upgrade from 16Mb. 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 AGP

[yanker]

I'm interested in a video card upgrade. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

SYSTEM SPECS:

MOBO: Biostar M6TZA
CHIPSET: Intel 82440ZX
CPU: Intel Pentium III 450 Mhz. MMX
RAM: 384 Mb. SDRAM (PC100)
VIDEO CARD: 16 Mb. 3Dfx Voodoo 3 2000 AGP

Field Value
Motherboard Properties
Motherboard ID 06/03/1999-I440ZX-SMC60X-2A69KB0JC-00
Motherboard Name Biostar M6TZA

Front Side Bus Properties
Bus Type Intel GTL+
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 100 MHz
Effective Clock 100 MHz
Bandwidth 800 MB/s

Memory Bus Properties
Bus Type SDR SDRAM
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 100 MHz
Effective Clock 100 MHz
Bandwidth 800 MB/s

Motherboard Physical Info
CPU Sockets/Slots 1
Expansion Slots 3 ISA, 4 PCI, 1 AGP
RAM Slots 3 DIMM
Form Factor ATX
Motherboard Size 200 mm x 300 mm
Motherboard Chipset i440ZX

Field Value
Chipset Properties
Motherboard Chipset Intel 82440ZX
In-Order Queue Depth 4

North Bridge Properties
North Bridge Intel 82443ZX
Revision / Stepping 03 / C1
Package Type 492 Pin BGA
Package Size 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm
Core Voltage 3.3 V

South Bridge Properties
South Bridge Intel 82371EB PIIX4E
Revision / Stepping 02 / A0
Package Type 324 Pin mBGA
Package Size 2.7 cm x 2.7 cm
Core Voltage 3.3 V

AGP Properties
AGP Version 1.00
AGP Status Enabled
AGP Aperture Size 64 MB
Supported AGP Speeds 1x, 2x
Current AGP Speed 2x
Fast-Write Not Supported
Side Band Addressing Supported, Enabled

[F_A_L_C_O_N]

You can only choose the card thats AGP 2X compatible:

For example if you look at this selection from Newegg

most of the lower priced cards have a:
BUS: AGP 2X/4X
or
BUS: AGP 1X/2X/4X
support

This is what you should be looking for

My suggestion from those available would be:
Radeon 7000VE for 35$

Its basically old Radeon 64MB and even with 64bit memory, wont be fully used by your CPU, so IMO no sense in getting anything faster.

BTW GF2 Ti or PRO or Ultra is a good alternative.

And cheap GF2MX 400 wouldnt be a bad choice either.

[Todd a]

Man you really just need to replace the whole system, but if you must I did find some ATI Radeon 9200 and GeForce4 MX 440 cards in AGP 2x. I even found a GeForceFX 5200 and 5700 cards in AGP 2x. If you are lucky you might find a Geforce 3 or 4 Ti4200.

One thing you need to watch carfully is if your board is AGP 2.0 compliant for most of these boards (unless it says 1x/2x)... Not only did they change the AGP bus speed, but they als changed the voltages in there.

Again, I'd just get a new system. Save up some money and start over. You could do a good budget gaming system for $400.

[F_A_L_C_O_N]

Well if one wants to play some old games like HL 1, maybe Quake 3 or Unreal Tornament, this combo will do.

I know UT plays quite well on P3 450 with GF2MX 400

BTW spending anything over 30-40$ on the video card would be nonsensical, in tha case, Id go with complete system overhaul as Todd suggested.

[Martin_89]

welcome to the forum

i really would recommend a new system like the guys above me did.

but if you cant really afford a new system you probably could drop in a coppermine PIII 950MHz SLOT 1 chip, if your motherboard supports coppermines, but im not sure as if you have a 450MHz PIII which could make more use of a faster video card.

[Martin_89]

Originally posted by F_A_L_C_O_N
I know UT plays quite well on P3 450 with GF2MX 400

My laptop plays UT fine at 1024X768

PIII-M 800MHz
256MB PC100
Savage IX 8MB

[yanker]

Wow! Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.

Anybody know anything about the ATI RADEON 9550 card? I know SAPPHIRE has a 9550 that is listed as a 3.3V card.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/broschure/9550.pdf

I contacted their tech support, (big mistake), and they suggest that it will work in my box.

Scary, huh?

As for the MX cards that have been suggested, they don't have any graphics controls, so I'm a bit leary about using them.

The FX 5200 and Ti 200 cards look interesting as well, however, the 9550 may deliver a bit more than these two.

Thanks for the helpful info, I guess I'll have to hit e-bay.

[Martin_89]

the 9550 is ment to be a good budget card, i think they have a 128bit memory bus or atleast some of them do, so thats a bonus if you get a faster cpu to make use of it.

[Todd a]

The rest of your system will hold that card back, but if you ever upgrade (before AGP gets phased out) you can make more use of the card.

I would not get a slotkit adaptor and faster CPU as that would really be wasting money on the system.

[F_A_L_C_O_N]

Wouldnt DX7 cards be faster in the games that support DX8 and DX9
i.e. with GF4MX or R7000 as well as GF2 Ti some more recent games would actually be playable, whereas R9550 would be more expensive solution and would make those same game unplayable.

I bet one could actually play HL2 with P3 450 and something like GF4MX.

As for the CPU upgrade, possibly powerleap afapter would work, anything else probably has no chance, since its a ZX chipset.

EDIT: What do you know, SLOT 1 Cel T adapter works on this board:
CLICK

I guess if you could get Celeron T and the adapter for about 70$ and video card for no more then 40$, this might actually be a viable and sensible upgrade, IMO at least

[Moraelin v2.0]

I have no experience with HL2 itself, but Vampire Bloodlines (based on an earlier version of the HL2 engine) does dramatically lower its polycounts and texture resolution if it can't keep up.

Ironically, also on a high end system: on a 3200+ A64 with a 6800 GT, trying 8x FSAA, 16x AF and 1600x1200... makes it look bad.

So I'm guessing the same would happen on a low end system. It might be possible to play on such a low end system, but pretty it won't be.

And actually "not pretty" is an euphemism. I know people with more powerful systems than that which got solid colour eyes and such because of the texture resolution being reduced all the way.

[Todd a]

Yes, you can spend $90 to upgrade that PII 450 to a 1.3Ghz if you can find the right BIOS and flash it and drop in a GeForce4 MX 440 for $45, you are still looking at spending $135 on a dead horse.

He could get a new motherboard like an MSI nForce2 IGP for $76 shipped:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...130-477&DEPA=1

A Semperon 2200+ retail w/ heatsink and fan for $58 shipped:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...104-208&depa=1

256MB PC-3200 DDR for $35 shipped:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...161-614&depa=1

For $180 this would give him a 1.5Ghz Athlon, an nForce2 motherboard with integraded GeForce4 MX 420 SDR performance, and 256MB of DDR for memory. It has 10/100 NIC, 6 channel sound, 8 USB 2.0, 2 SATA, FireWire, RAID... It also has an AGP 8x slot for future upgrades. If you wanted to you could could double the memory and run dual channel. This will help the performenace of the integrated memory quite a bit (upping it to more like a GeForce4 MX 440 DDR performance).

He could easily overclock this CPU up quite a bit. 1.8Ghz would likely be a pretty easy by just upping the bus to 400Mhz which the motherboard and memory are both rated for. Even the heatsink should be able to take 1.8Ghz and the CPU should be able to do this at stock voltage.

[F_A_L_C_O_N]

He would also need PSU Todd

and BTW I said 100-110$ max, so basically thats 2x the price if you go with Sempron.

But more importantly am I right about DX7 cards like GF4MX performing better in more recent games with DX8 and up support?

Or is this HL2 specific.

Basically asking the question, bc. I think it would help those upgrading rather old comp like this one for example.

BTW you are right about IGP, its possible to get it to GF4 MX 440 performance, I tested it on friends comp a while back.

[AMD Guy]

WHY not put in a decent inexpensive PCI card to hold you over until upgrade time? No voltage / AGP slot issues to worry about.

Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...140-036&depa=1

[Martin_89]

pci cards arn't the fastest but its going to be faster than what you have i suppose.