked with that card. Gave the card away long ago but I recently found the 3d glasses for it!

 

[SonicIce]

I think the FX 5200 is the best out of all the MX series budget ones because it has directx 9.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: Farmer
Lets see, pulled from the nVidia website(yeah, you'd never think to look there) listed in ascending performance per series, because there were several instances where next generation cards did not perform better than older gen cards (i.e., Gfc4 MX vs. Gfc 3) I made up all the dates:

nVidia RIVA TNT2 normal/M64/Pro/Ultra '98
Geforce 256 (1) '99
Geforce 256 Ultra (DDR) '00
Geforce 2 MX, ascending numbers
Geforce 2 GTS, Pro, Ti, Ultra
Geforce 3 Ti-200, normal, Ti-500
Geforce 4 MX, ascending numbers (did not perform as well as Ti-500)
Geforce 4 Ti, ascending numbers 4200-4800SE
GeforceFX (5) asending numbers 5200 to 5950 Ultra
Geforce (6) 6200-6800 Ultra '04
Geforce (7) 7800 GT - GTX '05

I still remember when I bought my Geforce 256 DDR (32MB was a lot of RAM, and $200 was extremely expensive for a vid card), nVidia did really quick R&D cycles, so the GFC2 was out in months.

Thanks for that information.

And if you were wondering, I think I can say that the minimum requirement for my game is GF2 MX400(0) - but that's for now... things will change soon once I get some advanced features rolling in (so far I have a 20k polygon heightmap, indexed animated mesh, and an indexed 6k polygon dwarf and a ... skybox).

Thanks,
-The Pentium Guy