Hi All....Would a video card with 8, 16 or 32 MB of RAM show improved performance with a P200 processor,(pre MMX). If so, I would like to know the name of a good video card (PCI) that would enable my friend's kick around computer to get better graphic performance in general and for games- - not really a big gamer, so we'relookin' on the low side of the wallet. Is not having a MMX processor a substantial drawback to improving performance. Will any socket 7 processor be compatible. Thx
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video card upgrade ? How much help 2
- Thread starter fenix
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CitrixEngineer
Technical User
Any graphics card using the GeForce2 chipset will give you excellent graphics performance - and you can pick one up fairly cheaply. Increasing the amount of dedicated video RAM is always going to improve all-round graphics performance, so get the most you can afford.
With a pre-MMX processor, your computer will not be utilising the optimisations that these extensions provide, so yes, upgrade it. You can get one very cheaply at e-bay or one of the other auction sites (but try to go through a reputable dealer rather than a private sale ;-))
That said, you won't notice a *substantial* increase in performance, but multimedia generally will behave better and more smoothly.
You could upgrade everything cheaply; - a colleague of mine bought one from here and it works fine, and arrived promptly.
CE
With a pre-MMX processor, your computer will not be utilising the optimisations that these extensions provide, so yes, upgrade it. You can get one very cheaply at e-bay or one of the other auction sites (but try to go through a reputable dealer rather than a private sale ;-))
That said, you won't notice a *substantial* increase in performance, but multimedia generally will behave better and more smoothly.
You could upgrade everything cheaply; - a colleague of mine bought one from here and it works fine, and arrived promptly.
CE
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iSeriesCodePoet
Programmer
Another site to look at is However, make sure that your mobo can handle it. Look in the manual for your mobo to see, if it goes up to a P266, you should be fine. If it only has up to P200 you might not.
Just a word of warning. Please let us (Tek-Tips members) know if the solutions I provide are helpful to you. Not only do my posts help you but they may help others.
Mike Wills
IT Corporate Support
RPG Programmer
koldark@koldark.net
Just a word of warning. Please let us (Tek-Tips members) know if the solutions I provide are helpful to you. Not only do my posts help you but they may help others.
Mike Wills
IT Corporate Support
RPG Programmer
koldark@koldark.net
- Thread starter
- #5
I went to a motherboard.org and found TYAN S-1564S, closest one to TYAN S-1564 which is what's labeled on my Mbd. Looks exactly the same, except I don't have any USB ports on my mbd, maybe the -S has the ports. (I didn't know there were usb ports in 1996.)
Is there a way to interpret if this supports a 266 or do I have to go to another site, ?. The # underneath the bar code on my Mbd is TY7312911195. Below info is from the site.
MANUFACTURER Tyan
MANUFACTURER PART# S1564S
PRODUCT NAME Tomcat IV
PLATFORM Socket 7
PROCESSOR TYPE Pentium®, Pentium® MMX™, K5®, K6®, 6x86, 6x86MX,
CHIPSET Intel® 430HX PCIset
FORM FACTOR Baby AT
BOARD SIZE 8.6" x 13"
L2 CACHE 512KB
ISA SLOTS 5
PCI SLOTS 4
MAX RAM 512MB
SIMM SOCKETS 8
BIOS Award® Pentium PCI BIOS
With DMI, Green, Plug and Play Features
1M-bit Flash EPROM
ON BOARD I/O 2 x Floppy Port (Up to 2.88MB, 3 Mode)
2 x Serial Ports (16550 Fast UART Compatible)
1 x Parallel Port (ECP, EPP Port)
2 x USB Ports
1 x IR Port
1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
ON BOARD IDE 2 x PCI Bus Master IDE Ports (Up to 4 IDE Devices)
Supports PIO Mode 3, 4: 17MB/Sec.(Max.)
DMA Mode 2: 22MB/Sec.(Max.)
thx again
Is there a way to interpret if this supports a 266 or do I have to go to another site, ?. The # underneath the bar code on my Mbd is TY7312911195. Below info is from the site.
MANUFACTURER Tyan
MANUFACTURER PART# S1564S
PRODUCT NAME Tomcat IV
PLATFORM Socket 7
PROCESSOR TYPE Pentium®, Pentium® MMX™, K5®, K6®, 6x86, 6x86MX,
CHIPSET Intel® 430HX PCIset
FORM FACTOR Baby AT
BOARD SIZE 8.6" x 13"
L2 CACHE 512KB
ISA SLOTS 5
PCI SLOTS 4
MAX RAM 512MB
SIMM SOCKETS 8
BIOS Award® Pentium PCI BIOS
With DMI, Green, Plug and Play Features
1M-bit Flash EPROM
ON BOARD I/O 2 x Floppy Port (Up to 2.88MB, 3 Mode)
2 x Serial Ports (16550 Fast UART Compatible)
1 x Parallel Port (ECP, EPP Port)
2 x USB Ports
1 x IR Port
1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
ON BOARD IDE 2 x PCI Bus Master IDE Ports (Up to 4 IDE Devices)
Supports PIO Mode 3, 4: 17MB/Sec.(Max.)
DMA Mode 2: 22MB/Sec.(Max.)
thx again
- Thread starter
- #6
You can get more info including a BIOS update at You can download the manual at
Hope this helps. Good luck.
John
Hope this helps. Good luck.
John
- Thread starter
- #8
iSeriesCodePoet
Programmer
<SNIP>PROCESSOR TYPE Pentium®, Pentium® MMX™, K5®, K6®, 6x86, 6x86MX,</SNIP>
You should but still check the manual. Good luck on your upgrades. Please let us (Tek-Tips members) know if the solutions I provide are helpful to you. Not only do my posts help you but they may help others.
Mike Wills
IT Corporate Support
RPG Programmer
koldark@koldark.net
You should but still check the manual. Good luck on your upgrades. Please let us (Tek-Tips members) know if the solutions I provide are helpful to you. Not only do my posts help you but they may help others.
Mike Wills
IT Corporate Support
RPG Programmer
koldark@koldark.net
Forget the motherboard and chip upgrade option! is upgrading from a non MMX 200 to a 266MMX realy going to be that much of an improvement?? NO!! it's not, so unless you are going for a real step up like a 500 PLUS don't bother!
Don't think they do a G/force PCI yet?? do they? and if they do it's comparitive cost compared to the value of this system is too high!
sollution!! A Vodoo Card!! Loads of them around second hand!! Still kick ass!! (not up to a g/force I know) but something like a Vodoo 3 16 meg is gonna get you some very playable gaming for less than half the price of a G/force,
Also a PCI TNT2 from Nvidia (the preceeding chip, before the G/force processor came out) Martin
Don't think they do a G/force PCI yet?? do they? and if they do it's comparitive cost compared to the value of this system is too high!
sollution!! A Vodoo Card!! Loads of them around second hand!! Still kick ass!! (not up to a g/force I know) but something like a Vodoo 3 16 meg is gonna get you some very playable gaming for less than half the price of a G/force,
Also a PCI TNT2 from Nvidia (the preceeding chip, before the G/force processor came out) Martin
CitrixEngineer
Technical User
Don't you believe it, paparazi - the useability difference between a P166 and a P200 is greater than that between a PII@266 and a PIII @500. It's sort of incremental - the faster the processor, the less noticeable the difference between it and its predecessor. Case in point, compare a 486@50 with a 486@66.
Don't forget that an upgrade to 500Mhz inplies not only a motherboard upgrade, but a case upgrade too, thus pushing up the price.
There are simply loads of PCI graphics cards that use the GeForce2 chipset - I'm not sure where you get your information, but it appears to be out of date
Voodoo are/were good, but the company doesn't exist anymore. If you don't care about support, then, OK, chuck your money away.
You can get a 32Mb Hercules Prophet card for £80 - not exactly budget, but cheaper than the £300 odd for a GF3. And noticeably faster than a Voodoo.
CE
Don't forget that an upgrade to 500Mhz inplies not only a motherboard upgrade, but a case upgrade too, thus pushing up the price.
There are simply loads of PCI graphics cards that use the GeForce2 chipset - I'm not sure where you get your information, but it appears to be out of date
Voodoo are/were good, but the company doesn't exist anymore. If you don't care about support, then, OK, chuck your money away.
You can get a 32Mb Hercules Prophet card for £80 - not exactly budget, but cheaper than the £300 odd for a GF3. And noticeably faster than a Voodoo.
CE
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- #12
It's been a good thread you all-but I must tell you we took the computer back to the surplus store and for another $35 traded up to a compaq 233 MMX with an ATX board and USB ports. (More his decision that mine, but for the money it wasn't a bad deal) I save these threads for future ref. so thx again for the suggestions and help.
To Citrix Engineer,
I think you totalally missed the point I was trying to make!
I was simply saying on the low spec machine that he had it wasn't worth spending £80 on a G/force graphics card!
I wasn't implying that a Voodoo 3 was better! than a G/force! but a better buy considering the value of his machine.
Everthing is rellative! a 200 non MMX system is only worth about £120-140 so why the heck would he want to spend £80 on the graphics?
I think I made my point because for an extra £35 they have gone and upgraded to a 233MMX, so he wasn't gonna spend the kind of money you were talking about on a G/force!!
Not everybody is in the market for or running top end PC's
I think you totalally missed the point I was trying to make!
I was simply saying on the low spec machine that he had it wasn't worth spending £80 on a G/force graphics card!
I wasn't implying that a Voodoo 3 was better! than a G/force! but a better buy considering the value of his machine.
Everthing is rellative! a 200 non MMX system is only worth about £120-140 so why the heck would he want to spend £80 on the graphics?
I think I made my point because for an extra £35 they have gone and upgraded to a 233MMX, so he wasn't gonna spend the kind of money you were talking about on a G/force!!
Not everybody is in the market for or running top end PC's
Most of the newer games will not play on a pentium 200; so you can probably make do with a generic 4 or 8 meg video card. Make sure you have a monitor that can take advantage of a good video card.
I still have a Voodoo III 3000 video card, and it does pretty good. I wouldnt offer over $50.00 for a used one. However, you would definitely need the CDROM setup disk and the instructions to set it up.
There are plenty of GEFORCE 2 clones ranging in price and quality. Even an older Geforce 1 would probably be OK. There are probably some PCI ATI Raedon PCI cards out there also. I would make sure you meet the minimum requirements to use one of them.
Personally, I wouldn't spend over $50.00 investing in a P200 computer. There are probably some good PII or PIII computers out there for sale. I am still using an Intel PII 350 that runs pretty well. You can buy a pretty fast celeron for about $500.00 at Best Buy, so don't spend too much money on an old computer. Heck, You can buy a 1 Gig computer for around $900.00. Some places like Dell would give you monthly payments on financing down to about $30.00 a month, with o payments for 90 days, depending on the system. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.
I still have a Voodoo III 3000 video card, and it does pretty good. I wouldnt offer over $50.00 for a used one. However, you would definitely need the CDROM setup disk and the instructions to set it up.
There are plenty of GEFORCE 2 clones ranging in price and quality. Even an older Geforce 1 would probably be OK. There are probably some PCI ATI Raedon PCI cards out there also. I would make sure you meet the minimum requirements to use one of them.
Personally, I wouldn't spend over $50.00 investing in a P200 computer. There are probably some good PII or PIII computers out there for sale. I am still using an Intel PII 350 that runs pretty well. You can buy a pretty fast celeron for about $500.00 at Best Buy, so don't spend too much money on an old computer. Heck, You can buy a 1 Gig computer for around $900.00. Some places like Dell would give you monthly payments on financing down to about $30.00 a month, with o payments for 90 days, depending on the system. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.
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