• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

What would be a good PCI video 3D card for P2 266 to play games?

A

acura

Member
I currently have a P2 266 with 128M RAM.
But the video card is Matrox Millienium II 4M PCI card.
It seems to me that the 2D effect is pretty good,
but when I played "half life" or other games, its
performance is bad.

I wonder in order to play some 3D game, what kind of
PCI card are my best choice?

Choice 1: Maybe I can buy a used 3D accelerator such as Diamond Monster 3D II voodoo2, plug together with my Matrox card

Choice 2: Maybe I can just buy a new PCI 2D/3D card and get rid of my Matrox card, such as voodoo3 2000 PCI.

If for choice 1, what would be the best 3D accelerator working together with my Matrox?

If for choice 2, will the CPU be the bottleneck for an expensive video card such that it is not worth to do that? if not, what would be a reasonable card for the system?

Thanks!
 
Actually, Creative do a PCI Geforce2 MX. It does 2-3 times as fast as a Voodoo3 and you have plenty of memory to go with it there...
 
the CPU would definately be the bottleneck for a GF2MX...but it might be a good choice anyways, since when T&L starts to see more use it will offload some from the CPU...

But honestly I would just get a 12MB Voodoo2, save the money for a better CPU.
 
I'd get a V3 2k. Not gonna cost that much more than a V2, and it'll be a pretty sight faster than a single V2.

Then you could use the millenium for a second monitor or something.
 
Look into either a V2 (maybe SLI?) or a V3 2K PCI if you're willing to replace your Matrox.

The P2 266 is going to be the bottleneck for any halfway decent 3D accelerator. V2 SLI required a P2 400 or so to really max it out.

Viper GTS
 
but it might be a good choice anyways, since when T&L starts to see more use it will offload some from the CPU...

That's true but there are diminishing returns for slow CPUs.

acura, you can't go wrong with a V3 2000 PCI. I've still got one and it works very well. It's as stable as hell and I haven't had any problems with it or 3dfx's drivers.
 
Yeah that's true...you will get dimishing returns...

A V5 is going to be so totally overkill for his CPU..

Get a V3-2000 PCI, then you don't have to muck with 2 cards and stuff like that...your CPU will be the bottle neck for a V3-2k but it's a halfway decent card (it's what I use now, I use AGP but that's not a big difference), good stability, fairly good performance at 800x600, nice 2D quality, so if at some point you put a better CPU in, you'll still be able to use the card for some decent gaming.

The V3-2000s are also like $50 now...
 
a v4 4500, or a v3 2000 / v3 3000 would be good. you can even get a sli v2 setup for around $60 in forsale trade, but then again a v3 2000 pci is around that much. a v4 4500 pci is around $95 in forsale trade, but i think its a waste of money on that system, with EDO ram (obviously that is the reason he has no agp slot, he has 440fx chipset). Plus he has a matrox 2 (which was like $200+ when p2-266 on 440fx chipsets were out) so i figure he values his 2d quality so the geforce2mx probably isnt too great an idea
 
voodoo4 4500 ONLY IF it is cheap.... (like sub 100)
or not, V3 3K or V3 2K.

i don't recommend V5 5500 unless you can planning to upgrade you whole rig soon, in that case, you would be better off not getting a V card upgrade at all.

getting a Geforce MX PCI kinda defeated the purpose of getting a Geforce coz the PCI bus limit GF's TandL potentials.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top