Which PCI card to get? (getting a few more miles from old faithful)

[Icy]

I have a PPro 200 with Intel Overdrive to PII333. Now before I get to many flames let me state the situation.
I am running dual Voodoo II's in the PC right now, and the DX7 drivers are getting long in the tooth. The kids are having a blast with Motocross Maddness 2 and some other games.

Here is my quandry: (remember I have no AGP slot)

Should I go Nvidia PCI MX 200 or MX 400?
Will I see any improvement in preformance (limited by CPU etc..)
Should I get a PCI Radeon? (I thought the MX chip is better, but still an option)

Thoughts?

 

[Doomguy]

If you're going to be sticking with that machine get the PCI Radeon. It'll be quite a bit faster.

 

[Rand]

Well no matter what you get your going to be processor limited, but that aside I'd go with a 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500.

It's quite easily far and away the fastest PCI graphics card available. The GF2 core and ATi Radeon cores depend quite heavily upon AGP's advanced feature set and hence take a huge performance hit when utilized on a PCI based board, a PCI GF2 MX400 performs little better then a GF2 MX200 or TNT2 Ultra/V3 3500 for example.

The V5 on the other hand utilizes virtually no AGP features and takes almost no performance hit by going to PCI.
The lack of driver support from 3dfx now that they've died is unfortunate, but the third party drivers available for it are pretty reliable. Also, given that you are processor limited you'd be able to enable FSAA with basically no performance hit at all. And the old V5 still has the best looking FSAA yet.

 

[Bovinicus]

I agree with Rand. Not only will you lose very little performance due to the V5 being a PCI card, but the "free" FSAA ability is nice too.

 

[Icy]

Voodoo has third party driver support? Where? I have Voodoo II SLI in it right now and I was dumping it because the drivers are lacking.
I agree that the V5 still is a viable chip for what I need, will I see a preformance gain on my particular machine though? I want DX8 support do the third party drivers have that?
Thanks for all the replies, this is a trip down memory lane.

 

[Trashman]

Icy....excuse me for the off topic post...but just curious on that OverDrive Processor, I have an old Gateway with a PRO processor and have been thinkin about upgrading, just wanted to ask if it's worth it, is it a noticeable improvement?
Thanx

 

[Rand]

<< Voodoo has third party driver support? Where? I have Voodoo II SLI in it right now and I was dumping it because the drivers are lacking.
I agree that the V5 still is a viable chip for what I need, will I see a preformance gain on my particular machine though? I want DX8 support do the third party drivers have that?
Thanks for all the replies, this is a trip down memory lane. >>



There are tons of third party drivers for the V3/4/5 and a few for the Voodoo Banshee. I havent seen much for the Voodoo 2 though, but thenn I havent really looked either.
You'll gain a performance boost over the V2 SLI combo, but it won't be a huge gain... simply because no matter what you buy you'll be limited totally by the processor. At least you'll be able to enable FSAA and take no performance hit as the card will have plenty over power to spare over what your processor can handle.



<< I want DX8 support do the third party drivers have that? >>



Even 3dfx's own official drivers added support for DX8 before they died, so you can bet the third party drivers do.

 

[Icy]

Rand, would you happen to have a link to any of those third party driver sites?
Also what if I don't decide to go V5 what then, MX400 or Radeon?


Trashman, small world my friend the PPro 200 I have is a Gateway G6. Sniff sniff my first power system so many years ago, hey that old girl and I saved alot of worlds together.. ;-)

Anyway, I happend accross the Intel Retail boxed Overdrive Proc for that at Comp Geeks for $75.00 I couldn't afford not to. Yes it made a huge difference IMHO. If I had to speculate I would guess an average 30% gain all the way around.

 

[Rand]

<< Rand, would you happen to have a link to any of those third party driver sites?
Also what if I don't decide to go V5 what then, MX400 or Radeon?


>>



http://3dfxunderground.cjb.net/

Voodoo Extreme

X-3dfx

Those are three among many sites catering to third party Voodoo drivers.

If you pass on the V5 I'd look towards a V4
If you pass on 3dfx entirely then it's pretty much a toss-up between the Radeon and MX400. The MX400 might cater slightly better to a low end processor though.

 

[Icy]

Rand,

Thanks for all the ideas and the links were great, it is very appriciated!

Icy