I is a ol' fogey (hardware question)

N

Nimrod

It Wandered In From the Wastes
I've been using essentially the same computer since 1998 or thereabouts. Nice solid system, does almost what I want. Still running Win98, kinda resistant to trading up - bad personal experiences with XP, and I'm not into the "new" games much - Fallouts, Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, etc. are more my speed.

What I am looking for is a better video card for it, and I've discovered the market is just a wee bit bloated (how many damn different Radeons are there, anyway?) I don't need anything super fancy since obviously I'm not a powergamer on a Win98 system. 128 or even 256 would be nice, and my motherboard (Asus K7V) has a 1x/2x/4x AGP slot.

Any o' yous got a head for old hardware? If so, I'd really appreciate suggestions.

Thanks!
 
Something like the 6600gt would be more than enough for your needs. Actually, something even weaker would be fine, like the plain 6600.
 
fedaykin said:
Something like the 6600gt would be more than enough for your needs. Actually, something even weaker would be fine, like the plain 6600.
Click to expand...
Isn't that overkill? Also, doesn't the 6600 require 8x AGP?
 
Yeah, a bit overkill, that's why I said "more than enough". You're probably right about the 8x AGP requirement. I'm not sure.
 
Holy shit.

Dude, instead of buying a new GPU, go buy a new $200 computer that is probably 50 times better than yours.
And while you're at it, don't switch up to XP, switch over to linux, and you can still play most of all your old games with a tiny bit of tweaking. It also doesn't have all the annoying crap windows does.

(fyi, you can actually make XP work exactly like 98 if you just switch a few settings, lol)
 
The video card your computer would work best with, without spending too much on it, is probably not on the shelfs anymore. Your best bet is ebay or something.

What video card should you get? Well, it also matters what cpu you have. you dont want to have a video card that is far superior to your processer because youll never be able to use its full potential. Then again ram comes into play aswell...

post up more specs on your pc
 
I came into this aware I'd have to go online to find parts for this dinosaur. :)

Motherboard: ASUS K7V Slot A - 1x/2x/4x AGP Slot
Processor: AMD Athlon 800 MHz
Memory: 256 MB

My current vid card is an old ATI Rage. This is a great system for me, I'd just like a bit more power for gaming - It likes to slow down to a crawl at inopportune moments. Seriously, I've gotten so disenchanted with the current gaming scene, that the only one out there I can think of that I'd like to play is (don't kill me) the first Neverwinter Nights.

Thanks for all the input you guys, it's most appreciated.

Oh, and regarding linux... I told you I was an ol' fogey. :oops:
 
FYI the first neverwinter nights plays like a very repetitive hack and slash.
But if thats your thing, have at it :D
 
Knowing me, I'd play through the main game once and then ditch it all for the world building tools. :) Plus (God forgive me) I'm an old-school D&D player. Not to give away my age, but I still have two booklets in a white box - if not the very first, one of the first D&D releases to my knowledge.

God, I'm a f***ing geek...
 
fedaykin said:
You could try to find a ti4200 online. I had it in my old PC. Pretty good card.
Click to expand...

Its a very good card for its time, i could play half life 2 with it pretty reasonable when the game first came out... i would go with this one aswell or a fx series card. You will only need a 64mb version for the games your pc can handle. I saw lots of geforce ti4200 on ebay for like $5 and under lol.

I would get another 256mb of ram aswell, for the games your computer could handle with the new video card. 512mb of ram would be sufficient... or better yet, get 768mb.

After that, if you want to make your pc even better your going to have to get a new pc.
 
First thing, I'd recommend upgrading your RAM to 512 or 756 MB. That'd almost certainly give a decent boost to performance right there. If you don't know what kind of RAM your box is using, download Everest Home Edition. That'll tell you pretty much anything you need to know, including the type/speed of your RAM. Then you can either find the RAM (should be dirt cheap), or post what you find here and I or someone else should be able to find you something.

As for the vid card, you can find old geforce 5 series FX's on eBay for cheap, such as this one or even a ti4200 like this one. Either would suit your needs just fine, and should work with a 4x AGP slot.
 
Thanks for all the input and suggestions folks, seriously. I know exactly what's in the box right now including model numbers, (built it myself actually). I just sort of got... outdated, y'know? :|

More memory is definitely a go and probably that 5200 or something similar. Thank you for posting those links, Kyuu, that is a huge help. You guys rock.

Thanks again!
 
Quite welcome Nimrod.

And yeah, Win 98 is retarded like that. However, Finesse's own article points to a Microsoft KB article with a fix for that problem: yoink. Still, considering your own planned use, and that you're running Win 98, might as well just stick with 512MB of RAM max. (And yes, I realize that it's not 756MB after that... that was just a good old fashioned brain fart on my part up there).

Or you could get out from under that rock and get Win XP or 2000 at the very least. :wink:
 
Remember to look for the drivers of the card BEFORE buying it. It would suck to buy a card only to find out that it doesn't have Windows 98SE drivers.
 
Good to know that Nvidia has drivers for that OS. What I was afraid of is that the original poster bought, an AGP GeForce 8000 series card which doesn't support Windows 98SE AFAIK. I should have read the topic better, I guess, to realize that he was looking for old cards.
 
Aye... there are no Win98 drivers for anything beyond the 6xxx series cards as far as nVidia goes. Anything beyond an FX card would be a waste of money pretty much, though, so no worries there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top