Hm...a Tualatin is a bit slow for games until 2003, isn't it? You can put it together with a ATI X8x0 if your motherboard and power supply are strong enough, can't say anything about the DOS compatibility.

I can't understand why it is so slow...it's just a single player game (no ressource hungry big MP gaming) and reffering to PCGamingWiki it supports D3D6/7, DD6/7 (Software), OGL 1.0 and 3dfx Glide 2.4 - so it should also run on a 3dfx Voodoo4/5 (which is slower than an ATI 9600).

BTW the Radeon 9250 is crap when it comes to 3D games newer then mid 90s.

kind regards
soggi

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-14, 22:39:

With last one NVIDIA 6600 GT it worked like a charm, even older 98 games llike Ceasar 3 ooked and played amazing, BUT i lost support for most DOS games. 🙁 They simply show blank screen and game starts with music and at all, but it refuse to show video.

Which games exactly are your problem? The GeForce 6600 drivers have much poorer compatibility with older games, but I can try a rig with the same card too, if I have these games.

soggi wrote on 2025-01-15, 05:53:

Hm...a Tualatin is a bit slow for games until 2003, isn't it? You can put it together with a ATI X8x0 if your motherboard and po […]
Show full quote

Hm...a Tualatin is a bit slow for games until 2003, isn't it? You can put it together with a ATI X8x0 if your motherboard and power supply are strong enough, can't say anything about the DOS compatibility.

I can't understand why it is so slow...it's just a single player game (no ressource hungry big MP gaming) and reffering to PCGamingWiki it supports D3D6/7, DD6/7 (Software), OGL 1.0 and 3dfx Glide 2.4 - so it should also run on a 3dfx Voodoo4/5 (which is slower than an ATI 9600).

BTW the Radeon 9250 is crap when it comes to 3D games newer then mid 90s.

kind regards
soggi

It is bit high for 2003, well if i can play anything from 2001/2002 its also cool i would say. I play lots of games from that era.

My power supply is 400W currently. I just wanna know can i play on it DOS games at all, or i would just return to 9600 XT. Know to answer about slowness, well i havent explain the reason why it works that way. I using big TV monitor 40 inch, so i need higher resolution in order not to look terrible on such a big screen, so i use for example it on 1600 or even 1920x1080 resolution it works with 25fps, with Nividia 6600 gt I GET 40fps and it runs much beterr.
So i need card that can make these old games run at least from 1280 to 1920 in some cases.

And yes 9250 256MB model really was bad, i could play any high resolution at all and picture was not that great.
Kind regards,
Dado.

Ydee wrote on 2025-01-15, 11:42:

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-14, 22:39:

With last one NVIDIA 6600 GT it worked like a charm, even older 98 games llike Ceasar 3 ooked and played amazing, BUT i lost support for most DOS games. 🙁 They simply show blank screen and game starts with music and at all, but it refuse to show video.

Which games exactly are your problem? The GeForce 6600 drivers have much poorer compatibility with older games, but I can try a rig with the same card too, if I have these games.

I tried lot of old games recently, from Civization (1) to Doom , Broken Sword, any i install and choose vga and 256 colors mode, the screen just went total black, and think it just problem with driver support sadly.

So, quick test on rig with Turion64 2GHz, 2GB DDR, nForce3 250 and GeForce 6600GT 128MB with W98SE (so i play on DOS under Win) show results:

Civilization - picture OK, but due to too fast CPU error code R6003 - after slowing CPU via disable cache all OK, playable
DOOM - even on fast CPU all OK, playable
Broken Sword - all OK, playable

VGA out, Forceware 66.94, LCD FHD LG 23MP65HQ. So it seems your problems are not caused directly by GeForce 6600GT.

Ydee wrote on 2025-01-16, 13:23:

So, quick test on rig with Turion64 2GHz, 2GB DDR, nForce3 250 and GeForce 6600GT 128MB with W98SE (so i play on DOS under Win) […]
Show full quote

So, quick test on rig with Turion64 2GHz, 2GB DDR, nForce3 250 and GeForce 6600GT 128MB with W98SE (so i play on DOS under Win) show results:

Civilization - picture OK, but due to too fast CPU error code R6003 - after slowing CPU via disable cache all OK, playable
DOOM - even on fast CPU all OK, playable
Broken Sword - all OK, playable

VGA out, Forceware 66.94, LCD FHD LG 23MP65HQ. So it seems your problems are not caused directly by GeForce 6600GT.

Well with me it wont work simply, and on all previous cards it all worked well. But i use DVI out, no VGA. I`ll try your drivers version, maybe thats the case.

No luck, definitely its acting very strange whatever the reason may be. For very old DOS games it says invalid format on my 40 inch TV, and on bit newer DOS games its splits screen in 3 small screens and beneath are pixelated mess. It may be the card is corrupted or something but on XP all games i tried so far runs flawesly. Newer games such as Ceasar III looks amazing and runs perfect, why older games wont run its beyond me.

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-15, 23:40:

My power supply is 400W currently.

This says exactly nothing...I had a 420 W power supply (PS) back in 2004 (can't remember the manufacturer anymore), but unfortunately it was a China bomber and put my 80 GB HDD six feet under. You have to look at the brand and technical information on the PS. I bought a Tagan PS then and it made me very confident, they had really great PS back then. Sure, you had to pay a lot more back then, but it was really worth it! A cheap and/or faulty power supply can destroy all the beloved expensive parts of your retro/vintage PC, keep that in mind!

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-15, 23:40:

Know to answer about slowness, well i havent explain the reason why it works that way. I using big TV monitor 40 inch, so i need higher resolution in order not to look terrible on such a big screen, so i use for example it on 1600 or even 1920x1080 resolution it works with 25fps, with Nividia 6600 gt I GET 40fps and it runs much beterr.
So i need card that can make these old games run at least from 1280 to 1920 in some cases.

Man...no offense...but you're doing weird stuff. 1600*1200 and 1920*1080 are extreme resolutions for old games and for your hardware, so you don't have to wonder why your games aren't running smooth. You can do such things anyway, but you'll probably always have issues - for instance new(er) monitors can or will have problems with color modes, in addition to the problems you already have.

kind regards
soggi

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-17, 00:29:

No luck, definitely its acting very strange whatever the reason may be. For very old DOS games it says invalid format on my 40 inch TV, and on bit newer DOS games its splits screen in 3 small screens and beneath are pixelated mess. It may be the card is corrupted or something but on XP all games i tried so far runs flawesly. Newer games such as Ceasar III looks amazing and runs perfect, why older games wont run its beyond me.

I can try it on TV via DVI like you, if I will have some free time this weekend - you didn't try it on the PC monitor?

soggi wrote on 2025-01-17, 05:48:

This says exactly nothing...I had a 420 W power supply (PS) back in 2004 (can't remember the manufacturer anymore), but unfortun […]
Show full quote

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-15, 23:40:

My power supply is 400W currently.

This says exactly nothing...I had a 420 W power supply (PS) back in 2004 (can't remember the manufacturer anymore), but unfortunately it was a China bomber and put my 80 GB HDD six feet under. You have to look at the brand and technical information on the PS. I bought a Tagan PS then and it made me very confident, they had really great PS back then. Sure, you had to pay a lot more back then, but it was really worth it! A cheap and/or faulty power supply can destroy all the beloved expensive parts of your retro/vintage PC, keep that in mind!

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-15, 23:40:

Know to answer about slowness, well i havent explain the reason why it works that way. I using big TV monitor 40 inch, so i need higher resolution in order not to look terrible on such a big screen, so i use for example it on 1600 or even 1920x1080 resolution it works with 25fps, with Nividia 6600 gt I GET 40fps and it runs much beterr.
So i need card that can make these old games run at least from 1280 to 1920 in some cases.

Man...no offense...but you're doing weird stuff. 1600*1200 and 1920*1080 are extreme resolutions for old games and for your hardware, so you don't have to wonder why your games aren't running smooth. You can do such things anyway, but you'll probably always have issues - for instance new(er) monitors can or will have problems with color modes, in addition to the problems you already have.

kind regards
soggi

Its weird why it would work great on XP system and having zero problems, yet on 98 on 2d games it cant work at all, it should take less power consumation for that. It just makes no sense. I havent played old games at such a high resolution of course, its all on XP , but with 98 i use lower resolution all the time, and on 9600 and 9250 complete i had zero problems, i was just not happy with 3d pefromance of some games on XP if games supports it like Wizardry 8.

Ydee wrote on 2025-01-17, 11:00:

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-17, 00:29:

No luck, definitely its acting very strange whatever the reason may be. For very old DOS games it says invalid format on my 40 inch TV, and on bit newer DOS games its splits screen in 3 small screens and beneath are pixelated mess. It may be the card is corrupted or something but on XP all games i tried so far runs flawesly. Newer games such as Ceasar III looks amazing and runs perfect, why older games wont run its beyond me.

I can try it on TV via DVI like you, if I will have some free time this weekend - you didn't try it on the PC monitor?

I dont have PC monitor in another room, and its kind a weird why on 9600 XT and 9250 i had zero problem with big TV screen, it all just worked well. What i like is how games looks better on 6600 GT for XP early XP games, thats why i wanted to try it.

if nothing else you could just put in any old PCI video card to use purely under 98se, something like an s3 trio64 should be easy to find. you can switch cards in BIOS and this would handle all the 9x directdraw and DOS games you seem to have trouble with, at not much extra power consumption cost. though i'd still make sure to test everything under both DOS and 9x, because windows drivers can handle things differently than the pure VBIOS under DOS.

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-17, 00:29:

No luck, definitely its acting very strange whatever the reason may be. For very old DOS games it says invalid format on my 40 inch TV, and on bit newer DOS games its splits screen in 3 small screens and beneath are pixelated mess. It may be the card is corrupted or something but on XP all games i tried so far runs flawesly. Newer games such as Ceasar III looks amazing and runs perfect, why older games wont run its beyond me.

That looks more like a monitor issue to me. The screen possibly don't know what to do with 320x200 8bpp 70 Hz and interprets it in a way that it can display. Stuff like scan doubling.

What you could try is connecting the monitor to a more recent system and setting a custom resolution that is as close as possible to what the DOS games would run at (320x200/256 colors/70 Hz, 320x240/250 colors/60 Hz, 640x400/256 colors/70 Hz, 720x400/16 colors/70 Hz (80x25 text mode), 720x480/70 Hz, etc)
Quake even supports resolutions like 320 x 350, 320 x 400, 320 x 480, 360 x 200, 360 x 240, 360 x 350, 360 x 400 and 360 x 480, Unreal can run at 400x300, 512x384, 720x576, 768x512 and so on. Earthworm Jim runs in 320x224 scan doubled to 640x448 72 Hz.
If that also results in these kinds of issues, it's most likely just a lack of support by the screen.

auron wrote on 2025-01-17, 12:52:

if nothing else you could just put in any old PCI video card to use purely under 98se, something like an s3 trio64 should be easy to find. you can switch cards in BIOS and this would handle all the 9x directdraw and DOS games you seem to have trouble with, at not much extra power consumption cost. though i'd still make sure to test everything under both DOS and 9x, because windows drivers can handle things differently than the pure VBIOS under DOS.

I having such a thought as well.

lordmogul wrote on 2025-01-17, 20:08:

That looks more like a monitor issue to me. The screen possibly don't know what to do with 320x200 8bpp 70 Hz and interprets it […]
Show full quote

Studiostriver wrote on 2025-01-17, 00:29:

No luck, definitely its acting very strange whatever the reason may be. For very old DOS games it says invalid format on my 40 inch TV, and on bit newer DOS games its splits screen in 3 small screens and beneath are pixelated mess. It may be the card is corrupted or something but on XP all games i tried so far runs flawesly. Newer games such as Ceasar III looks amazing and runs perfect, why older games wont run its beyond me.

That looks more like a monitor issue to me. The screen possibly don't know what to do with 320x200 8bpp 70 Hz and interprets it in a way that it can display. Stuff like scan doubling.

What you could try is connecting the monitor to a more recent system and setting a custom resolution that is as close as possible to what the DOS games would run at (320x200/256 colors/70 Hz, 320x240/250 colors/60 Hz, 640x400/256 colors/70 Hz, 720x400/16 colors/70 Hz (80x25 text mode), 720x480/70 Hz, etc)
Quake even supports resolutions like 320 x 350, 320 x 400, 320 x 480, 360 x 200, 360 x 240, 360 x 350, 360 x 400 and 360 x 480, Unreal can run at 400x300, 512x384, 720x576, 768x512 and so on. Earthworm Jim runs in 320x224 scan doubled to 640x448 72 Hz.
If that also results in these kinds of issues, it's most likely just a lack of support by the screen.

The thing is that all these games works and run on 9600 XT and 9250 just fine.

On the same machine with the same installation and monitor?
Is there any major difference from the 4-1-4-4 R200 and 4-2-4-4 RV300 design to the 16-6-16-16/12-6-12-16 R400 design that could cause the issues? Perhaps on the video output part.

Might as well stick with the 9600 XT then. There shouldn't be any games that need the performance of an X800 and simultaneously are fine with the Tualatin.
For a while I ran a 9600 Pro with my 933 Coppermine, but I felt it was a bit too new. I also wanted table fog emulation and palletized textures, so I switched it to a GF3 Ti200. Otherwise I probably would've put my 8500 in there.

Or stick with the 6600 GT. It seems to have less issues in the games you tested on it. Performance should be close to the X800 anyway. Perhaps a bit slower, but either of them should be overkill anyway.
At that point perhaps aim for compatibility instead of maximum performance. After all, how good are 200 fps, when all you get is a high refresh garbled mess.

lordmogul wrote on 2025-01-18, 01:43:

On the same machine with the same installation and monitor? Is there any major difference from the 4-1-4-4 R200 and 4-2-4-4 RV30 […]
Show full quote

On the same machine with the same installation and monitor?
Is there any major difference from the 4-1-4-4 R200 and 4-2-4-4 RV300 design to the 16-6-16-16/12-6-12-16 R400 design that could cause the issues? Perhaps on the video output part.

Might as well stick with the 9600 XT then. There shouldn't be any games that need the performance of an X800 and simultaneously are fine with the Tualatin.
For a while I ran a 9600 Pro with my 933 Coppermine, but I felt it was a bit too new. I also wanted table fog emulation and palletized textures, so I switched it to a GF3 Ti200. Otherwise I probably would've put my 8500 in there.

Or stick with the 6600 GT. It seems to have less issues in the games you tested on it. Performance should be close to the X800 anyway. Perhaps a bit slower, but either of them should be overkill anyway.
At that point perhaps aim for compatibility instead of maximum performance. After all, how good are 200 fps, when all you get is a high refresh garbled mess.

Yes, with the same monitor 9600 XT works well. The reason i want strong card its because i have dual boot machine, XP SP3/98 SE so i can play bit demanding games from 2002/3 for this machine if possible, also because it seems better cards have clearer picture on big TV screen then older cards. That is the only reason why i trying to find perfect match. 6600 GT is much stronger then 9600XT and to be honest on biggest resolution option on some old games even that card could not work for some reason. For example 9600XT could not work well on 1280x760 on Ceasar 3 on 98SE, on 6600 GT it works like a charm!
The model is complete passive and i love it! Its just sad i cant make DOS games works, and with most newer games it shows split 3 small screens and this pixelated mess.
On 9600XT all games that i tried played pretty well.

For example Wizardry 8 that i still playing on XP looks marvelous with 1920x1080 32bit, its just so good its amazing to experience and see on big screen. 😀
On 9600 XT i could not go higher then 1280X760 , higher then that is sort of giving me glitches from time to time, and blank screen on half seconds and so on.

I considering maybe getting X800 for XP part of the system, and later get PCI card only to play less demanding and DOS games on 98SE, since most games that i love to play can be installed on both OS.

The reason the Radeon 9250 sucks so badly in 3D games is because it has no hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L).

Sleaka_J wrote on 2025-01-19, 01:45:

The reason the Radeon 9250 sucks so badly in 3D games is because it has no hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L).

Uh, really no - it is RV280 core, so hw T&L and 4x1 pixel pipeline/TMU + 2 vertex pipes (PS 1.4, VS 1.1, OpenGL 1.3). It is weak due to slow clock, mainly when it has 64bit memory interface too.

@Studiostriver: I'm sorry, but I can't keep my promise and try out the DVI output on TV. It's a shame, but it wasn't until ten years later that I noticed that our TV didn't have a DVI input. It's an older piece (Sharp LC39LE650) and only VGA, HDMI and VIDEO-IN inputs can be connected to the computer.

As for the X800, it should theoretically work if those ATI cards don't make DOS games a problem. The X800 is faster than the GF6600GT, so you should do better in the newer XP games, in DOS it doesn't matter.
Similarly powerful (slightly weaker) as the GF6600GT is the X700 PRO with the DDR3 if you couldn't get the X800 series.

PCI for DOS games is fine, but you don't have TV VGA input, so I don't know how you would connect it. DVI-I to VGA convert goes, VGA to DVI doesn't.